The Sparrow is about many things I like to read about: encounters with alien cultures, close-knit groups of friends, Catholicism, colonization, sin and forgiveness and whether God has a plan. Basically, some people on earth in the nearish future discover that there are aliens not far from Earth, and they go on a Mission to meet the aliens and learn their languages and all about them. The book opens shortly after the last surviving member of the mission, Father Emilio Sandoz, has been returned to earth amidst much ado and scandal about the way the mission ended; and the narrative…
43 CommentsReading the End Posts
I read two books today, and am consequently behind on reviews. On the other hand, I am even behinder on reading about what y’all have been reading, and I have decided to give priority to that. So this is a quick post to say that I have arrived safely in my Impressive Academic Town and been installed, with groceries, in my third-floor apartment that turns out to be around the corner from a delicious Mediterranean place. I have attended an impressive graduation and discovered that when you attend the graduation of an Impressive University, you see impressive people receiving honorary…
31 CommentsSomeone I love: Joan Wyndham Someone I hate: Ernest Hemingway Combine them and you get: Elaine Dundy As you can imagine, I had a strange combination of feelings about The Dud Avocado. It’s a semi-autobiographical novel about a young expatriate American party girl and her relationship with an American man called Larry, whom she runs across in Paris. When she runs into Larry, she’s involved with a married Italian, but she immediately fancies herself in love with Larry and becomes involved in a theatre production that he’s directing. Along the way she has various romantic entanglements and – well, okay,…
49 CommentsWhat would it be? Because I mentioned on Rose City Reader‘s blog today that I hate it when books say “sex” as a noun to refer to genitals, and it made me realize that I couldn’t let another day go by without telling y’all how much I hate that particular use of that particular word. Does it count as a euphemism? Whatever, I hate it. I hate it so much. I hate it, hate it, hate it. If I could banish it from the face of the earth, I WOULD DO IT. Even typing the phrase “his sex” or “her…
53 CommentsMeh. I HATE TO SAY MEH. I particularly hate to say meh when it’s a young-adult book to which I am saying it, because I feel like if I say meh to a young-adult book, I am becoming one of those people who turn up their noses at young adult books and do not pay any attention to YA rock stars like Laurie Halse Anderson and Patrick Ness and, well, and Jacqueline Woodson. I am not one of those people! Except that I have only read one of Jacqueline Woodson’s books after hearing about her all over the place, and…
23 CommentsI did a class on Milton when I was at university. The professor was this tiny, enthusiastic woman, clearly in love with Milton and excited for us to be in love with him, too. She would charge up and down the classroom gesticulating wildly and drawing stick-figure pictures of important scenes on the chalkboard. I have her in my head like a soundtrack when I read Paradise Lost. It was the best class I took at university, and the single piece of literature I most enjoyed reading and learning about. So hopefully I will not sound like an idiot when…
28 CommentsI read seven more books in April than I reviewed here (oops). To wit: I read all the rest of the Company books, and at the end I was probably about 85% satisfied, the remaining 15% belonging to Mendoza and her lot, because that was a bit too weird for me. Oh, and at least 1% of my dissatisfaction was down to Kage Baker’s suggesting that there would have been 315 Doctors on Doctor Who by 2351 (though I do appreciate the implication it’s got that kind of staying power). That would necessitate a majority of the Doctors doing one…
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