/home/karlrees/public_html/gallery2/bla Wayne and Rebecca Madsen - Book Reviews http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal/taxonomy/term/36/0 We read. This is where we post many of our impressions of the fiction we've been reading. We tend to prefer youth fiction and books with well written stories. en Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal/2008/01/lirael-daughter-clayr Reviews Book Reviews Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:31:57 +0000 wayne 493 at http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal Sabriel http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal/2008/01/sabriel Reviews Book Reviews Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:16:06 +0000 wayne 492 at http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal Our Dr. Seuss list http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal/2007/12/our-dr-seuss-list <p> We have a large collection of Dr. Seuss, and it's my goal to own all of his books someday (or, in some cases, two since I want our kids to read them too <img src="http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal/sites/all/modules/tinymce/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-wink.gif" alt="Wink" title="Wink" border="0" />). While Wayne argues that books not written by Dr. Seuss, but with the beginner books label, are worthless -- I think there are a few good ones out there. But for those of you interested: here is our current collection list.<br /> </p> <p> &nbsp; </p> <ul> <li>A Hatful of Seuss: <ul> <li>Bartholomew and the Oobleck</li> <li>Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book</li> <li>Horton Hears a Who!</li> <li>If I Ran the Zoo</li> <li>Sneetches and Other Stories</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <ul> <li>And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street</li> <li>The Butter Battle Book </li> <li>The Cat in the Hat</li> <li>The Cat in the Hat Comes Back</li> <li>The Cat's Quizzer</li> <li>Daisy-Head Mayzie</li> <li>Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?</li> <li>Dr. Seuss's ABC</li> <li>Fox in Socks</li> <li>The Foot Book (board book)</li> <li>Great Day For Up</li> <li>Green Eggs and Ham</li> <li>Hop on Pop</li> <li>Horton Hatches the Egg</li> <li>How the Grinch Stole Christmas</li> <li>I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!</li> <li>I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew</li> <li>I Wish that I Had Duck Feet</li> <li>I'm NOT Going to Get Up Today!</li> <li>Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!</li> <li>McElligot's Pool</li> <li>Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?</li> <li>Oh, the Places You'll Go!</li> <li>Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!</li> <li>Oh Say Can You Say?</li> <li>One fish two fish red fish blue fish</li> <li>Please Try to Remember the First of Octember!</li> <li>The Tooth Book</li> <li>Wacky Wednesday</li> <li>Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories</li> <li>Your Favorite Seuss: <ul> <li>And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street</li> <li>Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book</li> <li>Green Eggs and Ham</li> <li>Happy Birthday to You!</li> <li>Horton Hears a Who!</li> <li>How the Grinch Stole Christmas!</li> <li>If I Ran the Zoo</li> <li>The Lorax</li> <li>McElligot's Pool</li> <li>Oh, the Places You'll Go!</li> <li>The Cat in the Hat</li> <li>The Sneetches</li> <li>Yertle the Turtle</li> </ul> </li> </ul> About Book Reviews Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:04:34 +0000 rebecca 474 at http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal Perloo the Bold http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal/perloo-bold Reviews Book Reviews Tue, 14 Aug 2007 05:14:42 +0000 wayne 409 at http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal Good Omens http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal/node/398 Reviews Book Reviews Tue, 07 Aug 2007 19:07:14 +0000 wayne 398 at http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal The Titan's Curse http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal/node/397 Reviews Book Reviews Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:51:42 +0000 wayne 397 at http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal Wyrd Sisters http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal/node/396 Reviews Book Reviews Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:00:24 +0000 wayne 396 at http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal Feet of Clay http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal/2007/07/feet_of_clay <p> While one of the more suspenseful Terry Pratchett novels I&#39;ve read, this book doesn&#39;t take the cut as being one of his best told stories, along the lines of <i>Men at Arms</i> or <i>Sourcery</i>. I did appreciate the humor of affirmative action in a City patrol made of warring factions of races. I could laugh at the continuing puns that ran rampantly through this book. I even felt for the heartfelt and touching moments at the end of the book with Dorfl. </p> <p> While not Pratchett&#39;s greatest work, definitely one to add to the collection of Pratchett books filling our bookshelves. </p> Reviews Book Reviews Mon, 30 Jul 2007 06:11:38 +0000 wayne 387 at http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal Jingo http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal/2007/07/jingo <p> Jingo, by Terry Pratchett, is another in the City Watch series with all your favorite characters. </p> <p> This book, however, was boring. I prefer the Patrician to be a sideline character, and not a principle adventurist. It wasn&#39;t as believable to have his character trekking across the known world to save the day when he should be smart enough to get other people to do it for him. </p> <p> While the parallels between Sam Vimes character and the opposing force&#39;s captain were interesting, it made for a poor substitute for an interesting plot. And by this time, I&#39;ve gotten really tired of everyone commenting on how Carrot is such an obvious leader. It gets silly, and not the kind of silly that made Rincewind a hilarious character to read about. </p> Reviews Book Reviews Mon, 30 Jul 2007 06:07:21 +0000 wayne 386 at http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal Men at Arms & The Fifth Elephant http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal/2007/06/men_at_arms_the <p> Two books from the Discworld&#39;s City Watch series. While <i>Guards Guards</i> wasn&#39;t my favorite book, I rank <i>Men at Arms</i> as being at the top of the Pratchett books I&#39;ve read so far. I&#39;m not sure if it could be considered better than <i>Color</i>, mostly because that would be comparing apples to oranges, or police to wizards. Or whatever. <i>Fifth Elephant</i> was also good, but good in a who-dun-it sort of way. <i>Men at Arms</i> was a brilliant novel. </p> <p> Well, the Night Watch team is back. In both books. And like good coppers, they&#39;re solving mysteries. In Ankh-Morpork. Where it&#39;s better for you to run to another street if &quot;all <i>isn&#39;t</i> well.&quot; But that&#39;s the joy of watching Sam Vimes and Carrot Ironfoundersson struggle with being good guys trying to do the right thing in a town which by all means is run by thieves, crooks and killers. Of course, they happen to have licenses to do said crookery, but nonetheless. Satire at its finest and wonderful characters that I have fallen in love with. However, I&#39;m a bit bothered by the difference in Detritus&#39; character from one book to the next. I imagine Pratchett has a very difficult time juggling his plethora of unique individuals from one book to the next. </p> <p> I have also begun to understand how to better approach the Discworld universe. Some kind wikipedia editor has put up a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_reading_order">list of proper reading order</a> for the different Discworld series books. </p> <p> I want to make it clear that Angua doesn&#39;t look like <a href="http://www.nocturnalsoldier.org/Tealin/xhp/disc/angua.jpg">this </a>and Carrot looks like an Olympic swimming medalist, not like <a href="http://www.nocturnalsoldier.org/Tealin/xhp/disc/carrot.jpg">this fan image of him</a>. People like those depicted in this fan&#39;s renditions would get eaten alive, possibly with a side of sardines in the Ankh-Morpork I envision. However, Sam Vines does look like <a href="http://imdb.com/name/nm0000592/">Pete Postlethwaite</a>. </p> <p> Go read <i>Men at Arms</i>. It&#39;s a good book. And that&#39;s all I have to say about that. </p> Reviews Book Reviews Mon, 11 Jun 2007 01:21:37 +0000 wayne 369 at http://www.waynemadsen.com/drupal