tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30590453038019975542012-02-15T23:53:41.313-08:00Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.comBlogger3971100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-40418456467152990622012-02-15T02:08:00.000-08:002012-02-15T02:08:00.714-08:00

At this point I can really no longer remember what my first romance novel read was. It was a good number of years ago. And yes, I'm talking like I'm in my eighties. Sorry. But it was either something Lavyrle Spencer or Jude Deveraux's The Duchess or Sweet Liar. It all sort of blends together at this point. I got all of them from my library, probably much to my sainted mother's dismay (I was all

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-81596204627317728762012-02-14T03:07:00.004-08:002012-02-14T03:51:48.347-08:00

Books that have broken my heart? Well, there are a few. I'm a sensitive soul, see, despite my pragmatic exterior. Only my sister knows for sure. I also find that as I move into my adulthood years, there are a fair number of things that break my heart, make me cry. This is music or visuals a lot of the time, and it can come at the most inopportune time and place. For example, we saw the film 'The

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-32297579452094877562012-02-12T08:54:00.000-08:002012-02-12T09:23:38.601-08:00

Lots of reading going on over here folks, but sadly nothing that's making a full post.Double Whammy by Carl Hiaasen. I kind of can't help but to start to think that maybe I don't like Hiaasen novels all that much. I've only read two, this and Skin Tight, and between the two I have slightly fonder feelings for Skin Tight. However there's just a brutalism that I just can't get into. I start by

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-34436630014324720672012-02-08T13:27:00.000-08:002012-02-08T14:06:48.998-08:00

From the cover:When Master Georgie - George Hardy, a surgeon and photographer - sets off from the cold squalor of Victorian Liverpool for the heat and glitter of the Bosphorus to offer his services in the Crimea, there straggles behind him a small caravan of devoted followers: Myrtle, his adoring adoptive sister; lapsed geologist Dr Potter; and photographer's assistant and sometime fire-eater

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-9877774348204401722012-01-29T03:25:00.000-08:002012-01-29T05:48:30.879-08:00

Oregon City, 1851. The infamous Sisters brothers, Charlie and Eli, are contracted by the mysterious and powerful Commodore to kill one Herman Warm, resident of San Francisco. They don't know why. It's not their business. Theirs is, as Kipling might say, to do or die. So they begin their journey south to the city, and it is a journey fraught with peril and hints of redemption.This lovely book is

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-40665212702016484052012-01-27T13:20:00.000-08:002012-01-27T13:39:34.440-08:00

The other evening on the train I noticed the woman across the aisle from me reading The Murder on the Links, and I felt an uncontrollable urge to rip it out of her hands and take it away. Yes, it's that time of year. It's time for me to glom onto Agatha Christie novels. Thankfully it's relative easy to track down used copies, isn't it?I don't recall if I've ever read any Miss Marple, and the

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-80062142035813298372012-01-14T08:09:00.000-08:002012-01-14T09:20:13.159-08:00

A friend and I have discovered a delightful shared interest in cooking and cookbooks, so we swapped Jamie Olivers for a bit last autumn, she giving me Jamie's America in exchange for my beloved Jamie at Home.I was curious about this book to begin with, since he was after 'quintessential American food' and, well, I'm an American and what's 'quintessential' to me is about as different as what's '

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-91139028176706253122011-12-18T06:20:00.000-08:002011-12-18T06:30:51.272-08:00

Long before there was a Winterfell, George R.R. Martin wrote this little ditty whose title caused me no little amount of verbal confusion. (Picture me like Ben Stiller in "There's Something About Mary": fev-rah? No, it's pronounced like the plain old word "fever," just spelled fancy.) I've never read any Martin and have only watched about the first half of the first season of Game of Thrones, but

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-91416132655084390872011-12-03T12:23:00.000-08:002011-12-03T12:23:00.108-08:00

A few quick notes while the chicken is baking and the corn caramelizing.Some murder mystery books are bathed in atmosphere. Some in blood. Some in insane intelligence and crazed mwah-ha-has. This one...well, a little bit of everything.Our protagonist comes to Oxford from Argentina on a year's fellowship. Almost immediately he falls into the company of a brilliant mathematician and embroiled in a

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-79624867444250490242011-12-02T01:44:00.000-08:002011-12-02T01:44:00.173-08:00

Diana is not just a preeminent scholar of medical history; she is also a witch. As it turns out, she is the daughter of two talented witches, and possibly a ridiculously powerful witch herself. But since her parents were killed when she was young, Diana has shunned her power, choosing instead to focus on academics: a place where her magic could be helpful, for all that she puts it aside.As Diana

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-66318373976345461182011-11-30T01:33:00.000-08:002011-11-30T01:33:00.425-08:00

I went through somewhat of a glom period with Mary Balogh while looking for someone to replace my Jude Deveraux historicals. I pretty well grew out of that glom rather quickly, due to the fact that I started with the Slightly books, and you know what? I found I could. not. care. less. about that many Bedwyns. I'm not certain why, since you can field me for as many Bridgertons as Julia Quinn would

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-41011622215728873222011-11-27T07:06:00.000-08:002011-11-27T13:14:00.081-08:00

Miss Jean Brodie is the teacher of a smart set of six girls, known as the Brodie set, at an exclusive Edinburgh school in the 1930s. She is in her prime, and constantly reminds the girls this. Subverting the curriculum whenever possible, she tells her set about her loves and sex life, about Renaissance artists, and fascism. She also plays god and manipulates her students as she grows older,

