Book Two in the Sabriel Trilogy by Garth Nix.
Lirael is born into the Clayr. The Seers of the Old Kingdom. She is shunned by majority of the Clayr due to the fact that she doesn’t have the sight and of her looks. Most Clayr have blonde hair and skin …

Abhorsen is the Thrid and final book in the Sabriel Trilogy.
We get to see the story continue from the perspective of Nicholas Sayre, Sameth’s best friend. He has some amazing and terrifying experiences with his guide, Hedge, in the hopes that he will dig up the lightnening ball. It …

If you are into magic and adverture this is the book for you.
Sabriel, a girl of 18, has been given the bells of the Abhorsen and must find her father who has been trapped in Death. She must make her way through the unforgiving terrain and creatures of the …

If you’re old enough, you will remember Ruth Dickson from her early work, most notably the notorious bestseller “Married Men Make the Best Lovers”. After a thirty-year hiatus, she has come roaring back, at age 80, with the delightfully dishy “Life, Death and Other Trivia”.
Witty, clever, …

I know I’m probably the last one to read the Da Vinci Code, after all its sold millions upon millions of copies around the world, but with the new movie out I decided finally that I would read the book that everyone is talking about. I must say, …

I read The Dante Club last year and absolutely loved it! It is one of my all time favorite books! The author was absolutely brilliant to come up with this story. In this book, famous people like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell and JT …

I was browsing in Toys R US yesterday and came across a bunch of retro 12 inch GI Joe dolls on display. Seeing them on the shelves prompted me to dig out this book and give it a re-read.
The book is a very cool albeit all too brief look …

The Editors of Writer’s Digest Books (also the publishers of the fantastic Writer’s Digest Magazine) put this hardcover out for those of you newbie freelance writers interested in getting that first sale.
Honestly, if it wasn’t for this book, I would have been totally lost as how to go about …

Dan Brown’s book Digitial Fortress is a really good book! This story is about a code-breaking machine at the NSA that comes across a code it cannot break which results in lots of problems for all the people involved. The NSA uses a cryptographer, Susan Fletchers, to help figure …

Here! Here! Let’s all hear it for for RJ Reynolds and Randy Baer for their compilation of horrible wrestle angles (storylines) and characters who stunk up TV airwaves!
All that is lame in pro wrestling is referenced for your reading pleasure. You can now relive The Gobbledygooker, Papa Shango, and …

Marvel really knocked this one out of the park. This book is probably the best collection in the entire Ultimate line that I have ever read.
For those of you didn’t read the first series, the Ultimate are basically a revamping of the Avengers. Well, revamping is too small …

Marvel’s Ultimate line continues this time dealing with a Daredevil miniseries that focuses on the character of Elektra. Good thing they decided to focus on Elektra because the previous Daredevil miniseries spent far too much time on Elektra as opposed to Daredevil. That’s okay if you want …

Rob Zombie and Steve Niles team up once again in a follow up to their previous teaming for the excellent “The Nail.”
This time, they bring a new mini series (four issues) dealing with a man’s revenge againt (you guessed it) BIGFOOT! Bigfoot murdered his dad and raped and murdered …

One of DC Comics’ most underrated series of the 1980’s was the shortlived (50 issue) series VIGILANTE, which dealt with Adrian Chase, DC’s resident Punisher rip-off. Well, rip-off in the sense that he was a similar character, but the quality of the stories was SIGNIFICANTLY better than the lame …

Do you have a bunch of used books you no longer want that you wish you could sell, quickly and easily? I have discovered a website that lets you do just that! Cash4Books.net buys used books and even allows you to ship them for free. It works like magic. …

“How to Be a Pirate” by Cressida Cowell is a sequel to “How to Train Your Dragon”. The memoir of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III continues, telling us how the smart, but not physically strong Viking boy goes through his pirate-training. As we know from the first book, heroic adventures …

