Athena's Reading List 2015

[Athena]

David Walliams - Joe Biljoen (Billionaire Boy)

 

 

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Age-range: Children

Format: Hardback (Library Loan)

Pages: 205

Date read: 09-07-2015

ISBN: 9789044819526

Synopsis (GoodReads): Joe has a lot of reasons to be happy. About a billion of them, in fact. You see, Joe's rich. Really, really rich. Joe's got his own bowling alley, his own cinema, even his own butler who is also an orangutan. He's the wealthiest twelve-year-old in the land.

 

But Joe isn't happy. Why not? Because he's got a billion pounds… and not a single friend. But then someone comes along, someone who likes Joe for Joe, not for his money. The problem is, Joe's about to learn that when money is involved, nothing is what it seems.

 

The best things in life are free, they say – and if Joe's not careful, he's going to lose them all…

 

My thoughts:

 

I've read three books by this author and liked all three of them. I borrowed this one (a Dutch translation I just happened to find without looking for it, as so far I'd found the other three books in the English section) and The Boy in the Dress during my last library visit. After reading The Boy in the Dress I then went on to read Joe Biljoen (Billionaire Boy).

 

The illustrations in this book are from Tony Ross. They were pretty. I liked how two of the author's other books, were mentioned in the story, that was a nice little nod. The translation was good. I liked the writing style. Not all plot twists were unexpected but some of them were. I liked the characters. I also liked reading about Raj again.

 

The story was interesting. I really enjoyed reading this book. It was funny in places too. Overall then I enjoyed reading this book and I hope to find the author's other books that I haven't read yet, at the library some time.

 

Rating: (*****) (9/10)

[Athena]

Brian Selznick - Het Wonder Kabinet (Wonderstruck)

 

 

Genre: Historical Fiction

Age-range: Young-Adult

Format: Hardback (Library Loan)

Pages: 639

Date read: 09-07-2015

ISBN: 9789022561539

Synopsis (GoodReads): Ben and Rose secretly wish for better lives. Ben longs for his unknown father. Rose scrapbooks a famous silent actress. When Ben finds clues and Rose reads enticing news, the children independently run to New York for what they are missing. Ben's story in words, Rose's in pictures, come together in deafness.

 

My thoughts:

 

I've read The Invention of Hugo Cabret (in Dutch, De Uitvinding van Hugo Cabret) by the author and I really enjoyed that one (I read it after watch the film Hugo which I liked). So when I saw this book at the library I borrowed it.

 

The book has three parts and Ben's and Rose's stories are told intermittent. Ben's story is told through text and Rose's story is told through a lot of handdrawn pictures (2 pages for each illustrations). This is a magical story, not in the sense of fantasy elements (there are none), but the way it was told, was really special.

 

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was interesting to learn more about the life of deaf people. The hearing abled among us (including myself), don't normally realise what a difference being able to hear makes in daily life (I find it amazing deaf people can communicate well using sign language and lip reading, I am glad they can do that). It's said in the author's notes after the story, that he has a deaf brother.

 

The characters were really interesting. I liked the writing style, the translation was good. I liked the illustrations too, they were beautiful. I also liked the plot twists of the book. I wanted to keep on reading it, I finished it in a few hours (of the same day), in one sitting (except for toilet breaks and such).

 

Overall I really enjoyed reading this book. It's special the way the story is told. I really liked the illustrations, the writing style, the characters and the respect the author has for everything he writes about. According to his notes at the end of the story, he did a lot of research before starting to write this book, on deafness and museums and history.. I liked the focs on museums and collecting things in the story. I really enjoyed this book and would love to read any future books of the author (I believe there is one in English coming out soon, hopefully it will get translated and the library will have it on their shelves eventually).

 

Rating: (*****) (10/10)

[Athena]

I've finished cataloguing the books I found up the attic, and I've put them on my shelves. Starting with post #16 in my thread you can find the updated photos .

[Signor Finzione]

Oooh beautiful fantasy bookcases!!! Your Harry Potter box set is the same one I bought my sister last Christmas! And your wolfish bookends are awesome.

[Athena]

Oooh beautiful fantasy bookcases!!! Your Harry Potter box set is the same one I bought my sister last Christmas! And your wolfish bookends are awesome.

Thank you !!

[Signor Finzione]

Ooh, Gaia, we really must make a start on our Shannara backlog - they've released the first trailer for the TV series!

[frankie]

This next bit doesn't have anything to do with books, but I hope you don't mind my posting this on your reading log I was visiting Helsinki today and while I was there I noticed that there were a lot of people in track suits, different colors for different nations. I saw a lot of Swiss people, Czechs, people from Austria... When I took the train back to Espoo, I sat one set of seats away from some people who also had track suits. When I walked past them, I heard them talking and wondered if they might be from the Netherlands, but I thought with my luck, I can't have guessed right. But when I sat down and took a closer look, it said NED in the backs of their shirts and so it was confirmed!  

 

But this is not the story... The story is, as I was sitting there, all of a sudden I heard someone sing, and it was in a foreign language. I looked around and saw one of the Dutch people singing He was singing and smiling across the aisle, and I realized there was a little kid, about 1yo, to whom he was singing And after the song he said he doesn't know any Finnish and laughed and shrugged his shoulders It made me laugh and he noticed and kept smiling Later one he made funny faces to entertain the kid and it was fun to watch Such a nice man! And one woman went to show something to the little kid and talked to him in Dutch. Not that he would've understood a thing, but it didn't matter, the kid seemed to have fun! 

 

I just thought I'd tell you how I thus ran into some Dutch people and they were really really nice and seemed to have a great time  

[Athena]

Ooh, Gaia, we really must make a start on our Shannara backlog - they've released the first trailer for the TV series!

 

That looks pretty amazing !!

 

This next bit doesn't have anything to do with books, but I hope you don't mind my posting this on your reading log I was visiting Helsinki today and while I was there I noticed that there were a lot of people in track suits, different colors for different nations. I saw a lot of Swiss people, Czechs, people from Austria... When I took the train back to Espoo, I sat one set of seats away from some people who also had track suits. When I walked past them, I heard them talking and wondered if they might be from the Netherlands, but I thought with my luck, I can't have guessed right. But when I sat down and took a closer look, it said NED in the backs of their shirts and so it was confirmed!  

 

But this is not the story... The story is, as I was sitting there, all of a sudden I heard someone sing, and it was in a foreign language. I looked around and saw one of the Dutch people singing He was singing and smiling across the aisle, and I realized there was a little kid, about 1yo, to whom he was singing And after the song he said he doesn't know any Finnish and laughed and shrugged his shoulders It made me laugh and he noticed and kept smiling Later one he made funny faces to entertain the kid and it was fun to watch Such a nice man! And one woman went to show something to the little kid and talked to him in Dutch. Not that he would've understood a thing, but it didn't matter, the kid seemed to have fun! 

 

I just thought I'd tell you how I thus ran into some Dutch people and they were really really nice and seemed to have a great time

I don't mind at all ! That is such a nice story, I'm happy you got to meet some friendly Dutch people . It's nice they were so friendly to the kid, I always like seeing that. Thank you for sharing that !

[Athena]

Walter Moers - Zamonië 3: Rumo & De Wonderen in het Donker (Zamonien 3: Rumo & die Wunder im Dunkeln)

 

 

Genre: Fantasy

Age-range: Adult

Format: Hardback (Library Loan)

Pages: 745

Date read: 10-07-2015 <-> 12-07-2015

ISBN: 9789089180094

Synopsis (Wikipedia): The story follows the progress of a young Wolperting (a wolf-deer hybrid as the tales go) who is dubbed Rumo, after the famous card game. Rumo has the unique ability to visualize smells as colors, allowing him a sort of sixth sense. Rumo lives in the fictional land of Zamonia. When an entire city of Wolpertings called Wolperting –where civilized Wolpertings go to live, socialize, and even play chess – goes missing, it is up to Rumo to save the day.

 

My thoughts:

 

The spine and cover attacted me to this book, when I found it at the library, so I borrowed it. The more I looked at it, the more the style of the cover and the illustrations inside seemed familiar somehow. Yet based on the publishing date, I don't think I'd read this book before. Maybe I read another book by the author, or just something with a similar style.

 

The book consists of two books / parts, and they each consist of subparts (five in part 1, six in part 2). Not all of the subparts have a similar length, some are shorter than others. Within each subpart, there is a lot of text and there are a lot of paragraphs. Sometimes tehre are two new lines to denote a different section. On occasion a little illustration seperates a new part from the previous text. Next to the text, on the left hand side if it's on the left page and on the right hand side if it's on the right page, is a title for the subsubpart, usually there's a new one every next page, sometimes there are multiple on one page. The book contains some illustrations too.

 

The book also contains a lot of stories within the story, though most of the information is relevant to the story (particularly later on). Often, when a new character is introduced, the book then 'takes a break' from the overall story and tells the story of the new character, about their past and such. Usually I found this to be enjoyable, later on it became a bit too much, I mean, I wanted to get on with the story.

 

The book can be wordy at times. The translation was odd on some occasions (enough for me to make a note of it). Some words were wrongly translated (to the point where I was on occasion wondering what was meant, until I thought about it for a bit), sometimes a word was missing, sometimes there was a spelling or typing error. These mistakes made me frown at times and pulled me out of the story.

 

Now onto all the things I really liked about the book. I liked the writing style, the prose is often quite nice to read (except for the errors I mentioned above). I really liked the characters. I would've preferred more important female characters, but aside from that I thought all the characters that were in the book, were very interesting and memorable.

 

The author (who is also the illustrator) has a lot of imagination and has poured a lot of creativity into this book. There were a lot of unexpected plot twists and the book kept me guessing what would happen next. There were some great action 'scenes' in the book (can one speak of a scene in a book?). I really liked learning about the world of Zamonië (Dutch name of it) and its inhabitants.

 

I also liked the sciency parts of the book (most of it was made up). On occasion there were a bit too many made up wrods (of sciency stuff, and of creatures of the world), the book then got a bit lost in summing up things (such as these creatures or also weaponry on some occasions).

 

The story was quite epic in a sense. There is quite a bit of content packed into these 745 pages (the pages of this library copy are pretty big, so a lot of words fit on the pages). The story has quite a few different elements and in a way it felt 'literary' if that makes sense. The book had some deeper messages about life, it wasn't "just" entertainment.

 

The world is very whymsical, it's the kind of fantasy you see more often in children's books, yet this is definitely not a children's book. The library had a copy under the oldest teen section (15-18) and also in the adult section (of fantasy). I would definitely say it's an adult book. I say that also because another book by the author, the next one in this series, which I also borrowed, could be found at the adult fantasy section. There's just a depth to the story and the prose feels literary, that makes me classify this book as adult fantasy.

 

Overall then I enjoyed this book a lot. It was epic, funny, whymsical, deep and it had a nice writing style. The book kept surprising me with its plot twists. The characters were very interesting and memorable. The book did get wordy at times and there are some errors in it (translation errors and spelling / typing mistakes). The book doesn't read quickly, but I did finish it in a relatively short time (it's due at the library in a bit!), because I spent quite a bit of time reading (I wanted to have it finished on time). I have one more book by the author borrowed from the library, Walter Moers - Zamonië 4: De Stad van de Dromende Boeken (Zamonien 4: Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher), which I will be reading next (it's the last library loan that I've got to read).

 

Rating: (*****) (9/10)

[Athena]

I made a little video of my book shelves (there is no sound):

 

[Little Pixie]

I`ve skipped through it - wow - that`s a whole lot of books ! 

[Kylie]

Oh my goodness! That's a heck of a lot of books! Very nice.

[Nollaig]

Wow, so many bookshelves! They look great. And I saw Waddles the Penguin! I have him too

[Athena]

I`ve skipped through it - wow - that`s a whole lot of books ! 

Thanks, Sarah ! 

 

Oh my goodness! That's a heck of a lot of books! Very nice.

Thanks, Kylie !!

 

Wow, so many bookshelves! They look great. And I saw Waddles the Penguin! I have him too

Thanks, Noll ! I found him in a WHSmith in the UK some years ago, he was being got rid of so they were selling him for cheap.. poor Penguin, how could I resist?! He is cute and fluffy . You have an amazing eye, to spot him like that! For a second, I couldn't for the life of me remember where exactly he was and I panicked .

[Nollaig]

I have quite a few Beanie Boos, as they're called. I think the giraffe one is my favourite. Their eyes are so funny!

 

I hope someday to have a house (or apartment) full of shelving units that I can fill with books. It's a manageable aim, even in a house I'm renting rather than own, because I can put up my own units without damaging the house, so hopefully someday!

