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.…
4 CommentsCategory: 3 Stars
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…
4 CommentsI 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…
5 CommentsI 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…
3 CommentsThe 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!…
2 CommentsI 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…
1 CommentI 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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