Are your kids crazy about dragons? If so, here is a book for them: “How to Train Your Dragon” by Cressida Cowell. This book has it all: great adventures, lots of humor, whacky names like Snotface Snotlout - and, of course, dragons.
The book is a “memoir” written by Hiccup …

Rob Zombie’s film, The Devil’s Rejects was one of the most stunning horror films of the last twenty years. This comic book tie-in, also written by Zombie, is pretty forgettable and totally underwhelming for fans of the film.
Released just before the film debuted in theaters, this book features a …

Screenwriters know that the term development hell is not the term of endearment. Instead it for the lengthy process where a screenplay loads in limbo waiting to go into production. Many famous films spent a great deal of time in development. This book covers some of those famous ones. …

What is the point in this memoir? Basically what we get is a person chronicling their own personal Atkin’s diet. We do get a little background on the person’s life and their battle with obesity. But none of it is either poignant or funny. It …

The Elephant and the Tiger chronicles the complete history of the Vietnam War including its prehistory and events leading up to the U.S.’s involvement and to great detail covering the entirety of the war and concludes with the U.S. ceasing its involvement in the conflict.
While the book …

Writer’s Digest Magainze has been publishing a book division for years now and this is arguably their best and most important work.
Writer’s Digest first released this nifty hardcover way back in 1994 and it’s material is still relevant today, 12 years later.
In this volume, people starting out with itentions …

It took me forever to get through this novel. Although it was good, there were points that didnt seem to fit with the theme. It is about a young Hungarian baroness who falls in love with someone who is considered beneath her. Then World War 2 …

I recently read The Da Vinci code, authored by Dan Brown. It was really rivetting and offers a fascinating insight into Christianity. It is based on the search for The Holy Grail, with the help of a series of clues given by a murdered museum curator.
In the …

The Reader is a novel written by Bernhard Schlink. It follows the thoughts of a German boy named Michael who falls in love with a woman twice his age, Hanna. Before he knows it Hanna disappears. Years later while in law school he sees Hanna again, …

Scott McCloud brings us a sequel to his brilliant book UNDERSTANDING COMICS.
What the first book did was create a textbook that, in an entertaining, illustrated way, described what exactly a comic is (sequential art with a plot) and how it is properly crafted by all those involved in creating …

I have a computer and a laptop and neither works properly, I have been having trouble with both of them for awhile, and it was just easy to say ” get another computer, get another laptop.” Yeah, it’s easy to say that if you can afford it, but it …

“Bark George” is a book by Jules Feiffer about a dog named George who can not bark. His mother asks him to bark, and rather than your traditional “arf” he instead moos, quacks, and meows. His mother doesn’t know what to do with him, so she takes him to …

This book should be required reading for anyone interested in Canadian history - or more precisely, inclusive Canadian history.
Cooper has written an incredibly well-researched and presented book. Not only does she tell the story of a slave woman, Marie-Joseph Angelique, who was tortured and hanged for arson in …

I’ve always had a sick interest in serial killers and their crimes so my mom bought me Lethal Intent by Sue Russell. This is a biography of the now infamous Aileen Wuornos, played by Charlize Theron in “Monster”.
The book gives great detail about Aileen’s home life as a child, …

I’ve read the novels by J.R.R Tolkien I swear it be hundreds of times by now. And each and every time, I find myself delved so deep into the story of Middle Earth, it’s hard to retrieve my mind from fantasy back to reality. These novels were written in …

The League of Extraordinary Gentleman Vol 2
The big screen adaptation of Alan Moore’s controversial comic series was nothing more than a third rate X-Men clone and avoided the subversive nature the books epitomized.
This second collection of the comic stories retells the HG Wells classic, WAR OF THE WORLDS and …

The saved the worst for last. This is the final volume of the Marvel’s Essential Dracula series and it reprints not the excellent comic book, but rather, Dracula’s appearances in the more adult oriented magazines such as VAMPIRE TALES in the 1970’s.
And it also reprints TOMB OF DRACULA …