[Anna Begins]

Makes me miss my shelves and all my friends in boxes in the garage

 

They look great!  I can't believe you actually found something in that bookstore in Amsterdam to purchase

[muggle not]

I browsed through the video Athena....wow, that is a lot of books. Do you have them in alphabet order.

[Athena]

I have quite a few Beanie Boos, as they're called. I think the giraffe one is my favourite. Their eyes are so funny!

 

I hope someday to have a house (or apartment) full of shelving units that I can fill with books. It's a manageable aim, even in a house I'm renting rather than own, because I can put up my own units without damaging the house, so hopefully someday!

 

They are ! I found them in the UK too. I would have liked more of them but they weren't that cheap so I decided to buy two (it was buy one get one at half price). I hope you can have your shelves one day !

 

Makes me miss my shelves and all my friends in boxes in the garage

 

They look great!  I can't believe you actually found something in that bookstore in Amsterdam to purchase

 

Thank you ! Well I like Philip K. Dick , at least the books I've read of him so far .

 

I browsed through the video Athena....wow, that is a lot of books. Do you have them in alphabet order.

Thanks Muggle Not ! No, I organise them based on genre as this works better for me. Within each genre, it's usually more a case of 'what fits where', because I hate to split up an author's books on multiple shelves, I like them to be all on the same shelf. Generally on the very top and very bottom shelves go books I don't need to access as often, since they are harder to reach. Most shelves are double rowed, on the back row go normally books I don't access as often, or sometimes a lot of work by one author, so I can more easily remember what's there. For biographies and information books I group them based on subject, so in the biography section I put certain biographies next to each other (ie. I have two biographies of people with an eating disorder, so they go next to each other), in the information section it's the same, all the books about ie. health related issues go together. If two authors have written a book together, and I also own books by each of the authors seperately, I normally have all these books near each other (such as Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, though Stephen Baxter's cowritten books are in the Terry Pratchett section and Baxter's books if I can are in the science-fiction section). On occasion I have tried to alphabetise some parts of my shelves, but it just doesn't work as well for me.

[Athena]

Walter Moers - Zamonië 4: De Stad van de Dromende Boeken (Zamonien 4: Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher)

 

 

Genre: Fantasy

Age-range: Adult

Format: Hardback (Library Loan)

Pages: 508

Date read: 13-07-2015 <-> 14-07-2015

ISBN: 9789052408460

Synopsis (me): An adventure about a city with dreaming books.

 

My thoughts:

 

I borrowed this book from the library. I had picked up book 3 in this series in the young-adult section, then I walked over to the adult fantasy section, where I found both a copy of book 3 and this book. The cover is beautiful, and it's a book about books so how could I resist? After reading book 3 in this series (which can easily be read on its own), I went on to read book 4 (it was also my last library loan to read).

 

The book consists of two parts. There are chapter titles above each chapter, unlike in book 3 where there were little titles next to the text more often than the chapter titles in this book. The author is also the illustrator of the book. Above each chapter title there is a little illustrations, which I believe denotes the chapter number. It seems to be sort of done in base 8. There have been 6 books released in this series in German, according to GoodReads and Wikipedia, with a seventh on the way. Unfortunately, it looks like only books 1, 3 and 4 have been translated into Dutch. And they aren't easily found for sale either, they seem to be out of print. I'd love to be able to read all the books in the series.

 

This book was really good, I liked it more than book 3 (Rumo & De Wonderen in het Donker (Zamonien 3: Rumo & die Wunder im Dunkeln). This book had the same nice writing style, but gladly was not as wordy (it's also almost 250 pages shorter than that book).

 

I liked the creativity of the story. The illustrations were quite beautiful. The book is funny sometimes, I laughed out loud a few times, which doesn't often happen when I read a book. I loved the theme of books and literature. There were some brilliant sections in the book.

 

The book was also very suspenseful. So much so that while I read ~119 pages the first day of reading the book, I read the rest of the book (pages 119-508) today on the second day of reading it. I didn't want to put the book down! The book had some errors (like the ones I described in my previous review, of Rumo & De Wonderen in het Donker, but gladly there weren't as many errors this time around. So I was happy about that. I really enjoyed reading this book.

 

Overall then I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and wish it'd be easier for me to read this author's books. It is such a shame that out of the six books in this series (with a seventh due to release later this year), only three have been translated. There are some of the later books in this series that relate to this book (they feature the same main character), they are also books about books (well, if you include the seventh, to be released book). One of them does exist in English, the new-to-be-released one might be translated as well. I do feel though some of the language jokes might be lost on me if I were to read it in English. My German isn't nearly good enough to read these books in German. I really enjoyed reading this book, it was brilliant.

