Recommended by: Read-Warbler This book is about an American librarian who brings books to rural African places using camels. I’ll give you that again: She uses CAMELS to bring people BOOKS. There are no words that adequately express how sad I am that I wasn’t able to finish this book. It contains BOOKS and CAMELS. Bringing books to people via camels. I love books (obviously), and God knows I love camels more than my luggage. One time I went to a RenFest, and THEY HAD CAMELS there and I RODE ON ONE. Didn’t even remotely know that I cared about…
Leave a CommentAuthor: Jenny Hamilton
My second try with Linda Newbery. I really want to love her! The covers of her book are always so appealing! This one had bits that were set in Chelmsford, and I lived in Essex for nine months! But still, the only strong reaction I had to her books – like last time – was, Jesus God, I’m so glad I’m not raising children in England. British schoolchildren are awful. They are awful. My flatmates thought I was from the scary ghetto because I have sketchy neighbors and got mugged one time; this in spite of the fact that they…
Leave a CommentThe Temeraire series continues, hooray! I liked this one much more than I did the last two. It was more pulled together than they’ve been, and Laurence was very, very polite, and Temeraire is still a cutie. I’ve been having ongoing concerns that Laurence will get less polite the more he hangs out with the Aerial Corps people (and Jane, who bores me). He didn’t though. He might have been the most polite in this book that he’s been in any of the books. Ah, courtesy. They flew to Africa, and I felt, of all the places they’ve been, Ms.…
1 CommentThe dragons (and Napoleon!) are back. Temeraire is still angling for dragon liberty. Laurence is still sorting through his feelings about England and dragons, and still losing his temper when people have bad manners (yay for manners!). In this book they’re all over the place – it’s all trekking off to Istanbul (and, okay, it’s not Naomi Novik’s fault that this plot thread got that They Might Be Giants song stuck in my head, but damn, I had that song stuck in my head for a while, where it waged a bitter war against the Dr. Horrible songs), and then…
3 CommentsSays Box of Books. (Though I think I’m only very occasionally funny.) But I still like filling up questiony things. Oo, except for when you have to bubble in bubbles like on standardized tests. Once I knew what the pattern of my name was – up-spike at the E, drastic down-spike for the Y – which was around first grade – it got boring. What kind of a book are you comfortable reading? To be honest, the ones I’ve read before. And every now and again, I come across a new book that feels comfortable, but there doesn’t seem to…
1 CommentOh, how distressing I found this book, and oh, how I wished that Peggy Orenstein had kept this whole distressing story to herself. I got annoyed with Ms. Orenstein straight away when she said that in her pre-baby-mania days, she used to say that women who made pre-Betty Friedan choices shouldn’t be surprised when they end up with pre-Betty Friedan results. Which is to say, women shouldn’t choose to be stay-at-home mums, as that is a choice that could never be feminist, and if they do make that atavistic choice, they just deserve all they get. Nasty. I found this…
3 CommentsRecommended by: Books and Cooks, who reads good books and has pictures of pretty food that makes me feel envious. I finished this today, and then I went ahead and read Waiting for Daisy, and I had such a strong reaction to Waiting for Daisy that I’m having a hard time remembering what I thought of Matrimony. This is one of those that doesn’t have a catchy plot. It starts with the main character, Julian, and he meets a friend called Carter in his freshman year writing seminar. Julian meets a girl called Mia and Carter meets a girl called…
5 Comments