Kathryn's Inbox

  "They looked at each other, baffled, in love and hate." - William Golding, Lord of the Flies

Sir Terry Pratchett might be best known for his Discworld novels, but this little non-fiction volume about cats packs a huge punch. Pratchett is a cat person. A Real Cat person. As in the cats that we all know and love and can find almost anywhere, as opposed to the mass produced cats that come from breeders. Fearing that Real Cats may become extinct, he and cartoonist Gray Jolliffe have created this little book to educate the public about Real Cats, and campaign for their existence ... Actually, the book is just a fun guide to the cats that we all know and love, and the experiences that are common to many cat owners. Cats are unique, loveable and often infuriating creatures, and this takes a no holes barred look at what it means to be a cat owner--from choosing a name that you won't be embarrassed to call out at midnight (not that the cat will come when you call it anyway,) to how cats seem to so frequently escape dangerous situations.  This is an entertaining read from start to f...

 A group of bunnies is called a fluffle. 

If you're in the mood for some light romance with an added dash of paranormal, then look no further than the Legacy of Sterling Manor. Holly Jenson is going through a bit of a rough patch when she unexpectedly discovers that she has inherited the estate of her estranged and recently deceased great aunt. Although she feels immediately drawn to the house, and has some very feasible plans to turn it into a bread and breakfast, there's just one thing standing in her way. Local man Derek Sterling believes that the home is rightfully his and he would do anything to stop Holly from moving in ... that is until paranormal forces keep bringing the pair together and they start falling in love ... This was an entertaining read, one that kept me guessing from start to finish. Although the premise and its execution are more than a little far-fetched (I fail to see why Holly's aunt wouldn't have revealed certain key certificates and pieces of information to her lawyer, particularly w...

What a delight is What if it's Us , a story of two teenagers who randomly meet in a post office, are instantly attracted to one another and then find themselves torn apart by a flash mob before they can exchange phone numbers. Arthur an eternal optimist and straight-A student who finds himself doing an internship in New York for the summer. He's recently come out to his friends and is looking for a boyfriend when he starts talking to a very attractive boy in the post office. He thinks it is fate the universe has brought them together. Meanwhile, Ben is a struggling student who is making his way through summer school, and has just experienced a bad break up. He thinks the flash mob at the post office is the universe's way of getting back at him. Despite this, the pair soon try to find one another, only to discover that they are complete opposites. One is an optimist, the other is a cynic. And they just can't seem to have a successful first date. Are they truly meant to b...

  "Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion." - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

  The M&M in M&Ms stands for Mars and Murray

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  "One day I will find the right words, and they all will be simple." - Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

  Sweet Valley High Flair Collection Omnibus from the UK The UK editions of the Sweet Valley books sometimes looked a little different from the ones that were released in the US and Canada. The Australian/New Zealand editions usually looked the same as their American counterparts, however, it was possible to sometimes find the UK version on a remainder table. In the UK omnibus editions containing three volumes in one were also common, as they allowed the books to be reprinted quickly and cheaply, and were often seen by consumers as good value, as an omnibus edition was often cheaper than buying all three books separately.  This particular edition was released in the late 90s and has stars of the Sweet Valley High TV series Brittany and Cynthia Daniel on the front cover. The Flair collection contains novels from a three part series where Jessica and Elizabeth do work experience at a hip fashion magazine. I'm not sure that I really like the cover, which feels a bit too busy to m...

  A hashtag is also known as the pound sign or an octothorpe.

There is always more than one side to a story. In Beautiful Little Fools, author Jillian Cantor takes F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby and re-imagines and retells the story from the perspective of three different women who are all linked to Jay Gatsby in some way. First is Daisy Buchanan nee Fay, the object of Gatsby's obsession, her cousin golfer Jordan Baker and finally we have Catherine McCoy, a new character, a suffragette who is the sister of the ill-fated Myrtle Wilson. Cantor takes the stories of Daisy, Jordan and Catherine and weaves them into a feminist tale of how their lives are shaped by the men around them, whether they be past lovers, cheating men or abusive husbands, and what they finally do about it--and get away with much to the ire of the investigating police officer. I've read, and studied, The Great Gatsby on more than one occasion and it's a story that has both intrigued and frustrated me in equal parts. At first, I was surpri...

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  "Not all those who wander are lost." - J R R Tolkein, Lord of the Rings

I'm not going to deny it. I had one of the biggest--no, the biggest--fangirl moment of my adult life when I pulled my copy of Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of 80s and 90s Teen Fiction from the padded envelope it came in. The cover alone brought back a massive wave of nostalgia, reminding me of the books I loved from age eight when I first discovered The Baby-Sitters Club in my primary school library one Friday morning, to age eighteen when I read Lois Lowry's A Summer to Die shortly after a close friend passed away from cancer. This full colour book explores many of the middle grade and young adult titles from a now past era--where children's books were shorter, were inexpensive enough to be purchased with pocket money and the focus was on fun. These weren't the real life books from the 1970s (though I read many of them as well,) or the blockbuster trilogies that started appearing after Harry Potter, and then Twilight changed the middle grade and young...

  The first fully licenced FM radio station in the world was W47NV which began broadcasting in Nashville Tennessee on 1 March 1941.   The first ever FM radio station was W2XMN which launched experimental broadcasts from Alpine, New Jersey in 1936. It ceased broadcasting in 1949.

Here is a confession. My knowledge of Norse Myths is sadly lacking, in spite of the fact that these very myths have a very real influence on a lot of modern fiction. One only has to go as far as the Fantasy section at the local bookshop or one's local library, and they can see for themselves just how much influence these myths have on a lot of fiction today. Anyway, I decided to fix that and Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology seemed like an excellent starting point. After all, I've read a number of Gaiman's novels (along with a few comics and graphic novels,) and his style is not only familiar to me, but I know that I'm safe with an author who genuinely appreciates the myths. The stories are beautifully retold, bringing together tales of the Gods who lived in Asgard--Odin, Thor, Loki and Freya. As is often the case with myths, each seeks to explain how or why something came to be, with an added dash of morality in there. I enjoyed many of Gaiman's depictions of the G...

By the time I was a couple of chapters in, I could see just why Aristotle and Dante became a bestseller. A beautiful, slow burn romance, it tells the story of Ari, a teenager who is struggling to get through life and to feel any sense of self and how he meets Dante a boy his own age who soon falls in love with him. But Ari isn't close to anyone ... is he? And he certainly doesn't return Dante's feelings.  Why then does all of the evidence point otherwise? This was a beautiful, truthful story about a kid who feels like a bit of an outcast, the beautiful boy who loves him, and how Ari learns that the key to being true to himself lies in the way he treats others. It touches on the difficulties faced by the children of immigrants, what it means to have a parent with PTSD and coming out in the late 1980s. Fortunately, Ari and Dante come from loving and supportive families, which gives the book a greater strength. This isn't so much a story of coming out to ones parents, but...

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