Books Blog : series, sequels

Harry Potter eBooks, downloadable audiobooks now available

professor.knowsitall@evpl — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:27:00 GMT

Harry Potter eBooks & downloadable audiobooks are now available in our OverDrive collection!

Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone: eBook | MP3 Audiobook
Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets: eBook | MP3 Audiobook
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban: eBook | MP3 Audiobook
Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire: eBook | MP3 Audiobook
Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix: eBook | MP3 Audiobook
Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince: eBook | MP3 Audiobook
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: eBook | MP3 Audiobook

Why did it take so long? The Harry Potter titles haven't been available in digital formats until now. They released to the general public on Tuesday, with availability to libraries starting yesterday.

Now that they're available in digital formats, will you be reading/re-reading these books?

Visiting Another World - Welcome to Westeros

kiya@evpl — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 18:57:00 GMT

Lately, my reading time has been spent in Westeros, a world created by George R. R. Martin for his series, A Song of Ice and Fire. My son is a longtime Martin fan, and many library customers are as well: all are anxiously awaiting Book 5 in the set. Meanwhile, HBO is producing a TV series based on Martin's works. Called A Game of Thrones (also the title of the first book), the first episode airs April 17, and the first season is supposed to roughly correspond to the first book. I decided it was time to read the books - before the TV show airs. I'd been putting it off, because these are big books, and I have to be in the mood to read fantasy. I was soon captivated by the world of Westeros, and the intrigue and complications of life in a somewhat medieval society.

Martin has lots of realistic, complicated characters. It isn't easy to tell the heroes and villains apart. The heroes have flaws and make mistakes, and even the worst villains have some redeeming qualities (well, maybe not one of them...). Entranced by the first book, I started the second as soon as I finished the first. I enjoy piecing together bits of information to figure out something, and that happens in these books.

When I finished reading the books, I listened to the audiobooks and caught some details I had missed. Roy Dotrice, who performs the first 3 audiobooks, is marvelous; he brings the characters to life. Realistic characters I can care about are very important to my enjoyment of a book, and Martin's books are well and intricately plotted, too. There is profanity in the books, as well as graphic violence and sex. If that isn't a problem, then I highly recommend these books for folks who like to spend some time in another world.

Writing this, I‘ve remembered some of the other worlds I have loved to visit. I was in junior high when I discovered Sylvia Louise Engdahl, and her 3-book Children of the Star series, as well as her Enchantress from the Stars/The Far Side of Evil set. These are favorites which I reread every few years. Mercedes Lackey has written several related series taking place in a world she calls Valdemar. Marion Zimmer Bradley created a world called Darkover, and even invited readers in to play. Along with Bradley's books, there are collections of short stories by other writers which take place in the world Bradley created.

I love getting immersed in another place and time, and seeing the world from that different point of view. J. K. Rowling created a wonderful magical world with her Harry Potter series. In his Artemis Fowl series, Eoin Colfer created another magical world, just as wondrous, and completely different from the Potter world. I enjoyed Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind, and am hoping that the sequel, The Wise Man's Fear, will be just as wonderful when it comes out this week.

Book Characters as old friends

kiya@evpl — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 21:11:00 GMT

Long-running series sometimes grow a bit stale, but some authors are great about keeping their characters alive, growing, and interesting. I was lucky enough this past month to revisit three old friends.

Kinsey Millhone, the prickly PI from Sue Grafton's Alphabet mysteries, shows up in U is for Undertow, which came out late last year. Since Grafton started with A is for Alibi, it is clear Kinsey has been around for awhile. There were a few in this run where I was getting a little tired of Kinsey, but in the latest book, she is fresh and likable again, as she struggles with a long-cold case of a missing 4 year old girl. She struggles even more to adjust her ideas and attitudes about her own long-estranged family as she discovers that she didn't have the whole story before.

Kate Shugak, an Alaskan park rat, PI, and Native tribal chief is back in Dana Stabenow's latest: A Night Too Dark. Tensions are high as a huge new gold mine prepares to open within the park boundaries. It means great things for the economy, but major changes in the daily life of Niniltna. Throw in environmental activism, a suicide who won't stay dead, and there is plenty of excitement to keep you up until you finish the book. There are so many things I liked about this book: the mystery is great; Kate is learning to live with some peace and happiness; and there are some beautiful passages describing the short but intense growing period of Alaska.

Maisie Dobbs, a private investigator/psychologist in England between the World Wars, is a creation of Jacqueline Winspear. I really enjoy the thoughtful and deliberate investigations Maisie does, as well as the fact that she doesn't feel a case is over until her client is at peace with the answers. Winspear does sometimes withhold some of the information Maisie discovers for a "reveal" later on in the book, but that is a minor irritation compared with the magnificent characters she creates for us to meet. The latest book is The Mapping of Love and Death, and quite a worthy successor to the earlier books in the series.

Coming Soon!

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:13:00 GMT

I thought you might like to know about some new titles from authors myself and others have written about here before.

Rene Gutteridge has a new book titled Listen that should be arriving at a library near you any day now. Blog writer this.is.not.here@evpl wrote about Rene Gutteridge's Boo series here.

