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Nah that was my first Mary Roach. I want to read all of them to check them out for Big Son, who is a (budding ) popular science writer himself.

Hi June I read your review and liked it. I tried to comment on your blog but couldn't remember my google account. I read a lot about the sad history of Haiti in a book called The Black Diaspora. I will read this one thanks.

I am so computer- dumb I always thought a Firefox was a sort of Russian airplane.

12. Did any of the dialogue stick out for you as being either very good… or very bad! I know that I don't seem to have liked the bits that everybody else did...but I liked the initial bit of dialogue between Maria and the professor where she was pretending to be a pirate and he picked up on that straight away and went with it....adults don't usually have that playfulness. Sadly the rest of the professors antics didn't match up to that for me. 13. Were you engaged immediately with the story, or did it take you a while to get into it? I was pretty much into it straight away , I thought it started off well and went belly up later 14. Did you find the ending of the book satisfactory? If not, what would you have changed about it? Yes I think it was satisfactory as it was a children's book. It is important that things get resolved in a nice way and have a happy ending. 15. If you enjoyed the book, would you have liked a sequel? How do you think the story could develop in the sequel? Haha if it was written nowadays it would be the start of a trilogy at least. I don't think it warranted a sequel though. 16. What did you think about the setting of the book? Does it come to life? Did you feel you were experiencing the time and place in which the book was set? Yes I think so. I very much liked Malplaquet the place. Oh the fake Northamptonshire place names annoyed me though, having grown up in that county. 17. From the answers to questions 1 to 11 so far (6 Feb) it seems that the book hasn’t stood the test of time as it feels rather dated. Despite this, do you think the same basic story could be written today in a way which was convincing and enjoyable to today’s young people? Yes I think so. Plots get recycled all the time. The main point of the story for me was the moral lesson Maria learned about not treating them as toys. If a new version lost that it would not be worth reading IMO 18. If you were able to talk to T H White, is there anything you would you ask him about the book? Can't think of any burning questions... 19. If your book has an introduction did you read it? a) If yes, did you read it before or after you’d read the actual story? b) If you read it before the story, did it enhance your enjoyment in any way? I had the same version you did Janet with intro by Anne Fine. I read it beforehand. I am not sure it influenced me in any way, except to wonder why she liked it so much. II...

looks like you have your mojo back Maureen!

Just finished Spook by Mary Roach. It was a quick fun read but I was a little bit disapointed because I expected something much more in depth. The subject matter is life after death, the author is on a hunt for some convincing scientific evidence. It was never less than entertaining and often laugh out loud funny. But she spent too much of the book discussing Victorian mediums and ignored lots of other aspects. This won't stop me reading all her other books though. Now reading Pied Piper.

Hi Frankie your adventure trying to get rid of some books in the secondhand shop was funny.

Hi Abcinthia I have taken quite a few of your books for my wishlist and ordered a couple tonight from Amazon.

Ha thanks Diane (and Paula)

And Then There Were None Agatha Christie This was my choice for the Crime Fiction/Mystery category. It was only my second Agatha Christie book. It is difficult to write a review without giving the plot away so I will talk more about the writing. I cannot get over how well crafted the story feels . It is simply a joy to read. I also liked very much the Englishness of it all, that bygone England where a woman gets slapped if she is hysterical then says "thank you" to the slapper; where even though a murderer is afoot everything must stop for tea and if you get whacked by the murderer it is "jolly beastly luck". There is also a flip side to that bygone world though, Christie was born in a time it was acceptable to use the terms "nigger" and "jewboy" ; even though it is only a couple of times it shocked me a bit. I did not guess the identity of the murderer , I didn't have a clue. Reading a Mary Roach book Spook at the moment, which is very funny but informative as well.

The Book Of Human Skin sounds good kidsmum thanks I will add that to my wishlist

Hi Steve good review! I have read 4 of Zelazny's books and they can be a bit bewildering at the beginning but make sense later. That taking a happening and then going back and looking at events leading up to it- that is a trademark he does it also in Doorways In The Sand. He does Egyptian Gods in Creatures Of Light And Darkness. Wouldn't be surprised if someone got the idea for Stargate from that book. My Fave is Isle Of The Dead. That is fairly straight Sci-Fi. Guy living for ever through time dilation makes quite a lot of enemies.

