As if six books in my previous haul (which I’m still working my way through, albeit at a much speedier clip than usual) wasn’t enough, I passed by one of my favourite libraries this week, couldn’t miss the chance, and ended up walking out with six more books.
A Hat Full of Sky: Tiffany Aching is ready to begin her apprenticeship in magic. She expects spells and magic—not chores and ill-tempered nanny goats! Surely there must be more to witchcraft than this! Indeed, there is. . . .
Wintersmith: When the Spirit of Winter takes a fancy to Tiffany Aching, he wants her to stay in his gleaming, frozen world. Forever. It will take the young witch’s skill and cunning, as well as help from the legendary Granny Weatherwax and the irrepressible Wee Free Men, to survive until Spring.
I Shall Wear Midnight: As the witch of the Chalk, Tiffany Aching performs the distinctly unglamorous work of caring for the needy. But someone—or something—is inciting fear, generating dark thoughts and angry murmurs against witches. Tiffany must find the source of unrest and defeat the evil at its root, for if she falls, the whole Chalk falls with her. . . .
It seems that life (or librarians) is helping me out with my bookish resolutions because other than giving me a huge stack of Pierce’s books in great condition at one library (although I borrowed them right before I actually made the resolution to complete her works), this time round I found a huge stack of Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series, in mint condition too.
I didn’t manage to find the first, Wee Free Men, in the series though, so I’ll have to hunt down a copy of that first before starting on these.
Update on 16/1/16: I’ve found the Wee Free Men in another library, in equally pristine condition as the rest! Will be starting on that soon!
The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord…1743.
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
I also found an almost new copy of Outlander, another check on my bookish resolutions list. I haven’t been able to find a copy of it in libraries (or even in bookshops) so this was a nice surprise.
What if you aren’t the Chosen One?
The one who’s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death?
What if you’re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again.
Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life.
Even if your best friend is worshipped by mountain lions.
Award-winning writer Patrick Ness’s bold and irreverent novel powerfully reminds us that there are many different types of remarkable.
Also a surprise was this title, which I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen arrive in the bookstores in the past few weeks. I wasn’t a fan of the few Ness works that I read but he’s acclaimed enough and the premise of this story interesting enough that I don’t mind giving him a try again.
Sixteen-year-old Austin Szerba interweaves the story of his Polish legacy with the story of how he and his best friend , Robby, brought about the end of humanity and the rise of an army of unstoppable, six-foot tall praying mantises in small-town Iowa.
To make matters worse, Austin’s hormones are totally oblivious; they don’t care that the world is in utter chaos: Austin is in love with his girlfriend, Shann, but remains confused about his sexual orientation. He’s stewing in a self-professed constant state of maximum horniness, directed at both Robby and Shann. Ultimately, it’s up to Austin to save the world and propagate the species in this sci-fright journey of survival, sex, and the complex realities of the human condition.
I’ve quite liked the two Ryan Dean novels I’ve read from Smith and so, coming across this one for the first time at a library, all pristine and sparkly, I knew I had to add it to my shoulder-hating stack.
Goodness knows how I’m going to get all this reading done before the due dates.
Dear reader, have you gotten any excellent titles from the library lately?
The Great Gabsby 
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