Kell

I have The Book Seller of Kabul on my TBR mountain - looking forward to getting to it.

It's a two-parter on Sky 1: Sunday 17th December & Monday 18th December @ 8pm. Am now a little disappointed, because it was originally supposed to be on Xmas Day!

I felt the same way. Like the others say, the Pack do come back into it, & by the time I'd finished Industrial Magic, I had become rather fond of the new characters too.

I've decided to go with The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: Tilo owns a shop in Oakland, California, where she sells herbs and spices. But Tilo isn't just a shopkeeper, she is also the Mistress of Spices. With her knowledge of their secret powers this high priestess of wisdom and magic helps customers find answers to the questions of love, loss and loneliness. But when Tilo herself falls in love with a visitor to her shop,she has to choose between personal happiness and keeping her mystical gift. I'm not very far in, as I didn't get much chance for reading yesterday, but so far it's all rather mysterious & interesting...

I can highly recommend it, Liz - definitely give it a go - I'll be posting my full review very shortly...

Have just finished About the Author by John Colapinto & all I can say is WOW! Am incredibly impressed - the writing is incredibly strong, the plot is inventive, thrilling & rather Hitchcockian in its approach. This is one of the best books I've read this year. In fact, I'm off to nominate him for Best Author I've Newly Discovered in the Book Awards! I'm hard pushed to think what might measure up as my next book after reading this!

We were forced to read Sunset Song for Higher English, seeing as it was set locally, and I'm sad to say I hated every second of it. It's a shame - I enjoyed every other book we studied, but that one I wouldn't even have finished at all if we hadn't been reading it in class. I just couldn't get on board with the writing style at all - lots of never-ending sentences beginning with "And" or "But" - both things you're expressly told not to do in writing English - LOL! It just ground on my nerves a lot. Loved 1984 though - excellent book & one that everyone should read at some point in their life. I also adored Animal Farm - Orwell is a wonderful writer!

Are you enjoying the Douglas Adams, Liz? We have the full radio play (all 5 phases) & listen to it at night all the time - excellent stuff.

Am very much enjoying About the Author. It's reminding me a lot of the film A Murder of Crows - quite a few similarities - but I'm really enjoying Colapinto's writing style. It feels very personal, like you've been having a natter with an old friend & he's decided to regale you with a story of something that happened to him since the last time you met. Very engaging. I'm kind of taking my time with it (partially due to enjoyment & partially due to my time being usurped by the need for seasonal shopping), but it's very interesting, both plot-wise & character-wise, & has my mind trying to work several steps ahead in the proceedings.

The Snow Spider is a special spider that is sent with the snow to Gwyn & helps him develop as a magician. It is also the only spider I have actually had warm, fuzzy feelings about, rather than abject terror. Even Charlotte from Charlotte's Web (nice as she was) still wasn't a spider I'd go near given a choice, but Arianwen (the Snow Spider) is special & magical, you see, so she's alright! LOL!

Ooh, enjoy it, Jo - I loved that one.

No no NO! It must come to me! *arches fingers lasciviously* Come to me my preciousssssss!

The third one is called Dime Store Magic & focuses on the Witch, paige Winterbourne, who was introduced in Stolen. The folks who I know I've personally pointed in the direction of Kelley's books now number in the low twenties...

The Snow Spider (First in The Snow Spider trilogy) Author: Jenny Nimmo ISBN # 1405211385 Publisher: Egmont First Published: 1986 122 pages Rating: 9/10 The Blurb: On his ninth birthday, Gwyn is given a brooch and told to cast it into the wind. Later he discovers the wind has sent something back: The snow spider. So begins Gwyn's journey as a magician. Against the shimmering backdrop of a magical domed city, Gwyn has to battle evil and heal a fractured family. A spine-tingling trilogy of stories, full of magic and power. The Review: Sometimes, when you revisit a book you read and loved as a child, you find it a disappointment; you become completely disenchanted when it doesn

And my own review to add to the thread: Single White Vampire Author: Lynsay Sands ISBN # 0505525526 Publisher: Love Spell First Published: 2003 369 pages Rating: 7/10 The Blurb: When the biographies of his relatives are mistaken for romances, vampire Lucern finds his life thrown into entertaining chaos as the newest editor of Romance at Roundhouse Publishing makes it her mission to transform him into a bestselling author, and steals his immortal heart in the process. The Review: There was recently a bit of a debate on The Book Club Forum on the subject of the entire Romance Genre and how there

