Karl's Reading List

Published by Orbit Books: Great Britain, 2013 (1991). First published 1990. Book 1 in 'The Wheel of Time.' Followed by 'The Great Hunt.' This is the first book in a series of 14, a series that I was first introduced to by one of my cousins years ago. I read through every book that had been written to that point, but the series was unfinished, so I put it down and never revisited it. Since then, the series was finished (despite the main author dying before the end!) and it has also been made into three seasons of an Amazon TV show. Anyway, finding a copy in a bookswap library inspired me to give it another go. Let's start with the 'negatives.' It's quite slow paced. It IS an epic story, that would have required a lot of books regardless of pace, but there are times when it FEELS slow. The main characters spend over 100 pages of plot before leaving their home village, there are 300 pages before we get a different POV character for the first time, and the a...

Published as an audiobook by Dragonsteel, 23-04-2023. Narrated by William DeMeritt. Originally published 2023. This is one of four 'secret project' books that Brandon Sanderson released in 2023, along with Tress of the Emerald Sea , The Frugal Wizard's Guide to Medieval England , and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and is the third I have read. It is also the one of the four that has the strongest connection to Sanderson's 'cosmere' universe, often referencing characters and even events from his Stormlight Archives series, that began with The Way of Kings. If all this sounds like a lot of connective tissue, then brace yourself. The Sunlit Man may take place on a planet that has previously not been visited within the cosmere, but the main character, Nomad, is someone who has in the past been a knight radiant on Roshar (the main setting of the Stormlight Archives ). Not only that, but as the story progresses, it is revealed that he is a specific character from the...

Published by Knight Books/Hodder & Stoughton: London, 1979. First published 1956. Book 4 in the 'Adventure' series. Preceded by ' Underwater Adventure. ' Followed by ' Whale Adventure. ' This fourth book in the 'adventure' series is a bit of an outlier in the series so far, in that it drops the idea of collecting animals altogether! Instead, as the title gives away, our heroes - the brothers Hal and Roger Hunt - join with a volcanologist, Dr Dan, to observe numerous volcanoes around the Pacific. The previous entry, Underwater Adventure, ended by suggesting that this was in order to figure out why a number of unusual eruptions had begun occurring in greater frequency, but the book ignores this. It doesn't really matter, after all! It was only an excuse to give the brothers a reason to begin this adventure; the point of the book is to tour a number of exotic locations and talk about the volcanoes within them, while giving some minor linking throug...

Published by JM Dent & Sons Ltd: London, UK, 1973. First published 1939. A slightly old-fashioned book, seemingly written to intentionally resemble fairy tales or 'older' stories (though, being written in 1939 it may also just be old-fashioned), Robin Hood is a collection of stories about the titular outlaw, collected and retold by the author when she was approached and asked to do so. The book begins with Robin Hood already established as an outlaw, and we never get a definitive answer about his origins or family - although we do eventually meet some relatives. We also stay at a distance from his relationship with Marian; she does come into the story eventually but Robin is reluctant to pursue a relationship with her, and the reasons for this are hidden until very near the end of the book. Mostly, then, this is a series of short adventures that are vaguely linked. Different sections of the book may promise that they are about 'Robin and Sir Richard' or 'Robin a...

Published by Fontana Paperbacks/William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd: Glasgow, 1986. First published by the United States Naval Institute Press, 1984. I've seen the movie version of The Hunt for Red October years ago, and if you haven't, I reckon its a pretty good watch. Seeing Sean Connery play a Russian with his natural Scottish accent is worth the time, even before the story kicks in. However, if you are planning on reading the book and haven't seen the film, I would recommend not watching the film before reading the book. This is because, as much as the cover promises a thrilling action-packed edge-of-your-seat adventure, I didn't find that to be the case in reading Red October. Perhaps its because it is an 'action' book written in the 1980s, and the expectations of audiences have increased. Perhaps it's because I already knew the twists and turns. Perhaps it's because, for a long period of reading this book, I was reading it during silent reading time...

