Review, Guest Post & $25 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway: Doodling by Jonathan Gould

Original Title: Doodling
Author: Jonathan Gould
Published Date:  January 24th 2011
Genre:  Fantasy, Children's, Humor

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Neville Lansdowne fell off the world.

Actually he did not so much fall off as let go. The world had been moving so quickly lately and Neville was finding it almost impossible to keep up.

Doodling is an engaging comic fantasy which relates the events that befall Neville after he finds himself abandoned by the world and adrift in the middle of an asteroid field. Douglas Adams meets Lewis Carroll (with just a touch of Gulliver's Travels) as Neville wanders through his new home, meeting a variety of eccentric characters and experiencing some most unexpected adventures.

REVIEW

Some books cannot be made sense logically, but you still want to read them and the surprise is, in addition to you liking them, you will recommend it to everyone you see! (Of course, when I recommend it to non-readers, they look at me, as though I am mad. :) )   So, one such novel is Flidderbugs!  And when I know that the author has written another book, usually the expectation would be great..so, I picked up "Doodling" with that expectation.

As soon as I saw the word 'doodling', I searched the word meaning in WordWeb, you know the Ctrl + Alt + W stuff (well, most programmers and testers live on it for proper documentation)..according to WordWeb,

doodling => "make a doodle; draw aimlessly"

doodle => "An aimless drawing"

So, I wondered what this is all about.  And I did the only thing I could do - started reading the book.

Neville was running so fast to keep up with this Earth.  But, however fast he runs, the Earth moves faster. At last he can't keep up, and he let go..  He is thrown off into the asteroid field and wanders around looking for a new home.  He meets new people (some mad!), interesting asteroids and learns new things.  As he more and more people, he learns that the world is going more faster than before and its soon going to crash on other asteroids (where the fallen ones live) and create a massive destruction.  Will Neville be able to stop the Earth from crashing on them, with the help of so many mad people?  You have to read it!

Although this book didn't disappoint, it is still not as good as Flidderbugs.  And the reason is, at some point, even though I understand this is children's book, I can't help questioning certain things like Boring asteroid, Toaster asteroid (seriously??), etc.   That's the only disadvantage with these books - NOT suitable for adults.  But, still you can provide it to your kids - HIGHLY recommended to kids!

So, the star rating is strictly based on the recommendation that this book is for kids!

GUEST POST BY JONATHAN GOULD

Jonathan Gould is a Melbourne-based writer and doodler.

He calls his stories "dag-lit" because they're the sort of stories that don't easily fit into the standard genres. Some might think of them as comic fantasies, or modern fairytales for the young and the young-at-heart.

Over the years, his writing has been compared to Douglas Adams, Monty Python, A.A. Milne, Lewis Carroll, the Goons, Dr Seuss and even Enid Blyton (in a good way).

Here is a guest post by the author, that I am discussing about it for the past few days with everyone I know or chat! :)

10 THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT ME

I’d like to start off by thanking Vidya for having me here at Books are Magic for the second time. I have to say, what a great title for a blog.  Books definitely are magic.  I know because mine seem to disappear all the time – and magically reappear in my kids’ rooms.

So here are 10 things you might not know about me:

1.  I’m not six feet tall. I always wanted to be six feet tall. It was one of my ambitions when I was a kid. I ended up being five foot eleven. That probably explains a lot about the person I am. Maybe it sounds a bit cooler in the metric system where I’m exactly 180 centimetres but I so did want to be 6 feet tall.

2.  I’m a left brain dominant person (I know – I got tested) who writes with his left hand. That’s not the usual way it works. Most people write with the opposite hand to their dominant brain side. You can tell the people writing with their “wrong” hand because they hook it around (apparently). It probably explains why my writing is so terrible (note – when I say writing, I’m referring to handwriting, not story writing. I like to think my story writing is a bit better than that).

3.  Actually, when it comes to “handedness” I’m totally mixed up. There are a lot of things I do with my left hand but also lots I do with my right hand – especially when it comes to sports. Most bat and racquet sports I do right-handed, but I shoot a bow-and-arrow left-handed and I bowl (as in cricket) with my left-hand. I kick a football with my left foot. I like to call myself semi-ambidextrous. Mind you, I suck at most sports so go figure.

4.  I never throw out my clothes. My closet is just getting fuller and fuller. Luckily, I hardly ever go shopping so it’s not as bad as it could be. I reckon I’ve got clothes in there dating back 20 years. And the saddest thing is – I still wear some of them.

5.  If I had a choice, I’d rather be a musician than a writer. I think music is the highest form of art. It’s the form we all respond to most viscerally. But if you ever heard me sing or play an instrument, you’d be happy that I chose writing. And I suppose as art forms go, writing is really not too bad.

6.  The very first things I wrote, when I decided I wanted to be a writer, were comedy sketches. The very first sketch I wrote was about a man walking into an employment office and claiming he was the Cat in the Hat. Amazingly it turned out to be quite good. One of these days, I plan to put it, and some of the other ones, onto YouTube.

7.  I’m forgetful. I completely forgot what I was going to write for this item. Oh well. I guess it can’t have been that important.

8.  I’m allergic to Elastoplast bandages. I discovered it years ago when I was a kid. I’d cut my finger on a tin of cat food and asked the doctor to make a really elaborate bandage so I could impress the other kids at school. Big mistake. A week later, my hand had blown up to three times its normal size.

9.  My favourite hobby, after writing, is sleeping. And, like writing, I just never seem to be able to do as much as I’d like to.

10.  I’m still deciding what I think about social media, especially Twitter. Sometimes I feel like I’d like to set up an anti-Twitter. You start off following everybody and then you gradually unfollow until you’ve found a nice, quiet little spot.

11.  I don’t count so well. How many of these was I meant to be doing?

$25 AMAZON GIFT CARD GIVEAWAY

Jonathan will be giving away a $25 Amazon GC to one randomly drawn commenter from the tour and the host with the most comments (excluding Jonathan's and the host's) will receive a $20 Amazon GC.

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS COMMENT ON THIS POST TO HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN $25 AMAZON GIFT CARD!  GIVEAWAY OPEN INTERNATIONALLY!

This post is a part of the tour for "Goddess Fish Promotions"

Other ongoing Goddess Fish giveaways:
 
Soul Seduction - $25 Amazon GC to one randomly drawn commentor
Flidderbugs - $25 Amazon GC to one randomly drawn commentor