Review: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis, narrated by Michael York

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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe CD (The Chronicles of Narnia)I recently decided to finish reading The Chronicles of Narnia, as I never read them as a child, and the time I did start them, I never finished the series.

The second book in the series, chronologically speaking (the first book published), The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, is arguably the most famous. In fact, one of my students made a reference to going inside the wardrobe as a metaphor for exploring the unknown just today. I often wonder how many children spent several frustrating minutes inside closets and wardrobes over the years in a desperate attempt to get to Narnia.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the story (not sure how that can happen), The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the story of the four Pevensie siblings: Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. They are sent to live in the country house of Professor Digory Kirke during the London air raids, and while playing hide and seek, Lucy, the youngest, discovers a magical wardrobe that transports her to a snowy land inhabited by a faun, Mr. Tumnus. She befriends the faun, and he reveals that he is in league with the White Witch and has promised to give the Witch word should any “Sons of Adam” or “Daughters of Eve” show up in Narnia. He meant to turn Lucy in, but he couldn’t do it. She returns through the wardrobe back to Professor Kirke’s house to discover she’s been gone no time at all, and the others don’t believe her. Later, the others all discover she is telling the truth, but not before the White Witch manages to sink her claws into Edmund via some fiendishly addictive Turkish Delight and convince him to rat out his siblings. The Pevensies find themselves caught up in ancient Narnian prophecy and wind up having to rid Narnia of the White Witch.

So, we have to talk about Aslan. Is it me, or is he the least interesting character? I mean, I understand he is supposed to be a Christ figure, and I have nothing against Christ figures in literature, but Aslan’s depiction in that role is just so heavy-handed. Perhaps it isn’t so heavy-handed to the intended audience of children. I actually really liked Edmund this time around. He was a pain in the rear, but he redeemed himself, and he was a little more interesting than the other characters. Jadis makes for a nice villain. I had forgotten the ending was so violent. I also have a soft spot for Lucy, but I confess I found Peter and Susan to be too goody-goody and boring to be terribly interesting. However, the storyline is deeply engaging, and it’s not hard to see why it has endured as a children’s favorite.

Also, as a side note, the missing Oxford comma in the title really bothers me, given C. S. Lewis was an Oxford man. Anyone know why it was left out?

It had been quite a long time since I read this book, and I have to say the Disney movie did a superb job capturing all of the book’s elements (and in casting). I couldn’t help but think about the movie as I was reading and remembering how the various parts of the book were depicted. I have to say Michael York’s reading was uneven. He did an excellent job characterizing most of the Narnian characters and Edmund and Lucy as well, but I didn’t care much for his Aslan, and he had a sort of odd cadence that sounded slightly patronizing. I think it was an attempt to sound avuncular, but it didn’t always hit that mark. All things being equal, I liked The Magician’s Nephew better in terms of the narration.

Because this book features Jadis, as the White Witch, I will count it for the Witches & Witchcraft Reading Challenge.

Story Rating: ★★★★☆
Audio Rating: ★★★☆☆

2014 Witches & Witchcraft Reading Challenge

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Sunday Salon: Resolutions

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A Ride in the SnowJust like everybody else, I am making a few resolutions as the new year begins. However, making resolutions is not typical for me. I usually ignore the passage of a new year, at least in terms of turning over a new leaf. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a teacher or not, but I always felt like the real new year turned when a new school year started. For some reason, I don’t know why, this year feels different. I actually find myself feeling like it is the start of the new year, and for the first time in years, that didn’t feel like a sad thing to me. New Year’s Eve usually makes me quite sad, and this year, while I can’t say I was excited or anything, I felt pretty content. As a result, I started thinking about the things I really want to do better or do more of in the coming year.

No Excuses Art Journaling: Making Time for Creativity I have the usual resolutions regarding tackling organization, etc., but in terms of reading, I want to try to be much more active in reading and talking about my reading here. I have had a hard time making myself blog for the last couple of years, but I do enjoy it, particularly book blogging, and I have missed it.

