Teresa was at sea. The boat moved – would she ever forget it? – away from the land. And something was severed; she felt delivered. “I never want to come back!” she screeched. The grey land made no effort to hold her, gave no final sign of enticement. It lay there, apathetic, allowing her to go. The loud-speaker was playing “Indian Summer”. Down pouring a huge flood of sound, drowning the salty air, paralyzing thought, emotion, everything, a vast crocodile tear of farewell, loudly lugubrious, and up against it soared Teresa’s voice, like a skylark beating its frail wings. “I…
Leave a CommentAuthor: Gin Jenny
Recommended by: I vaguely recall seeing the title and author of this book inside an IM window, so I’m going to go ahead and say that somebody told me about this book, but I don’t actually remember. Anyway it’s a reread. I’m giving it four stars because I enjoy it so much. It maybe doesn’t deserve it. I have lost all perspective. Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty pleasure. If you are an intellectual snob at whatever level, this book will appeal to you; but if you feel quite guilty about being such a snob, you might find that you can’t enjoy…
7 CommentsI have no idea where I read about this book, but I’ve been intending to read it for ages. I went to the library yesterday, ostensibly just to return Dark Shadows (which I realized once I got there I had left at the apartment), and I got maybe eleven books, which is pretty restrained, and out of all of them, I decided to read The Keep first. I didn’t like it. I really thought I must have missed something. You know how sometimes you’ll watch a commercial, and you just can’t figure it out? The commercial ends, and you’re staring…
3 CommentsI’m sure someone told me about this book – probably a number of someones, as it is old and famous – but I haven’t got the faintest idea who. It is also an impossible book to review; so I will just say, It was very funny (as it intended to be), and I enjoyed it a lot. Here is an excerpt. The whole thing is like this: The selfishness of the riparian proprietor grows with every year. If these men had their way they would close the River Thames altogether. They actually do this along the minor tributary streams and…
2 CommentsWhich can be read here, as it is out of copyright, and also this website is brilliant and I am all in favor of celebrating women writers. Recommended by: Box of Books (whom I owe an apology) I am sorry for griping abut The Semi-Attached Couple and its unbitchy nature. Emily Eden is very amusing, and in many ways she is quite like Jane Austen but bitchier. So I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions even though Helen in The Semi-Attached Couple was very annoying. Now I have just finished The Semi-Detached House, and it was completely charming. Everyone in it…
Leave a CommentI’m in the middle of The Semi-Detached House, and I’m definitely much more charmed by it than I was by The Semi-Attached Couple. I like Blanche so far much more than I did Helen, and I am now definitely feeling the Jane-Austen-esque but bitchier thing. Behold: “Are you going to this concert, Baroness?” “No; it seems odd, but we are not asked this time,” said the Baroness, with an air of modest pride. “I suspect we are out of favour at Court, but a Drawing-Room is my aversion, and I have been sadly remiss this year; absolutely neglected the Birthday,…
Leave a CommentWhen David slept he dreamed more often of the creature he had named the Crooked Man, who walked through forests very like the one beyond David’s window. The Crooked Man would advance to the edge of the tree line, staring out at an expanse of green lawn to where a house just like Rose’s stood. He would speak to David in his dreams. I picked this up almost completely at random. My dad said “What else can we get Mom for Christmas?” and I said “Oh, I know. This.”, and grabbed The Book of Lost Things, which I had been…
2 CommentsCecilia went to the kitchen to fill the vase, and carried it up to her bedroom to retrieve the flowers from the handbasin. When she dropped them in they once again refused to fall into the artful disorder she preferred, and instead swung round in the water into a willful neatness, with the taller stalks evenly distributed around the rim. She lifted the flowers and let them drop again, and they fell into another orderly pattern. Still, it hardly mattered. It was difficult to imagine this Mr. Marshall complaining that the flowers by his bedside were too symmetrically displayed. She…
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