I watched 10 minutes of The Three Musketeers. It was so bad I had to turn it off

You are brave Tair. I tried to read a book in French once (Le Ciel Est A Toi by Michel Bertolino) but it was way too hard for me. Mind you my French is not very good. I am OK with Tin Tin.

Good point well expressed there Ben.

Hollowland by Amanda Hocking. Amazon UK A quick read. Kick -ass young heroine fighting against hordes of zombies to be reunited with her little brother in post -apocalypse America. Writing was OK, but lacking any sparkle. Nothing really original in the plot or the idea of the zombies. Die -hard zombie fans will like it. I won't be reading the rest of the series though.

The Lady and The Locksmith by Cody Young Amazon UK This was just a very short story only a half hour read. The blurb said it was a Victorian Romance. But there was hardly any period detail and it was a bit soft porny. It had a happy ending but I thought the whole thing was a bit unlikely.

Yeah she did it fo' sure

Autobiography of Malcom X ( Warning contains spoilers!!) This is quite a difficult book to review so I am just going to bash on and get started and amend it as I go on till I feel I have got it right. I am glad that I read the book. I don’t think it is a book that you can “enjoy” as such. My personal opinion of Malcom X changed as I worked through his story. (I never saw the film and knew nothing about him, what little I had heard was negative) Also very helpful is that there is a foreword by a white journalist (who Malcom himself respected) and a long afterword (20% of the book) by Alex Haley who helped him write it and became his friend. These help put Malcom X’s own words and actions into perspective. The first part of the book is not what I expected at all, it rips along at a good pace detailing his early life and how he gradually got sucked into a life of crime. Obviously this was not very nice for him , but it is great fun to read . One bit made me laugh out loud, Malcom credits himself with turning his first girlfriend aged 16 into a lesbian because she was so upset when he jilted her for a white woman. What an ego!! This first phase of his life ends when he gets sent to prison for a long time. There , ashamed at his own lack of education and barely able to write he educates himself by reading, sometimes all night in bad light, which ruins his eyesight. (See our parents were right about that after all !) Malcom always sees everything through a prism of black and white. He is never able to see any good in white people. This is understandable given what his own family went through , and the situation of American blacks at the time. He was always angry, but now he becomes incandescent with a cold rage. One of his brothers comes to visit him who recently converted to Nation Of Islam, a religion exclusively “for blacks”. This version of Islam teaches him that white people are not even human beings, but a race of white demons that were artificially created 6000 years ago by an evil scientist. Well, this is right up Malcom’s street and he becomes the movements most enthusiastic convert after he gets out of prison. This bit was the most difficult for me to read because you can only ingest so much race hate at one time. He hated white people. He did not agree with mixed marriages . Any blacks who co-operated with whites were race traitors and “Uncle Toms”. Black Christians he despised , because he reasoned that Christianity was only a tool of white oppression. However there is no doubt that a lot of the things he said at this time against white society were completely true. Things needed to change. Although he was misguided he had integrity. He spoke his mind. That is what kept me reading. I had to know if he kept those ideas to the end. The third phase of Malcom’s life began when he began to see that the leader of the Nation Of Islam was a con man. Also others were jealous of his charismatic appeal to poor blacks. The organisation sidelined him and things began to look ominous. Nation of Islam assassins were appointed to kill him. But these same assassins tipped him off. A turning point came when he travelled to Mecca on a pilgrimage . There he came into contact with all sorts of people of all colours worshipping “true” Islam. He realised that white people were human beings after all. He wrote and spoke of his change of heart. But he was still just as forthright about speaking out against injustices in American society, which he considered to be sick with racism. I like some of the speeches he made in this part of the book. He also came to have a respect for Martin Luthor King. Anyway, eventually the assassins got him. Nation of Islam of course denied responsibility. I think I would like to read more about Malcom X .

Steve what DVDs you giving away? If there are any films I want for my collection I will happily pay some for them and postage.....

That really is the pits. As someone who cares about books that has made me mad and sad !

In triplicate please !

Hi Janet. Yes it is. It was first called Ten Little Niggers, then Ten Little Indians, and now And Then There Were None.

Great review of Dracula Poppy

That does sound interesting Julie. If a bit sad for the ones who never came back.