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-76051921155167850742011-10-25T09:40:00.000-07:002011-10-25T13:37:15.444-07:00

How timely! The Broke and the Bookish's Top Ten Tuesday for this week is the top ten books for Hallowe'en reading. This is all I'm doing this time of year, thanks to another reading group, Stainless Steel Droppings' R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril (R.I.P.) VI, never mind the fact that it's the perfect time of year for creepy, atmospheric reading. Each year, sometime around August, my mind starts

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-39224471544122803012011-10-24T01:03:00.000-07:002011-10-24T07:58:48.408-07:00

Hello, group readers and friends! Yes, I missed the week 2 roundup. There's this thing called Life that got in the way of a lot of extracurricular activities this week. (The good parts? Teaching my first class and passing my PhD upgrade. Woo-hoo! The bad parts? Succumbing to that coldish flu I was staving off while I was too busy being stressed about the former two parts.) My apologies for being

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-65486984270791868892011-10-10T00:45:00.000-07:002011-10-10T00:45:00.463-07:00

I've never done a group read before, unless you count various and sundry challenges which might have a limited number of reading options. (Shakespeare Reading Challenge, where are you?? Oh my gosh, and how could I have forgotten the Anna Karenina Support Group? Ok, now I'm sorry I dismantled the site.) When this book, The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson, came up as a group read for this year's RIP

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-89896890123620911292011-10-08T06:48:00.000-07:002011-10-08T12:19:02.181-07:00

Back in the 17th century, anybody who was anybody was worried about witches. (And by "anybody" I generally mean colonial Americans, English, Scots, and a bit in Germany and the Low Countries.) One of the larger historical events of witch trials, that of the Pendle witches, took place in northwest England in 1612 and resulted in the hanging deaths of twelve accused witches. Mist Over Pendle is a

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-34041675437545897522011-09-14T09:15:00.000-07:002011-09-14T09:15:00.721-07:00

Kathy, Ruth and Tommy live in a world of carers, donors, and completion. This they know. But the world of their school, the elite Hailsham, is a world of Sales, Art, and Madame's all-important Gallery. As they grow up the reality of the world that they've never been told about but always knew grows an uncertain outline around them as Kathy and Ruth struggle with friendship, Ruth and Tommy

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-40021626572894335592011-09-11T04:11:00.000-07:002011-09-11T04:41:31.083-07:00

Side by sideSide by side To see a recent photograph of this tomb of the Earl and Countess of Arundel that Larkin is describing, click here. , their faces blurred, The earl and countess lie in stone, Their proper habitshabits Clothes vaguely shown As jointed armour, stiffened pleat, And that faint hint of the absurd— The little dogs under their feet.Such plainness of the pre-baroque

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-41582416240442105322011-09-09T04:21:00.000-07:002011-09-09T04:49:45.886-07:00

Tell me...isn't this a fantastic cover? I love the simplicity of it, I love the font and the shades of grey. The "21" is for 21 years of the Vintage Publishing in the UK, and in the series they are republishing "twenty-one of our most iconic books in a rainbow of beautiful colours." Well, yes, please. I am such a book geek that I would like to have all twenty-one, and I don't even care which

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-19281673220531381002011-09-06T11:34:00.000-07:002011-09-06T13:42:42.152-07:00

I kicked off last year's RIP V with a Sokoloff too, her debut novel The Harrowing. I didn't like it. You can read the reasons why here. So it was a bit of an anomaly that I decided to go with another Sokoloff. I usually don't give authors multiple chances since there's too much to read without me trying to wade through what I don't like. But the premise of this one definitely caught my eye:After

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-83075465926693530812011-08-31T00:25:00.000-07:002011-09-05T10:52:38.076-07:00

Artwork by Melissa Nucera - gorgeous. Thank you! I have been waiting...and waiting...I've been checking Carl's page daily for this moment, the moment I can press "publish." The autumn sprung here sometime back in July, or to be more accurate, we went straight from the extended spring into the early autumn. Yes, this is what I get for living in England. But this means that I have been waiting

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-15850458610911939562011-08-29T04:22:00.000-07:002011-08-29T09:14:04.322-07:00

Frank Lloyd Wright is one of those figures who, to me, seem strangely enigmatic despite having a prolific life and personality. Think about it. What do you know about FLW? That he designed beautiful houses? The Prairie Style? Oak Park and Chicago homes? Falling Water and Taliesin? Did you know he scandalously had three wives and one long-term lover, including a feminist writer, free-love

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-84046563445709980122011-08-23T10:24:00.001-07:002011-08-23T11:15:58.065-07:00

In this memoir with food, Elizabeth Bard recounts being a lost, educated, cultured twenty-something from a reasonably economic upper middle class family who fell in love with a Frenchman over lunch in Paris, moved there to be with him, felt lost in the culture and her own lack of direction in life, married the Frenchman, carried on being lost, and apparently found herself through French ways of

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-42408334920260540582011-08-20T01:32:00.000-07:002011-08-20T06:16:45.186-07:00

Last spring we were fortunate enough to go to Santorini to attend the wedding of two of our closest friends. It was a lovely occasion and sort of a fluke, since they decided to get married on the island and basically said that whoever could show up were more than welcome to be there. It was another fluke, us already being in the UK and therefore far more likely for us to travel to Greece,

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-16085222768979390572011-08-16T11:23:00.000-07:002011-08-16T12:55:36.421-07:00

