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Author: Jenny Hamilton

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Aw, this book was so sweet.  I feel like I’ve been hearing about it everywhere I turn, but I think initially I read about it on Caribousmom – apparently ages and ages ago, as she reviewed it in July.  My mother owns a copy, and I borrowed it from her and lost it, so I was in a panic about where it could be, and then the other night I was at home and I saw it on her bookshelf.  Apparently I brought it over to my parents’ house to read and then left it there.  I’m such a spaz.…

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In the Woods, Tana French

I read about In the Woods on Trish’s blog as well as the other Jenny Claire’s, and it sounded very intriguing, and it was.  In the Woods is a twisty murder mystery – lots of interesting detail and inexplicable things.  Detective Rob Ryan, who as a child was one of three children that disappeared in a case that was never solved, and the only one who returned, gets put on to solving the murder of a child in the very same forest where he vanished as a kid. It was a really good book.  I couldn’t quit reading it, and…

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Henry VI, Part II, William Shakespeare

Ah, this is more like it.  Not – you know – exactly like it, but more.  Much more political intrigue than fighting battles, and that always makes for a jollier play.  It’s all about the political machinations going on around Henry VI’s rule – everybody wants to rebel against everybody else. Gloucester wants to carry on being Lord Protector but the queen and her lover don’t want that because they want to be the power behind the throne.  The Duke of York and his pals want Henry deposed, because they feel that their claim to the throne is superior –…

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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling

I’m very emotional.  I – I – I have so many, so very many, feelings. This was the only one of the books I waited for but not with my family.  When the sixth book came out, I was doing a month in London, which was amazing and I saw like twelve plays that month, but it also meant that I got my book from a bookshop in Croydon.  Aggravating melodramatic liar Frank Harris is from Croydon.  That’s all I will say.  Also, nobody stayed up with me to read it.  I was with (a different) Jane, and she and…

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What Happened in Hamelin, Gloria Skurzynski

I’ve been such a schizophrenic reader lately.  I’ve not gotten any books out of the library for the past several weeks, because I’ve been reading Harry Potter and Martin Millar, and planning to get started on Shakespeare.  However, the last time I went through reading all the book blogs I read, there were so many books that appealed to me.  And I wrote them all down but I was all on board with finishing up my Harry Potter & Shakespeare reading before carrying on to new things. Ah, and then Obama got elected, and I got an unexpected check from…

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Is it just me

…or does today feel like the first chapter of the first Harry Potter book?  I feel like setting off fireworks and sending owls to people.  I want to hug conservatives and say “Even Republicans like yourself should be celebrating on this happy, happy day!” Enjoy history while it’s happening, everyone!

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Update

Henry VI, Part II, is so much better than Henry VI, Part I.  I just wanted to mention that.  I’m not done with it yet but it’s way, way, way better than the first part.  I’m not saying it’s the best play I’ve ever read, but I’m enjoying it, and I can envision a future in which I might read it again just for fun sometime.  There’s so much political intrigue!  Plus, shades of future plays – particularly Macbeth.  Gloucester’s wife is extremely ambitious, and there are prophecies that are rather cryptic.  One contains the line “Let him shun castles”,…

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Henry VI, Part I, William Shakespeare

So I took a break from Harry Potter last night – just cause that I was getting really emotional – and went ahead and read Henry VI, Part I. It begins at the funeral of Henry V. Everyone is very worried because there’s still wars going on with the French, and they don’t know how they’re going to do without stalwart Henry V there to guide them. They have lots of fights with the French. They kick off the Wars of the Roses and argue over who should be King, and Joan of Arc is a total witchy bitch. And…

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling

I saw this graph one time on something connected with the Lemony Snicket books, and it showed how as time went on, the number of fortunate events decreased. And that is what I always think of when I read the fifth Harry Potter book. It contains so many depressing things – dementors, Umbridge, writing lines in blood, everyone thinking Harry is crazy, an acknowledgement of Harry’s psychological issues, Cho Chang – and the end makes me feel so very, very sad, for Harry and for Dumbledore. I stayed up until midnight for this book when it came out, at the…

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The next reading project

I had this idea because of a weird dream I had.  This project is for after I finish reading the Harry Potter books – which I’m taking longer to do than I anticipated, because I’m enjoying it so much and I want to make it last. My next reading project – which will run parallel to my rereading The Good Fairies of New York and Lonely Werewolf Girl before finally reading Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me – will be to read all of Shakespeare’s plays, in chronological order.  There’s at least twenty of Shakespeare’s plays I’ve not read, and you…

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