Well, I didn’t get any books this week but my husband bought one and received a bunch he pre-ordered so I figured I’d talk about those in case anyone else was interested in them.
Chris van Allsburg has written and illustrated a lot of well known children’s books, including Jumanji, The Polar Express, and Zathura. Another one of these books is The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, a collection of fourteen illustrations. The story is that Harris Burdick showed these pictures to someone to see if he would be interested in the stories that went with them, only to mysteriously disappear and never be heard from again. The Chronicles of Harris Burdick includes these fourteen illustrations with the fourteen stories and an introduction by Lemony Snicket. It includes stories written by Stephen King, Tabitha King, Lois Lowry, Gregory Maguire, Cory Doctorow, Sherman Alexie, and Chris van Allsburg himself.
I had never heard of The Mysteries of Burdick, although I do remember some of Chris van Allsburg’s books from when I was a kid. My husband remembered this book fondly, though, so when he saw there was now a collection of the stories, he had to have a copy.
An inspired collection of short stories by an all-star cast of best-selling storytellers based on the thought-provoking illustrations in Chris Van Allsburg’s The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.
For more than twenty-five years, the illustrations in the extraordinary Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg have intrigued and entertained readers of all ages. Thousands of children have been inspired to weave their own stories to go with these enigmatic pictures. Now we’ve asked some of our very best storytellers to spin the tales. Enter The Chronicles of Harris Burdick to gather this incredible compendium of stories: mysterious, funny, creepy, poignant, these are tales you won’t soon forget.
This inspired collection of short stories features many remarkable, best-selling authors in the worlds of both adult and children’s literature: Sherman Alexie, M.T. Anderson, Kate DiCamillo, Cory Doctorow, Jules Feiffer, Stephen King, Tabitha King, Lois Lowry, Gregory Maguire, Walter Dean Myers, Linda Sue Park, Louis Sachar, Jon Scieszka, Lemony Snicket, and Chris Van Allsburg himself.
Van Allsburg’s Harris Burdick illustrations have evoked such wonderment and imagination since Harris Burdick’s original publication in 1984; many have speculated or have woven their own stories to go with his images. More than ever, the illustrations send off their eerie call for text and continue to compel and pick at the reader’s brain for a backstory—a threaded tale behind the image. In this book, we’ve collected some of the best storytellers to spin them.
A while ago my husband pre-ordered a signed copy of Snuff by Terry Pratchett from this site, which has a whole bunch of books signed by Terry Pratchett available. While he was there, he also ordered a few of these other books signed by Terry Pratchett. Since I suspect most of you have heard of these books, I’m just going to list them:
Snuff
Snuff was just released on October 13th and is the newest Discworld book. I did mention this book here before since we were lucky enough to win a copy of the ARC from a random drawing of people who pre-ordered a signed copy. We both read that a while ago. It’s a Vimes book and it’s very good. (I also liked that it had a few Jane Austen references.)
Small Gods
We got a copy of this one signed because both of us agree it’s one of the best Discworld books there is – religion, philosophy, and hilarity.
The Science of Discworld, The Science of Discworld II: The Globe, The Science of Discworld III: Darwin’s Watch
We decided to get these three just because they are difficult to find, at least in the US. I was kind of confused about what exactly they were after reading the back and my husband was still confused about what they were after reading a little bit of the first one. They appear to be a combination of a fiction story and information on science from what I read on them.