I like lists. I like listy lists. I like making lists, thinking about them, ranking, discussing, moving around orders, crossing things off. Lists, lists, lists. I could sing about it like Terry Pratchett's dwarfs sing about gold. ("Gortlick and Hammerjug were songwriters. They wrote dwarf songs for all occasions. Some people say this is not hard to do so long as you can remember how to spell '

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-89752515893884468602011-08-07T06:40:00.000-07:002011-08-07T06:58:44.376-07:00

What happens when you gain someone else's inheritance?Not just the money or the bits and bobs, this inheritance is an entire family's history in the New World. After having been passed along one New England family for over three hundred years, the author's parents purchased Red House in Massachusetts to begin their new family under the auspices of another family's patrimony. After years of

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-58823440625419825922011-08-03T09:37:00.000-07:002011-08-03T10:09:19.021-07:00

National Public Radio is holding an open vote on the top 100 sci-fi/fantasy books of all time, forever and ever, amen, or something like that. After fielding something like 5000 suggestions from listeners (of which I was not one), their lit people narrowed the list down to a few hundred and have opened it up for the votes of the common people, i.e., you and me. Since I'm a bookish blog, this is

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-52086782600863873742011-07-26T04:41:00.000-07:002011-10-13T09:49:12.472-07:00

It's going to be rough for me to form coherent thoughts about The Tiger's Wife. One reason for this might be because I just finished reading it a few minutes ago (it has to go back to the library today, hence the quick review). Another could be the character of the book, as loosely coherent as it is. Which isn't saying it's a mess at all, and if it is, it's still a beautiful mess.It's difficult

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-66563612408025550862011-07-23T01:27:00.000-07:002011-07-23T05:02:27.298-07:00

How about another bullet-pointed beauty? Partner dear, I think, might prefer a pointer. Or a spaniel.Library of the Dead by Glenn Cooper (published in the US as Secret of the Seventh Son, probably because no one in America would ever pick up a book with "library" in the title, right?) A Dan Brown-esque history-mystery type book with a sexist FBI agent as the lead, a fellow who has no problem with

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-90671830387427033572011-07-21T10:09:00.001-07:002011-07-21T12:00:22.038-07:00

Whilst I'm very quickly going to point out that I am not not not getting involved in another meme, probably, both the topic and the very listyness of this caught my eye while I was perusing Shredded Cheddar. What ten books do you think should be required reading for teenagers?This is sort of a loaded question, even though I'm sure it wasn't meant as one, and it got me thinking once again about my

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-91341827758167552912011-07-16T02:16:00.000-07:002011-07-16T05:48:37.714-07:00

It's probably a fair bet to say that most of us know Anthony Bourdain from his successful series "No Reservations" (which garnered several Emmy nods this year, including for Bourdain's writing) and possibly his wildly successful nonfiction book Kitchen Confidential (the follow-up to which, Medium Raw, was published last year, and I'd really appreciate it if my local library might go ahead and

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-23420277348118542762011-07-03T11:15:00.000-07:002011-07-03T12:51:24.911-07:00

I'd always been under the impression that the number of times that one Mr William Shakespeare had shown up in primary documents could be counted on, at most, my fingers and possibly toes. That really may be the case. But Peter Ackroyd does something spectacular with these scant references in his biography. He takes them, and so much more, and attempts to paint a life that can really only be seen

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-90954722020785780242011-06-25T03:35:00.000-07:002011-06-29T02:09:18.623-07:00

Every day he has set some small object in front of her, and has asked her to tell him what it causes her to imagine. This week he's attempted various root vegetables, hoping for a connection that will lead downwards. Beet - Root Cellar - Corpses, for instance; or even Turnip - Underground - Grave. According to his theories, the right object ought to evoke a chain of disturbing associations for

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-19811984945589049922011-06-25T01:18:00.000-07:002011-06-25T04:10:00.940-07:00

From the book jacket:What do you do when your wife takes your child and leaves you alone in a city of ghosts?Hans van der Broek chooses cricket. Alone in a terrorized city, struggling to understand the disappearance form his life of people, places, and feelings, he seeks refuge in the game of his childhood. But New York cricket is a long way from the tranquil sport he grew up with. It's a rough,

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-15713526540871695652011-06-24T08:39:00.001-07:002011-06-24T08:47:02.251-07:00

Hey there folks, the annual Mario Marathon is on this weekend through whenever they're done. These intrepid guys play continuous Super Mario Brothers (in all of its iterations) and raise money for the incredible Child's Play charity, who provide toys and games for children's hospitals around the world.I'm enamoured of the cause, particularly with a close friend whose child has benefited from

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-73126072270475241592011-06-19T09:59:00.000-07:002011-06-19T10:43:49.797-07:00

Absent fathers seem to be a trend in my reading recently, either willingly (Shakespeare: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd) or unwillingly (Netherland by Joseph O'Neill.) Neither book focuses on the aftermath of such absenteeism, certainly not with Shakespeare's children as so little is known about them, and young Jake, the protagonist's son in Netherland, actually seems less a person himself than

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-9528287032640926992011-06-12T04:50:00.000-07:002011-06-12T05:55:40.009-07:00

Stranahan lived in an old stilt house on the shallow tidal flats of Biscayne Bay, a mile form the tip of Cape Florida. The house had a small generator powered by a four-bladed windmill, but no air conditioning. Except for a few days in August and September, there was always a decent breeze. That was the one nice thing about living on the water.(This may be stretching the "Foreign Lands" theme a

