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Time to update the Reading Bingo again. I put the book I was going to read next on the back burner (small font=evil), and continued with a little marathon I started a couple of months ago after watching "Slumber Party", the Supernatural episode that got me into a Wizard of Oz mood again. After re-watching the 1939 movie, I realized I hadn't read any of the books but the first one, which was one of my favourites as a kid. I downloaded the whole lot from Project Gutenberg into my Kindle, and started on learning everything there was to know about Oz. I hit a bump with the second book, that reminded me too much of Return to Oz, a movie I saw when I was a kid and that still gives me nightmares, but after that it's been a nice experience.
For the "A Book that is More Than 10 Years Old" square I chose L. Frank Baum's The Road To Oz, first published in 1909 and the fifth book in the series. The title also reads "In Which Is Related How Dorothy Gale of Kansas, The Shaggy Man, Button Bright, and Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter Met on an Enchanted Road and Followed it All the Way to the Marvelous Land of Oz" which covers most of what it is all about. After the first one, all the Oz books tend to follow the same structure, and are quite predictable. The new characters are fun, although have mostly just one distinguishable characteristic (Button Bright being dumb, for example), and nothing else really worth saying. In the preface the author says he's writing the books as a secretary to children who ask for beloved characters to have new adventures, and while it's supposed to be a cute joke, it is exactly what it feels like. It's getting harder to tell the individual books apart, as they're so similar in everything except the names of the new characters.
That being said, it is nice to keep meeting beloved childhood characters again and again, and while the whole thing is getting repetitive, it is a lovely reading to do in waiting rooms or other places where one doesn't have to concentrate too hard. I'm not sure I'll manage to read all of them, though, considering I'm already bored by number five.
For the "A Book that is More Than 10 Years Old" square I chose L. Frank Baum's The Road To Oz, first published in 1909 and the fifth book in the series. The title also reads "In Which Is Related How Dorothy Gale of Kansas, The Shaggy Man, Button Bright, and Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter Met on an Enchanted Road and Followed it All the Way to the Marvelous Land of Oz" which covers most of what it is all about. After the first one, all the Oz books tend to follow the same structure, and are quite predictable. The new characters are fun, although have mostly just one distinguishable characteristic (Button Bright being dumb, for example), and nothing else really worth saying. In the preface the author says he's writing the books as a secretary to children who ask for beloved characters to have new adventures, and while it's supposed to be a cute joke, it is exactly what it feels like. It's getting harder to tell the individual books apart, as they're so similar in everything except the names of the new characters.That being said, it is nice to keep meeting beloved childhood characters again and again, and while the whole thing is getting repetitive, it is a lovely reading to do in waiting rooms or other places where one doesn't have to concentrate too hard. I'm not sure I'll manage to read all of them, though, considering I'm already bored by number five.
