Review - The Bug Book by Edward Gorey

08:33

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Originally published in 1987
Hardback

A nice, if not slightly racist story of group of Colourful bugs that live in tea cups and bottles. They have parties and get togethers and just generally enjoy being bugs. That is, until one day a huge ass black bug shows up to cause havoc by separating and alienating the little communities.



They try (not very hard) to reason with the black bug, without success. So the bugs think to themselves "fuck this shit lads we need to get rid of bugger". They concoct a cunning plan squash the life out of the poor black bug and leave him for the 5 o clock post.....Sicko's.

Rating:

Other Reviews in the Amphigorey Series:


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Cover Reveal - A gift to remember by Melissa Hill

08:36


Due to be published on October 24th 2013 by Simon & Schuster UK
eBook & Paperback
416 pages

" Darcy Archer works in a small bookstore on Manhattan's Upper West Side. A dreamer who secretly wishes for true love similar to that in her beloved novels, Darcy refuses to settle for anything less than being swept off her feet by the perfect man.
One day, when cycling to work, Darcy accidentally crashes into a sharply dressed man walking his dog. He is knocked unconscious and rushed to the hospital, but his dog gets left behind. Wracked with guilt over the accident, Darcy resolves to care for the dog and reunite him with his owner. But the dog is not the only thing that's been left behind and when she finds a small beautifully wrapped package - suspiciously shaped like a book - she becomes curious. She decides to try and figure out all she can about this man, and make the delivery herself. Darcy gradually becomes drawn into his life; one that she soon discovers is filled with books, travel, adventure and all the wonderful things she's ever dreamt about. It doesn't take long before Darcy builds up a picture of this man's lovely life, and feeling an immediate kinship towards him, tries to make things right.



It might be a challenge but doesn't she owe it to him to try? But does fantasy match reality? And what happens when he finally wakes up?"

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Review - Growing up Humming by Mike Spinak

08:33


Published November 1st 2012 
Paperback & eBook
44 pages


A copy was provided by the author in return for an honest review.


"Fans of David Attenborough will enjoy experiencing the wonders of nature through Mike Spinak's pictures and words."

This is such a wonderful book full of beautiful photographs taken by the author himself. 


The photographs tell the story of the life of a humming bird raising her chicks. The pages are filled with facts about humming birds. For example did you know that they eat up to half they're body weight each day and are the only birds that can hover in place? 

If you have a kid who is into nature/animals/birds then this is a book to add to your bookshelf as this is a book that can be enjoyed by anyone in the family. I also think it's important to teach children about the world around them using real pictures and not just pages filled with illustrations. Real life can be just as interesting as any fairytale.

The only criticism I have is that the overall "look" could be improved by changing the font and placement of text to make it more pleasing to the eye.

Rating:

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Armchair BEA: Introduction

17:24




Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging? 

My name is Amanda and I run Go Book Yourself! At the time of writing I have only been blogging for 3 weeks but I'm already addicted :). I started blogging so I could have my own personal space to rant about books I love/hate and to meet other book lovers.



Where in the world are you blogging from? Tell a random fact or something special about your current location. Feel free to share pictures. 

I'm blogging from Ireland. It's Europe's 3rd largest Island, it's green and it rains...alot!








What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2013? 

My favorite book so far this year has been "The End of Alice" by A.M Homes. This book stays with you long after you finish reading it




If you could eat dinner with any author or character, who would it be and why? 


Dr Hannibal Lecter. In my opinion the most interesting villain  ever created by an author.



What literary location would you most like to visit? Why? 

The Edge from "The edge chronicles"


I fell in love with all the amazing characters when I was younger. I still glance at the beautiful illustrations in the books every now and then. 



Review - 99 reasons everyone hates Facebook by Emmet Purcell

10:01

Published 12th May 2013 by Smith Publishing
eBook
173 pages

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in return for an honest review.

I thought I would hate this book. I thought wrong. It was witty and relateable. This is the book equivalent of a good coffee and bitching session with friends. The truth is we're all guilty of at least one of the points mentioned in this book. What's that you say? You're not?.....Then you're a dirty rotten liar. 

Some gems include:

"You see actual great thinkers of our time associated with vague, meaningless sentences:

“Apologizing does not always mean dat ur wrong and the other person is ryt. It just means dat u value ur relationship more dan ur ego.” – William Shakespeare"

Christ on a bike. The sad thing is that this is mild compared to some of the "quotes" I've seen on Facebook. Probably the most annoying being the "I'm not perfect, I have curves blah blah" shite you see badly pasted on top of some random scenic view. 

"To think, Robin William’s technician character from One Hour Photo had a murderous lust just because he envied the main family of the movie’s picture-perfect lifestyle – imagine how quickly he’d try to kill someone that presented him with entire collage of two Instagrammed teenagers lying in the grass for 200 blimmin’ shots."

I almost pee'd myself laughing at this. Instagram is a whole new level of ugly photo filtered stupid and would warrant it's own blog post so I won't go into that any further. 

The truth is a lot of online behaviour is borderline psychotic in nature when compared with real life. Yet we all log on everyday regardless. It's like car crash TV, you just cant stay away.

Now I want to share a little feature with you that some people on Facebook have not discovered. Sick of friends sharing pictures of ill babies and dying soldiers? Go to their page and click the button that says "friends". You will be presented with a drop down menu. Un click the "Show in news feed" button. No more sad babies/soldiers/puppies from said person without having to "unfriend" them. And the best part? They'll never know you've done it. *Evil laugh*.  

