Nimavenl - Nicole's Random Ramblings

Stormqueen! by Marion Zimmer Bradley My rating: 5 of 5 stars Interesting, intriguing. A story with a clear line to it, no jumping about from scene to scene, no confusion. Reading the Darkover books in the order they were written in has been a little confusing, however thankfully there are others who've read the books before me, have written notes about the books, who help me understand and take away some of the confusion with handy maps and explanations of who's who. This book did not feel like a confusing jumble as some of the other (earlier) Darkover books have, it felt like a clear story with a beginning and an end, a story I enjoyed reading and felt a part of. Although the story of Darkover intrigues me and I am determined to read all the books, I am glad that in this book I was able to get to know the characters, to really get into the story and feel that I was part of the action. View all my reviews

The Struggle Within by Christopher L. Bennett My rating: 5 of 5 stars Very much enjoyed this story. My only complaint is that it was not nearly long enough! Found the Kinshaya story fascinating, the Talarian story a little less so, although equally interesting. View all my reviews

  If you've not read this book yet, you may want to read a spoiler-free review first! You have been warned! Paths of Disharmony by Dayton Ward My rating: 4 of 5 stars I enjoyed reading this book, however have a few things I would have liked to change, if I could. While I understand that making me 'happy' with the book would require it to be changed into something it's not (a novel that's a lot longer and a whole lot more detailed than this book is), I'm still going to write some of those thoughts dow. I felt it was a pity that we didn't learn more details about the Andorian reproductive crisis itself. Learning about an alien race that has four genders instead of two is fascinating however being me, I would have liked to read more about the way they reproduce - which gender does / contributes what and why / how. The sentence "And that, my friends, is where baby Andorians come from" would have been perfect at the end of a looooot of detail...

The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet by Alicia Silverstone My rating: 5 of 5 stars Enjoyed reading this book and checking out the recipes. Before starting to read, I already agreed with a lot of what Alicia Silverstone says about the way we eat, what we put in our own bodies and the way we (humans) treat, use and abuse other living beings. A lot of what this book explains makes sense to me and sounds very logical. Still, I'm not an expert on nutrition or anything like that, so judge for yourself! I highly recommend reading The Kind Diet, if only because it's important that we all think about what we eat and where our food really comes from. View all my reviews Goodreads may not be the place to share my thoughts on eating meat or consuming dairy, however my personal blog - most definitely the right place! I'm not much of a meat-eater myself. Would say I'm about 95% vegetarian, actually. If not more than that...

Rough Beasts of Empire by David R. George III My rating: 4 of 5 stars Third Typhon Pact book focusing on Spock on Romulus, the Romulan people, Benjamin Sisko and the Tzenkethi. I enjoyed the Spock part of the story and loved reading about the Romulans - they're always interesting. Scheming, devious, always several steps ahead and never disclosing all they know. Would have liked more Donatra time, though. Bringing the Vulcans and Romulans closer feels logical and sensible (in general, not just in this book) as they're basically 'cousins' who chose different paths in life, yet this book left me thinking that perhaps reunification wasn't all that necessary or even desirable. If the idea was to convey the (general?) Romulan view of possible reunification - why would we, we're fine as we are - then bravo and well done, I agree with the Romulans. Missed getting into Spock's head and really understanding what motivates him to be where he is. Found the Sisko part o...

Being of the Field by Traci Harding My rating: 5 of 5 stars There are some authors whose next book you simply must read no matter what, because you enjoy their work and the way their minds work. Traci Harding is one of those authors. I've been a fan of her writing and her thinking for over a decade now (fourteen-ish years? Seriously? Wow!) and while sometimes a character makes me wonder if maybe they're not too perfect (and good at almost everything to boot!), it is the story that keeps me coming back for more with every book. Traci Harding takes her readers on an amazing adventure that I hope will continue through many more books, stories, characters, countries, worlds and universes. I enjoyed getting to know Taren, Lucian, Zeven and the rest of the crew of AMIE. They were new characters yet felt like old friends - books two and three explained why that was, exactly. I actually squealed and couldn't stop smiling upon realising where these books were taking me. The ideas t...

