Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie | Audiobook

This is more of a review about the BBC Radio 4 Full Cast Dramatisation, my experience or overview rather than a review of the book itself. 

Agatha Christie - Five Little Pigs Audio CD

I'm a huge Agatha Christie fan and I love all of her Hercule Poirot books so the review would basically just consist of. "Love it, enough said". 


This was my first time experiencing an Audiobook performed as a radio play and I wanted to put my thoughts down about it. 


John Moffat provided the voice for Hercule Poirot and I think he did a pretty good job. For me, Hercule will always be David Suchet but I came to this with an open mind and I was pleasantly surprised. Having seen the series and owning them on DVD I could quite easily drift off and see it all in my head. 


I also really enjoyed listening to all the extra sounds, a door being opened and closed, birds outside of an open office window, the awkward silence when the murderer has been outed. Brilliant, you tend to miss those in a television show because the dialogue takes precedence. You have the visual aid there to show you that there's movement and background activity. It really gave the book depth and made it not just a story between pages where you imagine the events happening before you, it was like actually being there in the room with them. 


I think dramatisations are fast becoming my favourite way to listen to Audiobooks. I never really considered it before but it just brings so much more to the story than having a single narrator.


Five Little Pigs is the story of a wrongly convicted murderess, who's daughter with the aid of Hercule Poirot, confirms her innocence, sixteen years after the murder and her subsequent death. How young love and jealousy turned to hate and how misconceptions fogged up the truth. 

I'm A Goodreads Librarian!

I've been on Goodreads for three years, this August. I can't remember how I came across it, through book friends and blogs I think. 
I really enjoy being on it, I've found a lot of friends who are interested in the same kinds of books I am and they always have perfect recommendations. 


I explore Listmania a lot for recommendations in specific genres. Most recently for my up coming, September Mer Month and November Angel Month reads. It's a lot more efficient to go through that then to pick randomly in Amazon. Then I can spend more time actually reading free samples and auditioning the books and hopefully, be left with the top 5-10 reads that I'll really enjoy and be able to recommend. 


I applied to be a Goodreads Librarian, only yesterday. I had seen it on others profiles before but I thought it was a special thing. I didn't realise that just anyone could apply for it, if they met the criteria. I decided to apply because even though Audiobooks and Kindle books are usually available in the 'Other Editions' tab, some of the info isn't as accurate as their paperback and hardback counterparts. Also in the last year, I've been reading the Merlin series of books that accompanies the British TV Show and they haven't even had a listing on Goodreads, so I've done my best to create them and fill the info out as accurately as I can. The same goes for a few Audiobooks, mostly the ones that don't have a physical edition, only download editions. That's the reason I applied to be a Goodreads Librarian, to keep track of Audiobooks and Kindle editions and help make Goodreads even more helpful. 


If you're a bookworm and like to keep track of what you read and when, find friends who read similar books and also some really good recommendations! check out www.goodreads.com it's a social networking site for book people and it's free!

Agatha on Audio

Last week while mum and I were sat out in the garden I received an e-mail from the BBC shop letting me know that they had a summer sale on their Audiobooks. They had a lot of Agatha Christie books for under a £5 so I snapped some up. I have them all on DVD too but it's nice to have them in book form. Especially with lots of summer drives coming up. You can visit the bbcshop by clicking here.


All of these are on 2 CDs and run for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Hercule Poirot is played by John Moffat and Miss Marple is played by June Whitfield. They are all BBC Radio 4 full cast dramatisations. 


I picked up:
Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot) 
Elephants Can Remember
Hallowe'en Party
Five Little Pigs


Agatha Christie (Miss Marple)
The Moving Finger
4.50 From Paddington
A Pocket Full of Rye
A Murder is Announced


Agatha Christie: Endless Night (novel)


I also picked up The Infernal Devices: (2) Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare. A little disappointed to see that they've changed the narrators so much for continuity! It's now narrated by Ed Westwick and Heather Lind. You can click here to visit the Book Depository. 