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-64188881120745480832011-06-11T10:45:00.000-07:002011-06-11T11:46:57.081-07:00

Oh my god HE'S ABOUT TO EAT HER FACE!!! Um...creeptastic. Is it sad that I think immediately of the most leery, frightening face-eater that has ever existed when I see the front of this Mills & Boon Super Historical?My friends, I am not certain where this propensity for category romances has come from. I never used to read them with any regularity and in fact, probably rather turned up my nose at

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-70535482101730968662011-06-02T01:31:00.000-07:002011-07-23T05:01:57.939-07:00

This just in via the Guardian: Nobel prize laureate and Booker winner VS Naipaul has decided that there is no woman in the world and apparently in history who writes as well as he does. Women writers are "quite different" because of their "sentimentality, their narrow view of the world", and "...she is not a complete master of her house, so that comes over in her writing too."My cynical response:

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-18085865443921126152011-05-28T06:03:00.000-07:002011-05-29T07:13:50.330-07:00

On the crest of the moor, where in the summer partridges lurked among the bushes like small whirring idiots, was a standing stone. It stood roughly where the witches' territories met, although the boundaries were never formally marked out.The stone was about the same height as a tall man, and made of bluish tinted rock. It was considered intensely magical because, although there was only one of

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-9538686603493427242011-05-14T04:27:00.000-07:002011-05-14T05:05:39.875-07:00

Today is my first Ring.Thanks to satellites and other technologies whose definitions are wasted on me, I'm going to watch the Met's production of Die Walkure from the comfort (?) of my local city screen.Die Walkure is not for the faint of heart. Its running time is somewhere around five to five and a half hours. Since it's a live broadcast of what I assume is a matinee in New York, it will be

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-3051540527848112522011-05-08T11:14:00.000-07:002011-05-08T14:16:47.356-07:00

Strange, isn't it, that I'm currently reading a book that is so fraught with tense familial relations on Mother's Day. One of the main characters is (thus far) a woman who's more or less manipulated the man she loves into marrying him, and then is now herself trapped as he's been crippled by polio and they are unable to have a child. (Yes, it is 1941, why do you ask?) Exacerbating this emotional

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-89348431514254773132011-05-06T04:18:00.000-07:002011-05-06T04:18:00.705-07:00

Ready for another bullet-point roundup? My apologies for a lack of clear critique or analysis...this post is necessitated by both needing to return books to the library but also, frankly, not having a lot to say about some of them. Here we go.Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. This is a book that I could probably find a lot to say about, seeing as how it's one of my favourite books. If

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-22289564406268241622011-05-01T02:52:00.000-07:002011-05-01T04:58:03.049-07:00

Ah, Paris. The lights, the Louvre, the love. The massive numbers of authors who've passed through the city, from Maupassant to Hemingway. The pastries. The wine (and the permissive attitude about having the wine in a park.)I've never been a francophile, despite my desperate love for Les Miserables (the book, of course, not the musical, though there was a time in my life when I could sing every

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-6767703488699338042011-04-26T07:55:00.000-07:002011-04-26T07:55:01.314-07:00

Via Flavorwire, seen first over at Read React Review: What your favourite childhood book says about your adult personality. (Think Onion horoscopes, not psychoanalysis.) This is limited somewhat as my favorite childhood book, The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt by John Bellairs, isn't on the list, but does include another early runner, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L.

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-2477591964806536292011-04-16T08:08:00.000-07:002011-04-16T08:32:53.165-07:00

It's hard to get a good feel for the book The Jamie Oliver Effect, especially since it reads as if the author is a fellow Jamie Oliver fan and apologist. One would pick it up imagining that it has more to do with the celebrity chef's politicking and campaigning for any number of food-related issues, from his school lunch programmes to the Ministry of Food, supporting the idea of learning recipes

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-37043235701813243842011-04-15T12:19:00.000-07:002011-04-16T10:09:56.596-07:00

Locus Focus is a weekly thingy hosted by Shredded Cheddar to talk about place in books. Check out the homeland here, and feel free to join in the fun.----------This is a very special Locus Focus to me. Why? Because it's all true.Getting out of the city and into Indiana was a nightmare in itself, and then Eric was rewarded by only as bleak a drive as he could think of, Chicago to Indianapolis.

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-86215925846123770822011-02-26T01:49:00.000-08:002011-02-26T03:28:59.512-08:00

I've been slacking at the Locus Focus, mostly because I'm reading a series of relative stinkers but also because I'm bogged down in academic work right now, and not a lot of that is really evocative of place. Not even the site reports.I listen to a lot of music and podcasts on my daily commute (twenty-five minutes uphill!), and every now and again a song will catch me in a way that makes me hit

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-92136403881137091162011-02-23T04:05:00.001-08:002011-02-23T04:24:50.370-08:00

Of interest, a maid in the employ of Kathryn Stockett's brother is suing her for unpermitted appropriation of her name and image. Doesn't sound familiar? Kathryn Stockett wrote The Help, last year's book club darling about a white woman and two black servants in Jackson, Mississippi in the mid-1960s. The plaintiff, Ablene Cooper, shares a name, dental work, and personal history with one of the

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-30594691644169390052011-02-19T11:15:00.000-08:002011-02-20T17:18:48.797-08:00

I was actually looking for Julia Quinn at my local library when I found The Third Circle. I picked it up instead for a few reasons. First, there was no Quinn on the shelf, but I remember reading an interview somewhere in which she said she chose her pen name so that her books would be shelved near Amanda Quick's. (It works in opposite too.) Second, when paging through the copyright notices to

