Tessa is a 16 year old girl dying from Cancer. Doctors have told her she only has a few months left to live. Determined to make the most of her short life, Tess embarks on a journey of personal discovery, completing a list of 10 things she wants to do before she dies. Despite its sad theme, this novel is enlightening and surprisingly funny. I really warmed to the characters and enjoyed following Tessa’s adventures with her friends. I’d recommend Before I Die to anyone looking for something light and life-affirming to read.
If you enjoyed this, try Dear Zoe by Philip Beard.
Neil Gaiman’s latest book is called The Graveyard Book, about a boy who is raised by ghosts in a graveyard after his family is nastily ‘despatched’ by an assassin. It’s a bit like The Jungle Book, but with the undead instead of animals. Sound good, doesn’t it? We don’t have it yet but it is in the catalogue, which means that you can reserve it now.
You can also watch Gaiman reading the whole book on the internet - check it out! (The final chapter should be up tomorrow.)
Cellphones: not just a replacement for the megaphone, these handy devices are now fashion statements in themselves. But nothing turns your phone-bling into a pocket albatross like a bad ringtone. Maybe you’ve just never gotten around to changing it from the “Nokia tune” (which is a phrase from Gran Vals, by Francisco Tárrega, an early 20th century classical guitar piece). Or have you (wrongly, oh so wrongly) chosen to have Slipknot or Rihanna blasting out every time someone calls? Shame on you.
The trendiest people in Wellington have natural or everyday sounds for their ringtones. Check out the tones here, and have a tui in your pocket! Or for the more adventurous and avant-garde of you, why not formulate your own ringtone using a whole computational universe (for bonus points you can even read about the new scientific paradigm behind your catchy ring). Just remember though: no matter how catchy and stylish your ringtone is, we still don’t want to hear it at the movies …
NZ Forest & Bird are holding their annual poll to find out which New Zealand bird is the Bird of the Year. Will it be the Fantail, the Kea, or the Kiwi? The Tui, or the Albatross? The adorable Grey Warbler won last year. I particularly like Moreporks (or Ruru), if only because they’re so ridiculously cute, and the Kaka is a great bird too - if you’ve ever been to Nga Manu, you may have had a Kaka sit on your head.
Place your vote here! You have until the 7th of November.
Here are 10 novels set in countries and places as far-flung as I can think of. Disappointingly, nobody seems to have set a young adult novel on Easter Island.
Note: if you’re after books set in a particular country you can do a keyword search for the country and specify fiction, e.g. Easter Island fiction.
- Parvana, Deborah Ellis (Afghanistan)
- The Year of the Shanghai Shark, Mo Zhi Hong (China)
- The Goldsmith’s Daughter, Tanya Landman (Mexico)
Journey to the End of the World, Henning Mankel (Sweden)- Over a Thousand Hills I Walk With You, Hanna Jansen (Rwanda/Germany)
- The Killer’s Tears, Anne-Laure Bondoux (Chile)
- Unseen Companion, Denise Gosliner Orenstein (Alaska)
Red Fox Running, Robin Lloyd-Jones (Greenland)- The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm : a novel, Nancy Farmer (Zimbabwe)
- Swimming in the Monsoon Sea, Shyam Selvadurai (Sri Lanka)
That’s 10 but there’s heaps more!
Variant X, by Sue Robinson (199 pages) - A deadly strain of botfly (these are horrific insects that lay their eggs inside living animals) strikes parts of Australia, and Adam and his scientist father go to South America to find some sort of remedy. Things go wrong, as they only can when flies lay their eggs in you.
Loathing Lola, by William Kostakis (346 pages) - Fifteen-year-old Courtney agrees to have her life shown on national television. She doesn’t think of herself as especially unusual, and she could do with the money (her family needs it). But she doesn’t anticipate what fame brings it.
The Traitor Game, by B. R. Collins (296 pages) - Best friends Francis and Michael have created a complex and engaging world of their own, called Evgard. Michael thinks that Francis has betrayed him over their world ; but has he really? His reaction can only make things worse. There is also a story set in Evgard, which is interwoven with the main story. (I enjoyed this book a lot.)
