Kyrie

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is one of my absolute favorite books. Ever.

And with as many “favorite” books as I have, that's saying something. I love this book so much that I've read it twice, despite the fact that it's a monster of a book at over 1,000 pages. It's also one of the few books to always move with me. I don't care that it weighs as much as a small dog. I'm never getting rid of my physical copy.

I just really love this book.

I love the slow pacing of the story. I love the silly footnotes. I love how the book questions the morality of magic with such seriousness - should magic be practiced by a just a few select learned people, or should it be available to the masses? Would the costs outweigh the benefits? Should humans seek to learn fairy magic, or should they be limited to more “civilized” magic? What place should magic have in war, especially if only one side has magicians?

“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never would.”

For, though the room was silent, the silence of half a hundred cats is a peculiar thing, like fifty individual silences all piled one on top of another.—There is nothing else in magic but the wild thought of the bird as it casts itself into the void. There is no creature upon the earth with such potential for magic. Even the least of them may fly straight out of this world and come by chance to the Other Lands. Where does the wind come from that blows upon your face, that fans the pages of your book? Where the harum-scarum magic of small wild creatures meets the magic of Man, where the language of the wind and the rain and the trees can be understood, there we will find the Raven King.

When he awoke it was dawn. Or something like dawn. The light was watery, dim and incomparably sad. Vast, grey, gloomy hills rose up all around them and in between the hills there was a wide expanse of black bog.Stephen had never seen a landscape so calculated to reduce the onlooker to utter despair in an instant. “This is one of your kingdoms, I suppose, sir?” he said. “My kingdoms?” exclaimed the gentleman in surprize. “Oh, no! This is Scotland!”—“Ha!” said the tall man drily. “He was in high luck. Rich old uncles who die are in shockingly short supply.”—Mr Norrell determined to establish himself in London with all possible haste. “You must get a house, Childermass,” he said. “Get me a house that says to those that visit it that magic is a respectable profession - no less than Law and a great deal more so than Medicine.”Childermass inquired drily if Mr Norrell wished him to seek out architecture expressive of the proposition that magic was as respectable as the Church?Mr Norrell (who knew there were such things as jokes in the world or people would not write about them in books, but who had never actually been introduced to a joke or shaken its hand) considered a while before replying at last that no, he did not think they could quite claim that.

Not long, not long my father saidNot long shall you be oursThe Raven King knows all too wellWhich are the fairest flowers.The priest was all too worldlyThough he prayed and rang his bellThe Raven King three candles litThe priest said it was wellHer arms were all too feebleThough she claimed to love me soThe Raven King stretched out his handShe sighed and let me goThe land is all too shallowIt is painted on the skyAnd trembles like the wind-shook rainWhen the Raven King goes byFor always and for alwaysI pray remember meUpon the moors, beneath the starsWith the King's wild company.

Coffin races, Frozen Dead Guy Days, Mike, the Headless Chicken, the Alferd Packer Restaurant & Grill at Boulder University...Colorado is weird.

So, being a weird kid living in Colorado (and having just seen Cannibal the Musical, the university project of Trey Parker and Matt Stone), I went through a cannibal phase. (This was after my H.P. Lovecraft phase, but before my bad taxidermy phase.)

I decided that I wanted to learn more about Alfred Packer. This was a decent look at the various facts of the case, and managed to stay above the sensationalism that's usually attached to retellings of the events that took place.

(See: The Ballad of Alferd Packer.)

Spoilers - this isn't a “vampire” book.

I grabbed this book from my library during the height of my teenage vampire obsession. So, when I was fourteen or so.

Oh, I knew there weren't actually any vampires in it when I grabbed it. The symbolism of the story felt incredibly heavy-handed to me, even back then. The story itself was okay, but I'm definitely glad that I was mentally prepared to handle a story like that when I read it. I could easily imagine kids picking the book up, thinking that they were getting a vampire story, and being scarred by the actual subject matter of the book.

I do have to admit, though, that my main reason for reading this book was not because I was drawn in by the gripping synopsis.

Like I said, I was really into vampire books then, and my dad's on-again-off-again girlfriend at the time was one of those Christians who think everything is going to corrupt children and damn their souls. Harry Potter? Evil. Lord of the Rings? Evil. Vampires? DEFINITELY evil.

...so...I uh, I grabbed this book to read to use as ammunition against her.

She came into my room one day while I was reading it, ranting and raving about all the vampire books I had lying around. She took a look at the title, scoffed at how far I'd fallen into the evil genre, and started lecturing me about how I thought I wanted to be a vampire because of all the vampire books I was reading.

Spoilers - I did not, nor have I ever wanted, to be a vampire. All that blood...blech.

“Uncle Vampire?” she said. “These books are going to -“

And then I cut her off. I looked her dead in the eyes. And I told her what the book was really about.