I also want to do better with journaling, and to that end, I picked up No Excuses Art Journaling: Making Time for Creativity. It looks like a fun way to try a new creative outlet. One of the things I have enjoyed about making soap is the creativity. The soap is like a work of art. No two cut bars are the same, and no two batches of soap are the same. Art journaling seems like a fun way to be creative when I’m stuck. One of the things I’ve learned about making soap over the last year is that it can’t be my only creative outlet, or I wind up making too much of it. By the way, if any takers want to try out my soap, let me know. If you want to check out my soap on Etsy, try here.

So, do you have any resolutions?

The Sunday SalonA Ride in the Snow by DaveLawler

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Weekend Reading: January 4, 2014

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The Time Traveler's WifeIliana posted her current reads over at Bookgirl’s Nightstand, and it inspired me. A new year is always a chance to try new things and introduce new habits (hoping they will stick!). Here’s hoping I can make a regular Saturday post about my weekend reads a habit. What I’d like to do is take a snapshot of the book I’m reading, right where I’m starting for the weekend.

This weekend I’m reading [amazon_link id=”015602943X” target=”_blank” ]The Time Traveler’s Wife[/amazon_link]. I’m already in love with it on page 79. One of the reasons I picked this book up is that I have a new-ish obsession with Doctor Who, particularly the love story of the Doctor and River Song, and I read somewhere, I forget where, that their relationship was similar to that of Henry and Clare in The Time Traveler’s Wife in some respects. Given I’m not too far in yet, I would say the comparison is fair, and I can see how the novel may have inspired the creation of River Song.

I’m also listening to Michael York read [amazon_link id=”0062314599″ target=”_blank” ]The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe[/amazon_link] by C. S. Lewis and Davina Porter read Voyager by Diana Gabaldon. Both are what you might consider re-reads, since I have read the Outlander series up to [amazon_link id=”044022425X” target=”_blank” ]Drums of Autumn[/amazon_link]. I would like to catch up the end, and I’m looking forward to the adaptation of [amazon_link id=”0440212561″ target=”_blank” ]Outlander[/amazon_link] on Starz.

It’s bitterly cold outside. My browser’s weather extension says it’s 14 degrees and feels like -3 degrees. Perfect for curling up inside under my husband’s robe with a cup of tea and a good book.

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Review: Mr. Timothy, Louis Bayard

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Mr. Timothy: A NovelCharles Dickens’s [amazon_link id=”0486268659″ target=”_blank” ]yarn about the redeeming power of Christmas[/amazon_link] is one of my all-time favorite stories. I try to watch a version of it every year, and one year, I read the book itself. When Mr. Timothy came across my radar, I couldn’t resist. I think I requested the book on PaperBackSwap. And then it sat unread on my shelf for quite some time.

In Mr. Timothy, Louis Bayard takes up the story of Tiny Tim Cratchit, all grown up and mourning the recent passing of his father. Aside from saying “God bless us, every one,” Tiny Tim is probably most famous for being the saintly crippled child who finally melted old Ebenezer Scrooge’s icy heart. When Scrooge asks the Ghost of Christmas Present if Tiny Tim will live, the ghost replies, flinging Scrooge’s own words back at him: “If he be like to die he had better do it and decrease the surplus population.” Louis Bayard imagines a Timothy Cratchit who is altogether crushed under the [amazon_link id=”0486415864″ target=”_blank” ]weight of expectations[/amazon_link] of having survived and received the beneficence of the former “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner.” He has grown up, but who has he become? He is as lost, in his way, as Ebenezer Scrooge. He lives in a whorehouse, where he pays for his room and board by teaching the madam to read. His parents are gone, and he is reduced to taking handouts from Uncle N (old Uncle Scrooge, that is). He hates himself for being unable to cut the purse strings, but he seems stuck, unable to do anything with his life. Then he finds the bodies of two girls, curiously branded with a letter G, and he discovers another lost little girl being hunted, and fearing she will be next to die, Timothy enlists the help of a foul-mouthed street urchin to save her. What he uncovers is the grossest exploitation of the lower classes by the upper echelons of British society. But is he the man to do anything about it? Bob Cratchit once said that in church, Tim said he was happy that others could see him in church and remember, on Christmas Day, who it was who made blind men see and lame beggars walk. Grown up Mr. Timothy insists he never said any such thing—his father only wished that he had. When it really counts, can Timothy Cratchit really offer salvation to anyone? Can he even save himself?

