Il n'était pas spécialement doué pour réconforter les gens, mais il enlaça les orphelins de son mieux en murmurant "Allons ! Allons !" comme on le fait en pareil cas (et nul ne saurait dire pourquoi, puisque personne ne va nulle part et qu'aller n'a rien de si réconfortant).

Il y avait un plan de travail sur lequel préparer ses soupes froides, un frigo dans lequel conserver ses soupes froides, et un évier dans lequel faire disparaître ses soupes froides quand personne n'en voulait plus.

L'art d'analyser les écritures est avant tout affaire d'expert. Ces experts se nomment graphologues et ils ont suivi des cours de graphologie, potassé des traités de graphologie, effectué des travaux pratiques en graphologie, passé des examens de graphologie afin d'obtenir leur diplôme de graphologie.

 

 

I love the writing and the way "Snicket" breaks the fourth wall. Every book begins with the admonition that you would be better off doing pretty much anything else than reading this book. When the Baudelaire children lost their parents, it was a bad beginning, but it only gets worse from there. The only thing they can count on from Mr. Poe, the inept banker who is acting as their guardian, is that he coughs and he will fail them.

 

The first book introduces Count Olaf, a villain who is constantly trying to get his greedy hands on the Baudelaire fortune. The second two follow the same basic formula of the Baudelaires moving on, finding guardians who fail them, and facing Count Olaf. Violet is the oldest and ties her hair up in a ribbon any time she needs to invent something. Klaus is a bookworm and amazing researcher. Sunny is the youngest and has unusually sharp teeth which sometimes help the siblings get out of trouble.

 

The Bad Beginning

The Reptile Room

The Wide Window

 

I enjoyed the first three books, they are entertaining, easy reads. It only took me a few days to get through all three and I kept going...

This post is a little late this week. We were without internet since Sunday morning after a truck driver came through and took out a cable.

 

Books Read: 9

 

"Why is This Night Different From All Other Nights?": This is the last book in the All Wrong Questions series and just like A Series of Unfortunate Events, it doesn't end on a positive note. 4 stars.

 

The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, The Miserable Mill, The Austere Academy: After finishing the All the Wrong Questions series I had to go and start reading this series again. I didn't realize it had been so long until I looked at my shelf on Booklikes. This is one of those series that I could read over and over again. I will say as much as I enjoy this series, I find that it doesn't really pick up until the fifth book The Austere Academy, though the preceding four books are still enjoyable. 4 stars for The Bad Beginning. 5 stars for the other four.

 

The League of Frightened Men, Too Many Cooks: Two more Nero Wolfe books and two more re-reads, I really am trying to cut down on re-reading. I'm actually enjoying these more the second time around and I'm curious how I'll rate the other books in this  series as I work my way through. 4 1/2 stars.

 

The Final Descent: This is the final book in The Monstrumologist series and I have to say, I don't think I have ever been so disappointed in a series ending (excluding Sherlock Season 4, I'm just pretending it never happened and hoping for another season). The author warns the reader going in that the format of this final book is quite different than the others, but it was still annoying. The ending itself was just ... I knew it was headed in that direction from the previous book, but I was just so unsatisfied in the ending. 1 star.

 

Ongoing Reads: 2

 

The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Reveled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime: This book is quite interesting, but it's a slow read as well. I'm stuck reading this book only at home because my co-workers, who have never previously taken an interest in what I read, insist on coming over and asking a million questions about it. Aargh!

 

Champagne For One: Another Nero Wolfe book and I actually finished it Sunday morning, but it didn't seem right to count it in the previous weeks tally.

 

Mr. Poe is the biggest idiot in the history of time. That is all.

~*Full series overview here on ">The Bent Bookworm!*~

The Wide Window takes place far and away from the first two books, in a reclusive town and even more reclusive house with, you guessed it, yet another unstable distant relative as guardian for the Baudelaire children. This time their guardian, Aunt Josephine, isn’t even actually related to them, but is their “second cousin’s sister-in-law.” Who just happens to be terrified of everything. The dock. The lake. The oven. She never eats anything hot for fear of getting burned by either the oven or the food. However! She has an intense passion for grammar.

“Grammar is the greatest joy in life, don’t you find?”

Being something of a grammar freak myself, I found her constant corrections and horror at bad grammar to be quite entertaining and that in itself is the reason this book received a slightly higher rating (3.5/5 stars) than books 1 and 2. It really was hysterical at times, and plays an interesting part in the story.

Of course this wouldn’t be an A Series of Unfortunate Events book without, well, you know. Horrible bad luck. Of course these kids can’t catch a break and when a “Captain Sham” (hahaha ok, Lemony Snicket, you must have had such fun naming characters) shows up with an unhealthy interest in the children and all kinds of sweet words for Aunt Josephine, the terror begins. Once again (I since a recurring plot) the kids are forced to fend for themselves due to the incompetence of their adult guardians, and once again after a great deal of running around and close calls and horrible things happening to certain people, they manage to escape.

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