Ahira's Hangar

Erikson's Reapers Gale.

--A

I suppose I should add that those charming mysteries Iwas talkign about in my last post in thsi thread are part of a series called the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter and are written by Susan Wittig Albert. The first two books in the series (what I got from the library) are called The Tale of Hill Top Farm and The Tale of Holly How.

Would you ever think to get a fiction recommendation from one of the mass marketed manga magazines (Shojo Beat)? So a few months back this magazine recommended Turning Japanese by Cathy Yardley. A small town girl from upstate NY wins a manga contest from a Japanese publisher, the prize is an internship with the publisher, and the book is the story of her year to Japan.

Tried Richard Morgan's Thirteen and just couldn't get into it. So decided to reread one of my alltime favs, The Riddle Master or Hed series by Patricia McKillup. It's fun reading slowly and looking for every little clue/detail in the early parts of the story that might have missed on the first 3 reads.

I am so frigging board that I'm thinking of maybe...possibly...with some arm twisting...giving Gardens of the Moon yet another try....

For an avid reader, there's not much worse then finishing reading a book that you loved, after having read 2 or 3 others in a row that were great, and then looking at the three shelves of books that you've been trying but avoiding to read the last several years and having to pick one. That's why I'm rereading a great series instead right now.

Which is?

--A

Sorry, said it in an earlier post. Riddlemaster of Hed by Patricia McKillup.

Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima by Kenji Nakazawa. Nakazawa (b. 1938) as a schoolboy was an eyewitness to the atomic attack on his hometown, Hiroshima Japan. Barefoot Gen is a graphic novel style, semi-autographical memoir of that time in his life.

Mijeong by Byung-jun Byun. Collection of extremely short stories about life in modern east Asian city. Hauntingly realistic and aborbing stories of various types of lost and broken people as a graphic novel.

Hunter S Thompson, Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junky.

--A

The Great Influenza The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry. The 1918 flu outbreak that killed between 50 and 100 million people world wide (by latest medical estimates). Frightening stuff. I can see why public health officials were in a panic this year - that outbreak was also an H1N1 strain that started in an isolated rural part of North America. Thankfully this year's strain, while powerful and sickening untold millions, is not killing at the same rate as that one.

Savage: Survival, Revenge, & The Theory Of Evolution by Nick Hazelwood. Story of the contact with, and subsequent eradication of, the natives of Tierra del Feugo, off the southern tip of South America.

--A

I'm up to the last of the Riddlemaster trilogy and amazed at how much I had forgotten, when I thought I knew the story by heart. Really enjoying the re-read.

It's currently manga (specifically japanese graphic novels); therefore, check . Hoping some of you check it out and we can discuss.