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Showing posts from July, 2016

Favourite Quotes from the Harry Potter series

This lovely video from Pottermore animates readers' favourite quotes from the Harry Potter series.

The King of Rats by Melinda Salisbury - Free Short Story eBook

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Melinda Salisbury is the author of sinister YA fantasy novels The Sin Eater’s Daughter and The Sleeping Prince . Today, fans lucky enough to meet her at the Young Adult Literature Convention will be treated to an exclusive mini-book featuring her short story, The King of Rats. Luckily, Waterstones have come to the rescue for those of us unable to attend: this short story is available to download as a PDF exclusively from the Waterstones website! Download your copy of The King of Rats and let us know what you think in the comments below.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King - Review

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The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King Reviewed by Amanda Kennedy on July 12th, 2016 It's been a long time since I've read anything by Stephen King (aside from his non-fiction work, On Writing , which is brilliant by the way!). In fact, I believe the last I read was The Green Mile when it was released as a serial. Perhaps it's because I instinctively associate him with horror, the preferred genre of my adolescence. But I cannot doubt his skill as a master storyteller. I chose to read The Girl Who Loved following glowing recommendations on Mumsnet from a thread entitled "Books you could just not put down". Having read the description, I was enthralled: this looked to be a book without supernatural encounters; the story of a girl lost in the woods, about the same age as my daughter. No monsters, so far as I was aware, and potentially an easy, enjoyable read. I was not disappointed. Most of the story is told from the viewpoint of Trisha, a nine-year-ol

Serial Reader - Fantastic App for Reading Classic Literature

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Serial Reader is a fantastic app to help you read those works of classic literature that you're sure you ought  to have read, but somehow can't find the time. The app (currently only available for iOS) breaks down classic works into manageable bite size chunks to read on a daily basis. Each reading is around 10-15 minutes long. Depending on the length of the book, this can take between 2 and 60 days of reading to complete. The basic version of the app is totally free (with no ads!), and is limited to reading only one book at a time, once per day. The full version costs under £3 GBP which enables more books to be added to the reading list, with the option to "skip ahead" when you find yourself with more time to spare on reading. Serial Reader is a really great app to fill in the minutes of a commute, or while waiting in a queue. I have it installed on my phone and was very surprised by how easy it is to use! Learn more or download Serial Reader from the official websit

NYPL Children's Books 2015

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The New York Public Library has released a list of their favoured children's books in 2015. Read the full list here.

Waterstones Books of the Month (July 2016)

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These are Waterstones' Book of the Month choices for July 2016: