Dinara Tengri

The year is not over yet, but I wanted to get the worst books out of the way before I get to the very best. Luckily, I haven't read enough bad books this year for a full Top Ten list. So here are five worst books I've read this year.   5. The Halloween Tree, by Ray Bradbury   It hurts me to put Bradbury in this list, but I have to be honest with myself and with you. It just wasn't good.     4. Who Goes There?, by John W. Campbell   John Carpenter's The Thing is one of my favourite movies, and I had high hopes for the book that it was based on. What a shame! The premise is fantastically interesting, but the writing is just bad. The book is dull and boring, and someone should have told Campbell that the story doesn't get better if you pump it with adjectives.     3. The old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway   This was the first book I read th...

If you want to take part in Musing Mondays go to A Daily Rhythm Question: What audiobook are you listening too right now? I don’t really like to listen to books. When I read a book, I know I’m in for a very personal experience. I get invested in the story, and the characters come to life with the power of my own imagination. In a way, reading is a personal interaction between the author and myself.   When I listen to some other person read the book for me, the experience loses some if its intimacy. The narrator becomes the middleman between me and the author. Not to mention I have a tendency to drift off. My thoughts take me elsewhere, and I end up missing some pretty important paragraphs. That doesn't mean I'm anti-audiobooks. I like the fact that they exist, for one. And I can make an excpetion, if I like the narrator or if the audiobook is free. Then again, if the narration is totally sub par, you couldn't pay me to listen to it. Right ...

By Ray Bradbury The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. The shrill siren song of the calliope beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes... and the stuff of nightmare. SWTWC is one of my favourite books. I've read it three times now. It's about two boys - Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway - who fight a supernatural carnival that has come to their town. They will have to save their town and, also, their own souls.   This book is part of the Green Town series, together with Dandelion Wine and Farewell Summer , But it has nothing in common with either of these books, except that they all t...