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-69582271834882134102011-02-13T01:45:00.000-08:002011-02-13T05:36:30.264-08:00

I'm not going to review King Lear. How could I? What do I possibly have to say in any critical or analytical way that hasn't been said before, and probably much better than I could muster? So I'm going to present to you some thoughts...random bits and pieces, what I thought as I was reading, words that struck me in some way.My version is the Pelican Shakespeare's publication which includes the

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-64874347870225820622011-02-12T04:43:00.000-08:002011-02-12T04:49:08.990-08:00

Oh, how I wish it were March and that I'd read Caesar to I could make some clever remark. Instead it's February and King Lear.As part of the 2011 Shakespeare Reading Challenge, I read Lear in January. But oh no, that's not all. Because I'm a overachiever, I also saw the National Theatre's production of Lear with Derek Jacobi and Gina McKee and reread Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres.Over the next

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-70900013601978720442011-02-06T03:30:00.000-08:002011-02-06T04:05:11.689-08:00

The theme for this month's Loci Foci is "Romantic Rendezvous" in honour of that day of all fuzzy days, the Valentine's one. I read a lot of romances and have no problem with this; in fact, it's easier for me than last month's topic since I don't read a lot of futuristic novels. One of the very first books I read this month immediately captured my focus on this theme, and made me wonder about the

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-12330597322902819222011-01-27T03:47:00.001-08:002011-01-27T03:49:03.862-08:00

I considerably changed the look of my blog. Usually someone will mention something about it and no one has. I'm not looking for crowing positivism and love - can someone just tell me if this site looks different than what it used to? I'm starting to wonder if the edits didn't post. Thanks.

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-84549140811908118642011-01-26T12:19:00.000-08:002011-01-26T12:19:00.047-08:00

Just a few notes on this. Barbara Ehrenreich has never been a favorite of mine, and I don't have the gumption or passion to write anything more extensive.This book in America is titled Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America. In the UK, it's Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World. I think I prefer Smile or Die, myself. No

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-51315971357130915582011-01-22T06:26:00.000-08:002011-01-22T13:27:04.087-08:00

They called it Wine Country. What it was, in fact, was an area south of Market Street, adjacent to the Tenderloin, where liquor stores sold a high volume, yet small variety, of fortified wines like Thunderbird, Richard's Wild Irish Rose, and MD 20:20 (known in the wine world as Mad Dog, for the propensity of its drinkers to urinate publicly and turn around three times before passing out on the

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-73864397391240407672011-01-21T04:42:00.000-08:002011-01-21T13:15:42.295-08:00

The Who and What: Jacques Pépin, peer of Julia Child who's written a book that devotes pages to knife techniques, goes quick and simple for the newbies in Fast Food My WayThe Whys and Wherefores: We received this as a Christmas gift from my partner's sister and brother-in-law, themselves avid foodies and cooks who are no doubt working on fostering our own fledgling foodiness. I am immediately

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-74172659163335340612011-01-18T14:09:00.000-08:002011-01-18T14:20:46.741-08:00

This just in from the New York Times: A raving review of a minimalist production of Cymbaline playing right next door to the overblown Julie Taymor production of Spider-Man. You simply must love any review in which a queen-sized white sheet gets a lovingly singular mention. (Also props for the phrase, "The play is probably best known for its use of a headless corpse..." Although that still

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-52563719284287813222011-01-16T05:39:00.001-08:002011-01-16T10:34:57.953-08:00

Spoilers ahead.There are long, intense periods of hiding to avoid authority figures.Lisbeth exhibits Jedi-like talents such as "invisibility" and stealth (would ninja-like be more appropriate?).Tasers display similarities to lightsabers, in an abstract way. Mace is also illegal (in Sweden), like the lightsaber's underground status in the Empire.Lisbeth experiences a transformation/maturation of

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-1999754774475563902011-01-11T08:44:00.000-08:002011-01-11T08:51:05.201-08:00

This caught my eye since I'm reading Lear for the 2011 Shakespeare Challenge: a one-woman, child-friendly production of Lear including the storm scene (via spray bottles) and free Kleenex. This looks like a lovely way to get a handle on Lear, for twelve-year-olds or those older. Lord knows I'm drawing every parallel I can with A Thousand Acres to hang tight with the characters; I have this

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-57241810786191007202011-01-09T05:47:00.000-08:002011-01-09T06:01:33.192-08:00

Remember a few years ago when I stumbled on a "Which Austen heroine are you?" quiz and turned out to be, not really to anyone's surprise except my own, Marianne Dashwood (who might be my favorite Austen heroine in my favorite Austen book?) On a whim I found another one, and I can't resist these, at the blog of YA author Gretchen McNeill, in turn taken from the book Jane Austen's Guide to Dating.

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-2787969889413633662011-01-07T14:14:00.000-08:002011-01-07T14:17:01.484-08:00

Since I'm suspecting there are readers out there who do love North and South but maybe don't read Bitch Magazine (a feminist response to pop culture), I just wanted to point out that there's a nice article on Gaskell, Elliot, and clashing worlds in the nineteenth century on their Iconography series. Go check it out.

