The National Year of Reading

2008 is The National Year of Reading, a celebration of words and reading in every form: from novels to song lyrics, from poetry to film scripts.

From April to December events and activities linked to The National Year of Reading will have a monthly theme:

• April: Read all about it!
• May: Mind and body
• June: Reading escapes
• July: Rhythm and rhyme
• August: Read the game
• September: You are what you read
• October: Word of Mouth
• November: Screen reads
• December: Write the future

Look out for National Year of Reading events in a library near you!

Emma: The Twice-Crowned Queen by Isabella Strachan

This is a profoundly frustrating book! The author's to be commended for having done a great amount of research to pull together an array of fascinating characters, violent times and courtly intrigues. Sadly, though, although all the characters and events of epic drama are present and correct the drama itself doesn't come to the party. The author just doesn't have any sense of narrative flow.

Take, for example, the incident of the St. Brice's Day massacre. It's heavily touted within the book as the single most catastrophic incident in the reign of Ethelred the Unready (and, arguably, Saxon England history) but when the moment comes in the narrative you would hardly notice it. A couple of pages afterwards it suddenly dawned on me that the author's references to the event had changed from "would be" to "was."

There are other instances, and plenty more where the narrative flow begins to build and then is lurched out of the way to make room for a short, distracting side issue. It reads and feels very much like reading a chronicler's efforts: "here's the latest installment of the story and while I remember here's a couple more facts."

Sadly, this is a book written by an encyclopedist, not a historian.

-- Steven

Friends Forever by Lynn Andrews

More comments and reviews by the Home Library Reading Circle

"A good read"
— D.

"A very enjoyable book. YOu have to keep turning the pages, and it makes you realise how lucky we are to have good friends.!
— N.R.

"A very good read. I loved every page."
— L. McE.

"A light-hearted story line. Well written, which makes 'Forever Friends' a very easy read."
— D.Y.

"One of those books which is an enjoyable, light-hearted read. I will be looking forward to more books by Lynn Andrews."
— L.N.

We have copies of "Friends Forever" at most of our libraries. It's also available in large print and as a Talking Book.

Spread The Word!

Spread The Word — the organisation set up by The Bookseller's Association to encourage a love of reading — has set up a web site called Books To Talk About, which does what it says on the tin. Amongst the features on the site are competions and a discussion forum.

You'll also find links to the web site for this year's World Book Day on March 6th. This site will be listing events and activities for World Book Day but you don't have to wait until then to have a look at the games and links.

We've added links to titles from the Books To Talk About list on our Web Catalogue. Borrowers registered with Rochdale Library Service can reserve any of these titles by clicking on the "Request item" button and it won't cost you a penny. All you need is the barcode from your library card and your PIN number (if you don't have a PIN, or can't remember it, you can ask a member of staff to set one up for you next time you're in the library).

Landscape Photographer of the Year Collection

What a beautiful book! There are a lot of really gorgeous photography books around at the moment and this is a splendid example.

The pictures are lovely. Some of them are really surprising: they are straightforward shots of landscapes or features within landscapes but the angle of the camera or the light or the way the colours interact make them impossible to identify at first sight. All those "ordinary" things I'd just walk past and ignore if I were there, suddenly made wonderful. Others are just wonderful landscapes taken well. The colours are marvellous and some of the skies!

— Susan

We have one copy of this book, at the Wheatsheaf Library.

Literary awards

This is a bit of mischief on my part but I couldn't resist it: I've added the shortlist for the Literary Review's Bad Sex In Fiction award to the Reading Links pages of our Web Catalogue.

I'm not sure how much should be read into the fact that we've got all the titles on the shortlist and the previous five winners. Probably best not to think about it!

Web Catalogue: Winning Reads

Beowulf

With all the recent publicity and hooplah for the premiere of the film version of "Beowulf" it's worth our pointing out that we have a few different editions of the poem in our libraries, along with some scholarly commentaries on the poem.

As well as classic editions we have:

• Copies of Seamus Heaney's much-acclaimed retelling both in book and audio format;


• Michael Morpugo's version for children, with dramatic illustrations by Michael Foreman; and


• Caitlin Kiernan's novelisation of the film.

Early Chesterton Crime

"The Club of Queer Trades" is a classic treat: G.K. Chesterton's first foray into detective stories, before his 'Father Brown' stories. Private detective Rupert Grant and his unbalanced brother investigate a series of cases all of which seem to be linked to the club of the title.

There are elements of stylistic satire and outlandish characterisation to the stories which prefigure, and often surpass, later parodies of the detective genre, and which provide a bit of icing on the cake. A lot of fun!

-- Steven

We have two copies of "The Club of Queer Trades" in our libraries.

The Enemy by Lee Child

More comments and reviews from the Home Library Reading Circle

"THis could have been any Jack Reacher novel. They are all superb. Lee Child brings the 'all action hero' to life with his human flaws and his knack fro seeing off the bad guys. I love the way trouble seems to follow him."

— Sharon

"It is good but long-winded. Most of all, though, I guessed most of it at least a quarter of the way through. Although it did have a couple of twists to keep me reading."

— M. Jelbert

"He can be a little too descriptive at times, but the excellence of his story is so good it does not spoil the real enjoyment he gives his readers."

— E. Kenny

"A very well written story. Very enjoyable to read except for the military jargon which I found difficult to follow and understand. Jack Reacher is a great character, though."

— I. James

The Home Library Reading Circle were reading the large print edition of this book. We also have copies available in Crime Collections around the Borough and also as an audio book.

