Week 4: Building Base Knowledge

I've had a love/ hate relationship with Goodreads over the years. I like the idea of the site and reviewing each and every tome I read, but I never like to delve too much into the books I've read and dissect them... I prefer to simply ruminate on the experience and process it mentally in its natural course. Yet, by the time I can write about it, I'm already on to the next book. I see it in much the way I have my bookcases at home... the books are not in any specific order, because for me, half the fun is to experience them "randomly."


I do like the idea of reader-based reviews vs those you come across via PW, NYT, or other major/ more commercial organizations. And I also like that you can have specific "friends" and cross-recommend titles - like a more erudite, book-orientated Facebook.






Book Recommendations


Endymion Spring
by Matthew Skelton

       

Andrew's review

May 17, 2016                                   

really liked it

Skelton's books is a great read for those who like the Rowling's work or the Narnia series. It's a bit more book-oriented that most intermediate readers titles, but it definitely appeals to the future librarian/ scholar type. I found that the text moves at a very brisk pace (but not too fast), and the adventure is wonderful and wholly unique in this genre. On the negative side, the characters are a bit too simple and one-dimensional, which I had hoped would be developed, but it never was.  My only gripe is that the book should have been stretched out to a sequel or a trilogy... there's too much content that ends of being rushed and glossed over, and this would have allowed the characters a bit more room to develop and breath.

Recommended to Katie Taylor and Tori Woodard

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
by Katherine Howe (Goodreads Author)

       

Andrew's review

May 17, 2016                                   

it was amazing

Just a great read from cover to cover. I was a bit leery about the romance aspect for the main character, but it never devolved into sappy cliché that so many of these type of books fall in to. I also love the fact that the author deliberately placed the "modern" half of the story in a period before the advent of the internet, so that any research and archival work had to work with the old fashioned card catalog. This seemed to ground the book into a much more "physical," immediate type of world. The "past" part of the story was also very engaging, and though it dances around a bit with the language of "yore" and "prithy," it never got too far afield and confused the plot.

Recommended to Katie Taylor and Tori Woodard