Ooh, this volume is spookier than I remember. It’s a bit hard to explain the plot, which is intricately linked to other storylines, but in short, it’s about a girl called Rose, who is looking for her little brother. A number of other people are milling around: G.K. Chesterton, a woman who’s been pregnant for several years, a serial killer with teeth in his eyes, women with enormous spider collections, and that makes it interesting. Still, essentially it’s all about Rose. She has multicolored hair and numerous connections to the previous volume. She is also a vortex, which means that…
3 CommentsCategory: Favored authors
Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
Published 13 Jan 2009
by
Gin Jenny
Riot’s blog, Burning Leaves, reminded me yesterday of how much I love the Sandman. I went into the hallway and gazed admiringly at my very nice Sandman poster. I just now went to find a small picture of it on the internet, so I could link to it, and I couldn’t find one anywhere. I couldn’t even find one for sale on eBay. So I’m glad I have this one, and if I had batteries in my camera I would take a picture of it and post it here. It reminds me of when my love for Sandman was new.…
6 CommentsSuzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me, Martin Millar
Published 21 Dec 2008
by
Gin Jenny
Yes, yes, I finally caved and read this. I have been delaying gratification for quite a while, but I just couldn’t resist the siren call of this book anymore. It has been sitting so alluringly on my bookshelf. Last night I was reading The Sixteen Pleasures and suddenly it became clear to me that if I went another second without reading Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me, my brain would explode. (Nothing against The Sixteen Pleasures, which I’m enjoying.) I am beginning to entertain the notion that my great dislike of everything else I’ve been reading is all to do with…
3 CommentsHenry VI, Part II, William Shakespeare
Published 11 Nov 2008
by
Gin Jenny
Ah, this is more like it. Not – you know – exactly like it, but more. Much more political intrigue than fighting battles, and that always makes for a jollier play. It’s all about the political machinations going on around Henry VI’s rule – everybody wants to rebel against everybody else. Gloucester wants to carry on being Lord Protector but the queen and her lover don’t want that because they want to be the power behind the throne. The Duke of York and his pals want Henry deposed, because they feel that their claim to the throne is superior –…
Leave a CommentHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
Published 9 Nov 2008
by
Gin Jenny
I’m very emotional. I – I – I have so many, so very many, feelings. This was the only one of the books I waited for but not with my family. When the sixth book came out, I was doing a month in London, which was amazing and I saw like twelve plays that month, but it also meant that I got my book from a bookshop in Croydon. Aggravating melodramatic liar Frank Harris is from Croydon. That’s all I will say. Also, nobody stayed up with me to read it. I was with (a different) Jane, and she and…
6 CommentsHenry VI, Part I, William Shakespeare
Published 3 Nov 2008
by
Gin Jenny
So I took a break from Harry Potter last night – just cause that I was getting really emotional – and went ahead and read Henry VI, Part I. It begins at the funeral of Henry V. Everyone is very worried because there’s still wars going on with the French, and they don’t know how they’re going to do without stalwart Henry V there to guide them. They have lots of fights with the French. They kick off the Wars of the Roses and argue over who should be King, and Joan of Arc is a total witchy bitch. And…
1 CommentHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
Published 2 Nov 2008
by
Gin Jenny
I saw this graph one time on something connected with the Lemony Snicket books, and it showed how as time went on, the number of fortunate events decreased. And that is what I always think of when I read the fifth Harry Potter book. It contains so many depressing things – dementors, Umbridge, writing lines in blood, everyone thinking Harry is crazy, an acknowledgement of Harry’s psychological issues, Cho Chang – and the end makes me feel so very, very sad, for Harry and for Dumbledore. I stayed up until midnight for this book when it came out, at the…
Leave a CommentHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
Published 25 Oct 2008
by
Gin Jenny
Holy God, this book is scary. I had completely forgotten how terrifying the scene in the graveyard is. Damn. Goblet of Fire isn’t as unfavoritey to me as I remembered it being. I don’t know why I was so cranky about it. I mean, apart from the Blast-Ended Skrewts, which were a much less important part of the book than I was remembering, and the fact that this book is hard on poor Harry, Goblet of Fire isn’t half bad. I was expecting that I would reread it and decide after all that I liked it even less than Chamber…
4 CommentsHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling
Published 18 Oct 2008
by
Gin Jenny
Mm, this is the one I’ve been waiting for. My original plan was just to read Prisoner of Azkaban, my most favorite of all the Harry Potter books, but then I decided to read them all, since I knew that would take longer and afford me more lasting satisfaction. In Azkaban, a supporter of Voldemort (and, it more or less goes without saying, murderer) breaks out of the wizard prison Azkaban and is out on the lam, desperate – say the prison guards – to get to Harry and kill him dead. Meanwhile the soul-sucking dementors that generally spend all…
1 CommentHarry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling
Published 16 Oct 2008
by
Gin Jenny
You know, if nostalgia was going to cloud my judgment, you’d think I’d like Chamber of Secrets better than I do. It was the first of the Harry Potter books that I bought myself. I remember it really vividly – the Books-a-Million was still open then, and I was young enough that it was a bit of an adventure to buy an expensive hardback all by myself (sheesh, I was a weird fourteen-year-old), and I showed it off to everyone once I got it home, though since none of them had read Harry Potter yet, nobody cared. Except my mother,…
3 Comments