Boston Books

It seems that since coming to Boston I've been a little behind on book reviews, so here I go.

The first awesome book I read was finished in one sitting at the Newbury Comics store in Faneuil Hall. Flight Volume 7. I love the Flight series. Every time I read a new volume, I think it's the best collection of short story strips ever. This time is no different. There are some very talented artists and story-tellers that contributed to this book. If you haven't picked a Flight book before, I sorely suggest you do. It's a fantastic reading experience. I'm not sure how many Flight books there will end up being, but I hope Kazu Kibuishi keeps printing more!

I finished this book next. Another collection of Calvin and Hobbes. We got it from the library. So adorable. ^_^ What a hilarious dynamic duo those two are.

The library that we go to in Boston is awesome! It has a big teen section with LOTS of graphic novels, and comfortable chairs to read them in. I've probably whiled away hours reading GNs, but this book, Earthboy Jacobus, is one I remember the most and I think most deserves mention and review. I once read another book by the same author called Tommysaurus Rex, but that was before I wrote a book blog. I liked the familiar art style, and the story was intriguing. It was about a boy from some kind of alien parallel universe who somehow ends up on Earth, and an ex-army guy adopts him and raises him like his own son. The boy, Jacobus, has a weird black mark on his hand. There is some coming of age and a big alien battle near the end. For me, it was a good story, and I liked it.

This is a book I checked out from the library. It's a collection of 15 short stories from the author of Howl's Moving Castle and House of Many Ways. I haven't finished it yet, though I only have a few more stories to go until I'm done and can give it a proper review. But for now I really must say that Diana Wynne Jones is quite the creative writer. I love reading short story collections like this. They give me so many ideas, and lots of inspiration. They make me want to do better than just writing poems. I can probably write a decent short story, if I only set my mind to it. Anyway, I highly recommend this book. It gives you such an inspiration boost. Look for a review of this very soon.

Oh! Wait, wait! I almost forgot to mention something important! In less than 2 weeks, on August 31st, I'm going to be meeting another famous author! The amazing Suzanne Collins, the genius behind the Hunger Games trilogy, is coming to our library to promote Mockngjay, which is coming out in stores very, very soon, I believe. I am very excited for this event. How incredibly fortunate that I'll still be in Boston at that time. ^_^

The only thing is that it was mentioned that Suzanne won't exactly be signing books, per se, because something's wrong with her wrist, I think. But she'll be stamping each book, and I believe she'll allow pictures to be taken, so that's great. I can still prove I met her. ^_^ The event will be "First come, first serve" though, so I don't know how early I'll have to go to insure that I get to meet her. I hope I can talk to her and ask her questions. Shaking her hand will be awesome, at the very least.

That's it, I guess! Until next time, my fellow book lovers. ^_~

Recent books I've finished

I've been reading a lot of books in the last few days and I don't want to go through the trouble of giving each their own separate review, so here's all of them in one go.

Home, by Julie Andrews ~ I find it pretty interesting how I'm starting to get as attracted to reading biographies as I am to fiction. It's extremely educational, because you get to find out who the person behind all the fame is, what their family life was like and their whole outlook on life. Although this book doesn't cover her entire life, just from when she was born to when Walt Disney asked her to play Mary Poppins, it was written very well (apparently her daughter helped her write it ^_^) and I liked it very much.

The Calvin and Hobbes Lazy Sunday Book, by Bill Watterson ~ An adorable collection of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. I've seen these characters in the funny pages from time to time, but reading a whole book of them, I've got a much better idea of them. It's about a 6-year-old boy with the craziest imagination (Calvin), whose beloved stuffed tiger (Hobbes) is his imaginary best friend, like a big brother to him. They tease each other, cheat in their little games, and Hobbes likes to pounce on Calvin when he comes home from school, but it's plain to see that they are the best of friends. I like the strips when Calvin is the central character, though. The line drawn between his imagination and reality is very thin indeed. He can be the heroic Spaceman Spiff, and he sees his parents, teachers and his neighbor Susie (a girl across the street who probably likes him) as terrifying aliens holding him captive that he must escape from. What a world this kid lives in.

Your Erroneous Zones, by Wayne Dyer ~ I recently finished reading this with my sister, Annette. It took us a long time to read, since we read a chapter out loud to each other a day, and we didn't exactly read it every day. But I'm proud to have finished it, so I'm listing it here. While this is a very educational book, I wouldn't recommend it for light reading. It talks about identifying the negative behaviors you may have put on yourself over the course of your life and getting rid of them.

I also wanted to say that I'm close to finishing these 2 books: Here Comes Everybody, a book about how the World Wide Web and its myriad tools have changed the way people interact with each other, and the Visual Quickstart Guide Annette and I are studying to learn about Illustrator CS4. The latter book has been extremely helpful to my sister and I.

I have no idea what books I'm going to follow up with after these. I wonder if anyone actually reads these reviews. It appears that for the entire year of 2010 I've only gotten 1 comment a month. Am I just crying out to an empty area of cyberspace? Hmm, maybe what I've been reading lately isn't that interesting to other people... Well, this blog is meant for me to keep track of the books I read over the years, so I don't care whether I get commented on or not. It may give my ego a little boost if someone decides to let me know that I pointed out a good read to them, but I don't need it.

I never thought I'd say this, but perhaps there's more to life than just reading book after book...