Blood Ties, by Sophie McKenzie (438 pages) - Theo and Rachel are linked by the firebombing of a research clinic, and are targetted by a group named RAGE; the Righteous Army against Genetic Engineering. They soon discover things about their pasts that are life-altering. Unputdownable, according to critics on Amazon!
Beneath My Mother’s Feet, by Amjed Qamar (198 pages) - From the catalogue’s synopsis: When her father is injured, fourteen-year-old Nazia is pulled away from school, her friends, and her preparations for an arranged marriage, to help her mother clean houses in a wealthy part of Karachi, Pakistan, where she finally rebels against the destiny that is planned for her.’
Rain, by Kate Le Vann (218 pages) - Rain Lindsay discovers her long-dead mother’s diary while staying with her grandmother in London, revealing some ‘unsettling secrets’. She also meets Harry, a student who is helping to renovate the house. True love blossoms!
Kiss Me Kill Me, by Lauren Henderson (260 pages) - Scarlett is desperate to be with the ‘in’ crowd at her exclusive London school, and is invited to a party, where the guy she fancies shows interest in her. But when he suddenly dies in front of her, Scarlett flees to another school, where she and a new friend try to solve the cause of his poorly-timed demise. (Not botflies.)
Chalice, by Robin McKinley (263 pages) - From the catalogue: A beekeeper by trade, Mirasol’s life changes completely when she is named the new Chalice, the most important advisor to the new Master, a former priest of fire. Apparently the world created in this relatively slim book is fully realised and ‘richly imagined’.
The first lot of Big Day Out acts were announced this week!
So what better time is there to check out some of their albums at the Library?
Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
The Living End - State Of Emergency
The Datsuns - The Datsuns
The Prodigy - Experience
Elemeno P - Elemeno P
Black Seeds - Solid Ground
Nesian Mystik - Freshmen
There’s still another 2 announcements to go, so keep a look out!
October’s top 10 most wanted once again contains lots of vampires, dragons and secret agents. Notable is the introduction of a being almost as deadly: the gossip girl. Readers are obviously keen to check out the book to see how it measures up against Chase et al. Georgia Nicolson fans are reading Louise Rennison’s books in anticipation of the movie (we note with interest that they’ve turned “full-frontal” into “perfect” - we were wondering what they were going to do with that).
If you’re sick of waiting for Twilight you could get out a bestseller copy for $5.00. See this blog post about our DVD offer. Speaking of ’sick of’, we changed the book cover below from Twilight … thought Brisingr could do with a bit of a gee up. Maybe next month …
Twilight, Stephenie Meyer [no change]- Brisingr, Christopher Paolini [no change]
- The General, Robert Muchamore [no change]
- New Moon, Stephenie Meyer [up 1]
- Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer [down 1]
- Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer [no change]
- Infamous: an It Girl Novel, Cecily von Ziegesar [no change]
- Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison [new]
- Gossip Girl: A Novel, Cecily von Ziegesar [new]
- The Book Thief, Markus Zusak [no change]
Stop in the Name of Pants!, Louise Rennison [new]
See you in November.
In 2002 Christopher Paolini published Eragon the first of 3 books.
Later that year Knopf offered to publish all of the books.
In 2005 Eldest, book 2, was published.
In 2006 Eragon the movie was released.
While he was working on book 3 he found the need to turn the trilogy into a cycle so it could have 4 books.
Brisingr, the 3rd book was published recently and is quite popular.
Haikus about the books/movies
Since I am on a roll after my Twilight haiku here are some about the books or movie.
Eragon
Eragon finds a bright
Pretty blue stone that hatches
into a dragon.
Eldest
Eragon visits the
Elves, and turns into an elf-
human hybrid there.
Brisingr
Brisingr means fire,
and that is what he names his
brand new bright blue sword.
Eragon the movie
This movie was bad,
so different from the book.
I give it no stars.
We have three Twilight movie posters (they’re not too large, but look pretty sweet) to give to the first three people* who comment below with a proper haiku about the Twilight books.
What is a haiku, you wonder? It is a form of poetry popularly from Japan. A haiku has only three lines; they don’t need to rhyme, but the first line must only have five syllables, the second line seven syllables, and the third line five syllables. So an example is;
In Twilight they meet -
Young love’s true dream; but he is
one-hundred-and-eight
Grimm’s (cynical) example is:
Twilight, the movie:
Not long before you can say,
“I preferred the book”.
