I’ve searched online before for such reading journals as I was interested to get one for myself. Yeah, I’ve visited Amazon to check out the reading journals on sale and Read, Remember, Recommend was one of them. So imagine my ecstasy when Sourcebooks sent me this amazing journal for review.

There are six parts in the journal plus the introduction. You could read the intro section to help you get started with it. However, the bulk of the book would be Awards and Notable Lists where there are numerous lists of books that have won or were nominated in bookish awards such as the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Awards, the National Book Critics Circle Awards, the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, Salon Book Award for Fiction and the Richard & Judy Book of the Year Award. If you want to get familiar with award-winning books, this is the place to turn to. Some blank lists are also provided for you to fill in your own favourite lists of books.

Besides, with the To Read section, you can keep track of books that you want to read. Judging by the number of books out there, the five pages available will not be sufficient to write them all.

As it is a reading journal after all, the third section is Journal Pages. But I think you can only fill in around 67 books in the provided boxes and columns. Some of them have more lines for you to write in and I suggest you leave them for books where you have more opinions on.

The sections that follow are Recommendations, Loaner Lists and Resources. You can use the recommendations list to record books that you want to suggest to your family, friends and anyone else. If you always lend out your books, then keep track of them in the Loaner Lists. At least you will know and remember who you lent your favourite books to. A friend of mine lent one of her Harry Potter books and couldn’t figure out the borrower! Finally with the Resources section, check out the book-related websites and blogs. You may even find some of your favourite book blogs listed there! Who knows, maybe YOUR blog is there. Now how cool is that?

The journal is reader-friendly with an attractive cover that book lovers can identify with. Duh, the stacks of books! I also love the spiral-bound feature, which makes it easy to leave the book open without holding on to it. There are also coloured tabs at the sides so you can quickly flip to any section you want.

I will use the journal mainly for suggestions on what to read next since there are more than 2,500 cross-referenced great books recommended in there. Alright, I’m going to continue using this journal by checking off the books which I already own or have read. I am also going to familiarise myself with the best books on earth in the process of becoming a well-read person. Hopefully!

***Thanks to Carrie Gellin of Sourcebooks for sending me this book to review. You can visit Rachelle’s website for further details on this book.

Other reviews: Book Journey, Books Like Breathing, A Bookworm’s World

This is the fifth book in the Barney mystery series. Barney, Diana, Roger, Snubby, and Snubby’s dog, Loony, appear in all the Barney books. Diana and Roger are sister and brother while Snubby’s their cousin. He has no parents so he’s always sent to live with relatives during his school holidays but he enjoys spending his holidays with Diana and Roger. Barney is their friend. He has a pet monkey called Miranda. Pretty name, huh?

By the way, it’s the winter holidays for the kids. Barney has finally found his father after an endless search for him and he’s spent Christmas time with his newfound family. After Christmas, Barney invites Roger, Diana, and Snubby to stay at a house owned by his grandmother by a lake and surrounded by hills. Of course, Roger and Diana’s parents agreed to let them have fun by themselves. A Mrs. Tickle will be cooking their meals, washing their stuff, and just basically looking after them.

So at the house, the children spent their time skating and tobogganing down the snowy hills and having the time of their lives. Meanwhile, at night, they hear mysterious knocking sounds like ‘rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat’. Haha! Can you imagine such sounds? To me, it sounds odd but there you go.

As usual, the children being their inquisitive selves and with a huge sense of adventure, they decide to investigate the sounds. They even found a large glove on the ground outside and Snubby thought he saw somebody standing outside looking at the house. Therefore, they found reason to suspect that something was wrong.

I’ve now read 4 of the books in the Barney mystery series. The other three are The Rockingdown Mystery, The Rilloby Fair Mystery, and The Ring O’ Bells Mystery. Being an Enid Blyton fan and one who has grown up reading her books, I find them enjoyable and a great way to ‘relive’ my childhood.

There is also a new teacher at Spence Academy and she is Miss McCleethy. Gemma and her don’t really get along well. Gemma also finds Miss McCleethy a little bit suspicious and several incidents that occurred confirmed her suspicions even more.

Now, Gemma keeps having visions of three girls in white who are trying to tell her something. She is quite afraid of them since they looked pretty scary, judging from the descriptions about them. Well, they are ghosts anyway, so go figure.