She had no response to that, and never said a word about my reading habits again.

So, long story short - your heart was in the right place, book, and I'm sorry for using you as ammunition. You probably deserved better.

This was the book - this was the series that got me started reading manga. I hadn't had much experience with anime, and I didn't even know that manga was a thing when Shaman King first aired on Fox. (Hush, I know.)

It was my first real taste of a story-driven anime, something other than the “bad-guy-of-the-week and eventually a final battle style” cartoon that I was used to. I adored the Shaman King anime. I fell for it hard.

I fell for it so hard that for years, I had a Shaman King obsession. I fell for it so hard that I got my anime-hating father so obsessed with the series that he legally changed his last name to Asakura. (Dead serious about that.)

So when I saw a Shaman King book, of course I grabbed it.

Looking back on it with what I know now, the art was a complete mess that was inconsistent with the rest of the series, there wasn't much of a story going on, and the story that was there was downright ridiculous and did very little to forward the overall plot of the series.

But fourteen-year-old me was amazed by this book.

The book's really more of a 3-star for me, but I can't discount the impact it had on my teenage years.

I'd completely forgotten about the Ellimist...

I'm actually a couple of books past this one at the moment. It's just taking me forever to find time to actually sit down and write something up about each of them.

And I'm pretty sure that I read further into this series than I remember. Like, I could have sworn I'd stopped around here, but no. Because I remember Book 8. And tidbits of Book 9. And even Book 10 is sounding familiar to my brain.

I'm also pretty sure I read at least one David book? Like, I've been hearing a LOT about this series lately from people/shows/podcasts that I follow, and they keep mentioning the David trilogy, and I've just got this terrible sense of foreboding.

Anyway. This book. It's one of the first in the series to have the narrator break down, and question their abilities, and how much responsibility they bear (unintentional pun!) for the fate of the planet. Whether they have a responsibility to humanity at large, or if it's acceptable that they only save those that they love - if that would be enough, or if they would be betraying humanity by not putting their own lives on hold, and at risk to save as many as possible.

And all of that, on top of regular kid problems, like Rachel trying to deal with her parents' divorce and custody issues...these books are crazy dark. I love it. <3

Another benefit of re-reading these books, 15 years after I originally read them: I actually get the reference jokes now.

I'm talking to you, random Friends reference.

Young Maki didn't pay any attention to Friends at all. And to be honest, I'm not quite sure why it's there. It's not explicitly pointed out by any of the characters. There's just this group of dolphins at the zoo randomly named Joey, Rachel (that's gotta be confusing), Ross, Chandler, Monica, and Phoebe.

Anyway. Reference jokes aside, I really enjoyed this one. And not just because it's the first book with Ax. (Though that certainly doesn't hurt the book's case.)

The imagery and the scenery are just...really nice.

Awww, heck. Let's call this one a high 4, low 5.

It punches you right in the feels.

Or, it punched me right in the feels. And I don't generally get affected like that by books. I've got a cold, robot heart.

Compared to the previous books, the story doesn't progress very far. This book really just focuses on one event. But it's just handled so well!

Sidenote: You reference The Fly, but not Metamorphosis? Wasted reference potential there, book!

(I mean, I guess the target audience wouldn't really know Franz Kafka...but still!)

I mentioned in my review on The Visitor that when I was a kid, my favorite human character was Rachel.

...now that I'm older, and more jaded, I think I can better appreciate Marco. I'm a sucker for broken characters who use humor to hide their pain. This is what I've become.

This was a fairly busy book. Lots of Ax shenanigans, and a huge plot twist.

This is why I'm re-reading the books I've already read, instead of moving ahead with the series. 15 years is a long time to go without a refresher course on plot developments. I only vaguely remembered the plot twist, and then I had it a bit backwards.

For some reason my brain was thinking that it was Marco's dad who was Visser One, not his mom. And that's right. I'm putting my brain at fault, not myself in general. It's my brain that's supposed to be good at remembering books! Get it together, brain.

I've decided to go through the entire Animorphs series for three reasons:

1) I don't have as much time to read, now that I've got two children to deal with. When I'm not working. I needed to find some shorter reads to fit into my schedule.

2) I started reading this series as a kid, but never really made it past the first story arc. (I stopped at book 7.) This series was hard to find at our library - I read them out of order, whichever part my younger brother, Twa, could manage to find. Getting me to read the books with him was his project for several months back in 2002.

3) I've been seeing a crazy amount of Animorphs-related stuff lately. You forget about a series for years, and then, out of nowhere, you find out that the Animorphs fandom is alive and well, and hiding out on Tumblr.

That all being said...these books are shorter than I remember. When I read them as a kid, they felt like they were longer. Now, I can power through one in less than an hour.