A page-turning tale of Victorian gothic suspense, this novel really begins to pick up once Timothy is hot on the trail of the people at the center of a horrific child slavery ring. Do not look for Dickens in this novel, though I admit he shows up a bit in chapter 16, when Timothy Cratchit is brought before a magistrate on trumped up charges of sexual assault. I love the description of the lawyer Peter Cratchit has engaged to defend his brother:

A stout, whey-skinned man with a decamping hairline and advancing whiskers, soldierly red on both fronts. The hand he presents to me is quite damp, and there is a prevailing humidity all about his person: wet eyes, wet lips, wet teeth … and, exhaling from his pores, an effluvium that, unless my nostrils deceive me, represents the final gaseous iteration of imported Jamaican rum. … There is no doubt, however, that Mr. Sheldrake exudes confidence. (213)

The whole chapter through had me chuckling, and brought to mind Dickens’s own way with characterization and scenecraft.

Bayard deftly captures the soot begrimed streets of Victorian London, from the refuse in the streets, to the cabbies, to stately manors behind lacy wrought iron fences. Timothy’s character winds up being believable. He has so long been the protagonist of a narrative written by others, as he reflects, that it is easy to see how he might lose his way and find it necessary to discover who he really is. If you are looking for the squeaky clean, cherubic Tiny Tim of myth in this story, you’ll be disappointed. However, if you are looking for a different sort of tale of redemption, Mr. Timothy should do nicely.

Rating: ★★★★½

Check out these other reviews of Mr. Timothy:

Mr. Timothy is the first historical fiction book to count towards the 2014 Historical Fiction Challenge.

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Review: The Magician’s Nephew, C. S. Lewis, narrated by Kenneth Branagh

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The Magician’s Nephew CD (The Chronicles of Narnia)Many years ago, I started reading the Chronicles of Narnia, but I think I stalled out somewhere in the middle of [amazon_link id=”0064405028″ target=”_blank” ]The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’[/amazon_link]. I never did finish the series, and I have almost no memory of what happens in the books (with the large exception of [amazon_link id=”0064404994″ target=”_blank” ]The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe[/amazon_link]). I did remember that Jadis spoke the Deplorable Word and destroyed Charn in The Magician’s Nephew, but that is truthfully just about all I remembered. So when I discovered that the audio book versions of the Chronicles of Narnia were all read by great British actors like Kenneth Branagh, Michael York, Derek Jacobi, and Patrick Stewart, I decided to use my Audible credits to get the whole series and re-read it once I had accumulated the entire collection. I have decided to follow the apparently controversial chronology established by Harper Collins rather than the publication order. I know plenty of people seem to feel quite strongly that following chronological order instead of publication order is doing it wrong, but I am going to do it anyway. I hate reading rules, anyway.

