Books

Book 443: The Magician (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #2) – Michael Scott

Picking up immediately after the events of The Alchemyst, the second book in the series is just as action packed and full as the first!

The Magician again takes place over a period of days and this time moves us from San Francisco, California to Paris, France. The same cast of characters is here and this book introduces two of my favorites, Niccolò Machiavelli and Joan of Arc, and gives further insight into the strongest female character in the series, Perenelle Flamel.

As I re-read it, I was glad that some of my hesitancy about re-reading the series started to fade. I’m not sure if it’s because the story was becoming more and more intense, or that I was spending more time with some of my favorite characters, but I was glad my reservations at least took a bit of a back seat to the book. (It also could’ve been that I devoured this book.)

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Books

Book 442: The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #1) – Michael Scott

I first read this in the first six months of this blog! Unfortunately, I didn’t actually respond to every book so I only have my thoughts to The Warlock (#5) from that original read (and later The Enchantress (#6) when it was released in 2012). I picked up hard copies of these books back in October 2012 when I left a job and they gave me a bookstore gift card.

The series has languished on my shelf for the last four years, partly because I’d read it before, but mostly because I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it again. When I bought it, I definitely did, but then every time I went to re-read it I remembered what happened in the last book and the revelations in the last two books and questioned if I wanted to re-read the series.

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Books

Book 416: Running with the Demon (Word & Void #1) – Terry Brooks

Talk about coincidence! I planned to read the Word & Void trilogy early this year as it’s been on my shelf for far too long and a coworker from my last job (3+ years ago) recommended it. Add that we recently started watching The Shannara Chronicles (IMDB link) and my interest in Brooks’ work increased. So when I started reading this and found out it’s a distant part of the Shannara universe my mind was blown!

I asked advice on whether to even consider the Shannara super-series and I find out I’ve backed myself into it inadvertently. Again, Mind. Blown. Although this is the eleventh book published connected to Shannara, it is the first in story chronology. I have no idea how many I will read, but I will most definitely finish out this trilogy as I was sucked in within the first few pages!

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Books

Book 410: First Among Sequels (Thursday Next #5) – Jasper Fforde

This series has finally slowed down. This isn’t a detraction, just a statement. Picking up more than 14 years after the end of Something Rotten, First Among Sequels just didn’t feel quite the same. Don’t get me wrong, there was absurdity, Fforde’s genius pushes the boundaries and Thursday Next is still a great character, but it just wasn’t the same.

As I mentioned in my post about Something Rotten I found out after I’d started this novel that the last three of the published novels in the Thursday Next series are actually a second series and not the same. It’s a little misleading as websites like Goodreads and Amazon group them together. There’s even a compendium of the first five: A Thursday Next Digital Collection: Novels 1-5. If I would’ve known about the time gap and the “separate series” portion I would’ve paused after book four instead of five, but oh well.

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Books

Book 409: Something Rotten (Thursday Next #4) – Jasper Fforde

Just when you think it can’t get any stranger, Jasper Fforde makes sure to let you know it can and it will:

“The fate of all life on this beautiful planet decided on the swing of a croquet mallet.” (351)

I mean COME ON! Anyone who can turn croquet into a full-contact sport and make me want to watch it has to be a genius right?

I also can’t believe it took me until almost 12 hours later to finally connect the title to most of the story, as in hey this story has a lot about Hamlet in it and the quote “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” even appears! Thanks Fforde for reminding me I’m just another cog in the human machine. Epic fail on my part.

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