Vision in Silver by Anne Bishop My rating: 5 of 5 stars I very much enjoyed this book and loved reading more of the adventures of the well-written characters in this series. Meg's development was very interesting to read about; getting to know more of the Others was lots of fun and the way the blood prophets learn to find their place in the world made me both happy and sad. I would love to live in this world and get to know the many Others who inhabit it. The way the Others see the world makes so much more sense than the way the humans live and makes me wish humanity in the real world thought more like the Others in this book. Loving the land and living in harmony with nature and each other makes so much more sense than attempting to destroy, dominate and control both the planet and other beings. I wrote this last month about the same book and thought I'd include it in this review: Brilliant. Awesome. Amazing. Heart-wrenching. Sweet. I love Anne Bishop's work and the intri...

Dracula by Bram Stoker My rating: 4 of 5 stars I tend to enjoy books featuring magic, vampires, were-animals and supernatural creatures. Not because I'm such a big fan of horror and gore, but because I like reading about worlds similar to yet different from our own where people live mostly as we do, however with several huge differences. Dracula did not disappoint - I enjoyed the story and am glad I finally read this classic. Written as a series of diary entries (and letters and a newspaper article) by the main characters, Dracula is a gripping tale and kept me reading right until the very last page. I like the Diary format as it allows one to really see events from a character's point of view; to get into their heads and experience events as they lived them. Even though I knew (in general lines) what would happen in the story, I still wanted to read a very detailed diary entry of how those events would play out, simply to experience the book to its fullest. This book w...

Fair Game by Patricia Briggs My rating: 5 of 5 stars A fun and interesting read that I enjoyed a lot. Possibly one of the best books set in this universe. View all my reviews

Burka en Blahniks by Ebru Umar My rating: 5 of 5 stars Wat een heerlijk boek om te lezen! En wat een heerlijk oprechte schrijfster zonder blad voor de mond of politiek correcte non-mening! Zo lang mogelijk uitgerekt maar nu toch echt (twee keer!) uitgelezen. Een ding weet ik zeker: Ik haal dit boekje over een paar maanden met heel veel plezier weer uit de kast. View all my reviews

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali My rating: 5 of 5 stars What a book. What a story. What a journey. What a woman. I once wrote that I hoped that reading this book would help me meet the real Ayaan Hirsi Ali, not just the woman I read about in the media and saw on television. The book did not disappoint and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone. WOW! View all my reviews

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan My rating: 5 of 5 stars I've put this book down countless times since I started reading it, intending to start again from the beginning and take notes. It's almost like I'm afraid that without doing some serious prep work first, I might miss something or not quite understand the historical context of a situation. Yet the book keeps drawing me back in: Looking at it turns into reading a few sentences turns into reading another chapter. The writing style makes the book easy to read, there are plenty of in-text references to ensure I don't need (to take) notes and learning more about the revolutionary Jesus that Aslan describes keeps me coming back for more. "Zealot" bring the Holy Land of Jesus' time almost close enough to touch, which makes it an entertaining, interesting and thought-provoking book. UPDATE: Having read through the Notes section and finished the book, I am even more amazed at t...

Book of Psalms: With an Interlinear Translation by Menachem Davis My rating: 5 of 5 stars I very much enjoyed reading the Psalms and working on my (very basic) Hebrew at the same time. While reading left-to-right English from right to left can be confusing, I have to admit that the directional arrows helped me adjust easily, just as the introduction promised. The interlinear translation makes the Hebrew easy to connect with while ensuring that the English-language sentences make sense to the eye and the mind. View all my reviews

Today, totally out of the blue, I came across a review in the St. Louis Post - Dispatch for a new book by one of my favourite authors. The reviewer sounded like he enjoyed the book and explained a bit about the books in the process - always fun to read a review like that! I first picked up a book by Laurell K. Hamilton a few years ago after being introduced to her work by fellow fans of Anne Bishop's books. Enjoyed the first few books in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series a lot and by the time I'd read those, was hooked enough that I kept on reading as more books came out.  The Anita Blake books have taught me a lot and have helped me deal with real-life issues. The question " What would Anita say / do ?" crosses my mind several times a month even when not actively reading or re-reading the books. Anita Blake starts off as a tough as nails animator and vampire slayer - a professional who is good at her job, enjoys it and draws a lot of satisfaction from livin...

