Calling All Readers!

Support authors, illustrators too, they need you.

Just think about it, they’ve poured all of themselves into creating that book you enjoyed. They’ve revised, reworked and fine tuned the words and images you escaped into. They’ve worked hard to get their book(s) published and made available to you.

They deserve a shout out, or a pat on the back, you know they do.

So, that book you’ve just started, or are mid-way through, or are close to finishing? Once you’re finished, use your power as a reader to share your thoughts.

Here are two super easy ways to do just that.

Give it a rating and a review.

It won’t take long. Ratings and reviews can be found on most bookselling sites as well as Goodreads.

You have the power. Books and their creators need your input. It’s a harsh publishing world out there. A little appreciation goes a long way.

Illustrator, Debi Ridpath Ohi says it all!

Your star rating and review can help new readers find and enjoy the book you loved. The more new readers that a book gets, the more likely it is that the writer and illustrator will have opportunities to publish again.

So please, take a few moments to flex your reading power. Help the authors and illustrators you enjoy have the opportunity to create more books. Your imagination will reap the benefits.

The Imaginators by Linda Scott is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0

• Who? What? Where? Why?
• Food for Thought
• Random Acts of Reading
• When You Open a Book
• On Reflection

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Tiger the Tabby

There I was perusing the bookstore shelves, when this cover caught my eye.

I wasn’t planning on buying any books, as my to be read list was already overwhelming. I figured I’d just take a photo to remember the title. After wandering the rest of the store and taking a few more photos of future tbr titles, I circled back and found myself face to cover with the above book. It was meant to come home with me. You can’t argue with that kind of feeling. Well you can, but I didn’t want to, so I carried the book to the register happy to be bringing home a new friend.

No, I didn’t start reading right it away. Well, to be honest I did read a few pages, but that’s all, as I had to finish the book I was in the middle of first. Once I’d finished The Last Cuentista, I eagerly gazed at the cover of The Cat Who Saved Books. The illustration by Yuko Shimuzu made me feel as if I’d somehow already entered the atmosphere of Natsuki Books the secondhand bookstore in the tale.

The story’s protagonist, Rintaro Natsuki, is a hikikomori who has just lost his grandfather and inherited the secondhand bookshop. Soon after, a talking cat who quotes The Little Prince and offers Zen philosophy enters the store requesting his help and Rintaro is drawn into the first of four labyrinths (a reference to the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur) through which he journeys toward his own self-discovery. His grandfather’s words, ‘Books are very powerful’ will serve him on his journey and will, along the way, gain a broader meaning for him and, as was my experience, for the reader who embarks on the journey with Rintaro.

There are a number of poignant passages I’m tempted to type out just to share with you, but I think it’d be better if you find them on your own. Let me know when you do. I’d love to discuss them.

As for me, I’m about 25% through the book for the second time around and Rintaro’s soon to be heading toward the second labyrinth.

Let me know if you take a chance on The Cat Who Saved Books and what you think about it.

• Who? What? Where? Why?
• Food for Thought
• Random Acts of Reading
• When You Open a Book
• On Reflection

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Reading Anything Good?

This week I’ve finished Alexander Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, Terry Pratchett’s Colour of Magic, Oliver Jeffers’ Lost and Found, Roseanne Thong’s Round is a Mooncake, and Ellen Walsh’s Mouse Shapes (one of my students is working on shape identification). I’ve also started, and on this rainy Sunday made a good dent in Susan Wigg’s The Lost and Found Bookshop.

In the movie You’ve Got Mail, the main character Kathleen Kelly’s reporter boyfriend, Frank Navasky says, “You are what you read.”

Hmmm . . . Well three of the books of the books I’ve recently read are about adventure. Some of the characters wanted adventure, like Twoflower and D’Artangan, but some like Rincewind just found themselves in one. Me, adventurous? No, definitely not, especially not on a disc held up by a turtle, but I did enjoy going along for the ride. So, I guess Frank was wrong.

In my TBR pile I have a mystery, When the Crawdad’s Sing, by Delia Owens and Dragon, by Angie Rooker. Mysteries and dragon’s have, and I imagine will always be a big book draw for me.

It’s funny how reading one book leads you to another one. I read The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexander Dumas, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and then I received The Three Musketeers for my birthday. I was reading Terry Prachett’s A Slip of the Key Board, which led me to start the disc world series; one book down and forty odd more to go, although I plan to detour and read The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rats. With a title like that its begging to be read. At least, I think so.

Is there anyone else drawn to titles with the word bookshop, or literary society in it?

Here are a few I own. Any recommendations?

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have my own bookshop. I admire those brave souls who have opened their own independent bookshops, as its not an incredibly lucrative or consistent business. But still . . . anyway, for now I’ll live vicariously and read about bookshops and the people who own them, adventures on a disc held up by a turtle, mysteries and dragons.

What are you reading? What drew you to reading that book? I’m curious to know.