I'm waiting for Thunderhead to come in so I'll give this a try in the meantime.

Great book if you are a Bruce Dickinson fan, Maiden fan or just a fan of extremely interesting people. I love Bruce more since reading this. He seems like he would make the best dinner guest ever.

Professional advice given to Bruce after almost crash landing:
"Switch the aircraft off. Wait 15 minutes, then switch it back on again."

"...the effect on the mind was like dragging a rake across a disordered piece of sand or gravel. The desert seemed to soothe and calm the tempestuous mind that always bounced off the inside of my cranium. It was not inspiration; it was exhalation and nothingness."

"The king's face looks out in horror as he realizes what he is becoming: he is transforming slowly into a beast.
That painting was my reflection."

"Survivors came out and did okay, not brilliantly, but the tour and the press were fantastic."

"They had learnt half of the album Argus by Wishbone Ash, plus 'All Right Now' by Free and the inevitable 'Smoke on the Water'."

Pilot, brewer, fencer, author and rock god. I have loved this man for many years. I can't wait to get into this book.

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book but the end doesn't provide enough closure. I guess I'll be picking up Thunderhead next.

"Motives can easily be beaten into wepons."

The scythe stood. "An apology isn't necessary. It's refreshing to be challenged. You have no idea how tedious it gets; the pandering, the obsequious flattery, the endless parade of sycophants. A slap in the face is bracing. It reminds me that I am human."

"We must, by law, keep a record of the Innocents we kill."

"Life never turns out how you imagine it will when you're young. Everything is smaller than you think, or too big. It all smells a little funny and fits like somebody else's shirt."

"...you get used to those karmic moments in the book business. Books want to be read, and by the right people."

"...all the packed together detritus that becomes what you call your life."

"Aren't you a pretty little housecat," a teacher said to me once, in a low voice nobody else could hear. It was my first week as a freshman in Nashville. His words and the way he'd looked when he said them shivered under my skin and stayed there like poison.

I loved everything about this book. Can't wait to start Scumble.

"Besides," she continued, her smile faltering a bit as she squeezed my hands, "you'd be surprised at how many people dislike spending time with someone who constantly gets things right. It's not always an easy way to be."

"You don't think this dress makes me look too much like a little girl, do you?"
Lill have me a curious look. "Does it make you feel like a little girl?" she asked quietly.
"Only when I'm around Bobbie. She's sixteen," I said by way of explaining. Lill's face broke into a broad smile as she too looked Bobbie's way.
"You know, that Bobbie makes me feel a bit like a little girl too," Lill said with a laugh.

Very well written but after crying three times I gave up. I might pick it up again during a less depressing time of the year!

"Something scratched at her bedroom window after she went to bed. Coraline was almost asleep, but she slipped out of her bed and pulled open the curtains. A white hand with crimson fingernails leapt from the window ledge onto a drainpipe and was immediately out of sight. There were deep gouges in the glass on the other side of the window."

"My grandpa said that some people are more"- he searched for the word-"'sensitive.' That certain people notice weird stuff when most folks don't. He said it was like living in a town full of colorblind people and trying to explain the color blue."

Beautiful, melancholy, transporting...and that angry wine bird!

I have been on a sad story kick and needed something light to get me through the holidays. This has been just what I needed. I'm pretty sure Lauren is actually Lorelai Gilmore. If you enjoyed the fast banter of Gilmore Girls you will like this book.

"The sea meant I love you.
The sea meant I will one day return.
The sea meant I must find the world..."

There storyline was good but the writing was great. I would be interested in anything Barnhill choose to write about. She has a way that reminds me of Gaimen without the cynical edge.

"her father had locked himself in his room with a jug of wine and his howling sadness. He stopped going to the shop where he worked. He stopped speaking. His tears flowed like swollen rivers and threatened to drown the both of them. Aine waded through the swamp of her father's grief."

This is a sad, dystopian story. The ending left you wondering if death or reality is what was found. I didn't find any hope shining through in this book.

"In the blink of an eye, babies appear in carriages, coffins disappear into the ground, wars are won and lost, and children transform, like butterflies, into adults."

Wonderful book full of hope during impossible circumstances. Beautiful illustrations tell the story as much as the written word.

"Instead he walked up the side of the hill to where a picnic some thirty years before had left it's mark in the shape of a large apple tree."

"They kill themselves, you mean?" said Bod. He was about eight years old, wide-eyed and inquisitive, and he was not stupid.
"Indeed."
"Does it work? Are they happier dead?"
"Sometimes. Mostly, no. It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean."

A great tale about a boy taken in by the inhabitants of a graveyard. He grows up and eventually seeks to find himself by setting off to explore the world. Many deeper themes of family relationships, fitting in and, of course, life and death are neatly woven into the story.