Go for it!
* Also, you must belong to the Wellington City Library to be eligible.
Audrey, Wait!, by Robin Benway (361 pages) - From the back cover: “Ever dreamt of someone writing a song about you? A song that rockets to the top of the music charts. A song that makes yours the name on everyone’s lips. Now everyone wants to talk to you. Everyone wants a piece of you. You’re famous!”
The Resistance, by Gemma Malley (323 pages) - This continues on from The Declaration. It is 2140, and two young people must stand up against an authoritarian regime intent on halting the aging process - but at what cost? Quite a high one!
The General, by Robert Muchamore (329 pages) - This is the 10th CHERUB book in the highly popular series about a group of 11 to 17-year-olds who work for British Intelligence. In this book the kids take part in a war game near Las Vegas, and then use M15 equipment to rob a casino.
The Demon Assassin : Hell’s Underground 2, by Alan Gibbons (364 pages) - Full of half-demons, evil and ancient kings, the London Blitz, and time travel, this book has a bit of everything! Although it probably doesn’t have much romance.
Violence 101, by Denis Wright (174 pages) - From penguin.co.nz: “Hamish Graham is intelligent, disciplined, resourceful and fearless, and scorns all weakness. His heroes include Charles Upham, Alexander the Great and Te Rauparaha - all men of action. But he is also a fourteen-year-old with an anger problem and a disturbing past, and these have landed him in a series of boys’ homes for violent and troubled young offenders.”
The Green Lantern film is going ahead and should be out in 2010, which is good news if you’re a fan of the comic hero, or enjoy film adaptions of superhero comics. Green Lantern isn’t one particular hero, but is instead the title given to any member of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic police force who use their power rings to do some pretty cool stuff. They inhabit the same reality as Superman and Batman, and I’m not sure who would win in a fight. My money would be on Superman, to be honest.
(Our Green Lantern collection is here.)
The Internet Public Library is “the first public library of and for the Internet community”, linking to many sites on nearly any subject you can think of. They have an excellent Teenspace, with articles, links, and pages specifically for teens. They have a FAQ of embarrassing questions and a rather cool Poetry Wiki. Take a gander! They don’t charge overdue fees.
If you love fashion and art then make sure you check out the award winning World of Wearable Art garments on display around Wellington until the 5th of October. The idea is you wander around town viewing pieces of sartorial genius… visit the wotzon.com page for information about what is where.
If you fancy yourself a fashion artist extraordinaire then go to the WOW website for info about competition categories and rules and regulations. Entries close at the beginning of May each year, which gives you just 8 months to produce something wow-ish.
Because, let’s face it, overuse can be a bit of a problem, and after a while phat is no longer phat and so last year is so last year. So, what to do when you’re tired of your own words? Well, you have a few options:
- Invent a whole new word. Not as easy at it seems, honestly…
- Butcher an old word: find a good, descriptive word and invert its meaning, then annoy people by using it a lot (see word of warning below).
- Refer to an impressive range of slang dictionaries. You could adopt the word “Norm” for instance (this seems to refer to a couch potato) or “nang” (cool). There’s a lot to be said for antiquated slang as well (see option 5). The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang has just been revised, and they’ve finally included bogan (interestingly defined as “an uncouth, stupid, or square person”: this seems a bit harsh), phwoar and trolleyed, for example. The good thing about these dictionaries is that you get to check out where the rest of the world is going slang-wise.
- In a similar vein, check out this online slang dictionary which you can help beautify by adding suggestions (also a good source of the antiquated slang mentioned above - I should add it’s mostly American). The cool thing about this site is if you submit some slang your location is pinpointed on their map, so you can sort of see where words come from. Again, you can contribute to the urban dictionary.
- Watch old musicals with Julie Andrews in them. The Sound of Music brought flibberty gibbet international recognition after all (a flibberty gibbet is a flighty person). Find something similarly strange and turn it into slang…
A word of warning: less is definitely more. Many authors suggest one killer metaphor per page is enough when writing. Apply the same principle to your speech.
