Book review – Clockwork Angel

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare is about a sixteen year old girl named Tessa Gray who travels to England, where something terrifying is waiting for her in London’s Downworld.  Tessa seeks refuge with the Shadowhunters who are a band of warriors dedicated to ridding the world of evil demons.  As she is drawn deeper into their world she finds herself torn between her two best friends and quickly realizes that love can be very dangerous.

Clockwork Angel was an extremely easy read and well written.  The characters are incredibly believable and it’s effortless to relate to what happened, what they did and how they dressed. The plot was interesting because there is a complicated romance between one girl and her two best friends. Another captivating aspect of this book is the diverse genres, romance mixed with supernatural creatures. Clockwork Angel is not purely about love and romance there are many dramatic and distressing twists and turns in the plot.

Overall, I could not fault the plot of Clockwork Angel. I quickly made a connection with the characters and plot early into the story. I really enjoyed this book because it included all of the aspects I enjoy in a good read – romance, supernatural creatures and a bit of drama. I would rate this book five out of five stars.

Reviewed by Jade, a member of the youth book club Cover2Cover.

Hidden Treasures

If you enjoy browsing through the Library’s cooking section, why not investigate the books in our Children’s collection? You never know what you might find. Discover a new world of recipes that are suitable for all chefs.

I borrowed Festival Foods by Jenny Vaughan and Penny Beauchamp, which features recipes from many different cultures, cooked for celebrations and feast days.

I created a delicious Israeli honey cake and also found some great recipes including a hearty Ramadan soup and savoury dumplings from China.

 

Children’s cookbooks are colourful and often include fascinating information on the cultural background of different recipes and the ingredients they use.

Other titles that impressed me are The Australian Women’s Weekly Kids’ Cooking for Health, The Usborne Healthy Cookbook by Fiona Patchett, Kids’ Cooking,  I Can Cook Middle Eastern Food by Wendy Blaxland and the series A World of Recipes by Sue Townsend.

You can search the Library’s online catalogue or enquire about children’s cookbooks next time you visit the Library.

Pets + books = ?

A few weeks ago we had a visit from a customer wanting to talk about something she had borrowed. Unfortunately her mischievous cat had gotten to the book when she wasn’t looking, and some of the corners had been chewed.

The title in question? “You can train your cat” by Gregory Popovich.

Books chewed by customers’ dogs are also reasonably common, and in one case we even had a book brought back in pieces after it was destroyed by a sulphur-crested cockatoo!

If you’d like your pet to be better behaved - whether it’s a dog, cat, bird, rat or rabbit – we have a great selection of pet training books that may help out.

Weird book titles

Sometimes we come across books with titles so strange or oddly specific it’s incredible that someone actually wrote a book about it! Here are some notable examples you can find on our catalogue…

The Manga guide to Calculus 

Ductigami: The art of the tape

Giraffes? Giraffes!

I told you I was sick : a grave book of curious epitaphs

Whose bottom is this?

Wood nymph seeks centaur: a mythological dating guide

And that’s just the beginning – you can find many more in Abe Books’ Weird Book Room.

What’s the weirdest book title you’ve seen?

Calvin & Hobbes search engine

For fans of the popular Calvin & Hobbes comic strip, there is now a search engine that enables you to find your favourite  C&H cartoons. Just when you thought you’d seen everything on the Internet!

It works really well – you just need to enter any words from the text, or even a description of the panels. We tried “library” and got lots of results, including these two cute comics.

If you’re looking for more Calvin & Hobbes, we have the complete collection on our catalogue. Put one on hold today!

Hang your favourite book on the wall…

Impossible you say? Then check out this website SpinelessClassics,  where you can order an entire book printed on a poster, ready to hang on your wall.
They feature beautiful titles, an evocative image within the text, and the full text of the book.

You can choose from  different categories such as children’s books, classics and non fiction, with popular titles like; Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone,  Pride and prejudice, Peter Pan, Romeo and Juliet and Wind in the willows to name a few.
 Fantastic gift idea or just treat yourself!

Fun with words and language

The other day I discovered a book called Eunoia, by Canadian poet Christopher Bök. According to Wikipedia this 2001 publication is an ‘anthology of univocalics’ – it’s unusual not because of the content, but because of how it’s written. Bök experimented with the English language by using certain rules to create a very interesting piece of writing.

First of all, there are five chapters – one for each vowel. Each chapter only uses words containing that vowel, while the letter Y is only used in one section in the extended edition of the book. And the title itself? Eunoia is a little-used word referring to ‘a state of normal mental health’ and is the shortest English word to contain all five vowels.

Click the links to find out more, and if you’re a bit of a ‘verbivore’ like many of our staff maybe you’ll also  enjoy some of the entertaining language and vocabulary titles on our catalogue!

Did you know…about the end of the world?

December 21st, 2012!

We’ve probably all heard about the doomsday prophecies, but what does it mean really?

On the  Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, some times refered to as the Mayan Calendar, the date is the end of a 5125 year cycle. According to professional Mayanist scholars, the idea that the calendar actually ends on that date is a misrepresentation. The calendar, which employs a combination of Base 20 and Base 18 numerical systems counts the passage of time as follows:

1 k’in – 1 Day (represented as 0.0.0.0.1)

1 winal – 20 Days (20 k’in, represented as 0.0.0.1.0)

1 tun – 360 Days (18 winal, represented as 0.0.1.0.0)

1 k’atun – 7 200 days (20 tun, represented as 0.1.0.0.0)

1 b’ak’tun – 144 000 days (20 k’atun, represented as 1.0.0.0.0)

On December 21st this year we will reach the end of the 13th b’ak’tun.
So what does this have to do with the end of the world?

Well, in the Mayan creation account recorded in the  Popol Vuh, we currently live in ‘the Fourth World’. The preceding Third World ended with the close of the 13th b’ak’tun, giving rise the belief that the Fourth World will also end at that point.

Why not check out some of the books and films on the subject? You might also like to jump over to the Library’s Facebook page and cast your vote on what you think might happen on 21/12/2012.

Spotlight on: Bryce Courtenay

2012 seems to be replicating last year with the loss of some prolific Aussie authors.  Bryce Courtenay, well know for his popular and lengthy prose died last week on November 22 at the age of 79.

Arthur Bryce Courtenay was originally from South Africa, born in Johannesburg in 1933, but living in Lebombo until 1955. He met and married Benita whilst studying in London and then emigrated to Australia living in Sydney where he raised three children.

Hi first and possibly most famous novel, The Power of One, was published in 1989, shortly after being made into a film, and cementing Courtenay as a worldwide name. Each follow up book was met with great success, including Jessica, Tandia, Tommo and Hawk and others. His last book, Jack of Diamonds was published this year. Courtenay died from gastric cancer at home in Canberra.

Have you read a Banned Book?

There’s a certain thrill to reading a book that you know has been banned in a particular school, library, or in some cases entire country. This is recognised each year by the American Library Association during Banned Books Week at the end of September, aiming to celebrate the freedom of reading and challenge book censorship.

Books are restricted, banned or complained about for various reasons – bad language, mature content and violence being the main ones.  During Banned Books Week the ALA releases the previous year’s list of the most challenged titles. Here are some that appeared on the 2011 list.

Snakehead by Anthony Horowitz

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Betrayed by P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast

Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Click any title to place a hold and see what all the fuss is about.

On a more local note, earlier this year a literary historian discovered thousands of banned books buried within the National Archives of Australia building in Sydney. There were 793 boxes of them and they’d been banned for various reasons between the 1920s and 1980s! Read the article here.