Agatha Christie. Hercule Poirot - Elephants Can Remember Audio CD Front Cover

Agatha Christie. Hercule Poirot - Elephants Can Remember Audio CD Reverse Cover

Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot - Hallowe'en Party Audio CD Front Cover

Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot Audio CD Reverse Cover

Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot - Five Little Pigs Audio CD Front Cover

Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot - Five Little Pigs Audio CD Reverse Cover

Agatha Christie: Miss Marple - The Moving Finger Audio CD Front Cover

Agatha Christie: Miss Marple - The Moving Finger Audio CD Reverse Cover

Agatha Christie: Miss Marple - 4.50 From Paddington Audio CD Front Cover

Agatha Christie: Miss Marple - A Pocket Full of Rye Audio CD Front Cover

Agatha Christie: Miss Marple - A Pocket Full of Rye Audio CD Reverse Cover

Agatha Christie: Miss Marple - A Murder is Announced Audio CD Front Cover

Agatha Christie: Miss Marple - A Murder is Announced Audio CD Reverse Cover

Agatha Christie: Endless Night Audio CD Front Cover

Agatha Christie: Endless Night Audio CD Reverse Cover

Agatha Christie Audio CDs pile of 8 books

The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare Audio CD Front Cover

The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare Audio CD Reverse Cover

Getting A Head Start...

I've recently upgraded from a Kindle Keyboard WiFi to A Kindle Touch 3G and I'm loving all the features and the ease of use. The menu still doesn't talk and can't be resized so when I need to find a book in the menu I use my iPad camera as a magnifying aid!

Last night I moved about 100 titles from my archives onto my decive and filed them into Read and To Read collections.

I deliberated over sorting them by title or author, choosing author eventually with the theory of keeping series books together. However, that didn't work out as expexted because one series in particular, The Lost Books of History by Ted Dekker, had some books co-written with another author which meant that the series of five books was split. Two were under Ted Dekker and the others under K Hill, to quote Katherine Green, 'Is not much helpful'.

Apart from that it's looking good. I've decided, instead of creating collections for seperate authors to make finding titles easier, I'd sort them via genre which seems to be working much better. I'll probably end up sorting those by author too.

So far I have Fey and Angel collections and I'll probably end up with Historical Fiction/Christian/Steampunk ones too.

I've made a collection for my August Rereads to keep me on track and I'm slowly filling up a Mer Month collection.

The first book I'm rereading, which I've got a headstart on, is The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. I read it when it came out in Jan this year and gave it 5 stars. I love it and I feel the same way reading it all over again.

Are you rereading any favourite books at the moment? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter!

Kindle Touch 3G open to second chapter of The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. 

Blogging For All

I've been blogging for a few years now and I've seen some crazy things going on. But now, worryingly, I'm seeing the same crazy mistakes going on within the Book Blogging Community, which makes me so frustrated. We should be helping each other, not blocking each other. 


Here are a few small changes you can make to your existing blog, or things to consider when making a new blog. 


1. Colour Schemes:
This is such an obvious thing and I'm surprised to see it go so wrong so many times. Keep it simple and comfortable to read. Don't clutter it up with needless graphics, gifs, banners etc. Especially in the Book Blogging Community, it's the written posts we come for. Your blog is not a book cover crying for attention from millions around it on a shelf. Yes, have your own identity, Yes have your own style. But the whole purpose of your blog is to express your opinion on the books you love, so make it easy for people to find your posts, links and actually stay for the entire review without our eyes watering. 


White on Black or Black on White work the best. If you have to have to use a colour scheme, choose wisely, avoid Yellow/Blue and Green/Red then you won't upset the large Visually Impaired community that actually want to read your blogs and you'll also get more colour blind readers and older readers choosing to stick around too! 


2. Text
Flexible text is the way to go, it makes it easier for Visually Impaired people to have control over how big they need the text to be. If your themes have fixed font faces and sizes it's just another source of frustration, leading to a drop in readership. Choose highly contrasting colours. If you use a dark background, make your font as light as you can and visa versa. 


Spellcheck, Spellcheck, Spellcheck. I'm always letting typo's slip through the net which is why I often ask my mum or a friend to proofread before final posting. Screen readers don't understand abbreviations or incorrectly spelt words. So to stop confusion in its tracks, spellcheck before hitting that publish button! and avoid using abbreviations when possible. 


3. Placement
Screen readers read from the top left to the bottom right of the screen so having all your links on the left is really irritating. Each time we visit the same links are repeated. Best to keep it on the right hand side, that way if we want to go through the links we can choose to go over there. 


