Karl's Reading List

Published by Verso: London, UK, 2014. It wasn't as easy finding a book featuring pirates as I thought it was going to be. I've read plenty in the past -  Treasure Island is a classic I thought of revisiting, and more recently enjoyed Tress of the Emerald Sea had a good sci-fi twist to the pirate tale - but in the end I decided to read this non-fiction nautical history that I had on the classroom library shelf. It did take a while to get the hang of what was being written about in this book - the endnotes clarified that originally each chapter was published separately, and that makes a lot of sense! - but overall Rediker seems to be focussing on the lesser told stories of nautical history, often focussing less on the prominent figures (the Columbuses and Cooks of history) and more on the crew and slaves who also featured heavily at these times. Two chapters even focus on individual accounts, and these are fascinating, especially when giving a different perspective on the polit...

Published by Gollancz/Hachette UK: London, UK, 2024 (2023). The back cover promises a story that will appeal to fans of The Princess Bride, and that - along with being a stand-alone book that isn't over 500 pages - was enough to sell this as Elise's first exposure to Brandon Sanderson. Tress (whose real name is Glorf, but who prefers to be known as Tress due to her unruly hair) lives on a planet where the 'oceans' are made up of spores dropped from the various moons, each one a different colour and having a different (usually deadly) reaction to water. When her true love gets captured by the evil Sorceress of the Midnight Sea, Tress must sneak off her island home and set sail to rescue him. Along the way she encounters numerous characters to aid or hind her, from the talking rat Huck, to the chronically-poor-aim assistant cannonsmaster Ann, to Fort, a huge mute who can only communicate via a magical writing board. In true Sanderson fashion, each of these characters has ...

As I said in my review of Peter Rabbit's Storytime Collection , I am wanting to find a way to acknowledge the books I read to Ezekiel without adding individual picture books to my reading list - I feel that would dilute it a bit much. So in this post, I've decided to look at a group of picture books all together. I've picked five picture books that I like (with a notable and noteworthy exception), and also asked Elise for five picture books she is  enjoying reading to Ezekiel. It's interesting (and helpful for this list) that our lists haven't overlapped at all this time around. So, here are ten picture books (plus one bonus 'book') that Ezekiel has been exposed to in the first 7ish months of his life: Karl's List Bunnies on the Bus - Philip Ardagh and (illustrator) Ben Mantle. Published by Walker Books Ltd: London, 2020 (2019). This is one of my favourites among our current picture books. A group of bunnies hijack a bus and hurtle through the town on th...

Published as an audiobook by Blackstone Audio Inc., 14-08-2015. Narrated by Lewis Grenville. Originally published 2007. This book, subtitled Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down, is fairly accurately titled! We get a history of piracy in the Caribbean, as well as a look at some of the events and individuals that inspired the Caribbean pirates - learning, as an example, of the pirate stronghold of Madagascar. The 'republic' of the title is the town of Nassau on the island of New Providence, where a pirate society of sorts existed for quite some time. The book is full of fascinating information, and doubles as a biography of the most prominent pirates, including Charles Vane, Henry Avery, and Blackbeard (Edward Thatch). Each pirate's individual personality and goals come across well, with Vane easily the most violent of the main pirates. Some moments surprise, such as when one of the most successful pirates is killed b...

Published in an omnibus audiobook edition 'First Command Box Set: Spacers, Books 1-6' by Audible, 03-08-2022. Contains: ' First Command '; 'Free Space'; 'Wartorn Cluster'; 'Empire Space'; 'The Fall'; 'Thatcher's Gambit'. Narrated by Mark Boyett. First published 2019. I had an Audible credit sitting there and had no idea what to get. In the end, I decided to go for quantity, purchasing this 'box set' of six audiobooks for the price of one. I had fairly low expectations for the series, and as long as you do that I can tell you that this first book at least meets those expectations. Our protagonist, Tad Thatcher, has just been given command of his first spaceship, the New Jersey, and is sent to the far side of the galaxy through a wormhole to fight pirates for a private security firm. After some time there, the wormhole collapses, and now Thatcher is stranded far from home and his pregnant wife. Thatcher is the sort of pr...

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 Recorded Books, 2014. Released on Audible 09-06-2014. Narrated by Simon Prebble. Originally published serially from 1912, as a novel 1914. Followed by "The Return of Tarzan." So... Elise is a fan of Tarzan, specifically the music of the Disney version. She suggested that our next audiobook be the first Tarzan story, and as I have never read any of these stories, it seemed fun. Tarzan of the Apes is nothing like the Disney version. It is very bloodthirsty. It is quite racist at times. It only just shies away from having Tarzan become a cannibal. And Jane doesn't appear for a long time either. The fact that this was a serialized story definitely comes through at times, when a chunk of chapters on one theme will sudden pivot to a chunk of chapters with a new focus.  Clayton! That's an interesting twist. If you consider different adaptations of Tarzan in the past, the character of William Cecil Clayton will sometimes turn up. Usually he is the villain, someti...

Published by Aerie Books Ltd: USA, 1988. Originally published 1883. A true classic, Treasure Island tells the story of Jim Hawkins, a boy living with his parents in a sea-side inn in the 1700s, who becomes caught up in the search for the buried treasure of Captain Flint, a notorious pirate. Along the way he encounters various pirates, a castaway named Ben Gunn, and is befriended by the one-legged cook, Long John Silver.  Treasure Island is an incredibly well-known tale, and the character of Long John Silver is the most well-known part of that story - his name itself is almost a spoiler of sorts, as we come to the story with our preconceived ideas of what sort of individual he will be. Reading the book, the reason for this popularity is discovered. As is the case with King Solomon's Mines , a book that was written in a similar era, Treasure Island takes a while to 'adjust to' when reading, but as the story picks up it becomes more and more gripping. Robert Louis Stevenson ha...

Published by Arcturus Publishing Limited: London, 2018. First published 1911. Have you ever sat down and read this book? I'm sure most of us have seen at least one version of the story, be it the classic Disney animation, one of the less-successful modern versions, a spin off of some kind, or the sequel-of-sorts '90s movie Hook (that anyone of my generation remembers fondly). But the book is weird.  The fact that it was a play comes through quite regularly, with asides to the audience, and humorous narration throughout, but the book is also quite unique in its humour. We get a dinner scene involving the Darling family quite early on, where Mr Darling is shown in a very unflattering and childish light, and ends up drugging the dog Nana "as a joke." Reading this scene out loud with Elise was hilarious, and it ended up being something we shared with others for some time afterwards. There is also a humourously callous attitude to death in the book. Upon intr...