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Category: 3 Stars

War for the Oaks, Emma Bull

I read somewhere (who knows?) that War for the Oaks is a retelling of Tam Lin.  I’m on a mad craze to read all the retellings of Tam Lin that I can find, which is brilliant because Fire and Hemlock is waiting for me at the end.  Also, I am interested in reading a whole bunch of retellings of one story, because I am thinking of doing an adaptation of “The Little Mermaid”, and I am curious to see how people do it.  War for the Oaks isn’t a retelling of Tam Lin, but it’s fun and I enjoyed it.…

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The Shooting Party, Isabel Colegate

I read about this over at Imani’s blog – I miss Imani!  Where did she go?? – and today curled up in my comfy old papasan chair to read it.  The Shooting Party is set shortly before the start of World War I, with a large group of British aristocrats and their spouses getting all together to shoot at Lord Randolph Nettleby’s estate.  With World War I looming on the horizon, the reader is all too aware that they are gathering together to participate in a way of life that is passing and will soon be dying away entirely. At…

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Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden

I read about Baltimore on Jenclair’s blog untold ages ago, and I put it on my list, but I didn’t leave myself a little note explaining what it was about.  This is something I do now, but I didn’t always, and so when I would be at the library looking at my list of books, I never checked out Baltimore because I had forgotten anything I ever read about its plot.  Fortunately I was incredibly bored recently and took the time to go back through my book list, look up the reviews, and leave myself teeny little plot synopses. Baltimore…

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The Meaning of Night, Michael Cox

I started reading this in Bongs & Noodles one time, a while ago, and I got bored.  I am more easily bored when I’m reading at Bongs & Noodles than I am in real life – maybe because Bongs & Noodles is all full of loads of brilliant books, and my time there is finite.  Anyway, then I read about it over at Superfastreader’s blog, and it sounded so good I decided to reconsider.  As often happens, I was very pleased that I did. The Meaning of Night is all about a Victorian gentleman called Edward Glyver who conceives a…

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Gifted, Nikita Lalwani

The library doesn’t know I have this book.  They should do – I didn’t sneak out with it or anything – but somehow it’s not on my list of checked-out books.  As such, I haven’t felt any sense of urgency about reading it, so it’s been sitting patiently on the floor of my bedroom for quite some time now, waiting for me to get to it.  And I thought today was a good day for it – I read it on the drive to and from my uncle and aunt’s house today for my first! crawfish boil! of the season!…

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The Elfish Gene, Mark Barrowcliffe

The whole title of this book is The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons, and Growing Up Strange, and it’s a memoir about – well, what the subtitle says (again).  Like Accidentally on Purpose, this book was snatched up at the spur of the moment from the library New Nonfiction shelf.  I think what I was thinking was, Stephen Colbert played Dungeons and Dragons, and I love Stephen Colbert.  Also I have always very vaguely wondered how the game works, and what the appeal was.  Hence the checking out of this book. Mark Barrowcliffe was raised in the Midlands town of Coventry…

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Those Who Hunt the Night, Barbara Hambly

When I am reading other people’s blogs and deciding which books I want to put on my list to read later on, I have started the habit of writing down what it is about their description of the book that attracted me.  That way, when I am on the library computer examining this book blog to see what I want to read next, I can choose what sort of book I am in the mood to read.  And what I wrote for this one was “a guilt-ridden ex-priest vampire in Victorian London!” which is totally not the point at all. …

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The New Moon with the Old, Dodie Smith

Ordinarily I only ever read this book when I have just finished I Capture the Castle and I need my Dodie Smith fix to continue.  It’s really not the most fantastic book you’ve ever seen, but it’s rather charming.  I am susceptible to its charms even when I know the entire book is totally far-fetched and these things would never ever happen. The book is about the Carrington family, whose father goes on the run for vague and unspecified money-type crimes, just after he has engaged a secretary/housekeeper type, Jane Minton, who plans like Thoroughly Modern Millie to marry her…

6 Comments

An Inconvenient Wife, Megan Chance

I love books about the Victorians.  It’s Oscar Wilde’s fault for being one.  And I like books about mental illness, as long as they do not do that stream of consciousness thing, which I absolutely can’t stand.  So when I read about this on the other Jenny Claire’s blog, I was pleased as punch to read it; and yes, I did mess up my don’t-check-out-any-more-library-books thing in order to get this book.  And, okay, yes, since I was at the library anyway, I may have gotten a few other books as well. An Inconvenient Wife is about an upper-class American…

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The Child that Books Built, Francis Spufford

I read about this on Nick Hornby’s Waterstone’s “Writer’s Table” – authors pick out books that are supposed to have “shaped their writing”, and they write little reviews in a few words.  I can’t remember why I was looking at Nick Hornby’s Waterstone’s Writer’s Table – although Nick Hornby is absolutely inextricably linked in my mind to the month I spent in London in 2005.  There was a heat stroke in the second week of July, and the dorm where we were staying didn’t have air conditioning of course, and my room was on the third (American fourth) floor, so…

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