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited: Australia, 2017. First published 1999. Book 1 in 'A Series of Unfortunate Events.' Followed by 'The Reptile Room.' A well-known semi-gothic humorously dark children's book series, A Series of Unfortunate Events has been made into a movie starring Jim Carrey (based on three of the books) and a Netflix series starring Neil Patrick Harris (covering all thirteen). I have seen the movie, but only clips from the series. However, what comes through in both adaptations is the very particular style of the books. Lemony Snicket (the pseudonym of author Daniel Handler) is not just the writer or the book, but a character in his own rights, who comments on the proceedings throughout the book, generally lowering the expectations of any audience member who may wish for 'happy' parts, by assuring us that what begins badly will continue to get worse.  And it does, but in a strangely light, humorous and children'...

Published by Mammoth: London, 2000 (1989). First published in Danish, 1963. Translated by LW Kingsland. This is a book that was recommended by a friend on Facebook after I published one of my end-of-year lists. Seeing it on a library shelf at school gave me the opportunity to finally check it out, and I can see why it was recommended.  The story is a fairly straightforward one, but interesting. David has grown up in a concentration camp, but is helped to escape by one of the guards, for reasons David doesn't understand. He flees the unnamed country where the camp has been, travels by ship to Italy, and then begins making his way north towards Denmark, following the guard's instructions. David is - understandably - very wary of anybody he meets. He is always assuming that 'they' are after him, and anyone who acts suspiciously becomes a 'them' in his eyes. If David considers someone 'evil' he is likely to react strongly and antagonistically towards them. H...

Published by OneTree House Ltd: New Zealand, 2020. This is a book I was given as a free giveaway at a English Teachers conference I was recently a part of. It was an easy enough read, but not one I am likely to use with students. Katie is a New Zealand teen of Greek heritage (on her father's side) who has a few issues in life: she has a distant relationship with both of her parents (though particularly her father), she hears voices and deals with pain by pulling her own hair out, her wheelchair-bound boyfriend, Luke, has a secret he is ashamed to share with her, and her parents are about to drag her out of New Zealand at short notice - missing the ball! - to go back to Greece and visit her dying grandmother. This is all set up in the first few chapters, though the elements that takes up the most early page-space are Katie's mental health journey and the side-swipe of Luke's coming revelation. Then, all of a sudden, all this plot is put down and Katie heads to Greece. Her sh...

Published by Hyperion Books for Children: New York, NY, 2007. First published 2003. This is a book I had as part of my classroom shelf until a student broke the spine. I sat it on my desk meaning to repair it, but started reading it anyway during silent reading times with my junior classes to help role-model. It's actually pretty good. A simple story, definitely based at older kids/younger teens, but entertaining, imaginative and occasionally going to darker places than I would have expected; there are a lot more deaths than in most children's books! The story begins by following an unnamed orphan girl who is the slave of Master Lan. Master Lan is a revolting and nasty man, who is also in charge of looking after the emperor's dragons (this is set in a fictionalised ancient China). As Master Lan is also quite lazy, this responsibility falls mostly to the slave girl. Near the start of the book one of the two remaining dragons die, and Master Lan tries to find a way to cover i...

Published by Huia Publishers: Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, 2018. This is a new book in the English department, another by an up-and-coming new Maori author, and whoo boy it ramps up quickly! At the end of the first chapter a bus full of highschool students crashes in the New Zealand bush. Most die. A few chapters later one student needs his leg operated on by another student. A few chapters later another student turns murderous. Somewhere in the midst of all this the survivors begin getting nose-bleeds and seeing visions. Eventually a spaceship and a sinister corporation are introduced. It's so much and it all just keeps escalating! The book is a page-turner, helped by the amount of plot and the very short chapters (the shortest chapter is made up of a single line of text), and I can imagine students really enjoying it for its realistic New Zealand teens (well, before they turn murderous), its fast pace, and even its occasional romantic subplots (which do at times get a bit mo...

