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Author: Gin Jenny

Review: Mars Evacuees, Sophia McDougall

WHAT A TREASURE. Seriously, what a TREASURE. I read the first chapter of Mars Evacuees, one of the books Renay gave us in her fabulous SF starter pack, and I was so delighted with it that I set the book fondly and gently aside to read another day. (If this doesn’t sound like the most rousing of recommendations, you must not know how I feel about delayed gratification. If little me had been administered the marshmallow test, she’d have asked the testers if it were possible to wait even longer and get even more marshmallows in the end.) This absolute…

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Something on Sunday: 11/19

Happy Sunday, friends! Here in Louisiana, the weather shocked me by taking a turn for the coolish. I have my fingers crossed (but am not sanguine) that it will stay under 70 through Thanksgiving. Wouldn’t that be nice? A cool Thanksgiving? Anyway, right now it’s in the mid-fifties and sunny, so I am a happy and thankful gal. Here’s what’s been making me happy this week. Giggling over: This ranking of the sex stares of every dude in Poldark. What a blessing. I don’t even watch Poldark, but I am familiar with the Aidan Turner smolder-face. Charmed by: This picture…

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Aurora Leigh Readalong, Part Three

I enjoy that the consensus of this Aurora Leigh readalong immediately and spontaneously coalesced into the following: This is very hard and requires slow, careful reading. But so many good lines! Also, Romney is a butthead. Those three main bullet points do sum up with extreme accuracy the main three things I remember from reading Aurora Leigh for the first time in 2010 or whatever it was. For those reading along at home, I do not remember softening towards Romney as time went on. Maybe this reread will surprise me (but I don’t think so). How can I ever like…

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Reading the End Bookcast, Ep. 91: Fictional Friendships and Laia Jufresa’s Umami

Happy very belated Wednesday, pals! After many travails and difficulties, Whiskey Jenny and I have walked ten miles in the snow uphill both ways to bring you a very overdue podcast. This time around, we’re updating you on professional boundaries in our Serial Box Book Club, chatting about fictional friendships we love, and reviewing Laia Jufresa’s wondrous and underappreciated book Umami.

Umami

You can listen to the podcast using the embedded player below, or download the file directly to take with you on the go!

Episode 91

Here are the time signatures if you want to skip around!

1:03 – What We’re Reading
4:15 – Serial Box Book Club: Episodes 3 and 4 of Geek Actually
11:58 – Fictional friendships!
28:02 – Umami, Laia Jufresa, translated by Sophie Hughes
38:45 – What We’re Reading for Next Time!
39:26 – HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

Seriously, please get at us in the holiday gift guide submission form and help us help you buy gifts for your loved ones.

Get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads. Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).

Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour

Our transcript is below the cut!

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Something on Sunday: 11/12

Happy Sunday, friends! If you’re anything like 90% of the people I follow on Twitter, you’re very tired of hearing miserable stories about sexual assault. So this Sunday (and all the Sundays!) I bring you some glad tidings, which hopefully will be a small tonic. Inspired by: Gal Gadot refusing to reprise her role as Wonder Woman unless Warner Brothers ensures that Brett Ratner’s involvement with the DCU ends. I don’t know if she’ll stick to her guns but I sure do hope so. Happy about: Voting! I early voted! I sure love voting, y’all. Doing my civic duty can…

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Just Gonna Split These Down the Middle: A Links Round-Up

Welp, another Friday, another week of sexual assault revelations. Since I’m guessing some of y’all are tired of reading even quite excellent cultural commentary about sexual predators, I’m going to split these links up for you. Here’s the ones that don’t contain any sexual assault: It’s the year of our Lord 2017, and we are just now publishing the first translation of the Odyssey by a woman. (Buy it! The physical book is really beautiful!) Angelica Jade Bastien on Now Voyager I never don’t click on articles about the medieval historians trying to fend off Nazis. (Poor medieval historians! They…

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Aurora Leigh Readalong: Part Two

We commence Book Three with Aurora telling us a little of her career after her aunt’s death. There’s some wonderfully bitchy lines that make me wish EBB had lived in the age of Twitter (or, I mean, at least the age of online criticism, right?). He’s ‘forced to marry where his heart is not, Because the purse lacks where he lost his heart.’ Ah!–lost it because no one picked it up! That’s really loss! HARSH. Mostly, though, she’s writing about writing, and it’s a good time to mention that L.M. Montgomery, author most famously of Emily of New Moon and…

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Review: The Girl with the Red Balloon, Katherine Locke

Does anyone else here have a habit of mentally constructing syllabuses to replace the syllabuses you had as a kid? Where you’ll be like, “Instead of A Separate Peace, I decree that all the youths will now read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe,” or whatever. I haven’t exactly decided what specific book on youthful summer reading lists The Girl with the Red Balloon should replace, but I’d love for it to be on those lists. Ellie Baum thinks her grandfather’s stories about being saved from the Holocaust by a magic red balloon are just that —…

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Something on Sunday: 11/5

Have we all falled back appropriately? Here’s hoping that it doesn’t wreck our sleep schedules: For some reason springing forward this year utterly kicked my ass and turned me into a zombie, although usually I am immune to time changes. Who knows, guys. What’s keeping you on your feet this Sunday? Link it up below so we can all rejoice in it! Enjoyed: The experience of walking while carrying a coat and hat. The weather lately has been doing those confusing 3o- to 40-degree swings between night and day, which means I go into work wearing a coat and hat…

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Aurora Leigh Readalong: Part One

AT LAST I HAVE TRIUMPHED. Many years have I been badgering my good friend Alice to do a readalong of Aurora Leigh; many years has she responded with limited enthusiasm to the prospect of reading a Victorian epic poem about a cranky lady poet. BUT I HAVE WORN HER DOWN. Thanks, Wonder Woman! I am proud! So we are duly launching into the Aurora Leigh readalong, and I hope nobody hates it, since the fact that we’re doing it is absolutely my fault. The first book introduces us to little Aurora, whose mother dies when she is quite young and…

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