Wishful Wednesday, 19 October

The meme is hosted by Brooke from Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

 Welcome to Wishful Wednesday! 

As one of my Internet friends is doing a course on Norse culture and laguage (waving to the Red Witch) my wish today is kind of inspired by some entries o her blog. 

In other words would like to read Wolfsangel by M.D. Lachlan.

Here you have the blurb (from Amazon.com.):

Sorcery and savagery fuel this rousing historical fantasy, the first volume in a planned multivolume epic. Acting on the witch Gullveig's prophecy, Viking raiders kidnap two infant brothers from a village. Wily and clever Vali is groomed to be Viking king Authun's heir, while Feileg is raised ferally as Gullveig's werewolf protector as she schemes against the god Odin. The boys enjoy adventures peculiar to their different upbringings until their mutual affection for farmer's daughter Adisla draws them together as comrades in arms as well as rivals in love. Lachlan (a pseudonym for Mark Barrowcliffe) keeps supernatural inflections to a minimum, opting instead for a colorful and credible evocation of the Norse world as one where the paths of gods and men frequently cross. Vivid in its rendering of the primitive historical past, this entertaining adventure will have readers eagerly anticipating the next book in the series.


 (Actually you don't have to anticipate anything as the next part is available as well ;))

What are your wishes this week? Have you read the book featured by me? Would you like to read it? I would like to know your thoughts!

Wishful Wednesday, 17 August

The meme is hosted by Brooke from Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

 Welcome to Wishful Wednesday! 

This week my wish is simple, nice and oh so predictable... a new book of  

David Liss was published on August 9th by Random House. Its title is: 

The Twelfth Enchantment

Here is the blurb (from Goodreads):

Lucy Derrick is a young Regency woman of good breeding and poor finances: after the death of her father, she is forced to maintain a shabby dignity as an unwanted boarder with her unpleasant uncle, fending off marriage to the local mill owner, Mr. Olson. But her prospects of even that unwanted match are complicated by the appearance of a beautiful stricken man who appears on the family doorstep begging her not to marry Mr. Olson just as he collapses. This appearance seems to open the door to a series of increasingly strange occurrences surrounding Lucy. Soon it becomes clear that there is more at stake than her own happiness — and that she is caught between two forces, one ancient and one modern — and that the soul of her very country is at stake.

Unusual Wishful Wednesday, 18 May

The meme is hosted by Brooke from Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

 Welcome to Wishful Wednesday! 

This week I wish not for a book but for a brand new e-reader!!!

In fact I've already ordered it!

As soon as it arrives I will test it and I will write a review.

Do you own an e-reader? Do you use it often? Do you like it?

Wishful Wednesday, 11 May

The meme is hosted by Brooke from Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

 Welcome to Wishful Wednesday! 

This week I wish for a historical novel:

Theodora by Stella Duffy

This title will be released on September 27, 2011.

From Amazon.com:

Image via Wikipedia

Roman historian Procopius publicly praised Theodora of Constantinople for her piety-while secretly detailing her salacious stage act and maligning her as ruthless and power hungry. So who was this woman who rose from humble beginnings as a dancer to become the empress of Rome and a saint in the Orthodox Church? Award-winning novelist Stella Duffy vividly recreates the life and times of a woman who left her mark on one of the ancient world’s most powerful empires. Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore is a sexy, captivating novel that resurrects an extraordinary, little-known figure from the dusty pages of history.


I've met this lady not so long ago, writing an essay about her life. I would love to read a good fiction based on Procopius!

Wishful Wednesday, 30 March

The meme is hosted by Brooke from Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

 Welcome to Wishful Wednesday! 

This week I wish for a historical novel:

House of Dreams by Pauline Gedge

Book info (from Amazon.com): House of Dreams is the story of an indomitable, ambitious young woman and her rise from village midwife to royal concubine, the beloved of mighty Pharaoh.