For as short as the first book was, though...man, was there a lot that happened. It's a crazy amount of plot development to fit into such a short book, especially compared to the other books that I've made it through so far in my re-read.

This book sets up the premise of the series, the main villain, several morphing scenes, the Sharing, Chapman, Tom, AND the raid on the Yeerk pool, and its results. For the ground it covers, this book feels like it should be two books.

I think I'm enjoying the series more, this time around.

I don't remember reading this one as a kid.

I mean. I remember physically reading the book. I just didn't remember anything from the plot of this one.

I tended to zone out around Emo Bird. And this book is a LOT of Emo Bird.

Continuing my attempt to catch up on my reading challenge for this year.

It was after reading this one that I realized just how much information had been crammed into the first book. I'm impressed.

The Visitor starts working to humanize the characters, though, and give them a reason to fight beyond “we have to do right by that alien dude who died protecting us”.

I barely remember reading this one as a kid - I remember the cat morph. I was so jealous of the cat morph. Completely forgot about the whole Melissa/Chapman plot line. Young Maki focused on what was really important in a story.

Rachel was my favorite character when I read the books as a kid. Well. My favorite human character, anyway.

#teamaxforever

Retrospectively, I'm pretty sure it was The Phantom Tollbooth that cemented my perpetual annoyance at puns. Puns are easy - everyone can, and will, make puns. Puns are only funny when the person making the pun acknowledges how painful the pun they're making is.

Wordplay, though...that is a thing of beauty. And Phantom Tollbooth is nothing but wordplay.

There's the Whether Man, the Terrible Dynne, and the Senses Taker. In Dictionopolis you have to eat your own words. There's a forest where children grow down so that their perspective never changes. You can get to the Island of Conclusions by jumping...the list just goes on and on.

“I don't think you understand,” said Milo timidly as the watchdog growled a warning. “We're looking for a place to spend the night.”“It's not yours to spend,” the bird shrieked again, and followed it with the same horrible laugh.“That doesn't make any sense, you see—” he started to explain.“Dollars or cents, it's still not yours to spend,” the bird replied haughtily.“But I didn't mean—” insisted Milo.“Of course you're mean,” interrupted the bird, closing the eye that had been open and opening the one that had been closed. “Anyone who'd spend a night that doesn't belong to him is very mean.”“Well, I thought that by—” he tried again desperately.“That's a different story,” interjected the bird a bit more amiably. “If you want to buy, I'm sure I can arrange to sell, but with what you're doing you'll probably end up in a cell anyway.”“That doesn't seem right,” said Milo helplessly, for, with the bird taking everything the wrong way, he hardly knew what he was saying.“Agreed,” said the bird, with a sharp click of his beak, “but neither is it left, although if I were you I would have left a long time ago.”

“It has been a long trip,” said Milo, climbing onto the couch where the princesses sat; “but we would have been here much sooner if I hadn't made so many mistakes. I'm afraid it's all my fault.”“You must never feel badly about making mistakes,” explained Reason quietly, “as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.”

much

I doubt I'll ever be able to forget this poem. My sixth grade reading teacher made the entire class memorize it, and then would call on us in a random order to recite one line at a time. I had to have read the thing a good hundred times, so that I'd never be stuck, no matter where I got called on in the poem's progression.

Every time I think I've managed to forget the poem, it'll pop back in my head.

These days, I use it as one of the longer pieces I've got memorized to recite to my daughter as I'm trying to rock her to sleep.

I love the rhyme scheme. It's so much fun to say out loud.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold;The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold;The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did seeWas that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.

There's a Wocket in my Pocket ties with [b:On Beyond Zebra! 330 On Beyond Zebra! Dr. Seuss https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388193825s/330.jpg 4645] as my favorite Dr. Suess book. The reasoning behind why I love them both is the same - the illustrations of the various creatures.I like Suess' artwork in general, but for me it's at its best when he's drawing creatures of his own invention. And there's plenty of creatures to be had in this book.That was my biggest draw to this book, even as a child.The nonsense rhymes were fun, but the illustrations were amazing.

Me: I don't remember downloading this! Who's been on my Kindle??? What even is this book?

“...Jenny Dove's life is magically transformed by the appearance of Thomas, a mystical golden horse only she can see.”

Me: ...okay, yeah. That was me.

Well...the maintenance guy at my hotel has given me my first book recommendation.

And he's also giving me his copy of the book.

How can I say no to that?

October 20, 2017:
whispers

Nailed it.

September 15, 2017:
Calling October's Owlcrate! Let's see if I can keep this streak going!

Well. The suspense didn't last long.

SO glad there actually is another book, though!

WHY DID I NOT KNOW THIS WAS A THING!!!1111!!!1!

Give me hobbit ghost dudebros, plz.