 

Rating: (*****) (10/10)

[Athena]

Peter F. Hamilton - The Void Trilogy 3: The Evolutionary Void

 

 

Genre: Science-fiction

Age-range: Adult

Format: Paperback

Pages: 726

Date read: 14-07-2015 <-> 17-07-2015

ISBN: 9780330443173

Synopsis: (no synopsis because the book is part of a series).

 

My thoughts:

 

I read book 1 of this trilogy in April and book 2 in June. Because I've been reading a lot of library loans, I spread the books of this series out a bit, because often library loans were due. I was eager to read the conclusion to this trilogy, so when I finished off my library loans and had some time before I'd go and get some new loans, I decided to read this book.

 

Like the previous book, the book has numbered chapters, and Dream chapters (and a third kind, but to talk more about them would be spoilers for book 2 (see my review of that book)).

 

The book was quite suspenseful. It had a lot of good, unexpected plot twists. I wanted to keep on reading it to find out how the trilogy would end. I liked the characters, they were quite diverse and interesting. I liked the writing style.

 

The book makes you think about themes such as the meaning of life, religion and the afterlife. I thought this was quite well done.

 

I didn't understand everything that went on in the book, a few times I was a little bit confused about the exact detals of certain things.

 

The story was pretty epic. Overall I quite enjoyed reading this trilogy, and the connections it has to the Commonwealth Saga. I do prefer the Night's Dawn trilogy.

 

I have some more books by the author on my shelves unread. I plan to some day re-read the Night's Dawn trilogy, as well. I have Chronicle of the Fallers 1: The Abyss Beyond Dreams on my shelf too, unread (a signed proof copy), but I'm not sure if it has a huge cliffhanger, so I don't know yet when I'll read it. I might wait until the next book is out in that series (it's connected to this series). It'll depend on what I feel like.

 

Rating: (*****) (9/10)

[Athena]

Jodi Picoult - Where There's Smoke

 

 

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Paranormal

Age-range: Adult

Format: Kindle

Pages: ~40

Date read: 17-07-2015

ISBN: N/A

Synopsis (GoodReads): Even as a child, Serenity Jones knew she possessed unusual psychic gifts. Now, decades later, she’s an acclaimed medium and host of her own widely viewed TV show, where she delivers messages to the living from loved ones who have passed. Lately, though, her efforts to boost ratings and garner fame have compromised her clairvoyant instincts. When Serenity books a young war widow to appear as a guest, the episode quickly unravels, stirring up a troubling controversy. And as she tries to undo the damage—to both her reputation and her show—Serenity finds that pride comes at a high price.

 

My thoughts:

 

This short story introduces one of the characters of the author's novel Leaving Time. Since I wanted to read this book, I decided to read this short story (and the novella, that introduces another character, Larger Than Life) first. Jodi Picoult is one of my favourite contemporary fiction authors. I liked the one short story I read by her, The Color War, less than most of the full-length books I've read by her (I liked all those I read of her, except I abandoned Songs of the Humpback Whale many years ago).

 

This was an enjoyable short story that nicely introduces Serenity. At the beginning I had a bit of trouble with the psychic aspect of the story, but it became more understandable later on. The story had some nice twists. I do wish it had gone on beyond the ending, but I guess to see more of this character I'll have to read Leaving Time (and I'm happy to do that, of course). I liked the writing style of this story and I liked the main character. By the way, this short story was free (I don't think it still is).

 

Overall I liked the story, but wish it'd gone on beyond the ending. There were some good twists in the story. I'll be reading the novella Larger Than Life next, and then Leaving Time.

 

Rating: (****) (8/10)

[Athena]

Jodi Picoult - Larger Than Life

 

 

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Age-range: Adult

Format: Kindle

Pages: ~78

Date read: 17-07-2015 <-> 18-07-2015

ISBN: N/A

Synopsis (GoodReads): A researcher studying memory in elephants, Alice is fascinated by the bonds between mother and calf—the mother’s powerful protective instincts and her newborn’s unwavering loyalty. Living on a game reserve in Botswana, Alice is able to view the animals in their natural habitat—while following an important rule: She must only observe and never interfere. Then she finds an orphaned young elephant in the bush and cannot bear to leave the helpless baby behind. Thinking back on her own childhood, and on her shifting relationship with her mother, Alice risks her career to care for the calf. Yet what she comes to understand is the depth of a parent’s love.