As she moves from initiate to insider, she stirs the passions and the jealousies of those around her. And as her power grows, so does her ambition. But whose ambition is she serving? For always behind the comforts and power of privilege, there is the inescapable, ambiguous influence of Hui, the mysterious benefactor who first noticed her.

Wishful Wednesday, 2 March

The meme is hosted by Brooke from Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

 Welcome to Wishful Wednesday! 

This week I wish for an unusually tasty memoir:

 Let Me Eat Cake: A Celebration of Flour, Sugar, Butter, Eggs, Vanilla, Baking Powder, and a Pinch of Salt by Leslie F. Miller

From Booklist:

American cooks, especially beginners, love to bake cakes. The seemingly magical transformation of flour, sugar, butter, and eggs into a fluffy, sweet, visually arresting, audience-pleasing product perfectly exemplifies why so many pursue either an amateur or professional career in pastry making. Miller confesses to a lifelong obsession with cake baking. She delves into her Jewish grandmother’s recipe files for inspiration and for encouragement. Traveling the country, she finds other bakers who share her obsession. She probes for the secrets of such celebrated bakeries as Charm City Cakes. Miller inventories classic American cakes from all over the nation: the South’s red velvet cake, St. Louis’ gooey butter cake, Alabama’s Lane cake, Maryland’s ten-layer cake, and more. Miller’s highly personal approach means that the reader shouldn’t assume that every recipe is meant to be literally followed, for the recipes are often exemplars, lacking essential information but impressive nonetheless. --Mark Knoblauch 

Tuck in!

Image via Wikipedia

Wishful Wednesday, 23 February

The meme is hosted by Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

 Welcome to Wishful Wednesday! 

This week I wish for an unusual story: "Because I am Furniture" by Thalia Chaltas

 Product description from Amazon.com:

"Anke’s father is abusive to her brother and sister. But not to her. Because, to him, she is like furniture— not even worthy of the worst kind of attention. Then Anke makes the school volleyball team. She loves feeling her muscles after workouts, an ache that reminds her she is real. Even more, Anke loves the confidence that she gets from the sport. And as she learns to call for the ball on the court, she finds a voice she never knew she had. For the first time, Anke is making herself seen and heard, working toward the day she will be able to speak up loud enough to rescue everyone at home— including herself."

Wishful Wednesday, 2 February

The meme is hosted by Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

 Welcome to Wishful Wednesday!

This week I feel totally disgruntled by romance so my wish is pretty much as down-to-earth as it could be - a book about immigrants, an autobiography in fact -  

Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman

Cover of Lost in Translation

Now a bit about the book.

Eva Hoffman was thirteen years old when, in 1949, she left Poland with her father, mother, and younger sister, traveling by ship to Canada, where the family settled in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Hoffmans had been among the small remnant of Jews in Poland after World War II, and they were never allowed to forget completely the irrational power of anti-Semitism. The family’s early years in Canada were hard--they began by selling second-hand merchandise (“junk,” Hoffman calls it) from a basement, later opening a store--but Eva excelled in high school and went on a scholarship to Rice University, where she majored in literature. She was an excellent pianist as well, and for a long time she considered a career in music, but ultimately, after receiving a doctorate in literature from Harvard University, she became a journalist, specializing in literary and cultural subjects; she is currently an editor at THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW.

source: http://www.enotes.com/lost-translation-eva-hoffman-salem/lost-translation

Wishful Wednesday 12 January

The meme is hosted by Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

 Welcome to Wishful Wednesday!

This week my wish is connected with the fact that I might want to buy a cat soon. I am still in two minds about it so I think I need something like this book:

It is entitled The New Encyclopedia of the Cat and the author, Bruce Fogle, is internationally renowned for his expertise in animal behaviour, that's why I chose this position among plenty others available. He is the author of several books on the behaviour, psychology and history of cats and dog so I expect plenty of interesting information.

 Product description (from Amazon.com):
Revised and updated, this feline guide includes new sections on feline genetics, behaviour in indoor and outdoor cats (including advice on how to deal with bizarre behaviours) and how to train cats. 

