Nope, it isn’t a Wednesday, but you could consider this a belated WebWatch Wednesday post. 

See, I was going to look up weather conditions in Sydney, where I may be headed to in a couple of weeks, when a sudden whim took me to the Australian tourism website and boy, was I blown away by the brand new look and features. 

For a start, I was totally seduced by the map view options on the home. There are so many interactive touchpoints that are just begging for the visitor to click and explore. I tried the climate map just for fun. This is the first website I’ve come across that makes wonderful use of the map. It’s not just three dimensional, it’s intuitively easy to understand and navigate. 

 This led me to a round of web surfing to check out other tourism sites. These are some of the tourism sites which impressed me with the lay-out, navigation, classy design and rich content:

Having heard only good reviews about this anime adapted by renowned Japanese moviemaker Hayao Miyazaki, I decided to watch it on video one Saturday afternoon. And I never regretted it. 

Based on the novel of the same name by Diana Wynne Jones, the animated Howl’s Moving Castle is a real visual treat overflowing with magic and romance, a combination that reeled me in like no other anime can. 

In this classic tale about courage and finding beauty beyond the physical, Sophie, a 19-year-old girl who believes she is plain, has resigned herself to a drab life in her family’s hat shop–until the Witch of the Waste transforms her into a 90-year-old woman. While searching for a way to break the Witch’s spell, she finds unexpected adventures and discovers her hidden potential in a magical environment–the castle of the title. Sophie’s honesty and determination win her some valuable new friends: Markl, Howl’s young apprentice; a jaunty scarecrow who’s really an enchanted prince from a neighbouring kingdom; Calcifer, a temperamental fire demon; and Heen, a hilarious, wheezing dog. She wins the heart of the dashing, irresponsible wizard Howl, and brings an end to an unnecessary and destructive war. For the blow-by-blow summary of the film, try looking up this wiki page. 

Here’s a little confession before I start this review post proper: I’ve always thought that Andre Norton’s a guy, and had therefore dismissed Fantasy novels penned by her as being too devoid of emotions, tensions and romance. Yeah, I know that’s a rather narrow view of male authors, but I’m slowly revising that opinion although I’m highly selective about which male author I read.

Anyway, back to the books. I’ve eschewed works by Norton because of that and the only reason I picked up The Duke’s Ballad is because Lyn McConchie collaborated on this book. This New Witch World novel is a straightforward fantasy about the power of courage and hope in the face of evil, and ultimately how love can redeem even one turned by dark influence and avarice. 

A young witch who is just beginning to realize her true powers, Aisling was forced into exile years ago by her older brother, Kirion, who had chosen to use his powers for evil and tried to leech her dry to augment his own magic. Through the Duke of Kars, Shastro, Kirion worked his dark influence to subjugate the entire realm, and thus incurred the resentment of the various clans, who seek to restore justice and peace. It was at such a tumultuous time that Aisling returned in disguise to free her homeland of the despotic sorcerer and overturn the duke’s oppressive rule. 

While the rest of Singapore went mad at the Great Singapore Sale, which will last until end July, I went crazy browsing Amazon, and did some serious damage to my credit card.

Anyways, I simply couldn’t resist following up some of the books I read recently with the sequel, with the result that I ended up with these being shipped to me:

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, which I simply had to buy after watching the Anime based on this book from Hayao Miyazaki. I love the movie to bits, but more about that in another post!!!!

Impatient with waiting for the paperback edition, I decided to grab the hardcover Magic Study by Maria Snyder whilst stocks last.

Goddess of Love by P C Cast was a natural addition since I like the rest of the series. 

No, you’re not dreaming. And yes, I’m giving away some books from my collection to mark the second year of this (mostly) book blog. 

To be precise, I’ve got three pairs of books, each set by the same author, to give away this round, and they’re all in excellent condition. Without further ado, here are the three pairs of books I’m giving away: 

1. The Divine Duo

Divine by Mistake and Divine by Choice by P C Cast

Those who’re familiar with her works would know of these books chronicling high school teacher, Shannon Parker’s adventures in Partholon. This divine duo is yours for the asking now! 

It wasn’t too long ago that I was introduced to the delightful P C Cast and her wonderful stories of Partholon, where high school teacher, Shannon Parker, was thrown into. 

This time round, in Divine by Choice, she was wrenched unwillingly back to the modern world by the reincarnated mirror of her centaur husband from Divine by Mistake, to battle the same evil Formorian monster she helped defeat in the debut novel.

While I eagerly chased down Shannon’s adventures in this book, I was slightly dismayed that her condition (she’s pregnant with ClanFintan’s child) prevented her from taking a more active role in the fight against the evil Nuada, as she did in Partholon. Make no mistake though, she did her part in channeling the powers of nature and her Goddess Epona to help Clint, the modern-day High Shaman mirror of her centaur hubby, send evil back to the hell it sprung from.