On My Tottering Pile Of Books

Actually, some of it is finished. I finished my review copy of Winter's Light, sequel to Winter's Shadow, a couple of days ago; that will be going in to work with me Monday so that when the girls ask me for the sequel The author has been invited to write a guest post instead of the usual review, and this may take a while as he's busy with various blog interviews, so stand by. Meanwhile,I've just finished reading a great piece of historical fiction by Jackie French, Nanberry, which is on this year's CBCA list, so I thought I'd better start reading! It's amazing how many periods this writer covers. I have just downloaded Surgeon John White's account of his time in the colony of New South Wales,coming here with the First Fleet, which I didn't know about till I read this novel. it's all there online and you can get it free in iBooks. It's also available on Project Gutenberg Australia and a couple of other sites, but only in HTML. Anyway, it will make fascinating reading. He was a scientist and a dedicated doctor, who was way ahead of his time, trying to get convicts to eat fresh fruit and veggies, which most people thought were bad for you in those days. He also sketched and described local animals and plants. The novel is set over a generation, beginning soon after the arrival of the First Fleet as seen by the indigenous folk and ending in 1823, when Sydney had become a city. I'll be interested to see how our students like it; it's so hard to get teens to read historical fiction anyway, and this story is seen from a lot of viewpoints. But I liked it! I have nearly finished Fated, a new novel by Alyson Noel that turned up in my letterbox this week. I'm quite liking it, better than the average run of YA paranormal. I've never read any of her books before, but this is the first of a new series, thank goodness, so it doesn't matter. The review will be up as soon as I can establish whether the publishers are fussed about the embargo date; it won't be out for a month. The cover is nice, appropriate themes, not the usual prom gowned girl. This is an uncorrected proof copy and believe me, it needs a LOT of proofing, but it should be fine when it goes in the library and the students will get to read it a month before it appears in the shops, typoes notwithstanding.;-)I have finished The Curse Of Capistrano, which, in case you don't know, is the original Zorro tale, serialised in All-Story Weekly. I'm doing some re-reads - a couple of Phryne Fisher novels and Harry Turtledove's Ruled Britannia. And still there's the huge, tottering pile, plus my slush reading...