The Map Shop

  Redwall by Brian Jacques was published in 1986 by the Hutchinson Publishing Company in the UK. This is the first book published in the Redwall series, a twenty-two book children's fantasy series that has been made into a children's cartoon aimed at older (middle grade) children. It has won the Lancashire Libraries Children's Book of the Year Award, the Western Australian Young Readers' Award, and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal. The first book follows the life of a young mouse named Matthias who is an orphan living in the Redwall Abby when Cluny the Scourge, a tyrant sea rat, arrives and demands the Abby's surrender and enslavement. Matthias, inspired by the stories of the legendary Martin the Warrior, leads the Abby against the evil rat and his army. During the siege, Matthias must search for Martin's legendary sword which has gone missing while also learning what it means to be a warrior and gaining new allies along the way. I know this doesn...

  Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis was published in 1938 by The Bodley Head in the UK and then published in the US five years later. The two sequels, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, were published in 1943 and 1945. This is Lewis' space travel series where he borrowed elements from H.G. Wells and David Linsay. According to biographer A.N. Wilson, Lewis chose to write the book after a discussion with Tolkein about the state of contemporary fiction. So what's it about? Out of the Silent Planet follows Ransom, a professor of philology (languages in oral and written records), who is taking a walking vacation through rural England. He chances to meet an old school mate, Devin, and a Dr. Weston who is a physicist. The two of them abduct Ransom and take him on their space ship to a planet Weston calls Malacandra. During their trip, Ransom discovers they plan on giving him to the natives of this planet as an offering or sacrifice. Upon their arrival, he sees the g...

Welcome travelers to the Map Shop. I hope all of you are safe and healthy during this time of social distancing. One small silver lining to all this is there's more time to read and write. Today is another wrap-up and TBR post. In March, I read a total of nine books. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman Battle Angel Alita Delux Editions Vol. 1-5 by Yukito Kishiro Out of all of them, Norse Mythology and Battle Angel Alita were my favorite. A Room of One's Own was interesting but it takes it's time getting to the point. Out of all of them, The Sun Also Rises was the most infuriating, mostly because nothing really happens in it. It left me angry. I don't appreciate that in a book. April contains two challenges that I'm participating in on top of my usual reading challenges. The first is Camp NaNoWriMo. This is another version of the us...