Random Musings of a Bibliophile

Top Ten Tuesday  is a Meme hosted by  The Broke and the Bookish This Week's Topic: Books I've Read So Far in 2015 Audacity  by Melanie Chowder Bone Gap  by Laura Ruby Cuckoo Song  by Frances Hardinge I'll Meet You There   by Heather Demetrios Jinx's Fire  by Sage Blackwood Listen Slowly  by Thanhha Lai Once Upon a Rose  by Laura Florand Party Lines  by Emma Barry The Penderwicks in Spring  by Jeanne Birdsall Uprooted  by Naomi Novik What are some of your favorite reads of the year so far?

I'm still making my way through the full backlist of Diana Wynne Jones. Since I was participating in the 48 Hour Book Challenge last weekend, I decided it was a good time to tackle Deep Secret . I've owned this book for a while but hadn't gotten to it yet. It was an excellent book. Not surprising. Rupert Venables is a young Magid. As a young Magid, it is his job to look after the Empire of Koryfos. It always goes to the youngest Magid because no one else wants it. Upon returning from a trip there that fills him with as much disgust as possible, Rupert is faed with the death of his mentor. Since Magids must be replaced as quickly as possible, Rupert (who is again the default Magid responsible for this) begins his search with names Stan left him. After meeting the person he thought was his most likely candidate, Maree Mallory, and immediately taking a dislike to her, he begins a working to draw all his final candidates to one place and time so he can evaluate them all at on...

Cover Love is a meme hosted by Shae on Thursdays at  Shae Has Left the Room . My Pick This Week: Lo-Melkhiin killed three hundred girls before he came to her village, looking for a wife. When she sees the dust cloud on the horizon, she knows he has arrived. She knows he will want the loveliest girl: her sister. She vows she will not let her be next. And so she is taken in her sister's place, and she believes death will soon follow. Lo-Melkhiin's court is a dangerous palace filled with pretty things: intricate statues with wretched eyes, exquisite threads to weave the most beautiful garments. She sees everything as if for the last time.But the first sun rises and sets, and she is not dead. Night after night, Lo-Melkhiin comes to her and listens to the stories she tells, and day after day she is awoken by the sunrise. Exploring the palace, she begins to unlock years of fear that have tormented and silenced a kingdom. Lo-Melkhiin was not always a cruel ruler. Something went...

I typically don't review books that are considered adult books on the blog. I think this is a first. I've always used the blog as resource for students and parents. But Uprooted  by Naomi Novik has enough crossover YA appeal I'm making an exception. Also I just want to rave about how much I LOVE THIS BOOK. Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful. This is how Agnieszka's story begins. She is one of the girls who will be lined up as a potential companion for the Dragon. She is not angry but not overly worried. Everyone knows what ...

I still technically have an hour, but since we leave for church in 15 minutes, I'm finished. I did not get nearly as much in as I wanted to. Considering the reading slump I just came out of, I'm just happy I was able to read as much as I dd while enjoying it. Hours Reading/Reviewing: 13 hours Social Media Time: 1.5 hours Books Read: 4 ( Uprooted, The Thief reread, Mechanica , Deep Secret ) Pages Total: 2,117 Reviews for Uprooted and Deep Secret  coming later this week. Here are my quick Goodreads thoughts on Mechanica . 

My first 12 hours are up and my stats are seriously lame because life intervened a bit today. I read/reviewed: 6.5 hours Social Networking/Commenting: .5 hours So that's just a total of 7 hours. Pages read 435 Because I read only one book and I'm not even ashamed to say that because I reread several parts of it immediately after finishing. And wrote a gushing review which you can read on Thursday.  Uprooted  is a favorite forever for me now. I LOVED it. I still don't really want to move on which will make continuing this challenge difficult....ugh. Will persevere.

I do love and look forward to this weekend every year. I can't quite as all in as I did in the first couple years when I actually slept as little as possible and read the entire time, but it is still fun to read as much as possible and have a weekend dedicated to it. My hope is to get 24 hours in total. I should be able to come close as this is a pool day for me and the kids and my husband wants to go to the lake tomorrow. Those are good environments for reading. I don't have much of a plan this year either. I have three books I've been waiting to read (two of them for a very long time), and I want to start my annual reread of the Queen's Thief this weekend. I will try to knock out some of the ARCs I have on my Nook too. Hopefully this is just my start-up pile and will get through even more. Want to participate? There's still time! Sign up here . ETA: I scheduled this to post at 9:30 AM, but my official start time is 10:00 AM.