One really cool and unexpected "side effect" of reading Patricia Briggs ' Mercy Thompson books is learning lots of new and interesting things. One of the things I'm learning about is Washington State. I'm currently reading the sixth book in the series, River Marked, and wanted to get a better idea of the area Mercy and Adam went to. Now sure I could take the "short-cut" way of learning more and get my information from the Forum on the website , however doing a Google search tends to come up with lots of interesting info as well. I knew the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer were set somewhere in the US. I'd looked Forks up on a map once, just to get a general idea of what it looked like. What I didn't know was where it was in relation to other places. Such as Canada, state lines, and such. Reading Mercy Thompson meant doing more research into Washington State, and this book, being set mostly away from the Tri-Cities, meant checking out more ma...

I've been reading the first few books in the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs these past few days. Some of the things talked about like vampires, werewolves and fae I have a pretty good understanding of through folk tales, fiction books, movies and TV series. Other things, I'm learning lots about! Some of the things I'm learning about are now also things I've Googled. What does a coyote look like exactly, or a VW Rabbit, and oh yeah - how about a map of the area the stories are set in?! As I'm looking these things up, I figured why not store the links / photos / descriptions in one easy place. And where better to store something than here, my very own blog! Coyote  First, of course there's Mercy. She's a walker. Something I've never heard of before. Patricia Briggs' website links to a forum (which I just discovered about 10 minutes ago... Oh Bliss !!!) that has a page with lots of info on walkers . Basically - she can shapeshift/...

I'm currently reading Linda Fairstein's latest book called Legal Legacy. She is one of my favourite authors, and I look forward to reading her books each and every time. For the author's website, check my links on the right. For a description of the book and the characters in it, go there too. In a nutshell, Ms Fairstein writes fiction based loosely on her own experiences as Assistant District Attorney for Manhattan's Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit in New York City. The main character of all her books, Alexandra Cooper, holds the same job. In this book, Alex investigates the death of a woman with connections to the New York Public Library, and the readers get taken inside the amazingly intricate world of the library system, book collectors and antique maps.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon My rating: 4 of 5 stars I enjoyed this book but did find it a little hard to read at times. I found the story very interesting, and was fascinated with the descriptions of how a Jewish state could have been, had it not been for the country of Israel. Definitely a good read, and worth the time it took me to finish the book. View all my reviews

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama My rating: 5 of 5 stars Reading this book, there was one thought that kept spinning through my head: "I like this guy!" Seeing Mr Obama on TV and reading about him in different newspapers in the time before his election to President, he amazed me. The way he talked  drew me in and his charisma and vision fascinated me. But, I wondered, did he have the experience to know what he was talking about? How well would his words translate into action? Reading about Mr Obama's life and experiences in Hawaii, Indonesia, Chicago and Kenya was extremely interesting. To have access to diverse environments such as these is one thing, but to be an insider there (instead of a visitor or a tourist) is something else entirely. It gives one unique insights that aren't available to others, and I feel that this is definitely true in his case. I wanted to read this book as I wanted to find out more about Mr O...

Tommyland by Tommy Lee My rating: 3 of 5 stars I quite enjoyed this book, and absolutely loved the humour Mr Lee brought to this story. Also, his sincerity and fortrightness appealed to me. Mr Lee seems the type to tell a story the way it is (as far as possible and allowed in a book like this), no matter the rough bits, no matter how bad it makes him look. The way he explains being in jail and how hard it was, the birth of his children and his separation from his second wife - these explanations sound so real and sincere that they really shook me. Yes, I knew already that Tommy Lee is a real person with a real life, not just a drummer or a party person or a face on a cd cover. But now I feel I've had an actual glimpse of who that person is, and he's someone I'm happy to respect and read more of. For sure! View all my reviews