Searching for delicious books is always a challenge...and finding time to read and write about those books is even harder.

Therefore, once again I'd like to invite anyone interested to send me thoughts on your favorite books. I'm always looking for more ooks, and as you may know, bookworms always love to hear the opinions of other bookworms!

You can email me at singingin.therain@yahoo.ca

Murder in the Mews

The first work by Agatha Christie that I have ever read...And I thoroughly enjoyed it! The book I read was a collection of mysteries, each one intriguing and fascinating. I loved the character of Hercule Poirot...

I won't say too much more...I wouldn't want to give anything away! However, I do strongly recommend this book if you enjoy murder mysteries. If you've ever read and enjoyed anything by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, you will certainly enjoy Murder in the Mews!

I give it a rating of four apples. Enjoy!

Twice Upon a Marigold

The sequel to Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris, this book is delightful. Kids will love it! In this story, evil Queen Olympia regains her memory and comes back to wreak havoc in her Kingdom. Meanwhile, newlyweds Christian and Marigold are having their own struggles. Of course, things manage to work out to a happily ever after, but not before some surprising twists in the story. This great read gets four apples.

The Sherwood Ring

This is a perfectly lovely story, written by Elizabeth Marie Pope.

The story starts off with Peggy Grahame, going to live with her uncle after her Father's death. Peggy is lonely, and her uncle drives off her one potential friend. Yet, Peggy is not as alone as she thinks. The house has secrets and history, and ghosts from the past visit Peggy. They tell stories of their past to Peggy, and with their help, Peggy finally finds happiness.

It really is a lovely story...a cute romance, with just the right amount of adventure. The characters are real and wonderful.

I would suggest this book to adults and children alike, and give it FIVE delicious apples.

books

So...someone told me that the people who created the following list think that most people will only have read 6 off the list. I thought that was interesting and decide to repost it....just for fun.

1). Emboldened is what I have read
2). Italicised are what I intend to read
3). Green are the books I love

Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
The Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (I love 'The Prisoner of Azkaban")
To Kill a Mocking Bird - Harper Lee
The Bible
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
Tess of the D'Ubervilles - Thomas Hardy
Complete Works of Shakespeare - William Shakespeare
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Middlemarch - George Elliot
Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
Emma - Jane Austen
Persuasion - Jane Austen
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Count of Monte Christo - Alexander Dumas
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
Dracula - Bram Stoker
The Secret Garden - Francis Hodgson Burnett
Ulysses - James Joyce
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
Possession - AS Byatt
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
Charlotte's Web - EB White
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
Matilda - Roald Dahl
Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Watership Down - Richard Adams
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
Still Life with Woodpecker - Tom Robbins
Possession - AS Byatt
The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Expery
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
The Three Musketeers - Alexander Dumas
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
The Iliad - Homer

Well...this devoted bookwoorm has definitely read more than 6!

The Host

Perhaps some of you have heard of Stephanie Meyer--the author of the Twilight Series. Well, I'd like to tell you a bit about one of her other works.

The Host is an interesting work(and in my opinion, better than the Twilight books). It deals with an alien race coming to earth and taking over all of humanity. We see the human's struggle to rebel against the more powerful alien race...we see their fear and hatred of the parisitic beings. We also get to see the aliens point of view and how they see their actions. They think they are doing the right thing for the human race.

The book follows the story of Wanderer, an alien placed in a human host named Melanie. The two of them eventually learn to live with each other and discover that there may be another way for both the humans and aliens--called Souls.

It is a very interesting read...and a good book to read when you have nothing else to do. I will warn you though, once you start you may find it hard to put down! I would give it a total of three apples.

Audition

Audition by Michael Shurtleff is a great book for anybody interested in the performing arts. It gives advice on the audition process that is just great. I would however, only give this book to older readers as it does have some language.

However, the advice is worth taking a look at the book if you are ever looking for help with the audition process.

I give this book a rating of three apples.

Starclimber

The devoted Bookworm is back! After a long break, I'm back with more book reviews.

Today's most delicious book is Starclimber by Kenneth Opel, a book that I generously hand Five Apples!

Starclimber is the third in a series of books about a young man named Matt and his adventures in the skies.

In the previous books, Matt's adventures take him through the clouds and the blue skies. In Starclimber, he climbs all the way into space and to the stars. A Canadian company is making the first attempt to reach space with a unique ship. Matt is chosen as one of the few astralnauts privileged to take the first trip into space. His good friend Kate De Vries is chosen as well, for her scientific work on animals and creatures that are said not to exist.

This book is excellent, and one of my favorites. I would recommend it to anyone of any age. Although I would recommend starting with the first two books, Airborn and Skybreaker.

The Black Stallion

I apologize for the length of time that has passed...and the absence of book reviews. But here's a review on a great book by Walter Farley.

The Black Stallion is an excellent story about the friendship between a young boy, stranded on island, and a wild horse.

This story about Alec Ramsay and the Black is a touching story full of excitement and action. It's great for children of all ages, and a wonderful story to read as a family.

This story gets Five Delicious and satisfying Apples!

The Rat's Tale

I just finished reading The Rat's Tale by Tor Seidler. It is an excellent story! Our main character is Montague Mad-Rat, a young artistic rat from the 'lower' end of the wharfs. He meets a wealthy, beautiful rat named Isabel and falls completely in love. But Montague's family name is not respected in the rat community, and he soon finds himself in the midst of an adventure that might just clear his family name, enabling him to marry the lovely Isabel.

This book is a great story, engaging and well-written. I think children would enjoy this story. My little brother just finished this book and says it is one of the best he's ever read.

I highly reccommend this story, and give it five satisfying and delicious apples!