28 Jan 2011

the ninth circle by alex bell (2008)

grabbing it someday spontaneously at my local bookstore (because of its amazing cover and the promising text), i had this book waiting on my shelf for some weeks and finally decided to pick it up... i was not disappointed:

gabriel finds himself lying in his own blood inside what seems to be his apartment, all his memory lost, a suitcase full of money beside him. while he is waiting for his family to search for him, he receives cryptic clues to his past and has strange nightmares of demons. which makes him question his own sanity. Then slowly the dreadful truth is revealing...

alex bell has delivered a great debut-novel, written in diary-form from gabriel's big-hearted and sometimes slightly presumptuous view. i'm not a religious person, but the story was very enthralling.

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inferno by dante alighieri (14th-century)

dante's hell is often referred to in modern books. it's a real classic. to be honest i really just read this very slightly shortened version of dante's first part of his famous la commedia. although i will definitively try to read the rest sometime, but right now i need a break because it was quite difficult even if you like poems.

dante is guided trough the nine circles of hell by the roman poet vergil. he encounters famous historic persons, popes and people he knew that all are being tortured in very fitting ways for their sins. he himself is only a guest  who is like orpheus before him searching for the love of his life - beatrice.

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24 Jan 2011

warm bodies by isaac marion (2010)

isaac marion has released his short-story i'm a zombie filled with love in the internet and due to the great echo he has now written a book about a love-filled zombie. usually i'm not that much into zombie-books but i decided to give it a try and i must say that even if it was kind of weird sometimes, it's a really good debut-novel. there are some very interesting twists and the changing of the zombies is well developed. the lovestory is cute. but the happy-end is not really appealing to me, i would have liked a more uncertain  end with just a little bit of hope... but anyway. i liked it. and i love the cover!

i definitively will read the short-story too (i didn't read it before because i didn't want to spoil the book) but now it's safe =) 

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bartimaeus - the ring of solomon by jonathan stroud (2010)


 

charming and sarcastic as always bartimaeus helps his undesired masters to survive in this great world that jonathan stroud has in his earlier books! the story is setting 2000 b.c. in saba and jerusalem. i don't think i have to say anything more...=)

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kraken by china miéville (2010)

the giant squid from the darwin-center at the british history museum is suddenly missing. who has taken it and why? a crazy and nightmarish hunt begins in london. the attendants are sorcerers, a krakenist in exile, a  rebellion-leading statue, a talking mafia-boss-tattoo on the back of a punk, cult-collectors, a special police unit, the living evil goss and his son subby, the fortunetellers of london (londonmancers) and some strange angels of memory and in the middle of them all is billy harrow, who didn't even know such things exist...

a really freaky read especially if you like london! my first china miéville but definitively not the last... somehow reminds me of neil gaiman's neverwhere...

a freaking awesome cover by the way =) 

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the harry potter prequel by joanne k. rowling (2008)

harry potter is back!!!!

a really cool although unfortunately very short short-story by joanne k. rowling:

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lucian by isabel abedi (2009)

so, this is the first book i read in 2011! i read it the original language (german) because that's my mothertongue... enjoy:
 
rebecca suddenly feels a small crack in her soul, it doesn't hurt but it's there and it wasn't there before... when she meets a nameless boy with no past, they both feel an instant connection. lucian, as he calls himself, tells rebecca weird stuff about her life and the nightmares she lately has, all things that he couldn't and shouldn't know. but he drams about her every night. when he tries to solve the mistery of his missing memory his frightening past is slowly revealing. who is lucian really and is he dangerous? what does rebecca's mother know about him and rebecca and why doesn't she tell her? and will rebecca and lucian ever see each other again?
 

what i liked about this book is that it's only one and i don't have to wait for a sequel =) but it's also quite exciting, although a little bit slowly in the middle... the idea is very interesting and i think isabel abedi did a good job at play it out. the romance-part is not exactly hot and also morally a little bit awkward (but i don't tell you why, you'll see by yourself)

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21 Jan 2011

coming soon

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