Alan Bradley has written a sequel to The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, expected out on March 9, 2010. It's titled The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag. Blog writers HRevvdon@evpl and evillebibliophile@evpl have written about The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie here and here.

Sarah Addison Allen's third novel, The Girl Who Chased the Moon, is expected out on March 16, 2010. HRevvdon@evpl wrote about her novel The Sugar Queen here. She is also the author of Garden Spells.

Lisa Lutz continues her Izzy Spellman series with Spellmans Strike Again, also expected out March 16, 2010. This series has been written about here and here.

Rene Gutteridge's website
Sarah Addison Allen's website
Lisa Lutz's website

I Heart The Spellmans!

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:17:00 GMT

Back in January, I wrote a little bit about Lisa Lutz's Spellman series. Last night I finished the third installment, Revenge of the Spellmans. It is EXCELLENT! This has become my new favorite series, since I've begun to grow tired of Janet Evanovich's Plum series. Private investigator Izzy Spellman might come from a fantastically dysfunctional family of fantastic private investigators, but the Spellmans love one another... for the most part... and they make endearing characters. This time 31-year-old Izzy is in court ordered therapy, living in a secret location and trying to solve a case that looks simple on the surface but only gets more complicated as she digs deeper. David revamps his life and Rae tries out new deviations. Henry Stone loses his patience with more than one Spellman. This third book introduces two new characters that I think might appear again-- Connor, an Irish bartender with a very thick accent and Maggie, a defense attorney who's almost as quirky as the Spellmans themselves. As usual, there are investigations of family members, investigations of friends of family members, a few arrests for spice and a dash of blackmail too. I couldn't possibly tell you all of the goings-on and I wouldn't want too; read it for yourself!

Lisa Lutz's website

Give It Up

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:41:00 GMT

It is time for Janet Evanovich to stop writing Stephanie Plum novels. I mean it. I started reading the series seven years ago when Seven Up was the most recently released book in the series and it quickly became my favorite series. I still read the new ones as they come out; I can't stop. They really aren't very good anymore, though. So I really wish Janet Evanovich would just stop writing them so I'd no longer feel compelled to read them. I suppose the real problem is that people can't seem to stop buying them, so then the publisher tells her to "Write more, plea$e!".

For those of you who are not familiar with the series, Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter in Trenton, New Jersey and she's... well... not always very good at her job. There's a whole cast of great characters that includes her long-suffering mother, her spunky grandmother, Joe Morelli (a cop and also Stephanie's boyfriend... usually), Ranger (her hot bounty hunting mentor) and Lula (an ex-hooker turned file clerk). It begins with One for the Money, and keeps going with titles like Two for the Dough and Three to get Deadly-- they all have numbers in the titles. Well, they all have numbers in the titles except for the "between-the-numbers" books like Visions of Sugar Plums, Plum Lovin', Plum Lucky and the one I finished reading just last night, Plum Spooky.

The first 10 or so are good, fun reads but sometime after that they start to slip. They all have entertaining moments, but I haven't found any of the last four or five to be wild roller coasters of hilarity like the earlier books are. This most recent one (Plum Spooky) was even kind of anti-climatic. The stories are not as entertaining as they once were and then there are the inconsistencies. It's not that her pet hamster Rex seems to be immortal or that cell phones and the internet sort of appeared out of nowhere a few books back. What bothers me is that at some point Joe Morelli became only mostly her boyfriend while Ranger became a sort of alternative. A lot of people are going to disagree with me here. Most fans have their own personal preference for one man or the other and my preference is for Joe. I suspect she cooled things down between Stephanie and Joe because Ranger is actually the more popular pick. Fine; everyone is free to have their own opinion, but I don't think it did anything for the on-going story of Stephanie Plum's life; the background for all of her bounty hunting escapades. It also bothers me that her sister Valerie has sort of disappeared. It's true she got annoying for awhile with her and her husband Albert calling each other Cuddleumpkins and what-not, but why is she gone? The last several books have only just mentioned her or left her out completely. Stephanie's niece (one of Valerie's daughters) Mary Alice would have fit in perfectly with the plot of Plum Lucky, but she was nowhere to be found.

Worse still, the "between-the-numbers" books are getting out of hand. Plum Spooky is just as long as most of the number books, meaning she's now trying to turn out two full-length Stephanie Plum novels a year, plus her other writing. Oh, yeah, by the way Finger Lickin' Fifteen is due out in June. I just don't see how this could be good.

Janet Evanovich's website

Lisa Lutz's Izzy Spellman Novels

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:41:00 GMT

I read The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz during our 2008 summer reading program, how about you? It was good enough, I read Curse of the Spellmans right afterwards. What a quirky family! The books focus on a wild private investigator named Izzy Spellman, but her whole family (mother, father, older brother & youner sister) of private investigators and a few special friends complete the character cast. Part mystery, part family drama and part "What did I do last night?", these funny books are a treat. Now a third installment, Revenge of the Spellmans, is set to be released in March!