On the day Gemma goes home, she meets the handsome Simon Middleton while waiting for her brother, Tom, at the train station. The meeting happened by chance because she was trying to lose someone whom she thought was following her. Simon shows interest in Gemma immediately and continues pursuing her. Soon, Gemma finds herself caught between Simon and Kartik.

Yes, Kartik from the Rakshana, is back too. His task is to help Gemma find the Temple before her enemy, Sarah or Circe finds it first, where she has to bind the magic, which has become loose since she destroyed the Runes of the Oracle in the realms. In fact, he has another crucial and difficult task, too but he’s not telling Gemma about it.

Gemma continues bringing Felicity and Ann to the realms where they are reunited with Pippa, who died in the first book. Pippa is obviously very happy to see and spend time with her friends again. Somehow, Gemma thinks that Pippa has changed and feels that she should not be trusted too much. Kartik did warn Gemma that nothing in the realms is to be trusted.

I was surfing the Internet for more information about the books by Libba Bray and stumbled upon the Wikipedia page. I couldn’t contain myself and went to the page with information on Rebel Angels. As I was reading about the summary of the book, my eyes caught the sentence that revealed Circe’s true identity! It was an accident but I was quite glad it happened. It made the reading a bit more fun.

It was hard to put down this book, as the story was so very interesting! I did not want the book to end at all. That’s the feeling I got while reading it. I’m utterly delighted that there is a 3rd book, The Sweet Far Thing coming out in September 2007/Autumn 2007. Truly, both Bray’s books are among the best fantasy books I’ve ever read.

Other Bloggers’ Reviews: A High and Hidden Place, Becky

The problems faced by teen girls now compared to 50 years ago are utterly different. Now, girls are driven into starving themselves so that they will look thin and attract boys and be popular. They have to smoke or take drugs to be cool. Girls will also be laughed at if they are still virgins.

Their parents are there for them but adolescent girls think their parents don’t understand them and are only controlling their lives. Girls now are influenced by the media to be thin and beautiful. They are influenced into consuming alcohol. They are pressured to have premarital sex.

In order for them to survive the stormy adolescent years, they need to understand themselves, to understand what they really want, who they really are, then only can they make it safely to shore.

I borrowed this book from my school’s library and read it in 2004.

Buy Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls

Megan wants to be a famous actress while Beth is more interested in the science world. Carrie’s older brother, Stephen is also studying at Stanford and has a mysterious roommate, Jake. Jake never tells anyone about himself and no one wanted to ask him to tell more of himself.

Carrie learned important lessons in life as she spent time with Megan, Beth, Stephen, and Jake in and out of campus. The ups and downs that the characters go through are absolutely heartwarming and you are able to feel the joy, sadness, loneliness and pain as you read the whole book. ‘Roommates’ is a beautiful book and it will keep you captivated till the last page.

I read this book in 2004.

Buy Roommates

He has turned 17 and was very excited because he has become a man. But unfortunately, things did not turn out the way he would like it to be. One day, while he was out chopping wood to make a drum, he was abducted and sent on a slave ship to the New World to become a slave.

In America, a John Waller, who treated him like dirt, bought him. Kunta tried to escape 4 times but he was caught and finally, the slave-catchers cut off his right foot. He was then sold to John Waller’s brother, a doctor who treated his slaves better.

Kunta got married and had a daughter, Kizzy. She was taken from her parents to become a slave to another master. He used her for his own pleasure and she had a mulatto baby, George. George grew up to be fighting cock trainer. He got married and had kids, too. So, the story goes on until Alex Haley was born.

When he was a young boy, he would hear stories of Kunta Kinte, who claimed he was from Africa and was also very proud of his homeland. Then, Alex Haley set out to find out the true story of Kunta and his history. It took him 12 years to complete the book.

Really, read it for yourself and you will learn a lot. It made me appreciate that I have my family with me now and I have no one torturing me till I bleed, half-dead, and practically losing hope of ever getting the chance to be free again. This book deserves 5 out of 5 stars!

I read this book in 2004. One of my teachers recommended this book to me in 2000 but I put off reading it as it’s such a thick book! Anyway, it took me 3 whole weeks to finish it.

Buy Roots: The Saga of an American Family