There is a particular sort of novel of which I always profess to be passionately fond: the sort with one plotline in the olden days with people doing their olden-day thing, and one in the present with eager scholars researching the very olden-day events in the other plotline. (Is there a word for this sort of book? Can there be one?) If you have ever reviewed a book like this on your blog, I have probably commented to say something like, “Love this sort of book! Adore! Worship! Cannot imagine my life without!” and added it to my reading list…
29 CommentsCategory: Reread
What do you know? Life sends such unexpected blessings (and this review contains lots of spoilers). I reread The Hobbit for the first time since I was small, and didn’t want to stab anybody in the eyes. Except for the dwarves in the beginning; and then Gandalf throughout because, frankly, who made him the king of the world? He just gets to decide that Bilbo would be good on an adventure and risk his whole life to get a couple of bags of gold? When it all works out, Gandalf nods and winks and makes wry comments about how good…
8 CommentsHouse of Leaves put me in the mood for Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which I can’t account for because they are two wildly dissimilar books. House of Leaves is terribly modern and American and all sort of up in your face, and Jonathan Strange is set in early nineteenth-century England (alternate England, but still) and is much with the fairies and book-learning and wry gentility. Anyway I fetched out my convenient three-volume box set of paperbacks, and I read it starting in 2009 and finished in 2010. There should really be a word for a book you start one…
37 CommentsI usually read The Seagulls Woke Me when I have just finished Greensleeves and cannot bear to leave it absolutely behind right away; they are both books about girls who get away from (or find?) themselves. The Seagulls Woke Me is a good transition from Greensleeves to, you know, regular life. It helps me to be less disappointed in other books. I am always pleased when I find a book that makes this nice transition for me. Tam Lin for Fire and Hemlock; Rebecca for Jane Eyre; if I ever find one for The Book Thief, that will be a…
21 CommentsREREADING IS AMAZING. Sometimes I forget how many amazing books I have already read, because I am busy reading new books, which are also (sometimes) amazing. But this is what I’ve been reading lately. Magician’s Ward, Patricia C. Wrede Much like Mairelon the Magician. Too many names of people, but I don’t care because I am more interested in Kim’s learning magic and having a Season and Coming Out at a ball and having Offers of Marriage to turn down. In pretty dresses. Can there be more pretty dresses? And God, pretty shoes? I need new shoes so much. My…
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