Tag: New York

Back to the Underland

Last month, I blogged about how much I loved Suzanne Collins‘ Underland Chronicles after I read the first three books right before Mockingjay was released. I must confess the series took me by surprise; way before I discovered the Hunger Games series, I’d been seeing the Underland Chronicles in the bookstores and never really thought of picking them up. Then I managed to forage two books out of the bargain bins, and when I finally decided to read them, I found them utterly engrossing!

I read straight on from books 1-3: Gregor the Overlander, Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, and Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods. I had trouble finding copies of the next books in the series, Gregor and the Marks of Secret and Gregor and the Code of the Claw so I momentarily had to stop reading the series, but some wonderful friends at Scholastic (yay, thanks Ms. Joyce and Ms. Roselle!) gifted me with books 4 and 5, and as soon as the craziness of the past couple of weeks subsided, I happily dug into the remainder of the Underland Chronicles.

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Suzanne Collins Marathon


Still counting down to Mockingjay!

In an attempt to slake my excitement over Mockingjay, I brought out all the Suzanne Collins books in my possession (and bought one more) and have been reading voraciously for the past five days. I started with Gregor the Overlander, the first book of the Underland Chronicles last Friday, but I didn’t have book 2  yet so I decided to reread Hunger Games and Catching Fire on Saturday. By Sunday, I was already reaching for the copy of Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane that I’d bought the day before. And then I started reading Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods yesterday, and now I’m out of the Underland Chronicles, so the marathon’s on hold (at least until I can find myself copies of Gregor and the Marks of Secret and Gregor and the Code of the Claw).

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Queen of Babble Gets Hitched

I’ve been following Meg Cabot’s Queen of Babble series for some years now, but was only recently able to get ahold of the third book, Queen of Babble Gets Hitched via some very kind moochers on BookMooch.

Lizzie Nichols has always been a charming protagonist, and I’ve enjoyed reading the first two books in the series — Queen of Babble, and Queen of Babble in the Big City. Lizzie is a a twenty-something with old-fashioned sensibilities, and a talent for restoring vintage dresses. The series follows her life (and lovelife) as she ventures out of her hometown and away from her family to make it on her own.

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Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman!


I was watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory where Leonard celebrates his birthday, and Wollowitz presents him with a signed copy of Feynman’s Lectures on Physics. By then I’d watched enough BBT episodes to know that Richard Feynman won a Nobel Prize for Physics (and is somewhat of a god to theoretical physicists), but I had a nagging feeling I’d come across that name somewhere else.

Last week, I was rooting through my shelves for a book to swap at the FFP book discussion, when I spotted a book I’d forgotten about, a copy of Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character), a semi-autobiographical collection of stories narrated by Feynman, caught on tape by his friend Ralph Leighton. I’d gotten it for about P30 at a Scholastic warehouse sale last year, and I got it mainly because the cover looked interesting and I had a bag to fill, but I had no idea what it was about.

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All about Eloise

 

 

Eloise is one of my favorite children’s book characters, although not one I know from childhood (unlike Babar, Madeline, Curious George, or Tintin). I only discovered Eloise when I saw the old movie (with Julie Andrews as Nanny) on Disney channel when I was in college and learned that it was based on a book.

Eloise is a feisty six-year old girl living at The Plaza Hotel in New York City (hahaha, like Grandmere in The Princess Diaries, also played by Julie Andrews but in the movie she has a state home on the Genovian embassy grounds) in a book series by Kay Thompson illustrated by Hilary Knight.  If you’ve seen Eloise, you’re bound to remember her forever, with the wild hair adorned with a flouncy bow, and the ruffled blouse and jumper ensemble (and pink knickers underneath!).

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