Books books books

Books I've finished since last time I mentioned reading:

Brent Weeks - Beyond the Shadows
Brent Weeks - Shadow's Edge
Rick Riordan - The Lightning Thief
Rodman Philbrick - Freak the Mighty
Deborah Ellis - The Heaven Shop
Erik van Lustbader - The Miko
Cecilia Dart-Thornton - The Ill-made Mute
Cecilia Dart-Thornton - The Lady of the Sorrows

I've done quite a bit of reading, which brings my total for this year to 41 books (goal was to read at least 30).

While on the topic of reading, I'd like to mention one of my new favourite websites: Shelfari (http://www.shelfari.com/ and my profile: http://www.shelfari.com/misssavara ).
Shelfari is a place to keep an online version of your 'shelf' (hence "Shelf-ari" (haha, Safari for books!)). You can make friends you actually know, or friends that have a similar taste in reading as you do. It's a wonderful place to review books, discover new authors and just show off how much you read ;)

The books of this list that have made the best impression/were the most interesting are: Freak the Mighty & The Heaven Shop.

'Freak the Mighty' is a book I picked up in a second-hand store for a mere 10 Rand (about a Euro). It's tiny book with a quirky story. It's about two 'special' boys. Freak is huge, but not very smart... The other boy is very smart, but tiny (and has lots of problems with his body). Once they make friends they're always together and live through wonderful adventures (that Freak never really understands, but enjoys all the same). Eventually the smaller boy dies, and it's all very emotional.

It's a powerful story in an unlikely package. I really enjoyed it.

'The Heaven Shop' is a Southern African story (not South African, I think it's set in one of the other countries here). It's about Binti, a girl who plays on a radio soap in her native language. After her father dies (presumably of aids) she gets schlept around the country to ungrateful family and eventually to some other family member. It's about how HIV/aids affects a community and how people deal with the misconceptions surrounding the disease. Once again a powerful tale. It's fiction, but it could just as easily have been based on a true story.

I actually got 'The Heaven Shop' to read for my lesson series on South(ern) African literature.