Rating:

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This week in books

15:54

New releases to look forward to this week


Published on the 30th May 2013 by Putnam Adult
Hardcover & eBook
368 pages


"Memorial Day, 1938: New York socialite Lily Dane has just returned with her family to the idyllic oceanfront community of Seaview, Rhode Island, expecting another placid summer season among the familiar traditions and friendships that sustained her after heartbreak. 
That is, until Greenwalds decide to take up residence in Seaview. 

Nick and Budgie Greenwald are an unwelcome specter from Lily’s past: her former best friend and her former fiancĂ©, now recently married—an event that set off a wildfire of gossip among the elite of Seaview, who have summered together for generations. Budgie’s arrival to restore her family’s old house puts her once more in the center of the community’s social scene, and she insinuates herself back into Lily's friendship with an overpowering talent for seduction...and an alluring acquaintance from their college days, Yankees pitcher Graham Pendleton. But the ties that bind Lily to Nick are too strong and intricate to ignore, and the two are drawn back into long-buried dreams, despite their uneasy secrets and many emotional obligations. 

Under the scorching summer sun, the unexpected truth of Budgie and Nick’s marriage bubbles to the surface, and as a cataclysmic hurricane barrels unseen up the Atlantic and into New England, Lily and Nick must confront an emotional cyclone of their own, which will change their worlds forever."





Published on 30th May 2013 by Penguin Press
Hardcover
304 pages

"Sarah Zuckerman and Jennifer Jones are best friends in an upscale part of Washington, D.C., in the politically charged 1980s.  Sarah is the shy, wary product of an unhappy home: her father abandoned the family to return to his native England; her agoraphobic mother is obsessed with fears of nuclear war.  Jenny is an all-American girl who has seemingly perfect parents.  With Cold War rhetoric reaching a fever pitch in 1982, the ten-year-old girls write letters to Soviet premier Yuri Andropov asking for peace.  But only Jenny's letter receives a response, and Sarah is left behind when her friend accepts the Kremlin's invitation to visit the USSR and becomes an international media sensation.  The girls' icy relationship still hasn't thawed when Jenny and her parents die tragically in a plane crash in 1985.

Ten years later, Sarah is about to graduate from college when she receives a mysterious letter from Moscow suggesting that Jenny's death might have been a hoax.  She sets off to the former Soviet Union in search of the truth, but the more she delves into her personal Cold War history, the harder it is to separate facts from propaganda.

You Are One of Them is a taut, moving debut about the ways in which we define ourselves against others and the secrets we keep from those who are closest to us.  In her insightful forensic of a mourned friendship, Holt illuminates the long lasting sting of abandonment and the measures we take to bring back those we have lost."



Published on 28th of May 2013 by Plume
Paperback & eBook
256 pages

"Ruth Zook returns home to Holmes County, Ohio, carrying a heavy suitcase and a heavier heart. Coerced into becoming a drug mule, Ruth retaliates by destroying her illicit burden and pays for it with her life. When Fannie Helmuth confesses that she was similarly coerced, Sheriff Bruce Robertson realizes that the drug dealers’ operation reaches all the way to Florida’s Pinecraft Amish community. He immediately moves the investigation South, where more innocent lives are in jeopardy. 


Like the bestselling books in Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire series, The Names of Our Tears is a riveting mystery loaded with the page-turning thrills and suspense that readers love."



Published on 28th pf May by Harper Perennial 
paperback & eBook
288 pages

"It's 1983 in Berkeley, California. Twenty-year-old Allie Dodgson is a straitlaced college student working part-time at a dress shop to make ends meet. But when the shop turns out to be a front for a dangerous drug-dealing business, Allie finds herself on the lam, speeding toward Los Angeles in her best friend's Prelude with a Wonder Bread bag full of cocaine riding shotgun and a hit man named Vice Versa on her tail. You can't find a more thrilling summer read"


Published on 28th of May 2013 by Harper Perennial
Paperback & eBook
400 pages

"Inspired by Sam Halpern's childhood in rural Kentucky, A Far Piece to Canaan tells the story of Samuel Zelinsky, a celebrated but troubled retired professor who reluctantly returns after his wife's death to visit a farm in the Kentucky hills where he lived as a child. The son of sharecroppers, Samuel has long since left that life behind-yet now must reconnect with long-buried memories in order to achieve peace.

Delving into the events of 1945, Sam recalls Fred Mulligan, the hired hand's bright and spirited ten-year-old son. Together with two neighbor boys, Samuel and Fred visit the Blue Hole, a legendary pool on the Kentucky River where the hill people believe an evil force lurks. The boys find the body of a dog, surrounded by twisted human footprints, and later discover a cave that offers other evidence that something terrible has transpired. Fearing that they'll be punished for their trespasses, the boys initiate a series of cover-ups and lies that eventually lead to a community disaster.
When the Zelinskys move from the farm, the two boys promise each other that if either of them ever needs help, the other will come to his aid, but after he moves to Indiana and is ridiculed because of his "hillbilly" background, Sam rejects his past.

Now, decades later, Sam is devastated to learn from a fellow classmate about Fred's tragic life story in the years that followed-and manages to make contact with his troubled granddaughter, Lisa June. Though at first she rejects his attempts to reach out to her, through persistence and patience Samuel finally manages to establish a connection, becoming a kind of surrogate grandfather to Lisa June-and finally achieving peace through his late return to Canaan land."



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