Book Club

I've always wanted to join a bookclub. There were always problems with this though the first being that I'm lazy, I don't want to drive anywhere but home after work. The second is that I don't like that many people, and if my English classes were any indication there would be at least one person worthy of unadultrated hatred at each meeting. So what better kind of book club than one that I don't have to go to and one in which I pick who gets to join up? Namely, my friend Rob. The first book that we will be reading is one that we each had read in our childhood. The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander. I choose this cover because it's the one that I grew up with. I had forgotten how much I love this series. Bits of it are coming back to me as I read. It's quite strange really, I read along, think to myself: yes, yes... I know this, but I can't remember what's next. So here for your reading delight is the first paragraph of the book:

Chapter One

The Assistant Pig Keeper

Taran wanted to make a sword, but Coll, charged with the practical side of his education, decided on horseshoes. And so it had been horseshoes all morning long. Taran’s arms ached, soot blackened his face. At last he dropped the hammer and turned to Coll who was watching him critically.
“Why,” Taran cried. Why must it be horseshoes? As if we had any horses!”
Coll was stout and round, his great bald head glowed pink. “Lucky for the horses,” was all he said, glancing at Taran’s handiwork.

Are you interesed yet? No? Well I'm tired of typing the first page so just go to Amazon and read it there! See? I told you that I'm lazy. You should read this book, if not for the whining small child, then for the fact that it has an oracular pig in it. Who could resist an oracular pig!

Have you heard?

"When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back,

Three from the circle, three from the track;

Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;

Five will return, and one go alone."

Every so often I hear a whisper of a film version of a book being made that gets me as excited as a four year old boy waiting for the next Power Rangers movie to come out. It has come to my attention they are making a film of The Dark is Rising sequence. I read these obsessively as a child. Susan Cooper is such a genius, not to mention a Newbery award winner. If you haven’t read the series, I highly recommend them. The order of the books goes as such Over Sea, Under Stone, The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, and Silver on the Tree Then again if you’re not into all that nerdy magical stuff, you might stay away from them. I rank them up there with any of Alexander Llyod’s books, especially his Chronicles of Prydain, and Westmark series. On the whole though I think that I like his Vesper Holly series the most. Who wouldn’t love a good adventure story?