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-14155216885533434882011-01-01T09:02:00.001-08:002011-07-16T03:22:50.874-07:00

@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Times"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0in; }ul { margin-bottom: 0in; } It's been a good year, and I

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-63272184638710276872011-01-01T08:40:00.001-08:002011-01-01T09:00:29.296-08:00

2010 was not a bad year for reading. Nothing spectacular, nothing tragic, some good reads, some ok, some bad. Let's look at some highlights, because nothing makes me happier than a list and nothing makes everyone happier than focusing on the positive:I managed three and a half of my six books on my 2010 list. The half is that pesky Religion and the Decline of Magic, still malingering in my

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-73541328897741046172011-01-01T08:12:00.000-08:002011-01-01T08:12:00.448-08:00

Two books by John Bellairs in the Johnny Dixon series focus around the nemesis Warren Windrow and his evil family of wizards and warlocks, The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull and The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost. Of all the Johnny Dixon books, these are the only two that should be read in order, as The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull introduces us to Warren Windrow and his vengeance for the

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-24030555636458497932010-12-28T03:57:00.000-08:002010-12-28T03:57:00.504-08:00

I opened my last post on Wodehouse, "Oh Wodehouse, where have you been all my life?" The short story "Honeysuckle Cottage" made me repeat such swooning sentiments, and very appropriate to the theme of the story too.The story starts: "Do you believe in ghosts?" asked Mr Mulliner abruptly.I weighed the question carefully. I was a little surprised, for nothing in our previous conversation had

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-34882299558989727872010-12-23T10:39:00.000-08:002010-12-23T10:39:00.876-08:00

As regular readers probably know, I can be occasionally hard up for books between a grad student budget and a local library that really does do its best, even if they tend to not carry exactly what I'm looking for. The annual Book Blogger Holiday Swap was, I thought, the perfect opportunity to relieve a special book blogger of a few tomes from their piles. On the registration form, I did

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-43165587255693984702010-12-17T13:24:00.000-08:002010-12-18T10:31:53.397-08:00

I have this feeling that trying to expound on Peter Ackroyd's London would be like trying to explain the magnitude of Einsteinian physics: Peter Ackroyd is the master of London, and his depth of knowledge of the very city, street by street, is a magnificent accomplishment. For that reason - and because I'm reading this one right now - I'm turning my focus to the London of Hawksmoor, one of

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-49063905915012429162010-12-11T08:53:00.000-08:002010-12-11T09:55:46.272-08:00

Shakespeare has been on my mind of late.He seems to be everywhere right now, and with no real pattern to it. The Tempest is coming out in a new movie which I probably won't be seeing; as much as I love Helen Mirren, I couldn't stand director Julie Taymor's Across the Universe. Salon just published a slide show of Shakespearean film canon, turning me on to such films as Orson Welles' Chimes at

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-46206360366925475772010-12-08T01:52:00.000-08:002010-12-08T01:52:00.785-08:00

If someone loved me enough, someone would. Actually I think I'd rather have the gold ring. The twisted design reminds me of a common construction of Anglo-Saxon finger rings.Sigh.For the animal sensitive I'll point out that each of these are obviously vintage, so no new animals were killed in the making of the coats (plus, seriously, Edward Gorey.) Also Gorey himself had a change of heart about

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-73919781153092381002010-12-07T11:03:00.000-08:002010-12-07T11:12:34.664-08:00

One of my favorite nonprofits, Bitch Media, which provides a feminist response to pop culture, is doing a series called Iconography on feminist icons in literature over the next eight weeks. The introductory post can be found here. Providing the meat (or articles) will be Sydney-based Chally Kacelnik, who blogs at Zero at the Bone as well as writing for a few other media outlets.Points for?

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-7780466659259669132010-12-05T10:17:00.000-08:002010-12-05T10:17:00.123-08:00

It gets even worse. I thought I had Henry James on my 2010 list, but it turns out I gave up that idea somewhere over the mighty mighty Atlantic Ocean. Yet I still have The Wings of the Dove in my house. Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi.The Friends of Friends, also published as The Way It Came, tells the story of a woman and her two closest friends, her fiance and a woman friend. Despite how both of them

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-46430612872013499072010-12-01T12:09:00.000-08:002010-12-01T12:09:00.720-08:00

I have to be honest with you, I've had one experience with Philippa Gregory, which was The Other Boleyn Girl, and it was not a pleasant one. I don't remember a lot about the book except I thought it was trite and predicable, and both lacked the sex for a proper romance and the gravitas for a serious historical fiction. I'm aware that Ms Gregory (I always want to refer to her as Pippa, as if we're

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-15794887358291434322010-11-25T11:58:00.000-08:002010-11-25T11:58:00.404-08:00

Robert Langdon. Washington, D.C. Symbols. Woman-of-the-book. Masons. Flashbacks. Scary religious-type person. More masons. Symbols. Symbols. Masons. Ritual sacrifice. The Washinton Monument. And a beautiful, spiritual sunrise. The end!Ok, I have no problems with The Da Vinci Code. It was a page turner, it was interesting, it was fun. Dan Brown is no Shakespeare, not by any stretch, and his

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-80506088446087132952010-11-20T01:33:00.000-08:002011-06-11T11:46:04.532-07:00

How about this...I actually had to go look at the name of the book to remember what it was, and discovered that I don't think I actually knew it from the start. It's a Mills and Boon book so I assumed that it was something like The Millionaire Duke's Independent Virginal Commoner Gaming Mistress (With Flaming Red Hair!) But The Duke's Gamble is a pretty appropriate title even if not grotesquely

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-6208932897766751342010-11-15T05:11:00.000-08:002010-11-15T09:59:31.885-08:00