If you are unfamiliar with the plot of The Magician’s Nephew, it concerns the story of Digory Kirke, the nephew in question, who later grows up to be the professor who takes in the Pevensies when they are fleeing London during World War II. His evil uncle Andrew is a magician who believes he possibly had the last real fairy godmother in Britain. He creates some magic rings that will take the bearer to another world, but as he’s too chicken to try them out himself, he forces Digory to try them by sending his new friend Polly to this other world without a ring that will bring her back. When Digory goes to rescue Polly, he discovers the rings actually take to bearer to a place between worlds. Digory and Polly decide to explore one of the other worlds before going back to mean Uncle Andrew, and they wind up in the destroyed world of Charn. Digory wakes up the evil former queen of Charn, Jadis, when he is too tempted to ring a bell to resist, and she manages to go back to London with the children, where Andrew is both charmed and frightened by her. In an attempt to take Jadis away from London, the children, Andrew, and a hapless cabbie and his horse all wind up in the land between worlds and from there end up in Narnia, which is just in the process of being created by Aslan (the Jesus allegory lion). Unfortunately, Jadis is there, too, and Aslan is disappointed that people have already brought evil into the world he just created (cue really heavy-handed Genesis allegory here). He asks that Digory right the wrong by retrieving an apple from a far distant tree. When he arrives, Jadis tempts him to eat the apple himself, but he manages to resist and bring it back to Aslan, who uses it to plant a tree that will protect Narnia from Jadis, now the White Witch, at least for as long as the tree stands. He gives Digory one of the apples to take back with him to London so that he can give it to his ailing mother and cure her, which he does. Later he plants the core, which grows into a great apple tree from which a certain wardrobe is later made.

One thing I thought as I listened to this book, aside from the thought that Kenneth Branagh should just read all the books to me, is that J. K. Rowling and Neil Gaiman owe a fairly obvious debt of gratitude to C. S. Lewis. I know both have acknowledged him as an influence, but the writing style and humor really reminded me of the kinds of things I have heard in Rowling (particularly the first few books of the Harry Potter series) and Gaiman’s [amazon_link id=”0060530944″ target=”_blank” ]The Graveyard Book[/amazon_link]. Polly in particular reminded me of Scarlett Perkins in The Graveyard Book. She was utterly charming, and I liked her very much. I didn’t remember Uncle Andrew very much from my first reading of his novel, but Kenneth Branagh gave him this fabulous unctuous manner of speaking that made me happy every time he was given a line. In fact, Branagh was fabulous the entire way through. I really could listen to him read all the books.

Because this book features Jadis, who later becomes the White Witch, I will count it for the Witches & Witchcraft Reading Challenge. From this time forward, audio books will receive two ratings: one rating for the story and one for the audio interpretation.

Story Rating: ★★★★☆
Audio Rating: ★★★★★

2014 Witches & Witchcraft Reading Challenge

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Merlin


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Renoir

Year in Review 2013

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RenoirAs I said in my previous post, I didn’t have such a good year this year in terms of meeting goals and challenges. I had planned to read 52 books, and I wound up reading 26, or about half of what I wanted to read.

2013 Reading Challenge

2013 Reading Challenge
Dana has
read 26 books toward her goal of 52 books.
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Boo!

Here is the stats breakdown:

  • Total number of books read: 26.
  • Fiction books: 23.
  • Nonfiction books: 3.
  • YA books: 7.
  • Audio books: 6.
  • Digital books: 10.
  • DailyLit books: 0.
  • Books reread: 9.

Favorite reads of the year (in no particular order):

Least favorite books:

  • [amazon_link id=”1419704281″ target=”_blank” ]Splintered[/amazon_link] by A. G. Howard (review)
  • [amazon_link id=”0545477115″ target=”_blank” ]The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle[/amazon_link] by Avi (review)

Favorite book meme of the year: Not that I participated all that much, but Top Ten Tuesdays. Again.

Favorite Reading Challenge: The R.I.P. Challenge, though I made very little progress this year. I was really in the mood for creepy books come fall, though.

Favorite Blog Posts (again, in no particular order, and not that I posted much):

I had a lot of fun with Harry Potter this year, but I stalled out in [amazon_link id=”0439358078″ target=”_blank” ]Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix[/amazon_link]. Here’s hoping I can pick that back up again, but perhaps dial it back a bit. The posts I wrote were loooooong.