This book, a children’s book for age 8-10, is quite fun. The kids I read it with enjoyed it because they liked the idea of talking to dragons.
The main character has a funny name, and the way he keeps getting into odd situations because of the other kids is …

Ultimate Spider-Man #9 “Ultimate 6″
This volume in the Marvel remake series is quite interesting as it recreates Amazing Spiderman Annual 1, a magazine that was written forty years ago. That annual, to put it bluntly, was awful.
In it, readers were introduced to the Sinister Six, a group consisting of …

This book is somewhat helpful. I actually found many of the ideas in his book repetitive - a lot of the information is also contained in his other books. The focus didn’t seem too, well, focused on women, more on individuals.
A tricky thing about the book is that it …

ESSENTIAL PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDERMAN Vol 1
In the 1970’s, Marvel decided to give Spiderman, who was appearing regularly in Amazing Spider Man and Marvel Team Up, a second solo book. This effectively cashed in on his popularity and gave fans another monthly book to read and also infused …

I recently read this book, Oh, Life Relax Please written by Swami Sukhabodhananda. This book gives a vision for managing life. It talks about the basic reasons for our struggles and also gives solution to manage and overcome our difficulties. The book is not written only with words but …

ESSENTIAL TOMB OF DRACULA VOLUME 2
Marvel continues its reprint of Tomb of Dracula comics and the legendary duo of Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan have their outstanding work on display.
The first few issues of Tomb of Dracula (published in vol one) were quite good, but the series was still …

Ultimate Spiderman #4: Legacy
Here is the Ultimate Spiderman debut of the Green Goblin and, personally, I didn’t like it.
It isn’t that the book is not well written because it is. I couldn’t get into because The Goblin is changed to the point he totally doesn’t resemble the original Green …

Ultimate Spiderman #3 “Double Trouble”
Here he is, the Ultimate universe’s Doctor Octopus!
The problem with Doctor Octopus in the ‘regular’ books was that he played the role of a powermad, meglomaniacal scientist looking to dominate the world…and rob banks.
In other words, any way the wind blows. He became an unfocused …

Ultimate Spiderman #2 “Learning Curve”
Here we see the debut of the Ultimate version of The Kingpin and he’s just as evil as the Kingpin Frank Miller recreated in the early 1980’s. (The Kingpin originally debuted in the 1960’s in The Amazing Spiderman, but the storylines were ultra cartoonish)
The Kingpin …

ULTIMATE SPIDERMAN #1 “Power and Responsibility”
Brian Micheal Bendis hit the ball out of the park with this one!
For those not familiar, the Ultimate line is Marvel’s remaking/updating their classic heroes’ original storylines and, while hit and miss occassionally, overall, they are very well done.
Ultimate Spiderman retells Spidey’s origina and …

ULTIMATE SPIDERMAN #13 - HOBGOBLIN 13 is an unlucky number for the Ultimate Spiderman line.
Here is a bit of backstory, in the original Spiderman universe, in 1974, the Green Goblin’s son, Harry Osborn, became the second incarnation of the Green Goblin but he only lasted two issues.
(He did end …

BATMAN CATACLYSM sets in motion the No Man Land’s storyline that was one of Batmen’s best ‘maxi-series’ story arcs in the books pubslishing history.
Is a supervillian always needed to be the focus of a comic story?
Maybe not.
Cataclysm is unique in the sense that instead of battling a down and …

The Punisher Vol 3: Business as Usual
Junk. I’m sorry but I don’t think I could come up with a better word. This issue features a confrontation between The Punisher and Wolverine and it is far sillier than you’d expect.I have no idea why this book was brought back in …

ULTIMATE SPIDER MAN 14 “Warriors”
This is a very cool installment in the Ultimate Spiderman trade paperback reprint collection.
What makes this one special is that it features the debut of three ‘new’ heroes to into the Ultimate universe: Shang Chi Master of Kung Fu, Iron Fist and Moon Knight.
Shang …