I've been trying to mine my county library services for what romance I can, since it's not really in my budget to buy new. Unfortunately there's a lot of really great writers out there who don't seem to be on the radar in the UK. I need me some Meredith Duran, Kate Noble, Joanna Bourne! Seriously, these are not unknown authors but they don't register in my county system. Drat.So I'm going on

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-79264449227096759122010-11-13T06:20:00.001-08:002010-11-13T06:54:48.136-08:00

Did you know that every year thousands of words go out of use? Are you aware that 90% of everything we communicate in writing is done in around 7000 words? For shame, people. Didn't we study words and such in elementary school?Maybe that's the problem, that our study of words ended around eighth grade. Beyond that we're learning only our specialist terms. Words, for me, like post-processualism,

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-69419236816048067072010-11-07T13:58:00.000-08:002010-12-18T10:48:55.749-08:00

The somethingth-annual Book Blogger Holiday Swap is on! This is a friendly way to get to know a blogger whom you may have never met. I participated for the first time last year and received a lovely leather book mark from a book blogger who chose to remain anonymous.Read the FAQs and sign up here through November 14th. No late entrants are allowed due to holiday time shipping constraints. You're

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-1130619109410821192010-11-03T09:42:00.000-07:002011-06-02T05:17:50.310-07:00

Blurb from Amazon: What would you do if, out of the blue, your husband disappeared and you found out he was a suspected criminal?When reliable, respectable Felix Kendall vanishes, his wife Kate is left reeling. As she and their children cope with the shocking impact on their comfortable lives, Kate realises that, if Felix is guilty, she never truly knew the man she loved. But as she faces the

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-15890631081704877592010-10-31T07:55:00.000-07:002010-10-31T08:28:02.898-07:00

Readers, I am a devoted listener to the podcast Stuff You Should Know. I love the humor, I love the delivery, I love the information, I love the rapport between the hosts Josh Clarke and Chuck Bryant (and the ever-silent producer Jeri). Seriously, this podcast has covered everything from How Roller Derby Works to What Exactly Is Fascism to Will the Large Hadron Collider Destroy the Earth.

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-75405083371927173242010-10-24T12:21:00.000-07:002010-10-24T12:44:44.591-07:00

I probably should have posted something on this Booker shortlist novel a little sooner, but it was one of those books that I wanted to think on before trying to say anything intelligent, and then I forgot that it existed. Honestly the only reason I'm making a brief post on it is because it's a part of the Booker project, and I'm sending it to my cousin in Afghanistan tomorrow so it's now or

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-91409497156118975162010-10-17T07:03:00.000-07:002010-10-17T10:26:02.222-07:00

After spending a lovely hour or so at the Jane Austen House Museum in Chawton, Hampshire (which I highly recommend, even if it's difficult to get to without a car), I was determined to spend just a little bit of money in their gift shop. For one, yes, to support the cause and all that, and two, since I figured they'd have a fine collection of Austen, Austenesque, and Austen crit. After all, it

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-79140331721855356032010-09-25T11:29:00.000-07:002010-09-25T12:24:12.790-07:00

When I was in college, I remember hearing the story of Dorothy Parker typing out the words, “Please god, let me write like a man.” Even if I didn’t know my own reading bias, I understood at once, instinctively. It was the way to legitimacy. Men wrote of Big Things that Mattered. Sure, some of them were endlessly introspective. Yes, the big things that mattered were often penises. Also, sex. Also

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-49582341712025710082010-09-21T09:39:00.000-07:002010-09-21T15:34:41.028-07:00

As many of you may know, I am not much of a graphic novel reader. There are several reasons for this, I think. Among them, the fact that I am not a visual person (but when I am, I am very picky); the fact that I sometimes read for the beauty of the words; the fact that I am not a spatially oriented person. I've had two graphic novel experiences, one - the above - which was ok at best, and another

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-30642556475062911222010-09-19T08:31:00.000-07:002010-09-19T09:20:44.043-07:00

From the back blurb: Baird College's Mendenhall echoes with the footsteps of students heading home for Thanksgiving and Robin Stone, who won't be going home, swears she can feel the creepy, hundred-year-old residence hall breathe a sigh of relief. As a massive storm approaches, four other lonely students reveal themselves to Robin: Patrick, a handsome jock; Lisa, a manipulative tease; Cain, a

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-50428239906389798252010-09-07T11:36:00.000-07:002010-09-07T12:36:58.266-07:00

I'm having a bit of a Stephen King renaissance. After having not read any of his books since sometime in high school, I picked up the book Bag of Bones last May as I was about to go stay in a country house in Caithness for a week. Ostensibly I was doing some work while partner dear did some work while we got to stay with a lovely woman at her lovely house; recognizing that I needed more than

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-47224602546254292122010-09-01T09:36:00.000-07:002011-01-18T14:21:53.148-08:00

The days are a bit shorter. The sun, though warm, has begun to wane. It just doesn't have the zest, the will like it used to, does it? And that breeze has gone from lazy to brisk. I may even detect a bit of yellow in the maple tree across the street. The duvet which has been pushed to the foot of the bed is starting to tuck under my chin around midnight. Saturdays have morphed from Nice days for

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-3276989348703989062010-08-31T02:52:00.001-07:002011-01-16T12:49:16.037-08:00

This is a break in normal reviewing for me, since generally I wait to finish the book before posting thoughts. However this was my book club read, my lovely book club who kept me on their email list even though I moved to a different country, and since they're meeting tomorrow I wanted to make a few observations about this month's book before the meeting.This month's book: Gilead by Marilynne