Here is my Where Are Your Reading 2013 Challenge map:


View 2013 Where Are You Reading Challenge in a larger map

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A Young Girl Reading

Five Things I’ve Gained from Reading

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A Young Girl Reading
A Young Girl Reading by Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Carol Jago, an English teacher I admire, published a paper several years ago about why we should teach literature. In reply, Traci Gardner suggested we share what we’ve gained from reading literature. I’m not sure if Traci’s familiar with memes, but I like the idea. That said, this blog post has been sitting waiting to be finished since April 2009. Time to post it.

Instructions: Copy the questions and instructions below, and paste them into a blog entry, a note on Facebook, or a discussion forum—anywhere that you can reach the people you want to. You can use the comments area on this blog entry if you’d like as well. Delete my answers to the questions, and add your own. Feel free to any extra instructions or invite specific people to answer the questions when you post them.

Questions: Think about the literature you’ve read—short stories, novels, plays, memoirs, and poetry. Any literature counts, from picture books to epic poems, and from romance novels to sci-fi fan-fiction. Answer each question, and explain your response in a few sentences. Just copy the questions, remove my answers, add your own, and then invite others to respond.

  1. What piece of literature has stayed with you, even though you haven’t read it recently?
    One piece of literature I find myself thinking about a lot is [amazon_link id=”0380730405″ target=”_blank” ]Rebecca[/amazon_link]. We just watched the movie the other night, for one thing, but for another, I have been searching and searching for a book with that same sort of feel. I love that book, and I’ve been looking for one like without much success.
  2. What character or story has influenced something you’ve done?
    You’re going to laugh, but I married my husband because of [amazon_link id=”0440212561″ target=”_blank” ]Outlander[/amazon_link]. For a lot of reasons. He knows and thinks it’s funny.
  3. What character or piece of literature seemed to relate to a recent news story or personal experience?
    I don’t know that the story is all that recent, but when the Rod Blagojevich story blew up, I immediately thought of [amazon_link id=”0743477103″ target=”_blank” ]Macbeth[/amazon_link]. Then the comparisons started coming. Now I feel like I see Macbeth everywhere, which is really frightening. So many people seem willing to lose themselves entirely to their ambition. Politicians especially. And the way they play with human lives is disgusting. We might as well all be the Macduffs. In which case, the politicians better watch it if we decide we’ve had enough one day.
  4. What character has make you wonder why he or she did/said something?
    This is a tough one because there are a lot of characters who make me wonder this sort of thing. I hardly know which one to choose! But I always wondered if Boo Radley really did stab his father with the scissors, and if he really did, why? Actually I wonder a lot about Boo Radley (rather like Scout!).
  5. Name something from a work of literature (such as a character, setting, or quotation) that you find beautiful or vivid.
    [amazon_link id=”0743273567″ target=”_blank” ]The Great Gatsby[/amazon_link] has so many beautiful and vivid passages. Here are some of my favorite ones.

“His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”

 

“And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

 

And here is another of my favorites, from [amazon_link id=”0684801469″ target=”_blank” ]A Farewell To Arms[/amazon_link]:

“If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”

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The Odyssey, Homer, Narrated by Ian McKellen

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The OdysseyIf you have an Audible membership, you should totally use one of your credits to purchase The Odyssey read by Ian McKellen. It is the Fagles translation, which I had not previously read. As you might imagine if you have ever seen McKellen act, he is a masterful reader, and given the material he has to work with in this instance, you can’t miss. I seem to remember that Jenny once said that Fagles was her favorite translation, but I can’t remember if she said why. I believe she was a Classics major as well. I have previously read the Fitzgerald translation, and while I appreciate its beauty, and I understand his reasons for preserving the Greek spellings for names, it was a little confusing. I used a translation by Stanley Lombardo when I taught sometimes as well.

