Oh no! It's the last What We Read Last Week post of Word Out! 2009. Let's make it a good one.
Last week I started reading Frank Portman's King Dork after Mariko Tamaki said it was "The best YA novel I've read in a long time" in her interview last week. I'm about twenty pages from the end at this point and am close to agreement.
I read Robert B. Parker's The Boxer and the Spy last week, a hardboiled teen mystery by a writer who's been writing mysteries for quite some time longer than I've been alive and has polished the craft to perfection. Highly enjoyable, fast read!
Last week I read Kathe Koja's Buddha Boy, a sparsely-written novel about high school bullying and cliques. Don't let the short length fool you, there's more ideas packed in this novel than in books five times the size. Great read, highly recommended.
Alan H is a web librarian at Toronto Public Library. He reads all over the place.
What did you read last week? Let us know by commenting!
Last week I read Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, the English translation of the first book of an enormously popular series of Japanese fantasy novels. Enjoyed it a lot--really interesting world (based loosely on medieval Japan), good characters. A lot of interesting fantasy and sci-fi gets published all over the world in many different languages, but not too much of it gets translated into English unfortunately. :(
For the anime fans, this series is a big enough deal that it was made into a TV series a few years back. Here's the opening and ending:
Last week I read Canadian author William Bell's The Blue Helmet, a short novel (166 pages) with deep themes (madness, youth violence, dealing with the death of a parent). Loved it! A fast read that will get you thinking.
I read a book somewhat different from my usual selection last week (it didn't have dragons, robots or superheroes, basically): Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet by Kashmira Sheth. It had such a great cover that it made me want to read the whole novel.
Peter Cameron's Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You was my teen fiction read last week. I forget how I first came across mention of this book, but that led me to read this review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review and seek it out...
I am sorry to say I didn't read anything that I think teens would be interested in last week (unless you are interested in web content management systems, human-computer interaction or marketing on the web--last week was a lot of work-related reading for me)...
Last week I read the first three volumes (the only ones out in English so far) of an AMAZING manga series...
I read two young adult novels last week (for the curious, my strategy for YA book selection has been to go to The Hub at North York Central Library and grab books that look interesting!):
 |
|
||||||
