book list, continued

Remember, all the books here are available on Amazon.com. For a link to their Amazon site location, along with reviews and commentary, just click on the books. If you'd like to buy any of these titles, please go through the school's fund-raiser site to support the program with your purchase.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

I read this novel ages ago. Adams is a master of hilarious sci-fi and I'm looking forward to a re-reading of this work.

Kon-Tiki - Thor Heyerdahl and F.H. Lyon

I had no idea that I would enjoy this book as much as I did. The last adventure story I read set on the high seas was C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader. This real-life adventure transported me to the delightfully low-tech world of Thor Heyerdahl. This man set sail from Peru to see if he could voyage to Polynesia via a balsa wood raft and a lot of luck. Did he ever. Such a page-turner this book is...� I recommend this to my fellow armchair adventurers.

Nine Tailors - Dorothy Leigh Sayers

Have you ever heard of change-ringing? You will have intimate knowledge of it upon reading this novel.� While I enjoyed the dialogue of this british mystery, while the characters were extremely well written, I thought the pacing and was often too slow. My biggest complaint: I agonized through countless descriptions of drainage and hydrolo-engineering..This wasn't my favorite novel.

Professor and the Madman - Simon Winchester

I have only read a few chapters of this one so far, but I am enjoying it immensely. The Oxford English Dictionary has a fascinating story of conception. A professor of English at Oxford University and a man in an English countryside insane asylum worked together to compile the first edition of this great work of lexicography.

Rose Daughter - Robin McKinley

Victorian Internet - Tom Standage

Beowulf - Seamus Heaney

Dinosaur Bob - William Joyce

Just how charming can a children's book be? Dinosaur Bob and the family Lazardo scores a perfect 10 in my book. In Joyce's beautifully conceived art deco world, this story explores the difficulties of being a massive dinosaur in a small town. Joyce's theme here, as in many of his works, is feeling "out of place." Certainly all children, at some time or another, have felt this way. This is an excellent book by a gifted and charismatic Louisiana author/illustrator.

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