Karl's Reading List

Published by One Tree House Ltd: New Zealand, 2021. A very easy book to read, The Tomo follows Phil Davidson, a New Zealand teenager who is sent to work on a sheep farm over the Christmas holidays when his father - sick with cancer - is undergoing special treatment. Phil doesn't want to go, and so the family allow him to take Blue, his dad's beloved dog, with him as a treat. When Phil arrives at the farm, he firstly meets Chopper, the grumpy farm manager who sets him to work on the most menial jobs, and then later meets Emara, a girl his own age who becomes his potential love interest. Emara is also quite environmentally savvy, and has discussions with both Phil and Chopper about ways to run the farm in a more environmentally-friendly fashion. A Maori farm worker, Toko, brings the Maori perspective to the story as well, making this a book which has clear study-able themes (should a teacher choose to do it with a class of English students).  Drama arises when Blue falls down a t...

Published by Hodder & Stoughton/Hachette: London, Great Britain, 2014. Book 1 of the 'Red Rising' series. Followed by 'Golden Son.' I have heard of this book series for a while, and had been curious to check it out. The cover suggests that it is a Young-Adult series in the vein of The Hunger Games or Ender's Game , while being set on Mars. There seems to be a school of some sort which the hero is going to fight their way through in order to be accepted into a future role - so, The Will of the Many ? Or even Harry Potter ? So far, so Young-Adult cliche. And, yes... to some degree it is. But, what was very unexpected (by me, at least) is how violent this book is! Our main character, Darrow, faces the execution of his wife in the first few chapters, before being executed himself (I didn't see that coming!). Then, after being saved at the last minute, he is enlisted by an underground network of saboteurs to be 'reborn' or 'upgraded' and sneak in...

Published in an omnibus edition: "The Pale Horse"; " The Big Four " and "The Secret Adversary" as part of the "Agatha Christie Crime Collection", first published by the Hamlyn Publishing Group: London, 1970. This edition published by Lansdowne Press: Dee Why West, Australia, 2009. First published individually in book form, 1927. I usually like Poirot novels; there are a lot of twists and turns, with unexpected moments that - in hindsight - are clever solutions that fit the evidence better than the 'obvious' ones. Poirot is always the smartest person in the room, and the cases are ones that only he could solve. The Big Four is a little different, and - to me - a little underwhelming. This is mostly because of its structure: The Big Four originated as a series of short stories, each individually published, that eventually got collected into a book, with a little bit of connective tissue added in. Unfortunately, the short story aspect shows ...

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc: London, 2007. Sometimes for Silent Reading in class, I don't have a book in mind, so pick up something random, just to be able to role-model. Sometimes those books 'grip me' enough that I carry on reading them until they make it on this list. This is one of those books. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac starts, appropriately, with the protagonist Naomi Porter awakening to realise that she has four years worth of amnesia, following a bad fall down some icy steps. She is now 16, and 'feels' 16, but can't recall anything since she was 12... including the fact that her parents are divorced, or the fact that she has learned to drive, or that she has a boyfriend. There is no guarantee that she will ever get her memory back, and so she must begin picking up the pieces and figuring out who she has become, as well as if she still wants to be the person she has become. Naomi is quite easy to relate to, even when she makes decisions that...

Published by Wordsworth Editions Limited: Hertfordshire, 1996 (1994). First published 1858. Book 3 in 'The Chronicles of Barsetshire.' Preceded by ' Barchester Tower. ' Followed by 'Framley Parsonage.' The third Barsetshire book I've read, and the third in the series - meaning I've finally started going in correct chronological order! Doctor Thorne moves the focus of the series from the town of Barchester to nearby Greshambury, home of the Gresham family. Well-off and slightly snooty, the Greshams do however make room in their household for Mary Thorne, the niece of the titular Dr Thorne, and allow her to grow up with their children. Frank Gresham - the son and heir of the family - develops a crush on Mary, and gushes out an over-the-top proposal to her in a beautifully dramatic scene; Trollope is at his most comical in moments like this. However, Mary is from an unknown background, and (more shockingly) is poor(!) and Frank must marry rich in order to s...

Published by Faber and Faber Limited: London, 1993 (1989). After reading Klara and the Sun and really enjoying it, I finally to try this book, due to it being the same author. I had heard conflicting things about what the plot of this book entailed, and with it being a Booker book , had braced myself to face the worst, but to my (pleasant) surprise, The Remains of the Day is  one of the few Booker books I've read to not leave me with an unpleasant taste in my mouth. As with Klara and the Sun, this book is narrated by a character who doesn't always let us in on their thoughts - Klara was an android who thought in artificial ways, whereas our narrator here is a butler, Mr Stevens, who refuses to express his deepest thoughts and feelings even in his narration. Mr Stevens is obsessed with the idea of 'dignity' and 'professionalism,' and aspires to be a 'great butler' by keeping his emotional life separate from his work. His loyalty is to his master, above a...

Published by Zondervan Kids: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2016 (2005). Ezekiel has reached an age where he is asking for slightly longer stories, or stories from bigger books, and The Beginner's Bible - originally a gift from his Nana and Poppa - is one he has asked for often enough that we have now officially read the whole way through it. Rather than a 'full' bible, this is stories from the bible arranged in order of appearance, told in a simplified version and with colourful and cartoony pictures accompanying each. The text never embellishes the story beyond what the original contains, but the pictures have a little more license to add in humour - with Noah spotted pushing an elephant aboard the ark in one image. Generally, the stories that are selected are kid-friendly, with elements of death and killing minimised as much as possible. The exception, of course, is with Jesus, who does die on the cross - it would be foolish to try and either ignore or minimise that death! Simp...