Slater.
Brisingr, the third instalment in the Inheritance cycle by Christopher Paolini, had a good birthday, selling over 45,000 copies on its first day in the UK (and 550,000 in the United States), making it the best selling children’s title in the UK this year (it seems the Brits are a bit more dubious about the whole vampire thing than the Americans). Readers will be hoping that Mr Paolini is making good progress on the 4th book and won’t keep them hanging around waiting too long…
A baby escapes a murderer who kills his (the baby’s, not the murderer’s) entire family… it’s a familiar premise for a story, right (… think Harry Potter), but it gets the Neil Gaiman treatment in The Graveyard Book (publication date: end of October). The baby (Bod) hangs out in a graveyard with the aforementioned ghouls and ghosts who bring him up and teach him about life… with the threat of the murderer wanting to finish Bod off lurking in the background…
Shadow of the Mountain, by Anna Mackenzie (222 pages) ~
Geneva has climbed mountains before but almost a year ago her best friend Stephen fell and died. Since then life has been just a little different for her family, with her mother not getting up most days and not taking any interest in what is happening in her family. On an impulse Geneva decides to go for a climb at the local wall climbing venue and meets up with Simon, a real pain, and Angus, a bit of a nice guy really, and enjoys herself enough to agree to go on their weekend climb. She becomes hooked again and not only with the mountain climbing! Her aim is to climb Kaitiaki, the mountain she can see from her home but can she face her fears and scale the mountain where Stephen fell to his death?
Good NZ life adventure. Well worth the time.
A few new DVDs (and one CD/DVD) have arrived:
» Disposable Hero (M) - This is a documentary about Brian Deegan, a freestyle motorcyclist who has won the most awards in his sport. He’s also lost several organs in the process.
» Futurama : The Beast with a Billion Backs (PG) - The second feature-length Futurama DVD. (Rather than reviving the television series, a total of four films will be made.)
» Batman : Gothic Knight (M) - These six episodes of the animated television series form, taken together, form one complete film.
» My Chemical Romance : Things That Make You Go Mmmm! (M) - A documentary about My Chemical Romance, featuring interviews with the band and people close to them, shot in New Jersey where the band began. Also …
» The Black Parade is Dead : My Chemical Romance - This is a CD and a DVD; the CD is a recording of a live concert in Mexico City, and the DVD a concert in Mexico and Hoboken, New Jersey, in the U. S. of A.
Ghostgirl, by Tonya Hurley (328 pages) - Charlotte Usher is barely acknowledged by everyone at her high school. Her sudden demise, means she’s even less visible to anyone - apart from her classmates at an alternative high school for ghosts. But will she get to the ball?
The Elite, by Jennifer Banash (251 pages) - Yet another story about rich girls in a prestigious New York high school. To be fair, the main character, Casey, is from the midwestern U.S., and has to try to fit in with the big city crowd, which is a slightly newer take on the whole Gossip-Girl-type genre. This is the first in a series of books.
Crash Test : An Upper Class Novel, by Hobson Brown, Taylor Materne, and Caroline Says (278 pages) - This is the fourth book in the Upper Class series, which is set in a school for rich and fairly indulgent teens somewhere in New York.
Stealing Heaven, by Elizabeth Scott (307 pages) - Eighteen-year-old Dani’s mother raised her to be a thief, and together they travel from place to place, nicking off with silver and never making any friends. But when they end up in one town - Heaven - where Dani feels at home, how will she break free from her mother’s life?
The Nostradamus Prophecy, by Theresa Breslin (468 pages) - This epic story is set in sixteenth-century France. Nostradamus has predicted a massacre, but King Charles doesn’t believe him; his mother, Catherine de’ Medici, does, however. So to does Melisande, the minstrel’s daughter, who ends up with some parchments written by Nostradamus that hold the secret of the French royal line. Adventure ensues!
A Curse Dark as Gold, by Elizabeth C Bunce (395 pages) - “Upon the death of her father, seventeen-year-old Charlotte struggles to keep the family’s woolen mill running in the face of an overwhelming mortgage and what the local villagers believe is a curse, but when a man capable of spinning straw into gold appears on the scene she must decide if his help is worth the price.” (Catalogue description)
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