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Reading the End Posts

Gender bias

Published 11 Jul 2010 by Gin Jenny

You know how sometimes you have really strong reactions to things that you never thought you cared that much about? Like this one time I was reading through course descriptions at various universities to see what their course-books were (I was craving nonfiction, and this is before I discovered book blogs), and I saw this course about the poetry of the Hugheses. As in, Ted and Sylvia. I’m not even that big a fan of Sylvia Plath: I love her poetry but I think she would have been maddening in real life. But I was gripped with this unbelievable visceral…

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Review: Talking About Detective Fiction, P.D. James

Published 10 Jul 2010 by Gin Jenny

Okay, I know you remember that I said no more books I can get at home. I know I know I know. I realize this post means that Diary of a Provincial Lady was not my last exception to the rule. Actually the rule was, I will only read books that I cannot get when I am at home, unless the author gives his or her name as two initials followed by a surname. Please do not be perturbed by my Orwellian alteration of a previously established rule. P.D. James, acclaimed writer of detective fiction, has a number of things…

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More Diana Wynne Jones books

Published 8 Jul 2010 by Gin Jenny

Don’t blame me. She has written a lot of books. The One Where Words Are Mighty Archer’s Goon The world it is set in: Modern England, in a town The premise: When Howard comes home to find a Goon in his kitchen, it is his first inkling that his town is controlled by seven very powerful wizards, all apparently hell-bent on taking over the world. But something is stopping them. They are all, for some reason, deeply interested in the two thousand words that Howard’s father Quentin writes each month, and each swears that she or he is not the…

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Review: Diary of a Provincial Lady, E.M. Delafield

Published 6 Jul 2010 by Gin Jenny

From here on out, I will only be reading books that I cannot get when I am at home, absolutely with no exceptions. Diary of a Provincial Lady was my last exception, and I only read it because I forgot that my mother had ordered it from the internet. And also Fagles’ Odyssey, I’ll carry on reading that, because it’s a nice thing to read just before I go to bed at night. There. This forms an unalterable law by which I will live until the end of the summer. I am glad I read Diary of a Provincial Lady.…

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Some of Diana Wynne Jones’s books (but nothing like all of them)

Published 4 Jul 2010 by Gin Jenny

Because I care about y’all and I do not want you to leap into one of Diana Wynne Jones’s books not knowing what to expect, I have hereby decided to construct a list of her books that says what world they are set in and what they are about. And, since I love Diana Wynne Jones, and I find it difficult not to compliment her extravagantly every time I say her name, I shall also say one thing about each of her books that charms me and pleases my heart. My Most Favorite One Fire and Hemlock The world it…

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Dear Canadians,

Published 1 Jul 2010 by Gin Jenny

Happy Canada Day. If I ever meet you in person, it is likely that I will sing you your national anthem. Because I am pleased with myself for knowing it. Kisses, Jenny

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Fagles’s Odyssey: Divided loyalties in the first quarter

Published 30 Jun 2010 by Gin Jenny

Fagles’s translation of the Odyssey is so great it hurts my brain. Granted, I am a sucker for epic poetry. I took eight years of Latin when I was in school, and I never loved anything we translated like I loved the Aeneid. It is epic. Plus I love the Greek and Roman gods. So I am reading the Odyssey right now, in the Fagles translation, which I have to say appears to be the best translation in all the land. Fagles. (Not Lattimore, Capt. Hammer). Check this out: Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists…

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What I have been doing with my fancy university library card

Published 28 Jun 2010 by Gin Jenny

Scaring myself, mostly. This library has a lot of books inside of it, but it also has the scariest damn stacks I ever saw. They have these dark, narrow aisles, and the doors in the stairwells between levels swing open and shut with loud, prolonged, ominous squeaks. I always have the exact call numbers of the books I want before I go, because sitting down at one of the catalogue computers, with my back to the darkened stacks, does not inspire feelings of comfort and safety. The main aisles are lit, but you have to press a button to turn…

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Day of Tears, Julius Lester

Published 23 Jun 2010 by Gin Jenny

Typically I don’t read American historical fiction.  I had to do a lot of American history in school, and so I learned a dozen dozen times about the Revolutionary War and the Civil War and Reconstruction and the dreadful dusty Depression.  I feel like I have already paid my dues where learning about those things are concerned.  Louisiana history too.  That project on the flood of 1927 was both tedious and depressing, so I have decided that Louisiana history and me are quits.  I am a grown-up now, dammit, and that means I get to choose what countries and time…

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