Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham

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I got off of work a little earlier than usual yesterday, and instead of going back to my apartment, I went over to one of the local coffee houses and got a blended iced latte and a chocolate cupcake with delectable strawberry icing and read through a rain storm. It was actually completely idyllic and I read the entirety of these two wonderful little stories while waiting out the rain.

The first of J.R.R. Tolkien's works I ever read was The Hobbit, which remains one of my favorite stories of all time. I remember reading these two short stories as a kid, and remember liking them, but had no recollection of the stories themselves. It was a nice treat to revisit them! And, while I read them first as a child, they're really not childrens' stories...check 'em out!

Smith of Wootton Major is something of a fairy tale...the magic that happens when the world of Faery intersects with humanity. Farmer Giles of Ham is a story of courage and cowardice, and...my favorite part...a dragon named Chrysophylax. And a dog named Garm. If I ever have a male dog, I just might name him Garm :-)

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

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This was the second in the Flavia de Luce Mystery Series by Alan Bradley. I read the first book, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, last October (you can read that post here) and absolutely loved it. This second novel did not disappoint!
In this adventure, Flavia befriends a woman named Nialla, the assistant to a famous puppeteer who has taken his show on the road. There is a lot of mystery about them, especially after Flavia starts to suspect a connection between Rupert, the puppeteer, and a little boy who died under strange circumstances years before. When Rupert winds up dead, Flavia finds herself once again trying to solve the mystery herself.
Just as he did in the first book, Bradley does a spectacular job of building the setting and characters in a way that the reader is transported back to that time & place. There are lots of cultural references and language usage that make the entire setting on the page come to life. One particular reference actually made me rather jealous...Flavia reminisces at one point about her father taking her & her sisters to see John Gielgud as King Lear on stage in Stratford-upon-Avon...oh, how I would have loved that!
Just as I did The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, I heartily recommend The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag. The story is delightful (and deliciously dark) and one thing I love about these books is that they are clean...there is no gore or sex or bad language...just a good, slightly macabre mystery. I love this series :-) I'm not sure when the next is due out, but I can't wait!

What's Coming Next?

I've decided that my next read will be The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley. This is the second in the Flavia de Luce mystery series (the first of which I talked about here) and I am very much looking forward to this read! I usually don't post until the end of a book, but I just wanted to share a bit of the praise that's on the back of this one, talking about The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. From Mystery News: "A smashing series starter - a book readers will come to the end of wishing they hadn't read, because it would be so wonderful to read it again for the first time." How great is that?! Anyway...just thought I'd share & encourage anybody who reads this blog to pick up these books & check 'em out for yourself. Or, in the words of LeVar Burton, host of Reading Rainbow: "But you don't have to take my word for it!"

By the way, Flavia has a blog: http://www.flaviadeluce.com/

:-D

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding

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My reaction to this sequel was much the same as to Bridget Jones's Diary. It was so entirely different from the movie, that at least I didn't feel like I was reading a story I already knew well. However, I think these made better movies than books. They were diverting, and I related pretty well to Bridget, but the story really was better on screen than on the page. Oh well!