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Reading my Mies van der Rohe monographs and his Conversation With Students. Great guy! :D
 
Classic.

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Continuing the children's book craze, with reading to the little ones each night. Concentrating on Halloween as well. with that, a nice book we picked up from his school's Scholastic book sale:

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Tale about a pumpkin seed who wants to scare people RIGHT NOW, though his friend, the wind, tells him to wait as his time will come. The seed grows and grows into a huge pumpkin, which then he is able to scare people.

Moral of the story (and one lost in today's 'Generation Selfie" days): patience is a virtue.

BL.
 
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After a fairly short work related trip abroad, I returned to find a book - which had been highly recommended - called 'Radical: My Journey Out Of Islamist Extremism' by Maajid Nawaz, which I had ordered a few weeks ago waiting for me.
 
I received this book from my Dad recently. I thought the old man has finally gone round the bend. But it turns out Do You Want To Play With My Balls? is for grown-up children.:D

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Funny, funny stuff. It's like watching a kiddie movie with adult subtitles.o_O:D
 
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"The New Rules of Lifting For Woman" by Lou Schuler. This is an awesome book for women who are interested in weightlifting.
 
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Just finished "Trigger Mortis" by Anthony Horowitz. Enjoyable enough although it did read a bit like a children's book it places "Take that! Bond said" etc. A simple but good enough plot, could see it being a movie. One thing to note. At the end of the book Horowitz points out that chapter 7 (I think?) was based on Fleming's own writing and parts (150 words) were actually his. I'd of liked to if known this before I read the chapter and now feel like returning to it to "see" those words. All in all I'd give the book a 6 out of 10.
 
At times, one can have too much of serious reading, and long to seek refuge in something a bit different.

I have been meaning to read 'The Shepherd's Crown' the most recent book, indeed, the last book, and one that has been posthumously published, that had been written by the late, great, Terry Prachett.

Anyway, I sat up late last night, and stayed in bed this morning, reading it. A lovely,heart warming, life-affirming book, full of powerful women, and one that is a fitting coda, and splendid conclusion to a stunning body of wonderful work.
 
Just finished the latest book published (in the past few weeks) by Garth Nix - the chap who wrote the outstanding Abhorsen trilogy.

The book is called 'Newt's Emerald' and is set in an alternative Regency England - part Bernard Cornwall, Patrick O'Brian, Georgette Hayer, and Jane Austen, - in other words, part Pride & Prejudice spiced with a bit of dodgy sorcery, and part Regency romance, and mystery it is a thoroughly enjoyable alternative history romp with a very engaging heroine and cast of characters.
 
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This week, I bought a copy of the new, illustrated (beautifully produced, this is an exquisite edition) first book from the Harry Potter series, 'Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone' (US title is 'Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone').

Re-reading it, - and it is easily a decade and a half since I read it initially - it is a snappy, clever, thriller, which is very funny in parts, and has a surprising amount of subtle fore-shadowing. And, I find that I like Ron quite a bit less on re-reading the books. Hermione, as always, is brilliant.
 
This week, I bought a copy of the new, illustrated (beautifully produced, this is an exquisite edition) first book from the Harry Potter series, 'Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone' (US title is 'Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone').

Re-reading it, - and it is easily a decade and a half since I read it initially - it is a snappy, clever, thriller, which is very funny in parts, and has a surprising amount of subtle fore-shadowing. And, I find that I like Ron quite a bit less on re-reading the books. Hermione, as always, is brilliant.

A superb series of books.
 
A superb series of books.

Agreed, they are absolutely outstanding, a tour de force.

If anyone has a child, (or grand-child) of the age likely to want to dive into the Harry Potter series, I can recommend this illustrated version (hard-back, large, superb production values) without reservation. Sufficeth to say, that I would have loved to have received such a gift as a child. Okay, granted it is not cheap (approximately £27 or €35) but it is a simply stunning edition.

By the way, this is a big book, and is the first of the series to be so illustrated, in what is clearly envisaged as a series of releases, which are planned, or scheduled to take several years (the illustrations are works of art, detailed and a homage). Thus, I expect the size of some of the later works (Philosopher's Stone, is, after all, the shortest book in the entire series), to reach the size of a veritable telephone directory.

As it happens, I have re-read some of the later books in the series, but not the first two since I first read them over a decade and half ago.
 
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Can you please provide a link to where this edition can be bought?

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to provide a link.

However, if you google 'Harry Potter illustrated edition', you will see that both Bloomsbury (the publisher) and Amazon have it for sale.

I bought it in a bricks-and-mortar bookshop this week, where the staff produced it reverently, admiring it as a physical specimen of what a beautifully produced book with very impressive productive values is all about.
 
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by philip freeman

sorry pic so big

Is it any good? By that I mean, is it written in an engaging and approachable style (the curse of much history writing is that while the subject matter may be interesting, the ay in which it is rendered between the pages of a book can make it stupefyingly tedious), and what are the sources and the scholarship like?

Anyway, I have to say that Alexander - like Napoleon, or Julius Caesar - does not much appeal to me.
 
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Unfortunately, I have no idea how to provide a link.

However, if you google 'Harry Potter illustrated edition', you will see that both Bloomsbury (the publisher) and Amazon have it for sale.

I bought it in a bricks-and-mortar bookshop this week, where the staff produced it reverently, admiring it as a physical specimen of what a beautifully produced book with very impressive productive values is all about.

Thanks. Looks nice.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: Illustrated Edition (Harry Potter Illustrated Editi) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1408845644/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_xX3kwb40TND2T
 
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Thanks. Looks nice.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: Illustrated Edition (Harry Potter Illustrated Editi) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1408845644/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_xX3kwb40TND2T

Oh, bravo, and very well done.

Yes, it is a gorgeous edition, beautifully illustrated and exquisitely put together. As I mentioned earlier, as a child, I'd have loved to have received such a book - you could just see children happily immersing and losing themselves in it.
 
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