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-18989531755561535272010-08-26T10:25:00.001-07:002010-08-26T10:54:34.095-07:00

Do you tuck yours away too? Enjoy them at home, in the night, maybe even under the covers? Don't you think it's time they should see the light of day, time to be honest about that habit you keep secret?Well, Saturday is Read Comics in Public Day. (I just noticed that the Monkey See blog has the same post title. I didn't mean it.)I don't really have a storied history with graphic novels. When I

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-52733597403444562732010-08-14T13:25:00.000-07:002010-08-14T13:25:00.536-07:00

One of my 2010 books is Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas, as you can see in my little left hand toolbar listy. Why? Well, a chapter or two were required reading during my master's degree, and frustratingly enough the library only held one copy that was restricted to a four-hour, in-library loan. One day when I got cantankerous about the whole thing, I fed the photocopy machine a

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-77957006317606595712010-08-13T10:15:00.000-07:002010-08-13T13:25:37.191-07:00

I have to be honest with you, I have shockingly so little to say about this book that I wasn't even going to review it until I realized that it was on the Jezebel list you can see on the left toolbar. I actually only read this book because Daphne gave it a fantastically fun review and my library happened to have it.A synopsis in short: Three stupendously beautiful girls meet in post-War New York

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-59599952236756906122010-08-10T10:19:00.000-07:002010-08-10T10:19:00.211-07:00

Responsible, restrained, and on-the-shelf at twenty-one Charlotte Seavers is called in by the new Duke of Ashurst to chaperone his young and mischievous twin sisters at home and in their first London season. But Rafael's dukedom sits uneasy on his shoulders after the sudden death of his uncle and two cousins, and Charlotte's history with the Daughtry family is clearly shadowed with dark secrets.

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-11664833039813191672010-08-01T09:10:00.000-07:002010-08-01T10:09:36.315-07:00

I just don' t know why I keep reading Rachel Gibson books. I know that I haven't liked anything by her that I've read. Maybe it's the UK covers...they're just so pretty...oh, flowers and William Morris, take me away.The day after she discovers her fiance in a compromising position with the Sears repair man, Clare Wingate wakes up mostly naked and with a massive hangover in a hotel with none other

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-65892402874647433152010-07-27T14:13:00.000-07:002010-07-27T14:13:00.312-07:00

A long while ago I was turned on to Kate Noble's Compromised, which I thought was one of the most refreshing and delightful romances that I've read in some time. Her sophomore effort, Revealed, didn't quite do it for me in the same ways, but it was still an enjoyable read (and now I get to re-thank the author for sending it to me in the first place!) Well, this just shows my taste: Revealed is a

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-35912079041353328982010-07-25T12:08:00.000-07:002010-07-27T06:03:07.374-07:00

I really adore Flavia de Luce.When Miss Flavia bumbles upon a couple with a broken-down van, she quickly inserts herself into the situation to "help" and discovers that the couple are in fact the world famous puppeteer Rupert Porson and his beautiful assistant Nialla. When Rupert and Nialla agree to stay in tiny Bishop's Lacey and put on a short run of performances, Rupert falls to the wrong side

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-71095605721718170862010-06-25T08:24:00.000-07:002010-06-25T08:48:34.502-07:00

There's really pretty much no bookish connection to this so no real excuse for me. Other than the fact that this is completely awesome, and defines my notion that anyone can change the world if you try. Ok, enough with the apologies. Get over to the Mario Marathon.These guys play something like every conceivable version and level of Super Mario Brothers live online in a fundraiser for the charity

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-73500176418000212892010-06-19T11:19:00.000-07:002011-08-29T09:23:36.123-07:00

In true "not much to say about these" tradition, here are those fabulous bullet-points. Angel: City of, a novelization of the pilot of the TV series "Angel" by Nancy Holder, based on the teleplay by Joss Wheadon and David Greenwalt. I haven't read a novelization in a large number of years, though I was somewhat obsessed by them when I was young. Middle school young. I picked this one up at a

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-88145531029261670662010-06-13T10:45:00.000-07:002010-06-13T10:58:17.116-07:00

Dear friends, I love lists. You know I love lists. I particularly like crossing things off lists (see the left sidebar, or the iCal on this very computer, or even that scrap piece of paper over on my kitchen table.) I found this on through NPR's Monkey See blog, and I am particularly in love with it. It's a list published on the Washington Post, compiled by Publisher's Weekly, of the top ten

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-85139688879073669402010-06-05T11:44:00.000-07:002010-06-05T14:31:49.050-07:00

A tall birdie named Don told me you still glance at my blog every now and again, Annie Rooney. Here are two I recently read, both of which made me think of you.The Immaculate Deception by Iain Pears. Subtract points for obvious reference in the title. I picked this one up for free, so no complaints, no matter what, except for the fact that the characters were stereotyped beyond belief and I could

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3059045303801997554.post-66380020280649904702010-05-20T05:10:00.000-07:002011-07-23T05:01:19.823-07:00

Here's the answer to a question: the 'lost' 1970 Booker, apparently never bestowed because of a scheduling quirk (because they expected 1971 first? still not clear on the details), has been awarded to J.G. Farrell's Troubles. The shortlist, including works by Nina Bawden and Muriel Spark, was selected by a panel with Farrell's work chosen by public vote.This answers perhaps one of my questions

Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09314153391153507955noreply@blogger.com0