Shrek Cookbook

Isn't this great? Lots of nice, easy-to-follow recipes — without hundreds and hundreds of different ingredients for each one — nicely laid out with Shrek and Princess Fiona and the others. There's some wonderful stuff in here.

I like the way the book opens flat so that you're not having to keep on finding your place while you're following the recipes.

And there are some good ideas for uses for ear wax!

— Sue

We've copies of Shrek Cookbook in the Children's Non-Fiction collections in all our libraries.

Readers Recommend

I've just updated the "Readers Recommend" page of our Web Catalogue to include a few titles that were nominated in some informal feedback sessions a couple of months ago, plus a couple of recent entries in this blog.

There are a few lists on this page:

• The "Readers Recommend" list is pretty much what it says on the tin.
• "Readers' Group Choice" are titles nominated by reading groups in our libraries. We're about due another canvass to update these. The Home Library Readers' Circle is a group of customers of our Doorstep Library Service which delivers books to housebound people; Sharon encourages them to share opinions and suggestions (you'll see a few of them in this blog).
• "A change of format" is just a selection of alternative format versions of "Readers Recommend" titles. Some are in large print, some are in audio versions of one sort or another. the original aim of this was to make sure that we had something listed for people who can't use — or don't want — the "normal book" version of a title. I'm havering a bit on this and wonder if it might not be better to just incorporate them in the main list, same as I have with the Richard & Judy Summer Reads. I'm open to feedback on this.
• "Readers' Polls" is made up of the results of various national polls I've bumped into at one time or another. I thought it might be interesting to see how similar or different these may be to local results.

I hope this is useful. If you have any ideas/comments I'd be pleased to hear them!

— Steven

Authors of the Month

We've just updated the "Authors of the Month" feature on our Web Catalogue. This is a list of the authors featured in some of our libraries, click on any entry in the list and you'll see which of their books with got in our libraries. If you then click on any particular title you'll see which libraries have copies and whether or not any are available.

If you're a member of our libraries and have your barcode and PIN to hand you can reserve a copy to be picked up at your nearest convenient library. This is a free service to our customers. If you don't have a PIN, next time you call into the library please ask for one to be set up for you.

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Not all of our libraries run "Author of the Month" features. Some prefer to run features celebrating particular genres or subject areas. Others prefer to run features that cut across genres and collections, including both fiction and non-fiction. These last can be particularly difficult to turn into searches that can be build into the Catalogue, the Love Stories list in "Themed Reads" being one of the few examples we've done so far. (As its name suggests, it's also the easiest!) Every so often we'll include one of these wider-ranging features in this blog.

Comic strips from the sixties

Great to see that you've got the reprints of the old comic strips from the sixties. The Steel Claw and the Spider are a real nostalgia rush.

Have you seen that they've collected together the recent "Albion" comic series that gives an update to those stories? There's also "Albion Origins" which includes reprints of Kelly's Eye and The House of Dollmann. And an eye-wateringly beautiful Brian Bolland cover. Check it out!

Micki

Thanks Micki. Yes that's definitely a very beautiful Brian Bolland cover! I'll pass on your suggestion. For those of you wondering what we're talking about I've added the links to our Web Catalogue to your post.
Cheers,
Steven

The Truth About Teachers

"The Truth About Teachers" is an really very funny collection of rhymes and poems about teachers.

It dishes the dirt on their secret lives: that competetive streak on the football field; translations of common "teacher's phrases" used in the classroom; and the truth about tea and cakes in the staff room. Great stuff!

James

"The Truth About Teachers" is written by Paul Cookson, Davide Harmer, Brian Moses and Roger Stevens and generously illustrated by David Perkins. We've just bought seven copies for children's collections in libraries around the Borough.

Mummy? by Maurice Sendak

This is a wonderful book! The pop-up characters are really clever and the detail's amazing. I really loved all the monsters.

And don't forget to open the flaps at the sides of the page. I did first time and missed some of the best surprises!

Sue

All our copies of Mummy are in the Storytime Collections at Heywood, Middleton and the Wheatsheaf, being used for Under-fives' story times.

The Children's Hour by Marcia Willett:

The story centres around two elderly sisters living in a large house on the Cornwall coast. They have four siblings, three sisters and a brother. One of the sisters, who is going senile, comes to stay. She has secrets she is dying to reveal about the family. The author uses flashbacks, written in the present tense, to gradually reveal these secrets and leads the reader down a few garden paths in the process. The secret is not what you think! There is a strong sub-plot about the younger generation but it's easy to guess what's going on. I would strongly recommend this book.

Brenda Hance

Acid Row by Minette Walters

Acid Row is a I thriller I just couldn't put down. A child and doctor go missing during riots in a local community and the circumstances bring out the best in those you would least expect. I borrowed this from the Wheatsheaf Library.

Janice

Island Race by John McCarthy and Sandy Toksvig

John and Sandy set off sailing round the coast of Britain They stopped at various places on route including Rick Stein's restaurant in Padstow very mouth watering.There are some lovely pictures in the book which makes it more interesting. I borrowed this from Spotland Library.

Margaret Taylor

Don't Drop the Coffin by Barry Albin-Dyer

I borrowed this from Darnhill Library. It's not quite what you think it's going to be. Don't be put off by the title, a really good dry read!

k

The Good Women of China

Xinran was a presenter of a radio program in China in which she invited women to call in and write about themselves. This collection of their stories is deeply moving, an unforgettable insight into the lives of Chinese women. I borrowed this from Wardle Library.

Janice