William Shakespeare’s The Jedi Doth Return by Ian Doescher
Goodreads Blurb: Hot on the heels of the New York Times best seller William Shakespeare’s Star Wars comes the next two installments of the original trilogy: William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back and William Shakespeare’s The Jedi Doth Return. Return to the star-crossed galaxy far, far away as the brooding young hero, a power-mad emperor, and their jesting droids match wits, struggle for power, and soliloquize in elegant and impeccable iambic pentameter. Illustrated with beautiful black-and-white Elizabethan-style artwork, these two plays offer essential reading for all ages. Something Wookiee this way comes!
Goodreads Blurb: This translation contains an introduction, commentary and interpretive essay and well as numerous notes and annotations to provide the history and background of the epic, and the mythological context in which it is placed. Hesiod’s straightforward account of family conflict among the gods is the best and earliest evidence of what the ancient Greeks believed about the beginning of the world. Includes Hesiod’s “Works and Days”, lines 1-201, and material from the Library of Apollodorus.
Blurb: You’ll lose a lot of sleep…. Ralph does. At first he starts waking up earlier. And earlier. Then the hallucinations start – the colours, shapes and strange auras. Not to mention the bald doctors who always turn up at the scene of a death.
That’s when Ralph begins to lose a lot more than sleep. When he begins to understand why his hitherto mild-mannered friend, Ed, is getting out of control – dangerously so. And why his hometown is about to become the new Armageddon….
Goodreads Review: Oh my God that Ending! Fuck you Stephen King for making me feel all these emotions! The man should be in book prison for that ending alone 🤣
Goodreads Blurb: Patric Gagne realised she made others uncomfortable before she started kindergarten. Something about her caused people to react in a way she didn’t understand. She suspected it was because she didn’t feel things the way other kids did. Emotions like fear, guilt, and empathy eluded her. For the most part, she felt nothing. And she didn’t like the way that “nothing” felt.
She did her best to pretend she was like everyone else, but the constant pressure to conform to a society she knew rejected anyone like her was unbearable. So Patric stole. She lied. She was occasionally violent. She became an expert lock-picker and home-invader. All with the goal of replacing the nothingness with…something.
In college, Patric finally confirmed what she’d long suspected. She was a sociopath. But even though it was the very first personality disorder identified—well over 200 years ago—sociopathy had been neglected by mental health professionals for decades. She was told there was no treatment, no hope for a normal life. She found herself haunted by sociopaths in pop culture, madmen and evil villains who are considered monsters. Her future looked grim.
But when Patric reconnects with an old flame, she gets a glimpse of a future beyond her diagnosis. If she’s capable of love, it must mean that she isn’t a monster. With the help of her sweetheart (and some curious characters she meets along the way) she embarks on a mission to prove that the millions of Americans who share her diagnosis aren’t all monsters either.
This is the inspiring story of her journey to change her fate and how she managed to build a life full of love and hope.
Goodreads Review: This was not the book I was expecting to read – but I see now that that’s on me. This fascinating, insightful, and brilliantly raw tale of a woman struggling to fully accept her sociopathic nature is a must read for anyone. Particularly those who see the word ‘sociopath’ and think ‘ooh new horror movie villain’. Prepare to feel very guilty about yourself.
Goodreads Blurb: An island shrouded in mist and a community with secrets buried in the past . . .
When a young archaeologist studying on a site at Whalsay discovers a set of human remains, the island settlers are intrigued. Is it an ancient find – or a more contemporary mystery?
Then an elderly woman is shot in a tragic accident in the middle of the night. Shetland detective Jimmy Perez is called in by her grandson – his own colleague, Sandy Wilson.
The sparse landscape and the emptiness of the sea have bred a fierce and secretive people. Mima Wilson was a recluse. She had her land, her pride and her family. As Jimmy looks to the islanders for answers, he finds instead two feuding families whose envy, greed and bitterness have lasted generations.
Surrounded by people he doesn’t know and in unfamiliar territory, Jimmy finds himself out of his depth. Then there’s another death and, as the spring weather shrouds the island in claustrophobic mists, Jimmy must dig up old secrets to stop a new killer from striking again . . .
Goodreads Review: You will not see the ending of this book coming – it plays on everything we expect to see from a red herring. Also, and I’m not one hundred percent sure on this since it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but I think the Tv show changed the ending again 😱
Goodreads Blurb: Winner of Britain’s coveted Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award, Ann Cleeves introduces a dazzling new suspense series to mystery readers.
Raven Black begins on New Year’s Eve with a lonely outcast named Magnus Tait, who stays home waiting for visitors who never come. But the next morning the body of a murdered teenage girl is discovered nearby, and suspicion falls on Magnus. Inspector Jimmy Perez enters an investigative maze that leads deeper into the past of the Shetland Islands than anyone wants to go.
Goodreads Review: Very different from its adaption on the show – not worse, not better, just very different. To the point where I think they even changed who did it in the show. Strange, as the book’s ending takes you by surprise in the best of ways.
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Goodreads Blurb: Pa Ingalls decides to sell the little log house, and the family sets out for Indian country! They travel from Wisconsin to Kansas, and there, finally, Pa builds their little house on the prairie. Sometimes farm life is difficult, even dangerous, but Laura and her family are kept busy and are happy with the promise of their new life on the prairie.
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Goodreads Blurb: Based on the real-life adventures of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods is the first book in the award-winning Little House series, which has captivated generations of readers. This edition features the classic black-and-white artwork from Garth Williams.
Little House in the Big Woods takes place in 1871 and introduces us to four-year-old Laura, who lives in a log cabin on the edge of the Big Woods of Wisconsin. She shares the cabin with her Pa, her Ma, her sisters Mary and Carrie, and their lovable dog, Jack.
Goodreads Blurb: Growing up on his family’s farm in New York, Almanzo Wilder wishes for just one thing — his very own horse. But Father doesn’t yet trust him with such a big responsibility. Almanzo needs to prove himself — but how?
Goodreads Blurb: On the empty winter prairie, gray clouds to the northwest meant only one thing: a blizzard was seconds away. The first blizzard came in October. It snowed almost without stopping until April. The temperature dropped to forty below. Snow reached the roof-tops. And no trains could get through with food and coal. The townspeople began to starve. The Ingalls family barely lived through that winter. And Almanzo Wilder knew he would have to risk his life to save the town.
Goodreads Review: By far and away one of the darkest of the series – can anyone say clinical depression, back breaking work in the snow and near starvation? – which is probably why this my favourite one.
The Wee Writing Lassie 