Published   by Bethany House Publishers: Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1991. Book 1 in 'An Emerald Ballad.' Followed by ' Heart of the Lonely Exile. ' This is the first in the series of Christian novels that I remember reading when I was younger. After finishing the Mark of the Lion series, Elise and I were looking for a new series in a similar vein, and decided to give this one a try. All I could remember about the book was that it was very sad, and was set during the Irish Potato Famine.  So... This book is set during the Irish Potato Famine, and it is very sad! We follow the quickly dwindling Kavanagh family as they seek to survive the horror of those times, mostly focussing on the middle child Daniel and his frail yet stubborn mother Nora. The main support they have comes in the form of Morgan Fitzgerald, a revolutionary man who has loved Nora since they were both children, and whom Daniel idolizes. Also gradually gaining prominence as the plot progresses is the character...

Published by Hazard Press Limited: Christchurch, New Zealand, 1993. First published 1965. I think I first heard about this book in an article written by Margaret Mahy, or possibly Joy Cowley - two of the great New Zealand children's writers - in which the writer praised this book as being an early inspiration for them. Having now read it, I can see how reading this could help a young writer to realise that New Zealand stories could be told and told well. The Runaway Settlers tells the true (but fictionalised) story of Mary Small, who, along with her six children, escape from life with her abusive husband in Australia, and resettle near Lyttleton in Canterbury, New Zealand. Mary shows a lot of forethought when it emerges that she has been planning their escape for some time, sending small amounts of money to a friend in Sydney and putting it aside to enable the family to fund their escape. She also shows a lot of determination when facing various disappointments, even standing up to...

Published by Orbit Books: London, England, 2017. A strange science-fiction book, in that it is a simple storyline, but with a strange amount of complex world-building for a 'stand alone' novel. Apparently this is because Provenance is set in the same universe as author Ann Leckie's previous trilogy, but as a reader fresh to Leckie's world, I found it a little confusing. Not only are there numerous political factions and treaties being signed between groups that the reader never actually encounters in the book, but Leckie also includes a third gender into her world without explaining fully how the whole thing works. This is particularly disorienting when the third gender is referred to as 'e' (as opposed to 'he' or 'she') or 'eir' (as opposed to 'their') with no warning - I honestly thought the book was just poorly edited for quite some time.  As for the storyline itself, we follow Ingray Aughskold, the adopted daughter of Netano A...

Published in an omnibus edition as "The Scarlet Pimpernel Omnibus" containing: " The Scarlet Pimpernel "; " I Will Repay "; "Eldorado"; "Sir Percy Hits Back". Omnibus published 1957 (1930). "I Will Repay" first published 1906. The second novel in the Scarlet Pimpernel series, I Will Repay repositions the Scarlet Pimpernel as a supporting character, instead focussing on Paul Déroulède (a French lawyer) and Juliette Marny, whose brother was slain by Déroulède years earlier (in a fair duel) and has been sworn to revenge against the killer by her dying father. In order to aid her chances as revenge, Juliette manages to ingratiate herself into Déroulède's household, and while there finds herself beginning to fall for her host. Try as she might, however, Juliette cannot bring herself to simply ignore the oath she has taken... This, like its predecessor, is a fairly melodramatic work, with this one even more so. Both Juliette and...

Published as an audiobook by Audible Studios and released 30-11-2012. Originally published by Macmillan Publishers, 2012. Narrated by Lauren Fortgang. I recently got an offer of 2 months of Audible for 99c a month, so will have access to a few more audiobooks for a little while (though I'm still pacing myself with them better than in the past). Shadow and Bone was actually free to listen to for the month of June, so it seemed like a good excuse to check out a series I've only vaguely heard of until now. This is a Young Adult novel through and through. It is the most Young Adulty of any fantasy book I've ever read. The main character, Alina Starkov, is a typical Young Adult female protagonist: spunky, learning slowly about her special talents (in this case, 'sun-summoning') that will lead her to eventually be recognised as the book's 'chosen one', no real family connections (she is, in fact, an orphan), and, of course, becoming attracted to two different ...