One of the things that struck me again upon listening to The Odyssey is how modern it sounds. People certainly haven’t changed much, and The Odyssey lays bare human nature from the ridiculous to the sublime. I love it. My favorite parts of the book cover the period beginning in Book 9, when Odysseus encounters the Cyclops, to Book Twelve, when Odysseus’s crew is destroyed by Scylla and Charybdis, and he washes up on Ogygia and is held captive by Calypso.

After listening to this version, I was quite struck by how much the poem focuses on loyalty. Penelope is considered throughout all Greece to be the epitome of the loyal wife because she refuses to acknowledge her husband’s purported death and marry one of the many suitors courting her. In truth, they’re all so boorish one doesn’t wonder that she refuses to marry any of them. Eumaeus, Eurycleia, and Argus the dog are all held up as shining examples of loyalty as well. It is not as though I had not noticed this aspect of the poem before, but I think listening to it helped me to see the emphasis on loyalty as it runs throughout. But what bothers me, I guess (as it always has) is the double-standard. Odysseus is not expected to be loyal to his wife or his servants. Their loyalty to him is praised, but his disloyalty is not remarked upon. True that it was written at a different time with different values.

I had completely forgotten the suitors show up in Hades at the end and talk with Agamemnon. For a few minutes, I thought that there was something wrong with my recording, and it had somehow switched back to the part when Odysseus goes into Hades to speak with Tiresias. It felt completely new to me. I wondered at the fact that the suitors blamed Penelope for their downfall. Naturally!

This translation and narration is spot on and gorgeous. I highly recommend it.

Rating: ★★★★★

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Vincent Van Gogh

Reading Challenges and Goals for 2014

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Vincent Van GoghAh, yet another year in which I failed to complete most of the reading challenges and goals I set for myself. That’s fine. There is next year! Hope springs eternal and all that. I’ll do a recap of this year shortly, but I’m blaming my failures on three things: 1) the Doctor, 2) soapmaking, and 3) work. Not precisely in that order, but you get the idea.

But I do have some goals in mind for next year, and I have some reading challenges in mind, too.

I have tried and failed to read 52 books the last couple of years. I think perhaps that one year I read 50 was a fluke, especially given my current schedule. I have zero commute, so I can’t read books on the way to work anymore. I didn’t realize how much extra reading time that gave me, I guess. My goal for 2014 is a more modest 30 books. I actually did come close to reading 30 books this year, so perhaps reading 30 books is a goal that is within my grasp. I am all for challenging myself, but I hate the feeling of frustration that comes with falling so short of my goals that I actually give up and don’t read. That really happened to me this year. Stupid, yes. I didn’t say it made sense.

2014 Historical Fiction ChallengeI love participating in the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge each year. Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres. I plan to shoot for the Victorian Reader level of five books. I hope I will read more, and if I do, that’s great, but seeing as one of my other goals is to try to get through some books I’ve been wanting to read for a long time and try to stay on top of new releases better, I don’t want to box myself in too much by taking on a large number in any one genre.

As I have the last couple of years, I also plan to create my reading map and participate in the Where Are You Reading Challenge. Google Maps is more difficult to use with their new interface. I am hoping I don’t have to fight it too much.

When they come along, I hope to participate in Carl‘s challenges the Once Upon a Time Challenge and the R.I.P. Challenge. Actually, the R.I.P. Challenge is a must for me every year, but it’s been a while since I did Once Upon a Time.

Foodies ChallengeI always like to do something a little different, so this year, I’ll be trying out the Foodies Challenge. I’m not sure what I’ll read yet, but I’ll participate at Short Order Cook level (1-3 books). It might be just what I need to finally read [amazon text=For All the Tea in China&asin=0143118749], [amazon_link id=”0500286965″ target=”_blank” ]The True History of Chocolate[/amazon_link], [amazon_link id=”0393343618″ target=”_blank” ]Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil[/amazon_link], [amazon_link id=”0061288519″ target=”_blank” ]97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement[/amazon_link], or [amazon_link id=”0385340869″ target=”_blank” ]The Cookbook Collector[/amazon_link]. Or maybe I could finish [amazon_link id=”0142001619″ target=”_blank” ]Salt: A World History[/amazon_link]! Anyone participating in this challenge looking for a good novel might try [amazon_link id=”B0043RSJQS” target=”_blank” ]The Kitchen Daughter[/amazon_link], which is an excellent foodie read.

