What I did when I was travelling

It has been a long time since I last wrote, and many exciting things have happened since then. I’ve been to Disney World and Cape Canaveral, and New York and Washington, and will shortly post pictures of my trips.

Right now, I going into the books I’ve been reading lately. Schindler’s List first, which I read on the flight to Florida. Brilliant and intense, the story it told was just unbelievable. Both that people could sink to such depravity, in the name of doing good, and that people should have such courage to fight such a thing. Then there has been a series of lighter reads; two of Phillip Pullman’s Sally Lockhart series: ‘The Ruby in The Smoke’ and ‘The Shadow in the North’. Not fantasies as I had initially expected. More like Wilkie Collins’ ‘Moonstone’ or even a Sherlock Holmes. Both were very twisty and I love Lockhart being an independent-minded female financial consultant (talk about a boring job- just the sort that needs to be livened up by pirates and smugglers) in Victorian England. There’s so much more I liked about those books, but I can’t say more without giving the plot away. Only, I laughed at the person who actually solves the mystery in the first book. And I love Sally and Fred’s relationship in the second.

Then there are the rest of Baroness Emmuska Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel series, all available online at http://www.blakeneymanor.com/ . After a point they do get repetitive, you’d think Chauvelin would stop being so easily tricked. It starts feeling like those roadrunner cartoons. Still, good for timepass.

Also online, at http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page is ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’ and its sequel ‘Rupert of Hentzau’ both by Anthony Hope. The first is a fun adventure story, the second is substantially darker.

I’ve also been reading several of the Newberry award winning books, courtesy of my cousin. I’m a little surprised that some of these books are recommended to children, they’re all pretty deep and dark. I’ve read ‘The House of the Scorpions’ by Nancy farmer, and ‘The Goose Girl’ by Shannon Hale (she didn’t win the medal- in was a Newberry Honor for Princess Academy - not for this one). ‘The House of the Scorpions’ was excellent, if somewhat creepy.

‘The Goose Girl’ was good, but the there were several plothole, and the tone of the book went just a little preachy in the end. Much better was Louis Sachar’s ‘Holes’ which was also made into a very good movie. It’s a short book, and the plot flies by, and everything ties up neatly in the end. Then there’s Lois Lowry’s ‘The Giver’ which I may have mentioned before- one of the dystopias. She’s also written sequels that I want to read (The Messenger’ and something else). I’m halfway though another book my cousin recommended- ‘The Book Thief’ by Marcus Zuzack’ and after that I think its going to be ‘Atonement’, before I go to see the movie.