Book of the Year 2011

As we've come to the end of another year of book group, we did our annual vote for our favourite read.
The group found it particularly hard to choose between some of them, and as we have such wildly differing tastes within the group, the results were sometimes quite surprising. Several books were rated top by one or two members, and bottom by others!

Anyway, here are the results...

With the same number of points were four books- Sally Gardner's I, Coriander; JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit; Caroline Lawrence's The Case of the Deadly Desperados; and our last read, Debi Gliori's Pure Dead Magic.

In 2nd place was Gill Lewis' fabulous debut novel Sky Hawk. This heart-warming tale of friendship, hope and an amazing journey deservedly scored very highly with nearly everyone in the group.

And in 1st place was our read from way back in December last year to January of this year, Wilma Tenderfoot and the Case of the Frozen Hearts by Emma Kennedy. Wilma won everyone over with her adventures, and some of the group have gone on to read the following books in the series, which is always a good sign!

Looking forward to another year of discovering great books and new authors.

November/December: Pure Dead Magic by Debi Gliori

Our latest read was Debi Gliori's funny fantasy Pure Dead Magic.

Pure Dead Magic tells the story of The Strega-Borgia children, Titus, Pandora and baby Damp, and their efforts to rescue their father, kidnapped by his evil half-brother who wants to get his hands on the family fortune.

A new nanny with a big secret, an array of magical creatures living in the basement and Tock, the crocodile, who patrols the moat are just some of the larger than life characters we meet in this riotous mix of traditional fantasy and modern technology with a large dollop of madcap humour thrown in for good measure.

Again, we had some major differences of opinion over this book - some loving it, some hating it and the rest somewhere in between! Here are some quotes from the group:

"A very good book. I liked the animals." - Poppy

"It's alright, but I probably wouldn't recommend it." - Lilah

"I would recommend it - I really liked it." - Willow

"It's a really good book and I recommend it, but make sure you check the Dramatis Personae because there are a lot of long and complicated names to keep track of!" - Lottie

                                Tabitha's picture of Tarantella

Page Turners Rating: 3.5/5

Another catch-up!

I've been very bad and missed posting about our last two book group meetings, so I'm going to do a brief catch-up, then I can get on with a full post about our latest book. Sorry!

So, back in September/October we read The Sword in the Stone by T.H.White.

It wasn't the most popular of our choices, but some members of the group really enjoyed it.

Lottie said: "If you read it you should persevere, because it gets quite good."

Poppy said: "It's quite long, but it's a good book and worth reading."

The Sword in the Stone Page Turners rating: 3/5

In October the group voted for A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz for our spooky Hallowe'en read.

This was a book that really polarized opinion! Willow liked it so much she read it twice, Lilah also loved it, but Lottie hated it. Funny and gory, it wasn't quite as scary as it made out, but it seems a love it or hate it kind of book.

A Tale Dark and Grimm  Page Turners rating:  4/5