Mr. Emperor Should Be Serialized
Title: What Was It Like, Mr. Emperor?
Author: Chiu Kwong-chiu & Eileen Ng
Illustrations: Design and Cultural Studies Workshop
Translation: Ben Wang
We received this awhile back in exchange for an honest review and it took us awhile to get through it – not because it isn’t brilliant, but because it is long, especially for a kids’ picture book.
The information is fantastic, the pictures fun. But What Was It Like, Mr. Emperor? should have been serialized.
It wouldn’t be hard to do as there are already mini chapter-like breaks. Kids like my own five year old would respond better to it being shorter titles that they could collect like a series as opposed to reading bits of the same book each night. Ultimately, it’s the same amount of reading for the same amount of time, but kids see it differently for some reason, and they tend to like to collect things anyway.
We loved all the tidbits about Life in China’s Forbidden City, but as a customer, reader, mother, author, bookseller, reviewer, and someone who possesses a BBA in Marketing, I think there could be a lot more money into turning this title into a series of smaller books.
Storied Lives
Title: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Books about books and bookstores… it’s my achilles heel. It’s the thing I cannot live without. It’s absurd how these things find me.
A.J. Fikry soothed my soul when I was too tired to appreciate much in the world of anything involving humans or words or life… yet, the book is all about humans living with words. It’s lovely. After a depressive hiatus that resulted in me binge watching The Flash, A.J. Fiery got me reading again.
The romance of reading is simply one of my all time favorite topics. I suppose because it’s the only romance I truly trust. The books will not abandon you. Books are sturdy. And more than anything, they are one sided and require little from you to continue to exist and offer you their best. A book does not cease giving you all it has to offer just because you are in a bad mood – or emotionally unavailable. A book loves you back no matter what. A book won’t surprise you when it ends, you can feel it coming as it becomes more weighted in your left than your right. You know on the last page that it will not speak to you again unless you start over. And you always have the option to start over.
A.J. Fikry’s island bookstore is just what the emotional doctor ordered, I plan to repeat the experience often.
My Life in Literature Meme
Piggy-backing off of A World of Randomness who apparently piggy-backed off me, which I’m sure I ripped off someone else at some point… It seems we book bloggers love revisiting this bit of fun every year.
Using only books you have read this last year (2015), answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title.
Describe yourself: A Scattered Life (Karen McQuestion)
How do you feel: Screw-jack (Thompson)
Describe where you currently live: Paper Towns (John Green)
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: The Haunted Bookshop (Morley)
Your favorite form of transportation: Bombardier Beetles and Fever Trees (Agosta)
Your best friend is: Wild (Strayed) [Not really, it’s just the only thing that seemed to fit.]
You and your friends are: Looking for Me (Hoffman)
What is the best advice you have to give: How to Build an Android (Duffy)
What’s the weather like: Rain (Kirsty Gunn) / Storm Front (Jim Butcher)
You fear: Everything I Never Told You (Ng)
Thought for the day: It’s About Time (Evers)
How I would like to die: Peace Like a River (Enger)
My soul’s present condition: A Grief Observed (C.S. Lewis)
My Complete 2015 Reading List is as follows (kid /young adult chapter books were read aloud to the kiddo):
1. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice – Laurie R. King
2. Serendipities: Language & Lunacy – Umberto Eco
3. The Haunted Bookshop – Christopher Morley
4. The Death of Woman Wang – Jonathan Spence
5. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis
6. Magic Tree House #20 – Mary Pope Osborn
7. One Hundred & One Dalmatians – Dodie Smith
8. Guide to Wild Foods & Useful Plants – Nyerges
9. A Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin
10. The Excellent Wife – Martha Peace
11. Garden Crafts for Kids – Diane Rhoads
12. The Homeschool Life – Andrea Schwartz
13. The Gardener’s Bed Book – Wright
14. Wild – Cheryl Strayed
15. One Woman Farm – Woginrich
16. The Quarter Acre Farm- Spring Warren
17. Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
18. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch – Philip K. Dick
19. Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Hurry – Elizabeth McCracken
20. Dirty Pretty Things – Michael Faudet
21. How Reading Changed My Life – Anna Quindlen
22. The Penultimate Truth – Philip K. Dick
23. Observations on the River Wye – Gilpin
24. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
25. Bombardier Beetles and Fever Trees – William Agosta
26. How to Build an Android – Duffy
27. The Pythagorean Theorem: The Story of Its Power and Beauty – Alfred S. Posamentier
28. Clans of the Alphane Moon – Philip K. Dick
29. Minority Report – Philip K. Dick
30. A Grief Observed – C.S. Lewis
31. The Man of Numbers – Keith Devlin
32. Pheromones and Animal Behavior: Communication by Smell & Taste – Tristram D. Wyatt
33. Ape and Essence – Aldous Huxley
34. Solar Lottery – Philip K. Dick
35. Deadly Ruse – E. Michael Helms
36. The Almagest – Ptolemy
37. The Clover House – Henriette Lazaridis Power
38. The Thief Lord – Cornelia Funke
39. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
40. Looking for Me – Beth Hoffman
41. The House of Paper – Carlos Maria Dominguez
42. The Colossus and Other Poems – Sylvia Plath
43. High Moon – E.J. Bosley
44. Nerve – Bethany Macmanus
45. A Scattered Life – Karen McQuestion
46. Liber Abaci – Fibonacci
47. Vanity Fare – Megan Caldwell
48. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven – Sherman Alexie
49. The Martian – Andy Weir
50. Critical Lessons – Nel Noddings
51. Echo – Lorena Glass
52. Jewel of the Seven Stars – Bram Stoker
53. The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd
54. Haunting Jasmine – Anjali Banerjee
55. Casey of Cranberry Cove – Susan Koch
56. The Christie Curse – Victoria Abbott
57. City of Dark Magic – Magnus Flyte
58. Screw-jack – Hunter S. Thompson
59. CATastrophic Connections – Joyce Ann Brown
60. Where I Was From – Joan Didion
61. Getting the Girl – Zusak
62. The Secrets of Droon #1 – Tony Abbot (read this aloud to kiddo)
63. Storm Front – Jim Butcher
64. The Pharaoh’s Cat – Maria Luisa Lang
65. Paper Towns – John Green
66. The Quick and the Dead – Louis L’amour
67. Early Bird – Rothman
68. It’s About Time – Liz Evers
69. The Secrets of Droon #3 – Abbott (read this aloud to kiddo)
70. Better With You Here – Gwendolyn Zipped
71. Rain – Kirsty Gunn
72. Sackett – Louis L’amour
73. Transcendental Wild Oats – Louisa May Alcott
74. Fern Verdant and the Silver Rose – Diana Leszczynski (read this aloud to kiddo)
75. Secrets of Droon #7 – Abbott (read aloud to kiddo)
76. 16 Lighthouse Road – Debbie Macomber
77. The Emotionally Destructive Relationship – Vernick
78. Peace Like a River – Leif Enger
79. Keeper – S. Smith
80. The Year of Learning Dangerously – Quinn Cummings
81. Anemogram – Rebecca Gransden
82. The Summer We Read Gatsby – Danielle Ganek
83. Wren – Regina O’Connell
84. The Writing Circle – Corinne Demas
85. The Good Neighbor – A.J. Banner
86. Spelling V – Meb Bryant
87. Ross Poldark – Winston Graham
88. Everything I Never Told You – Celeste Ng
Anakalian Whims 