 

My thoughts:

 

After reading the short story Where There's Smoke, I went on to read Larger Than Life. Both stories take place before the book Leaving Time and introduce two of the characters of that book.

 

This was a good novella. I liked it better than the short story Where There's Smoke. The novella is almost twice as long and contains a lot more detail. I liked the characters. It was very interesting to read about the research and the elephants and to learn more about them. The story is emotional and touching and I wasn't expecting some of the plot twists. I liked the writing style and the depth of the novella.

 

Overall I enjoyed this novella more than the short story Where There's Smoke. I thought it was very interesting to learn about the elephants and the research. I will be reading Leaving Time next. I look forward to find out more about the two characters introduced in this novella and the short story.

 

Rating: (*****) (9/10)

[Athena]

Jodi Picoult - Leaving Time

 

 

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Paranormal (because of the character who is a psychic)

Age-range: Adult

Format: Paperback

Pages: 471

Date read: 18-07-2015 <-> 19-07-2015

ISBN: 9780553841374

Synopsis (GoodReads): For more than a decade, Jenna Metcalf has never stopped thinking about her mother, Alice, who myseriously disappeared in the wake of a tragic accident. Refusing to believe that she would be abandoned as a young child, Jenna searches for her mother regularly online and pores over the pages of Alice's old journals, hoping to find a clue to her mother's whereabouts. Desperate to find the truth, Jenna enlists two unlikely allies in her quest: Serenity Jones, a disgraced psychic, and Virgil Stanhope, the jaded private detective who originally investigated Alice's case. When the three work together to uncover what happened to Alice, Jenna's memories start to dovetail with the events in her mother's journals as the story races to a mesmerizing finish.

 

My thoughts:

 

Jodi Picoult is one of my favourite contemporary authors. I bought this book earlier this year (when the smaller paperback edition came out) and I felt in the mood to read it now. I first read the short story and the novella, both introduce a character from this book.

 

Like all of Jodi Picoult's books (but not the short stories I've read, and the novella), this book has multiple points of view (4). The book has two parts. The book can be read on its own, some of the bits of the short story and the novella repeat. The short story and novella give some extra background about two of the characters of the novel, but it's not at all necessary to read them.

 

This book had a pretty suspenseful second half, filled with plot twists. I found it hard to stop reading the book and read it in two days. I liked the characters and the plot twists. I was less keen on the ending, though it did make sense to me, it wasn't what I was expecting. The beginning of the book was a little bit slow.

 

I liked the writing style. There were a few occasions where American slang was used, that I was unfamiliar with. It was great to learn more about elephants, I liked this aspect of the story. Jodi Picoult has done her research well.

 

Overall then I enjoyed the book, aside from the slow bit in the beignning and the ending. It was an impressive book, and I enjoyed reading it. It wasn't my favourite of the author's books. It seems to deviate a bit from her usual style, there is no court case and not as much of a moral dilemma as in a lot of her previous books. Anyway, I enjoyed the book a lot, but it was different than what I was expecting based on some of the author's previous books. I have some of the author's older books on my shelves, unread, and I also intend to re-read some of her books that I've already read and loved.

 

Rating: (*****) (9/10)

[Athena]

I went to the charity shop and they had a deal of 5 children's pockets for 1 euro:

 

Jacques Vriens - Bonje in het Bonshotel

Jacques Vriens - Weg uit de Peel

Francine Oomen - Het Zwanenmeer (Maar Dan Anders)

Sjoerd Kuyper - Het Zakmes

Bibi Dumon Tak - Laika tussen de Sterren

 

So naturally I had to pick five (they won't let you leave with less ). I like Jacques Vriens and Francine Oomen's books, and I loved Het Zakmes when I read it as a child (I didn't own it). The fifth book has a dog on the cover and is about animals and how they help people.

[Signor Finzione]

I can't believe they practically FORCED you to take extra books home. You must be devastated.

 

Lovely reviews. So glad you enjoyed them all - I know you've really been looking forward to reading the Hamilton so I'm glad you liked it, even if you still prefer his other series.