By the way if you own a cat, have owned a cat or if you know something about cats' breeds what cat would you advise me to buy/get? I already have a dog (a lovely yorkshire terrier which adores cats) and unfortunately I live in a flat (so no garden). I know these conditions might be tricky for some cats but still I've always wanted to own a little feline...

Image via Wikipedia

Wishful Wednesday, 22 December

The meme is hosted by Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

 Welcome to Wishful Wednesday!

  I love steampunk. Having said so, this week I wish I could grab the Leviathan series of Scott Westerfield. Not so long ago Brooke Bluestocking reviewed the second book "Behemot" but I would like to start from the first one, "Lewiathan". This is a short summary from the page of the author himself:
"Prince Aleksander, would-be heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, is on the run. His own people have turned on him. His title is worthless. All he has is a battletorn war machine and a loyal crew of men.Deryn Sharp is a commoner, disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She’s a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered.
With World War I brewing, Alek and Deryn’s paths cross in the most unexpected way…taking them on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure that will change both their lives forever."

Cover of Leviathan

Wishful Wednesday 17 November

 

The meme is hosted by Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

 Welcome to Wishful Wednesday!

  I know I know, I must be mad - another vampire story. Strangely enough it made me interested. Maybe because of a very good review posted by Melissa from i swim for oceans blog
 

Vampire predators run wild in this exciting steampunk adventure, the first in an alternate history trilogy that is already attracting attention. In 1870, monsters rise up and conquer the northern lands, As great cities are swallowed up by carnage and disease, landowners and other elite flee south to escape their blood-thirsty wrath.

One hundred fifty years later, the great divide still exists; fangs on one side of the border, worried defenders on the other. This fragile equilibrium is threatened, then crumbles after a single young princess becomes almost hopelessly lost in the hostile territory. At first, she has only one defender: a mysterious Greyfriar who roams freely in dangerous vampire regions.
Taken from GoodReads.

Wishful Wednesday, 20 October

Wishful Wednesday, 20 October

The meme is hosted by Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

 Welcome to Wishful Wednesday!

Today I wish I could grab a quite unusual book - "Hope in Patience" written by Beth Fehlbaum. The book is unusual because of  its topic - it deals with very serious (and sad) matters happening unfortunately to some young people nowadays. Here is an excellent summary, wrote by Larwal the Librarian (her full review of this book you can find clicking here):

Booktalk:
Finally out of her step-father's house where she suffered through years of sexual abuse at his hands, Ashley is adjusting to life in Patience, Texas. In Patience she has a father, a real father, who wants to protect her, a step-mother who doesn't see her as "the competition," a little brother who will play his video games so loudly that he entire house shakes, and a therapist who refuses to let her wallow in her past. Basically, she has a chance at a normal life. But with the coming trial against her step-father, her own flashbacks, and a seriously misguided rumor mill threatening to drag her down, Ashley may never be able to focus on the "normal" problems she should be worrying about at her age: her last place status on the cross-country team, a group project with one of the most uncooperative group members ever, and whether or not a certain boy can look past everything else going on in Ashley's life and just like her.

Hope in Patience will be out in hardback on October 27th!

Wishful Wednesday, 29 September

The meme is hosted by Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

Sometimes I feel rather stupid when it comes to scence so this week I wish I could get "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson.