2014 Witches and Witchcraft ChallengeOne final challenge: the 2014 Witches & Witchcraft Reading Challenge. I love reading about witches, and I have few books I’ve been meaning to read forever that would be perfect. Perhaps it will even prompt me to pick up [amazon_link id=”0143123629″ target=”_blank” ]Shadow of Night[/amazon_link] (All Souls Trilogy, Bk 2). I’ll go for Initiate level (1-5 Witchy books). We have a goal of visiting Salem again now that we’re so close. For the record, Salem is one the most awesome places to visit. You should try to get there if you can.

Update, 12/29: Thanks to Iliana, I have discovered the Postal Reading Challenge. I love the idea of focusing on epistolary novels. As I told Iliana, I used to collect stamps as a child, and I already have one book in mind for the challenge A History of Britain in Thirty-six Postage Stamps. I’ll go for the Postcard Level of four books. I hope I can figure out three other books to read.

Also thanks to Iliana, by a circuitous route, I found out about the 2014 Book Bingo Reading Challenge. I couldn’t resist that one. Using your reads to play Bingo? I mean, how much fun is that? Sold!

So that’s it. I think these are much more reasonable goals. Of course, it must be said one should shoot for the stars and all that, but I’m hoping by setting obtainable goals, I’ll feel less discouraged about my reading this year.

Image Vincent Van Gogh

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Splintered, A. G. Howard

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[amazon_image id=”1419704281″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” class=”alignleft” ]Splintered: Splintered Book One[/amazon_image] A. G. Howard’s novel [amazon_link id=”1419704281″ target=”_blank” ]Splintered[/amazon_link] is a sequel, of sorts, to Lewis Carroll’s books [amazon_link id=”0553213458″ target=”_blank” ]Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass[/amazon_link]. What if Alice really did go down the rabbit hole, and all the adventures she had really happened? Alyssa Gardner is a descendant of Alice Liddell’s, and she carries a family curse—beginning with Alice herself, a strain of madness has run through each woman in Alyssa’s family. Alyssa’s mother Alison lives in a mental institution, and Alyssa herself hides the fact that she can hear bugs and plants talking to her because she knows her mother’s fate is the fate that awaits her as well. But a Wonderland resident reaches out to her and convinces her that she has the power to save her mother, and herself, if she is willing to go down the rabbit hole and put right what Alice destroyed when she went to Wonderland.

The cover of this book is gorgeous, and the beautiful cover, along with the plot description, convinced me to pick up this book. The book owes a great debt to Tim Burton’s visions of Wonderland, which A. G. Howard acknowledges herself. Parts of it were quite enjoyable, and the ending was a page-turner. However, there were stretches of time when I found myself avoiding reading it, which is always a sign to me that something’s bothering me about a book. I like the premise, but the writing isn’t even, and I almost felt like Alyssa and her crush Jeb were a little too “cool.” I really wanted to like this book more than I did. If it is part of of a series, I don’t believe I’ll be picking up the other books. I admit it was diverting in some places. I liked it best when Lewis Carroll’s characters showed up in all their glory, however. What that means to me is that Alyssa and other characters created for this sequel more or less pale in comparison to Carroll’s memorable characters, even if their descriptions were rather deliciously morbid and freaky. The Wonderland landscape is rendered vividly. I think the right readers will find and love this book, and truthfully, I’m not the book’s intended audience. I give it 3½ stars for being more than just OK and for being different and creative, but in the end, I just wanted to like the new characters and to find them more interesting than I did. It just took me way too long to finish.

Rating: ★★★½☆

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