Great Read!

Last night I finished reading "Zombie Island" by Lori Handeland.  As mentioned in my previous post and in comments I read before buying this book, it is not really for those who are purists about Shakespeare or English history in general.  :D  But then again, if you are reading a book about zombies how much are you taking seriously to begin with?  :D

I missed that this is a sequel but I don't feel that it impeded my enjoyment of the book at all.  Anything that was referenced from the first book was quickly explained.  At an early point in time Shakespeare became a vampire and because of this, he has been able to write stories forever and become widely known as a literary genius.  His stories are inspired by the victims of his bloodlust early in (un)life (oh yes, he is also a necromancer, he can see ghosts and raise zombies).  A couple of plays influenced by his victims are "The Merchant of Venice" and "Macbeth". 

Throughout the book you hear him and his ladylove Katherine (a zombie killer!) exchange sweet words, some of which become sonnets, some of which have been sonnets (My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun...) and many times quotes from will be plays (most notably Romeo and Juliet).  One of my absolute favorite parts though is when Shakespeare is staring off into the nighttime sky and while musing says "I will live long and prosper" to which his companion asks him what he is talking about and he replies with "I see a logical man with pointy ears in a galaxy far far away" (or something to that point). 

I enjoyed this book for all of its silliness and it was really well written.  Each chapter moved from point of view to point of view, but I felt that it was quite clear whose eyes you were seeing from.  The basic plot of this story is that a crazy sorcerer is determined to raise a zombie army on his little island to reclaim his birthright.  With the help of a trapped tree sprite he is well on his way.  Little to his knowledge she has called forth a chausseur or zombie hunter, to thwart his plans.  When she brings forth her 'diamond' however, she gets a little more than she asked for and begins to see the more human side of herself. 

The ending is satisfying as it is and I also feels leaves open the opportunity for a third book.  And based on her list of books from Good Reads, I think she likes writing collections.  :)  This book will be traveling soon to my zombie loving friend and next up on my reading queue is.....

Moxyland. 

Next up more thankful in November and a new FO!

Zombies and Shakespeare

This past week I started reading "Zombie Island" by Lori Handeland.  I have to admit I was pretty bummed at first when I discovered it was a sequel.  I worried that I was going to miss out on something by not having read the first one.  But I am several chapters in and I have to say that I am totally in love with this book and it doesn't matter I didn't read the first, any references to the first are explained.

I love seeing lines that I recognize from his work (most notably "Romeo and Juliet") and how his Sonnets to his Dark Lady are attributed to his love in these two books.  It's a silly book but one I can get totally get behind and will be insisting my zombie loving friend reads.  :)

Books!

I finally finished reading "Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow", the second in Juliet Grey's Marie Antoinette trilogy.  Second books are always a little rough in my opinion, especially in a historical context when you know what is going to happen in the end.  I loved her first book "Becoming Marie Antoinette" because it was filled with facts I didn't know put into a storyline that was fascinating and engaging.  It put a new spin on who she was before she was the ill-fated queen of France.  This second book, while it was filled with equally interesting facts, is definitely one of those books that partially feels like it's filling in so many facts to set the tone for the ending.  You feel the build up of the revolution and from where Marie Antoinette feels it started and how the Diamond Necklace Affair along with simple hatred of her and the economic woes of France could not be turned over without firm action from the King, which we all know is hopeless.

It makes my heart ache for her that for all the things she tried to do right, she simply could not rise above all the fictional tales that had been spread about her for many years before.  I am so saddened that King Louis was unable to decisively rid themselves of the rumors or to take it on and defend her.  He seemed to think they could set an example and just let it roll over, but his inaction truly hurt them in all areas.  Every time they presented an issue where he needed to take action, his inability to do so made me want to throttle him.  Sheesh.

Overall I enjoyed the book and how it shined light on how much Marie Antoinette enjoyed being a mother to her children and how she really did change from filling the void in her heart with extravagance to putting all that childish energy into her family.  I wonder how things might have been if they had had children early on instead of dealing with the obstacles they did.  Then again, you have to think if history would have panned out the same way.  (As Doctor Who has said, there are fixed moments in time you cannot be involved in because of how they directly influence the future)

Today I started "The Last Wife of Henry VIII" by Carolly Erickson.  I'm almost halfway through already and I like it alright.  The one thing that keeps me from saying I love it is that the time shifts are not pronounced.  Which on one hand is nice because it keeps the flow of the story, but on the other it is annoying because I often will get 10 pages into a chapter and wonder "heeeey, didn't this happen several years later?" and will have to review everything I just read to get it in context.

I don't know much about Catherine Parr and so this has been a fun read just learning about where she came from and marriages she had before becoming Queen for a brief amount of time.  While I am enjoying the book I also feel like I don't know her, there isn't a good connection with her as the main character.  I don't identify with her repulsion at being betrothed to the elderly Lord Burgh or her utter despair when Ned dies and she later suffers a miscarriage.  Sure there is sadness described, but it falls flat in my reading.  I also felt that when she reconnects with her SIL they just magically become friends.  From their relationship in the beginning of the book while it was not frosty, it certainly was not close and I cannot imagine that after all her SIL has been through she would just throw her heart open and be bosom buddies right off the bat.  It seems totally ridiculous.

We shall see how the rest of the book pans out!  :)

This week's books

I completely phased out last week's books!  Eep.  Out of the small bundle we checked out I absolutely fell in love with only one of them. 

"Cha Cha Chimps"!  It is seriously such an entertaining and bouncy book that you will love it too!  My favorite part?  After Mama Chimp calls her babies back home, she gets a babysitter to enjoy some cha cha time of her own!  :D

This week Monster Bean picked out nothing but truck books and all ones that we've had before.  One of his favorites is "Follow that truck!" which is pretty cute.

Maybe next week we'll find a more diverse selection :D

This week's books

Every week the two little ones and I go to the library to enjoy StoryTime and pick out new books/movies and do a couple puzzles.  It's been a great routine because the kids love going to the library as much as I do!  Of course for Little Miss I spend more time chasing after her in the library than looking at books...but that's okay too.

We actually missed going yesterday, our schedule got all off and so we ended up missing storytime and then we ran errands and then quite a few of our streets were flooded from massive rains.  :(

So I'll tell you about the books we picked last week!

1. Christopher Crocodiles Jungly Jingles by Giles Andrea & David Wojtowycz

This is a cute book with a small handful of poems about some of the different animals that live in the jungle.  Little Miss especially enjoys the one about the gorilla and pairs it up with some chest thumping of her own!

2.  The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss

I picked this one for Monster Bean because we planted a garden of our about a month ago and I wanted him to see how cool it was for your plants to come up!  He insists that he won't eat anything that sprouts in his garden, but agrees it's pretty cool.

3.  Gossie & Friends, A First Flap Book by Olivier Dunrea

My children absolutely love the Gossie books.  We own Gossie but have checked out Gertie, BooBoo, Ollie the Stomper, and Peedie a number of times.  This one is especially fun because of the flaps.

4.  The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton

This is a sweet and silly book about some animals getting ready to go to bed.  It rhymes and has great illustration and ends with them rocking to sleep in a boat.

5.  I like bugs, the sound of B by Alice K Flanagan

We've been getting phonics to help Monster Bean with his pronunciation.  He's really been enjoying picking a different book with different sounds.  Pairing up these books with word games has been really helpful in getting him to make the 'th' and 'sh' sounds!

Those are our picks for this week!