Next Episode

The Canada Reads pick for 2003 was Hubert Aquin's Next Episode. At the time I purchased this book I was not nearly developed enough intellectually to understand most of what was going on and sadly lost interest. Recently, nine years after I bought my copy, I decided to give it another chance. I can better see now why this book was chosen as a Canada Reads pick, it exemplifies the quintessential identity of separatist Quebec.

City of Lost Souls

There isn't really much I can say about Cassandra Clare's latest installment in The Mortal Instrument series, City of Lost Souls, without completely ruining the plot of the previous ones. So I will just say this, it was just as good as the others and you should go read them all! Also check out her prequel series The Infernal Devices, you'll especially enjoy it if you read steampunk novels, personally I like the characters better because I give them all British accents when I'm reading haha.

Plus, like so many teen novels lately, this series is being adapted for the big screen. The first in the series, City of Bones, is slated to be released in summer 2013.

Cassandra Clare

Mortal Engines

When Allison told me that there was a book where cities walk around and eat each other I was sold. After she finished reading Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve I quickly pilfered her copy to read myself. Filled with strong characters and a unique take on a futuristic, post-apocalyptic society Mortal Engines keeps you reading. In it you will find orphans, traction cities, airships, archaeologists, sky cities, pirates, corrupt people in power in government (not that far removed from pirates), and rebel forces. What's not to love?

Insurgent

Another day, another teen fiction sequel to read. Insurgent is the sequel to Veronica Roth's debut novel Divergent. Riding on the wave of teen dystopic fiction, following the success of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games, Roth does a fantastic job filling the void left behind when you finish a series and need something new to read. A read I quickly gobbled down.

Sailing to Sarantium

I finished reading this book quite a while ago (June of 2011 to be exact) and was waiting until I read the sequel to post about it, but since I don't seem to be getting on with it I figured I'd post what I wrote over a year ago about Sailing to Sarantium. FACT: Guy Gavriel Kay is my all time favourite Canadian author, I haven't read all of his novels yet but am coming close! What makes his books great to me is how he mixes historical facts with myth and fantasy in a smooth enough way that you are convinced that these things actually happened.

Dear Creature

Sometimes it is nice to take a break from reading long arduous books (just kidding, no book is arduous...) and pick up a graphic novel to read. Thanks to my friend Michael who lent me Dear Creature, it was wonderfully amusing. With an amphibious main character who just wants to fit in but finds it difficult since he cannot resist his craving for human flesh. My personal favourite trait of the creature is that he speaks in iambic pentameter! He learned to speak through bits of Shakespeare he found in bottles afloat in the water. Which is what leads him out of his watery depths to seek a life amongst humans, to find the source of these Shakespeare excerpts. Mixed up in all this comes a lovely romance of a slightly batty woman and this creature from the depths.

Jonathan Case

American Gods

 
Last year I went on a Neil Gaiman reading spree and borrowed a couple of his books from my friend Allison. Over a year later, hehehe, I finally read American Gods one of his most successful and well known novels. Filled with Gods of old fighting against the Gods of the new world, trying to survive. I have started in on Good Omens next, a delightful duet done by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.