The Snow Spider by Jenny Nimmo was every bit as magical as I remembered - wow! 9/10 Single White Vampire by Lynsay Sands was a fun vampire romace novel about a vampire romance novelist. 7/10 Now reading About the Author by John Colapinto, which seems to be a case of stolen identity by novelisation - very good so far... Out of sheer curiosity, I decided to work out the averages for my ratings per month and this is what I ended up with: January - 10 books - average of 7.3/10 February - 9 books - average of 7.6/10 March - 7 books - average of 7.4/10 April - 9 books - average of 7/10 May - 17 books - average of 7.2/10 June - 11 books - average of 7.7/10 July - 6 books - average of 6/10 August - 13 books - average of 7.5/10 September - 14 books - average of 7.6/10 October - 10 books - average of 7.6/10 So, so far it looks like June was the month for really good books & was follwed by a sucky July - LOL! Quite pleased with an overall average rating of above 7/10 though - I've certainly read some great books this year! I'll work out November's rating very shortly - I'm not wuite done with the month yet...

Almost completely of-topic, but I remember an episodeo f Friends where Joey had put a bok in the freezer because it frightened him - I believe it was The Shining...

Excellent choice, Ophelia. Also Past Mortem by Ben Elton - every bit as funny.

I've just seen the trailer to the film of Notes ona Scandal & it looks so much more interesting than I found the book! TRAILER

I now declare this reading circle thread OPEN! Hogfather by Terry Pratchett It's the night before Hogswatch. And it's too quiet. There's snow, there're robins, there're trees covered with decorations, but there's a notable lack of the big fat man who delivers the toys...He's gone. Susan the governess has got to find him before morning, otherwise the sun won't rise. And unfortunately her only helpers are a raven with an eyeball fixation, the Death of Rats and an oh god of hangovers. Worse still, someone is coming down the chimney. This time he's carrying a sack instead of a scythe, but there's something regrettably familiar...Ho, Ho, Ho, - it's true what they say. 'You'd better watch out...'

I am - I'm just spacing out the foreign author books as I have so many others I want to read too. I very recently read Autobiography of a Geisha as one of my Olympic Challenge books. Technically it was my 2nd for Japan, but it was one of those that was really calling to me - I'm intrigued by the whole "Flower & Willow" world.

I have this on my TBR mountain. I've never seen the movie (nor do I intend to as I can't stand penelope flippin' Cruz) & I never had any interest in the book at all, but a couple of months ago, I was on RISI & saw it listed & suddenly thought "What the hell? I'll give it a try." I've not looked at it since it arrived as I've had many more books which I've preferred the look of, but I'm sure I'll get around to it at some point.

I also recommend Geisha of Gion by Mineko Iwasaki - she's the Geisha that Memoirs was unofficially based on & her story is somewhere in between. Very readable.

Autobiography of a Geisha Author: Sayo Masuda (Translated from Japanese by G. G. Rowley) ISBN # 0099462044 Publisher: Vintage First Published: 1957 (Translation: 2003) 186 pages Rating: 7/10 The Blurb: Sayo Masuda's story is an extraordinary portrait of rural life in Japan and an illuminating contrast to the fictionalised lives of glamorous geishas. At the age of six Masuda's poverty-stricken family sent her to work as a nursemaid. At the age of twelve, she was indentured to a geisha house. In "Autobiography of the Geisha", Masuda chronicles a harsh world in which young women faced the realities of sex for sale and were deprived of their freedom and identity. She also tells of her life after leaving the geisha house, painting a vivid panorama of the grinding poverty of rural life in wartime Japan. Many years later Masuda decided to tell her story. Although she could barely read or write she was determined to tell the truth about life as a geisha and explode the myths surrounding their secret world. Remarkable frank and incredibly moving, this is the record of one woman's survival on the margins of Japanese society. The Review: Having read several other

Oracle Author: Ian Watson ISBN # 0575602260 Publisher: Vista First Published: 1997 287 pages Rating: 8/10 The Blurb: When Tom Ryan stops his car late at night on a dark road for a man dressed as a Roman Centurion, his first thought is that he's picked up one of those amateur re-enactors... but the man, Marcus Appius Silvanus, appears to speak only Latin. He insists the year is AD60 and that the British Queen is Boudicca - and that he and his men of the Fourteenth Gemina are in hot pursuit of her. Tom and his sister Mary shelter the Roman, but inadvertently attract the attention of an unscrupulous journalist. He's not the only one interested in the Ryans: An IRA terrorist who was once Mary's lover in Northern Ireland tracks her down to tell her the plane crash which killed her parents 20 years ago was caused by the British security services. Deep in the English countryside, those same servants of the state are busy exploiting the theories of a young prodigy to build "Oracle", a probe that can view the past - and, they hope, the future, so that threats to national security can be stifled before they ever occur. The Review: Whenever I pick up a book who