Books

[Emi]

I'm so happy, I can cross another book off of the list I wanted to read... There's a long list...

I just finished reading Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson, the other day. It's a really good book, and now I'm excited to go out and get the movie. I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie, so I know what really happened in the book. I'm starting to do that a lot, lately.

[meteorite]

Mel, I'm hooked on Georgia Nicholson. Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging had me giggling madly and intermittently, and so did almost every book thereafter by Louise Rennison. Georgia is a little bit of a twit, but no more self-centered and vacuous than a lot of teens I know, and you are rooting for her to finally (spoiler alert) <span class="ev_code_WHITE">get together with Dave the Laugh</span> if only to settle that plot line!

I MUST recommend Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. Imagine 1984 meets Snow Crash and has a successful, alien hybrid

[Cress]

I love The Thief Lord too!!

Yeah, my library group is apparently one of about 15 in the country or something. I didn't actually know that when I applied for it. One of my friends did it last year, and I heard about it and thought it sounded fun. Then at the first meeting they were explaining what we do and the librarian was like "Yes, we're one of 15 of these groups so you have a lot of influence". I was somewhat floored. It's tons of fun though. I can't wait till Wednesday!! Book time!!

[eowyngirl]

Cress, that sounds amazing! I wish my library did stuff like that...it's probably too small.

As others have said, The Thief Lord is a great book...possibly my favorite of hers. Which is saying something because I LOVE Inkheart/Inkspell.

[EricG1793]

Mel: The Thief Lord? That is a great book.... I've read it two and a half times (once on my own, then started to read it together with my mom, and then in at some point this year again on my own). As interpreted from this book, Cornelia Funke has a very good talent for writing a story that could easily become an entire series in to one book, make it thorough and satisfying, and yet keep it an inch thick. I think I already stated all these lovely things in this thread a while back, but I have a reputation in real life to repeat and repeat my opinions on things that I feel are unusually good.

OK, going back to Richard Peck.... I did finish that book Lost in Cyberspace, and I liked that as well.

Since then, I got in to a series of his... I don't know what to call it, but it consists of The Ghost Belonged to Me, Ghosts I Have Been, and The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp. I'm not entirely sure if that's the order in which the books were published, but that is chronological order. I read the second one first, then the first, then the third.... It's pretty good because it involves ghosts and psychic-like abilities, without having too much of a Dark side (unless you count Blossom's vision of a little boy being abandoned on the sinking Titanic as dark).

[Mel]

I've actually got a nice book series out there to recommend. Okay, so they're a bit fluffy and stupid, but they're really quite funny and good if you need a pick-me-upper. The Georgia Nicholson diaries. Should be coming to cinemas near you, as well Good for teen girls.

Daisy: You like the Alex Rider books? My besties used to be obsessed. Tamora Pierce is quite good, haven't read all of her stuff yet, though I'm working on it.

Guardians of Ga'Hoole!! Ah hahaha!! I used to LOVE them!
The Westing Game is great. I'd check out The Egypt Game as well if you liked that one. The Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and other books by E.L. Konigsburg are really entertaining. I really liked The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, or however you spell it haha

Cornelia Funke is also probably my favorite author. In addition to the Ink Trilogy and Dragon Rider, she is famous for the Theif Lord, which is worth reading.

Another nice author to look into might be Kate DiCamillo. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is simply magical.

And, as always, I must recommend the lovely and talented Katherine Patterson.

[Cress]

So I'm super excited because I am now part of a group at my library that reads teen books and reviews them and gets to put them up for the Book of the Year Award, which is extremely cool. So I've read a ton of really new books and some that haven't come out yet. My favorites so far were The Dead and the Gone, which was terrifying and entirely amazing, and Ink Exchange, which was basically drugs in book format. It's the sequel to Wicked Lovely, which may actually be even better.
I'm currently reading a book called Runemarks that's a mix of Norse mythology and straight up fantasy. It's pretty good so far.

[eowyngirl]

John Connolly is Irish, but he's mostly asupernatural thriller kind of guy, I think. He's really good though...

[Kathy Li]

Well, you could also go to one of the the reasons DD's living in Ireland --her husband, Peter Morwood. He writes lotsa fantasy books, as well as keeps a blog that he updates slightly more than DD does hers.

If you want old-fashioned fantasy, then I'd highly recommend Lord Dunsany (aka Edward Plunkett, Baron Dunsany) especially The King of Elfland's Daughter.

[Daylily]

Does anbody know (not personaly) some good Irish sci-fi/fantasy authors?

I am going there (Ireland) soon (tommorrow!) and on the way back I will convince my parents to buy me a book or three.
The best part of long plane flights (to my mind) is my dad will buy me any book/books unber $20 for reasons of not wanting to bring (and then lose) any librery books.

On the way back, my parents will buy me a book or few, and I'd like some recomondations.

[Kathy Li]

meteorite, no, I haven't read any Dave Barry--sounds like a blast. But I'm being distracted. I seem to have somehow skipped reading the last three Elizabeth Peters Amelia Peabody books. I should probably catch up on those before the new Vicki Bliss arrives...

...Oh, and I'm reading a ton of photography books. Joe McNally's The Moment it Clicks is really fun. Even if you're only reading blog entries about what people are doing to their copies.

Also had a blast reading the library's copy of Ansel Adam's Examples. I've never played with medium-format equipment, so it was really mindbending to hear Adams describing his lenses with focal lengths in inches, instead of millimeters.

[eowyngirl]

I recently read The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly, and it was excellent. It's one of my favorite books now...very good and very creepy in parts.

[meteorite]

Kli, have you read Dave Barry's first foray into noveldom, Big Trouble? Any book that has a giant toad that has staked out the back yard and torments the dog gets my vote Dave Barry has a second novel out, but I haven't read it so I can't give an informed opinion. He's also written a series of books with Ridley Pearson (there's an odd pairing!) that are more or less prequels to Peter Pan; the first one is Peter and the Starchasers

[Stormwind]

Eek!! It's been so long since I've been on... I'm sorry guys.... I've got to catch up, but moving states and quitting your job really can make life interesting... (sometimes I wish I had a little wizardry to help out)
I've picked up an old series, the Gandalara Cycle, but Randall Garrett... I think it's been out of print for a while, but I love it still (not sure I'd recommend it for anyone under 16 though)

[Kathy Li]

I have been feeling rather rotten, lately, so I needed a good, nasty, funny author. I read a Carl Hiaasen. All of his adult books are decidedly not kid-appropriate. So I should only recommend his YA books, Hoot and Flush here. But if you're feeling aggressively ecological today, they're definitely worth a read.

If you like Terry Pratchett, I should point out that Terry Pratchett often recommends an American author named Donald E. Westlake, specifically the Dortmunder series. This also may not be kid appropriate, but it's really really funny. Not fantasy, more along the lines of crime/caper fiction. I highly recommend Don't Ask.

Also in the vein of rollicking boy-like adventure books, I'd also recommend Neal Stephenson, John Scalzi, and Jim Butcher. Possibly also not kid-appropriate. But the action was pretty rock'em sock'em in Snow Crash (and how can you resist a book with a main character named Hiro Protagonist?), Old Man's War reminds me of nothing quite so much as Heinlein's YA fiction, and The Dresden Files and Codex Alera series are some of the most fun I've had with fantasy books of recent vintage.