Howling Frog Books

 Usually I would sum up all the challenges I finished and the best books of the year, and so on, but this year I didn't finish any challenges and in fact I hid in the familiar and in children's literature for months on end.  And that is just fine!  2024 was an extremely difficult year, with the exception of the fantastic adventure of the Ridgeway hike , and I lost almost all my reading energy. I took refuge in Diana Wynne Jones, Joan Aiken, and other children's literature or Ridgeway books (not enough of those, I have quite a few now).  I'm only slightly disappointed in myself for not reading the many, many heavy-duty books on my library and TBR shelves.  This was not the year.   So what's my plan for 2025?   I hope to regain my reading energy, but I'm not taking on any challenges.  I do want to keep posting here, even though I'm so bad at it these days and so few people are book-blogging at all; it's really valuable to me to be able to ...

 ...and wow, there are a lot of them!  Since Witch Week, I've been indulging in reading the entirety of the Wolves Chronicles, for a total of 12 (13?) titles (nine for this post).  I tried to read them pretty much chronologically, that is, in some sort of publishing order.  I didn't totally succeed and almost missed one (Midwinter Nightingale ) so that happened nearly at the end.  Aiken sometimes went back and slotted a story into a previous storyline, so for example, Dido eventually has two adventures on her way back from Nantucket to England, but those were written later. I've been highly entertained by how Aiken gets more and more fanciful the further she goes.  By the end, England is divided into several small countries(?), Jamie Three's father was named Angus the Silent, and genealogy goes absolutely wild, as does world geography.  I would love to see a map! The Stolen Lake :  Dido takes a detour to Hy Brasil, where Queen Guinevere has been w...

 The Ring of Bright Water, by Gavin Maxwell When I opened this book and started reading, I was a little taken aback when the introduction to the trilogy edition explained that all three books had been edited down in order to become the trilogy.  I didn't sign up for that!  I wanted the whole thing!  But then it turned out that complete editions of the first book are no longer easy to get; they've long been replaced by this shortened trilogy version.  And so, resigned, I decided to read the first part of the book and then see how it was going before committing to all three books.  And I did really enjoy Ring of Bright Water , but I don't think I'm going to continue. Read on to see why. Gavin Maxwell, wanderer and general nature guy, had tried running a shark-hunting business on the Scottish island of Soay.  He'd gone back and forth to the Middle East a few times, for what exactly he does not say, but writing seems to come into it, and probably also gen...

 The Faithful Spy, by John Hendrix It's a graphic novel biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, aimed at a YA audience!   While this story culminates in Bonhoeffer's involvement in plots to kill Hitler, and his subsequent imprisonment, it's not the sole focus of the book.  This is a biography that aims to give a full picture of Bonhoeffer's life, complete with his childhood and family, later studies, travel, and efforts to start a new kind of pastor training. The art is gorgeous -- complex and layered, but done only in scarlet, teal, and black.  Visually, this book is wonderful, but it does suffer from the size; I think it would be better in a larger size, which may have been too expensive to print or something.  The print is tiny, and I often struggled to read it. Highly recommended for an excellent angle on Germany in World War II* and a fascinating treatment of Bonhoeffer's life, plus the art.  It was really good. But I wish it was printed larger! *Alth...