4. Images
Being a book blogger myself, I know how important it is to have the cover of the book somewhere in the post, it draws positive attention. Something you can do to make your book blog that is littered with images more VI friendly, is to always provide a caption and description. That way the screen reader doesn't just announce that there is an image but what the actual image is of. 


5. Links
Everyone knows links are important, not just for navigating the blog, but to other sites as well. It's very disorientating when you click a link and it suddenly opens a new window and we weren't expecting it, some older screen readers don't even announce that a separate window has been opened which is even more disorientating! The newer ones do but please, don't have links opening in new windows, or if you do, please specify in the post that this will happen. e.g. The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab is available on Amazon, click here to read the blurb. Avoid 'read more..' links. These may look great and professional but.. screen readers that skip find them very tricky and unhelpful. 


6. Comment Verification
Please, please, take off word verification. Yes, I know with all the spam and stuff it's temping to keep it on but by doing so you are putting off a lot of readers. I'm Visually Impaired and I can never see what the heck the words and letters/numbers are, and I've never once experienced a time when choosing the listen to words option has actually provided me with an intelligible noise I can deduce information from. Turn it off and boom, accessible to VI readers! 


7. Accurate Labelling
We all love widgets, they are a fun thing to add to any blog but what a lot of us forget is to label them. It's cute to have 'Awesome Peeps' above a gallery of followers but when coming from a screen reader, we have no idea what you are talking about, it could be a post, it could be a single photo, what is it? it's not a list... Blogroll, blog roll of what? my haunts online, book blogs I love to read, My to be read list?


So that's just the basics of what makes a blog work or not work for me and why I either stick around to read it or not. Making your book blog accessible to a whole new world of VI readers won't just help boost your blog readership, it will also show the rest of the internet that VI people are very much apart of the community and that we're nerdy about technology too. It's also great to take a step back and think about other people who are reading or want to read your blog but have obstacles. Things are taken for granted and every now and then we need a nudge in the right direction to keep everything fun for everyone. 


Thanks for reading. I hope this helped. 

Book Bitten: Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce

Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce 

I just picked up this book from Amazon and I am so disappointed. I've read up to Chapter 5 and I wish I could get a refund. It so wasn't worth £5.99 of my budget. The free sample granted wasn't a good sign but I thought the plot progression would make up for the lousy writing style, wrong. 


The blurb was really intriguing. It starts on a Christmas day and a long lost, thought dead, sister returns to her family, twenty years after she disappeared. 


The writing style is really hard to follow it's a bit confusing it doesn't flow naturally, before downloading the Kindle version I was listening to the preview on Audible, who wanted over £25 for this, don't waste your money, iTunes wanted over £15 which is still bad. The narrators general speaking was awful to listen to, the syntax was all over the place, couldn't figure out which part of England he was supposed to be from, the put on accents supposedly from Derby/Lancs/Nottingham were even worse, which is why I opted for the Kindle edition. The language really frustrates me. I understand that some people generally talk like that and they don't think anything of it, it's 'within context', but it's so prolific it's no fun at all to read and so far the book is proving the complete opposite of what I thought it would be like. 


The light, green cover is really deceiving. I thought it was going to be an interesting light read of a young girl turned Fey who disappears for twenty years, who then comes back to her family to tell them all about her adventures. With dark secrets and rebuilding family ties. So far all I'm getting is moody male family members swearing. Third person narration isn't always my preference. I think this book would have benefited from having it written in first person or changing it up a bit with alternating character perspectives. How this book received 4.5 stars is beyond me, let me know if it's worth ploughing through but for now it's on the dumped shelf. 


I doubt I'll finish this book so it won't receive a full review.


Have you ever been bitten by books? 

Books I Read This Week #2

Mer Month Finalists.

I've been auditioning free chapter samples of Kindle Mer books all month for September Mer Month.


Here are the finalists.
In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield
Madly by M. Leighton
The Siren by Kiera Cass
Lost Voices by Sarah Porter 
The Ingo Chronicles by Helen Dunmore
Everblue by Brenda Pandos
The Mermaids Mirror by L.K. Madigan
The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson


Any other Mer books you think I should check out, recommend some in the comments below, and if you've read any of the above let me know, were they good but no spoilers, please! 


