Bout of Books Mini-Challenges

I find it easier to put the mini-challenge responses in a separate post from my updates, so here we go. I LOVE mini-challenges, so I'm pretty excited...


Sunday:

Last day of the read-a-thon! Today's mini-challenge is hosted by Snarky Bird, Uber Nerd, and it's all about recommending books. The idea is to say that if you liked (...) then you'll love (...)

Okay, here are my suggestions. I wanted to go mad and recommend everything on my shelf, but then realised that I'd have to limit myself. Of course, these work both ways - if you've read the second suggestion, then you should love the first too!

- If you like The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, you'll love Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett. The latter book is older, and I never see it talked about much, but it is very good!

 

- If you like The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa, you'll love Bitten by Kelley Armstrong. Strong heroines, and sexy supernatural stories that don't pull punches.

- If you like the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, you'll love the Bartimaeus series by Jonathan Stroud. Not exactly similar, but both are fun and adventurous, both feature magic, both are very British, both feature arrogant magic users (the Bartimaeus series could be seen as what the Harry Potter world could look like if the magic users had ruled over the muggles instead of hiding from them), and both explore prejudice towards magical creatures.

- If you like A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin, but would like a smaller cast of characters and more women in positions of strength, then you'll love The Red Knight by K. T. Davies.

- If you like The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, you'll love Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. In terms of the magical feel. So enchanting and absorbing, though I think Howl's Moving Castle has a much better story, and would recommend it to anyone, even if you hated The Night Circus. ;-)

- If you like the current trend of YA dystopias involving pregnancies, you'll love The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

- If you like A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula le Guin, you'll love The Magician's Guild by Trudi Canavan. Similar idea of young people being plucked from the most unlikely place in order to learn magic, and then dealing with the consequences.

- If you like the Famous Five series by Enid Blyton, you'll love the Roman Mysteries series by Caroline Lawrence. Same sense of adventure, same fairly simple but very fun puzzles, same brave children and strong friendship, and the added bonus of learning about ancient Rome as you go!

So there you go. Hope there was something there to interest you, or to add to your To Read list! Can't wait to see everyone else's suggestions. :-)


Saturday

Today's challenge is hosted by Smash Attack Reads and it's another book spine poem! But this time we have to stick to one genre of books... of course, I chose fantasy (it's the genre I own the most of, so makes things a bit easier). It's 12 books long and uses 12 extra words, and I ended up having to take the picture in three:

A game of thrones in Fantasyland:

The Iron King on his throne of glass;

The High Lord in his castle in the air.

Each sips poison from enchanted glass,

As the novice, cursed with eyes the colour of magic,

Claims the crown of Dalemark.

I'm not sure if the second title is 'Fantasyland' or 'The Tough Guide to Fantasyland'. If it's the latter, then replace that title with 'City of Ruin', which I own but haven't taken a photo of.


Thursday

Today's challenge is to make an acrostic poem, hosted by Harley Bear Book Blog. The task is to take a book title and use each letter to make a word. Here's mine:

Wednesday

Create a cover! This is being hosted by I Talk Books, and the challenge is simple: re-design a book cover! I picked Wool by Hugh Howey, and created this with the help of my husband. Enjoy! ;-) 

 
Monday

Book spine poem time! This is being hosted at Escape Through the Pages.

The rules are: create a poem using book titles. You get as many extra words as you have books in your poem. I'm already breaking the rules because I actually have two more words than I do books. Technically, I can do it without cheating, as I can replace 'I call' with 'are', and remove 'and', but I think this throws off the rhythmn a bit, so I prefer this version.

This is a little tribute to the poem within the book The Stars My Destination, which is also one of the books in the stack. :-)

I've titled it:

'The Science Fiction and Fantasy Author'

I'm the master puppeteer,
And Neverwhere my nation.
Magic and stone I call my home,
The stars my destination.