Published by Fabbri Publishing Ltd: Barcelona, Spain: 1991. First published 1886. This is one of Stevenson's more well-known stories, yet unlike Treasure Island is not one I had much of an idea of the plot of. I was also unaware, until after completing this novel, that Stevenson was Scottish, but it does make sense considering just how Scottish both the setting and characters in Kidnapped are. The story follows young David Balfour, whose parents have died, as he delivers a sealed letter from his father to his up-to-now unknown uncle at a rundown manor called 'The Shaws.' Very quickly David learns that his uncle intends ill towards his nephew, and this escalates into David being (surprise) kidnapped and put on board a ship bound for the Carolinas, where he will be sold as a "white slave". He never arrives in America, however, as, when the ship strikes and sinks a boat, David befriends the sole survivor, Alan Breck, and together the two manage to get the ship diver...

Published by Thomas Nelson/HarperCollins Publishers: Nashville, Tennessee, 2017. Looking for a letter 'P' for the Alphabet Soup Challenge , I picked this book up in the library having no idea what it was about at all or who the author was. Learning from the cover that it had something to do with a terrorist attack that happened in France as well as some letters written by a Huguenot during the Reformation, I decided to give it a go. As I was walking to the counter I browsed the front and started seeing quotes that implied this might be a Christian book. It's quite unique. The main character Jessica and one of her two flatmates in Paris, Vonda, decide to attend a concert and are caught up in the mass shootings that took place in the Bataclan theatre in November 2015 . A third flatmate, Patrick, visits Jessica in the hospital when she is recovering from her wounds and tries to convince her to continue on with a planned trip to various antique stores around France rather than ...

Published by Coronet Books/Hodder and Stoughton/Hemisphere Publishers Ltd: Great Britain, 1983 (1982). What a book to end the year with! Schindler's Ark is the book that inspired the movie Schindler's List (and is known by the latter name in some countries). It is also a Booker book, which meant I really had no idea what I was in for. The book (and the movie) tells the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German factory owner living in the Polish city of Crakow during World War 2, relating how he saved the lives of about 1200 Jews by labelling them as 'essential workers'. Stating it that way makes it sound as though Schindler did very little 'heroic', yet throughout the book he continually takes big risks to achieve his goal, both in terms of his own safety, and also in financial terms. The book, being about Jews in WW2, is obviously not a 'light' book, yet Keneally tells it in a way that really 'works'. His style here is an interesting one; he tells...

Audiobook published by Audible, 2014 (20-08-2007). Narrated by Michael Hordern. Originally published 1908. Like Peter Pan before it, this is a classic book that I've heard of on many occasions, but have discovered in the reading that it is far stranger than I realised, yet still charming. The book tells the adventures of Mole, Rat, Toad and Badger, four animals living in rough proximity to 'the River'. These animals - for reasons never explained other than 'its a children's story' - act very much like humans: they wear clothing, eat human food, live in houses (even if those houses are mostly in burrow entrances), and even occasionally have pets of their own! Yet it is not a world fully populated by anthropomorphic animals - humans also inhabit the world and generally interact with the animal protagonists as equals.  Mole is our first primary protagonist, arriving at the River from his own former home after becoming bored with his life. Through his eyes - and hi...

Published by Pickering and Inglis Ltd.: London, 1975 (1969). This book tells the true story of the author's life as a young Jewish woman living in Holland during World War 2, and can be roughly divided into three parts. The first part tells of the numerous close calls Johanna had with being sent to the prison camps. As the story progresses her whole family gets taken away, yet Johanna repeatedly is saved through various unexpected events such as looking after a sick child, or being rejected by a carriage full of elderly people who worry about her health. The fact that so many of these events take place when so many other people are being taken away to their death is fascinating, and ties nicely into the second 'part' of the book.  In the second part, Johanna, now concealed by the Underground resistance in the house of a Christian minister, begins to read a Children's Bible - mostly out of boredom - and discovers to her amazement that Jesus is Jewish! As she learns this,...