Wiki Wednesday ~ June 11, 2008

Over at Verbatim, Karen has a great little game for Wednesday’s.  Wiki Wednesday!  Time to learn something!

1. Go to Wikipedia.
2. Click on “Random article” in the left-hand sidebar box.
3. Post it!

Here’s what I got this week:

Spriggans are legendary creatures known from Cornish faery lore.

Spriggans in folklore

Spriggans were grotesquely ugly, found at old ruins and barrows guarding buried treasure and generally acting as fairy bodyguards. They were also said to be busy thieves. Though usually small, they had the ability to swell to enormous size (they’re sometimes speculated to be the ghosts of the old giants).

Certainly their disposition was poor, and they caused mischief to those who offended them. They sent storms to blight crops, and sometimes stole away mortal children, leaving their ugly changelings in their place.

Images of spriggans

A sculpture of a spriggan by Marilyn Collins can be seen in Crouch End, London, in some arches lining a section of the Parkland Walk (a disused railway line). This sculpture was the inspiration for Stephen King’s short story “Crouch End”, where a stylised rendition of the sculpture is described. The sculpture is sometimes mistaken for the Green Man or Pan.

Surprise Package!!

Yesterday the hubby cam home after work and in his hand he had a package for me.  It was a book called “Mrs. Lieutenant” by Phyllis Zimbler Miller and it was sent to me to read and review on my blog here.  I am so excited because this is my first experience with receiving a book directly from the author (thanks to a referral by Books On The Brain) for review on my blog.  I believe Miller is also doing a virtual book tour this month and will be visiting us here at Planet Books in the form of a guest author post. 

                                    

“Mrs. Lieutenant” is a novel about four Army Lieutenant wives in the spring of 1970.  “…four newly married young women come together at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, when their husbands go on active duty as officers in the U.S. Army.  Different as these four women are, they have one thing in common:  Their overwhelming fear that, right after these nine weeks of training, their husbands could be shipped out to Vietnam – and they could become war widows…” 

“…Read MRS. LIEUTENANT to discover what happens as these women overcome their prejudices, reveal their darkest secrets, and are initiated into their new lives as army officers’ wives during the turbulent Vietnam War…”

I am looking forward to starting this book as soon as I am done writing this post.  I did do some searching around and found this interview with Phyllis Zimbler Miller on Blog Talk Radio as well as the author website and her blog.  This novel was also a semi-finalist for Amazon’s “Breakthrough Novel Award”. 

Book Review ~ TWILIGHT

“About three things I was absolutely positive.  First, Edward was a vampire.  Second, there was a part of him – and I didn’t know how dominant that part might be – that thirsted for my blood.  And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”

 

                                                   

Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, is a story about a seventeen year-old girl named Bella, who moves from the Valley of the Sun to the cold, dreary, rainy yet beautiful Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.  There she starts to make a life with her father Charlie and the kids at the local high school where she joins as a junior.  There, Bella meets Edward Cullen and the Cullen family and her life is never the same again.  After a scary and almost life ending accident she realizes that Edward is not like herself.  He has strength and speed unlike anything she has ever seen before.  Bella puts the pieces together with the help of an Indian reservation myth and little hints and discovers that gorgeous Edward and his beautiful family are actually vampires, but not in the way that we are familiar with.  They have been able to change their diet to animal blood instead of human blood. 

 As Bella’s friendship with Edward grows they realize (very suddenly actually, but remember this is a vampire story) that they are deeply in love with each other and that they can never be apart again.  Due to a terrible case of klutziness, Edward becomes Bella’s guardian and vows to keep her safe forever.  Little do they know that that will mean safe from a “tracker vampire” later on. 

 This book was an amazing read and I thoroughly enjoyed every word of it.  The mystical atmosphere that this book brought over me in the last six days has been wonderful.  I found myself reading during any free moment I had.  I didn’t watch much television and I didn’t surf the web much because I was reading.  The character development was well paced and the plot was strong.  I felt that the school scenes were right on and I found myself reminiscing about high school and the boys who I dated over my four years at Paint Branch.  I remember being as boy crazy over one in particular as Bella was with Edward in the story.  He was mysterious, romantic, interesting, brilliant and not what I was expecting either.  He broke my heart but I don’t regret the experience.  

I am very excited about reading the rest of the Twilight series and finding out what happens to Bella, Edward and the Cullen’s.  I have also been watching the trailer and behind the scene footage I have come across online.  The movie, Twilight, will be in theatres on December 12^th, 2008. 

 

If you have read this book, please take a moment to share what you thought of it and if you haven’t, will you read it before the movie comes out or just wait for the movie?   

 

 

 

 

{5 out of 5 stars}