Books that didn't make it, that you may like.
Fins Trilogy by Tera Lynn Childs 
Daughters of The Sea: Hannah by Kathryn Lasky
Sirena by Donna Jo Lapoli
Tangled Tides by Karen Amanda Hooper
Seven Tears into The Sea by Terri Farley
The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler 

Monthly Reads Roundup: July (14)

Comments From The Chill Corner

Chill Corner

With the sun actually being out and me shedding the usual 10 layers for just 4. We've been taking advantage of the summer in the garden. I've done most of my reading out there, casually on the swing or on the picnic chairs under the umbrella, but when the tide turns and it gets chilly we retreat back into the dark, dark, house. 


I have a bay window in my new room and I've wanted to maximise the use of it for ages but nothing quite seemed to fit. For the last month I've had an armchair in there with my pink throw over it but as Ellie isn't allowed on the furniture she rarely joins me, unless it's too hot upstairs and she comes back to me to warm my feet up. 


Ellie loves it when I'm sitting on the floor with her, she rests her head in my lap but despite having carpet over the hard wood floor it's not the most comfortable way to spend the evening hours. Thus I found a solution. A bigger dog bed. 


There's this large chocolate brown, fleece, dog bed that both I and Ellie have been eyeing up every time we go to Pets At Home. We couldn't really justify the price as she already has a blanket she sleeps on that came with her. But I thought if I moved the armchair and put the new dog bed there, it's more of a fleece mattress than a dog bed, then we could both chill out on it. I could read and she could dog day dream in my lap. One day into the experiment and it's already a success. 


Ellie sat and read with me last night and she stayed for the most part of making our weekend videos this afternoon. Now I have it all to myself for this blog post, it's super soft and comfy. I can't feel the harsh wooden floorboards at all underneath. 


I'm working my way through the 39 clues series. I picked up the first book, The Maze of Bones and so far despite it being a short book, it's not really gripping me. I'd hate to end July on a disappointing read :(. As all the books in the series are written by different authors, I'm hoping that even if this book isn't that great, the others might be. If you've read any of them, please let me know what you think of them and suggest good ones in the series! 


I have about 11 book reviews to finish writing and editing so I can post them on here. I don't know what's happened with me this month. I used to read a book and then review it before I read the next book, this month I've just read, read, read and hardly reviewed. I've totally lost the swing of it. 


I've filmed, edited and uploaded Fridays video on my channel, just waiting for it to finish processing then I'll make it public. It's not a For Your Consideration video, that will be back next week. Today instead it's a Monthly Reads Roundup for July in which I've read 14 books which include ebook and audiobooks. 


Time for tea. 
Emx

Hallowed by Cynthia Hand | Kindle eBook

Hallowed by Cynthia Hand Kindle edition

Not the sequel I was expecting still worth the read. - Emmy

★ ★ ★

read the blurb | Goodreads

Hallowed is the second book in the Unearthly series by Cynthia Hand. It leaves off from when Clara thinks she has failed in her purpose by choosing to save her boyfriend Tucker, over Christian.

I'm honestly conflicted with this book. I was really hoping for a more of a Jeffrey based story line, to see why he was being such a jerk, even though it was obvious... It would have been interesting to see the siblings come together and either work it out together or totally go against each other in some kind of climatic event. Jeffrey was really only given 1-2 pages of actual explanation in the entire book, which really sucked, he didn't have any dimension or seemingly any real purpose in the plot, just filler mood. Once again the book is dominated by Clara and her love triangle with Christian and Tucker and although that was interesting in the first book, Unearthly, it was just over done and it took away from the plot progression and the danger posed by the Black Wings. 

Hallowed didn't live up to my expectations and it wasn't nearly as much fun to read as Unearthly. I'm hoping the final instalment, Boundless, which comes out in January 2013 will give me all the plot progression and character development I was hoping Hallowed would provide. It truly felt like a filler book and I was disappointed. Clara seemed even more dense in this sequel and you wanted to slap her sometimes! However, I did really enjoy the camping scenes and bringing in Clara's Father was a relief from the love triangle. It was sad to see Clara's mother die, although we knew it was coming at least we had a few things about her history revealed, it wasn't nearly as much as I'd have liked. 

NB: Unearthly #1 and Hallowed #2 are both available on UK Kindle.

Neither are available as Audiobooks. 

Boundless #3 will be available on Hardback from Amazon in January 2013, please click the Kindle link to let them know we want it available as a UK Kindle edition too! 

Eyes Like Stars (Theatre Illuminata) by Lisa Mantchev | Audiobook (CD)

Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev Audio CD

My mind is blown! My mouth cannot articulate, elaborate or cohesively appreciate the beautifully written, magically told, awesomeness that is, Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev. I haven't felt quite this way since The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. It's definitely gone into my 2012 highlights. This is why I read - Emmy.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 

Read the blurb | Goodreads

All the worlds a stage.
Beatrice 'Bertie' lives inside the Theatre Illuminata with the rest of her friends, the playwrites and cast members of every play every performed. They cannot leave the Theatre and in this, the first book in the series, it sets the scene for Bertie's adventure of a lifetime. .

As soon as I read the blurb I knew I wanted to read this book, it was like nothing I'd ever read before. The premise of living inside a Theatre and plays being performed pretty much 24/7 really intrigued me. It's beautifully written and the descriptions are sumptuous, aided greatly by the Audiobook edition, thanks to the NY full cast who dramatised it amazingly.


Bertie has fast become one of my favourite heroines and it's not just because of her Blue hair, which seems to be a theme, especially after Karou in Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Bertie is sassy, intelligent, loyal and despite being hung up on Nate the Pirate from Peter Pan, she isn't the annoying love sick pathetic type at all. The dynamic friendships between Bertie and her faery friends, who just happen to be from Hamlet, Peaseblossom, Mustard Seed, Cobweb and Moth is really entertaining and naturally they are always getting into trouble, a lot of comedic relief. 


I thought the pacing was done well with the right combination of dialogue and action, and when the action happens it's like a run away train and you're hanging on by a pinky finger, very addictive, hard to put down. and you never want it to end. There were some parts towards the end when I was on the verge of shouting, plot progression already! Tthe truth is tantalizingly dragged out but by that time, you're so invested in the characters, you really want to hold on to find out who Bertie's mother really is and if Nate will ever come back. 


Obviously, it has a lot of Shakespeare references so nerds will enjoy tracking them down. There are plenty of twists and turns in the plot, you think it's going one way and you can predict what's going to happen next and then suddenly it turns itself upside down and you're back to square one. 


I'm looking forward to reading the second and third instalments of the Theatre Illuminata series! 

NB: Eyes Like Stars (Theatre Illuminata #1) is available on Audiobook both CD and Download from Amazon, iTunes and the Book Depository.
 This series is currently not available on UK Kindle. 


Due to the UK not buying the rights for the second and third instalments, Perchance To Dream (Theatre Illuminitata #2) and So Silver Bright (Theatre Illuminata #3) there are no Audiobook editions for the foreseeable future. 


You can help change this by emailing F&F and politely leaving your interest in these titles becoming Audiobooks and for future updates. 
Lisa Mantchev provided me with this email and she welcomes support for getting her titles available to everyone. 

Hello.

Hello. 


Thank you for popping by to see what I am up to. You've probably gathered this is a bookish blog so no need for me to go into too much detail about it's purpose. 


If you've found my blog through my YouTube Channel, then this is really just an extension of my videos. I don't do book reviews on my channel because they'd probably be too long, or too boring and I don't think I'd ever finish editing a video, let alone uploading it and expect you all to listen to it. I find writing my reviews is the best way to go I can give the book more respect and more time this way. I enjoy listening to other BookTubers doing book reviews and I get the majority of my new reads from them but I prefer to give the occasional book recommendation and leave it at that. 


If you've randomly stumbled across my blog, welcome! My name is Emmy and I am a Blind book addict from England. I've loved reading all my life and wasn't about to give it up just because my sight decided to ditch me. 
I listen to Audiobooks and at the moment I can still manage to read Ebooks via Amazon Kindle with the font on the biggest setting, which means about 3 words per line and my nose, literally in a book. 


I'm stuck in a YA Fiction kick at the moment, well if I'm honest I never really grew out of it. My go to genres are Sci Fi & Fantasy, Steampunk, Dystopian, Paranormal (Fey and Angels mostly, no Vampires), Historical Fiction, and the occasional Mystery/Thriller. I'm a huge fan of Philip Pullman, Ted Dekker, Michael Morpurgo, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Markus Zusak, Cassandra Clare, Lisa Mantchev, Suzanne Collins, Julie Kagawa and Tracy Chevalier.


Let's get this blog started!


Emx