Cover of A Short History of Nearly Everything

From Publishers Weekly:

"As the title suggests, bestselling author Bryson (In a Sunburned Country) sets out to put his irrepressible stamp on all things under the sun. As he states at the outset, this is a book about life, the universe and everything, from the Big Bang to the ascendancy of Homo sapiens. "This is a book about how it happened," the author writes. "In particular how we went from there being nothing at all to there being something, and then how a little of that something turned into us, and also what happened in between and since." What follows is a brick of a volume summarizing moments both great and curious in the history of science, covering already well-trod territory in the fields of cosmology, astronomy, paleontology, geology, chemistry, physics and so on. Bryson relies on some of the best material in the history of science to have come out in recent years. This is great for Bryson fans, who can encounter this material in its barest essence with the bonus of having it served up in Bryson's distinctive voice. But readers in the field will already have studied this information more in-depth in the originals and may find themselves questioning the point of a breakneck tour of the sciences that contributes nothing novel. Nevertheless, to read Bryson is to travel with a memoirist gifted with wry observation and keen insight that shed new light on things we mistake for commonplace. To accompany the author as he travels with the likes of Charles Darwin on the Beagle, Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton is a trip worth taking for most readers."

Wishful Wednesday, 22 September

The meme is hosted by Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

This week I owe my wish Tracy and Deepali who both got me interested in "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchet and Neil Gaiman. 

Cover via Amazon

The description of the product from the Amazon site:

Pratchett (of Discworld fame) and Gaiman (of Sandman fame) may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again. You see, there was a bit of a mixup when the Antichrist was born, due in part to the machinations of Crowley, who did not so much fall as saunter downwards, and in part to the mysterious ways as manifested in the form of a part-time rare book dealer, an angel named Aziraphale. Like top agents everywhere, they've long had more in common with each other than the sides they represent, or the conflict they are nominally engaged in. The only person who knows how it will all end is Agnes Nutter, a witch whose prophecies all come true, if one can only manage to decipher them. The minor characters along the way (Famine makes an appearance as diet crazes, no-calorie food and anorexia epidemics) are as much fun as the story as a whole, which adds up to one of those rare books which is enormous fun to read the first time, and the second time, and the third time...

Wishful Wednesday, 15 September

The meme is hosted by Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

This week my wish is pretty simple - as it's been raining too long I wish I had the Parasol Protectorate trilogy (at least so far a trilogy)  by Gail Carriger. In fact I've already ordered it hearing that a new book has been launched not so long ago. Simple wish, isn't it?

Wishful Wednesday, 1 September

The meme is hosted by Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

 I know I am a bit late but after reading several reviews I wish I could find and read "Mockingjay" by Suzanne Collins or, indeed, all the books from " The Hunger Games" series. I've heard plenty of good things about this series and I wouldn't want to miss it. If you have already read it please tell me what your impressions have been.

Image via Wikipedia

Wishful Wednesday, 11 August

The meme is hosted by Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

This week my wish is highly unusual but nevertheless I find it very interesting. As I've been recently stung by a wasp I would like to read a book about instects - these really creepy and alien creatures, leading mostly invisible life right next to us. Do you find vampires exciting? Check out some simple facts from the life of an ordinary spider and you might be very surprised indeed! The book is entitled "Insectopedia" and it was written by Hugh Raffles.

Cover of Insectopedia

  Let me quote the expert opinion here, published on the page of  Amazon.com:

"Insectopedia is one of the most remarkable books I have read in a long time. Like its subject, it is many things, all of them fascinating. First, it is a reference book of the first order: it is loaded with facts--some profound, others curious, and still others laugh-out-loud funny. Insectopedia is also part personal memoir, scientific detective story, and even cultural study. We travel the Amazon, visit Chernobyl, and enter laboratories and sidewalk cafes in search of insects and the ideas and cultures they inspire. Insects stir eerie fascination: they are beautiful, disgusting, important, and annoying. To some they are tasty. To others they are a source of sexual fetish. Who knew? In Raffles's hands insects become windows into our culture, science, health--even our psyche. In each page of Insectopedia, the more we learn of insects, the more we come to face--and sometimes even challenge--our own views of the world.
Hugh Raffles's work stands alone for what it says both about its subject and about us. After reading Insectopedia, it's hard to look at a cricket, a bumblebee, and a human being the same way ever again. I adored the book. What an accomplishment. And I thought I knew insects... --Neil Shubin"

Image via Wikipedia

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