There are days where I feel like I am drowning beneath a tremendous pile of exciting books. Do you ever have those days? I did on the day my library emailed me to say my hold had come in on The Cuckoo’s Calling. (Advantage, incidentally, Louisiana. I would have been like the 150th person on the hold list for the New York ebook copies. My home library got me a copy within twenty-four hours. I’m just saying.) The Cuckoo’s Calling came in, I started reading Patrick Ness’s forthcoming book More than This, and I got approved for three AMAZING (-sounding) nonfiction…
32 CommentsCategory: Favored authors
Browning Letters Readalong, Part 2 (June 1845 to October 1845)
Published 8 Jul 2013
by
Gin Jenny
Well, the major event of this portion of the Browning letters is, of course, the mutual declaration (ish — Elizabeth’s still being a little cautious about it) of love. They stop playing games where Robert doesn’t talk about being in love with Elizabeth and Elizabeth doesn’t talk about being in love with Robert. Those games could be really sweet, but it’s even sweeter for them to be able to say, I love you and that will always be true. Thematically, what interests me about this section is Elizabeth’s falling in love with Robert. I feel like you see it first…
11 CommentsA Woman Entangled, Cecilia Grant
Published 30 Jun 2013
by
Gin Jenny
Okay okay okay. Greed for Cecilia Grant’s new book compels me to admit that this has been the year I’ve started reading romance novels. I have read enough of them now to have a pretty clear idea of what I like in a romance novel. I like historical romance novels in which the characters are constrained in interesting, specific ways by the time they live in. I like it when the primary characters each have other stuff going on, and I especially like it when the reason they like each other is that they’re impressed with some skill set the…
11 CommentsJenny and Mumsy go on about the Brownings (Part 1)
Published 24 Jun 2013
by
Gin Jenny
Welcome one and all to the Browning Letters Readalong! We are kicking off this readalong by chatting about the letters between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett from January to May 1845 (the first five months of their acquaintance). I am your humble host Jenny, and I have roped my lovely Mumsy into talking about these Browning letters with me. We talk about them all the time anyway so it’s not that difficult for us. I hope you are enjoying them as much as Mumsy and I are in this first round! Jenny: Obviously Robert is the sweetest dear in all…
21 CommentsRevisiting Harry Potter: “Kill the snake?” “Kill the snake.”
Published 14 Jun 2013
by
Gin Jenny
Here is my main complaint with this section of the book, which I otherwise love very much: How’s Harry going to use the Cruciatus curse on the Carrow sibling who spits in McGonagall’s face? (I find the Carrows boring and have not bothered to learn their names.) He was unable to do this curse on Bellatrix Lestrange two seconds after she killed Sirius Black, but somehow he can manage to do it just because some Death Eater insults one of his teachers? Number one, that is bullshit. Number two, don’t torture people. Torture is wrong, and Harry could have accomplished…
30 CommentsRevisiting Harry Potter: Can someone remind me who gets Fenrir Greyback in the end?
Published 7 Jun 2013
by
Gin Jenny
Here is a thing I would pay money for: A DVD adaptation of the entire Tales of Beedle the Bard in the style of The Tale of the Three Brothers from the movie. Because that bit of the movie was creepy, stylized, and cool, which is right in my wheelhouse. Can this be a thing that happens? Can I have your support on this? I reiterate that I would pay money for it. I would show it to any children over whom I had authority in the future, and by the time they got old enough to read the seventh…
27 CommentsElinor Lipman Redux
Published 3 Jun 2013
by
Gin Jenny
And now we return to the subject of my newest comfort author, Elinor Lipman! Acquiring comfort authors as an adult can be difficult because there’s such a vast universe of books to read, and I have the internet as an endless recommendation machine, whereas young Jenny often checked out the same book from the library over and over again until it became as familiar as a teddy bear. But Elinor Lipman’s books were like a teddy bear right away, so I was very excited to see two — a new novel and a collection of essays — pop up on…
10 CommentsRevisiting Harry Potter: I guess now we have to say nice things about Scrimgeour
Published 17 May 2013
by
Gin Jenny
I decided to do all Disney gifs for this post. Why? Because as usual this readalong is making me feel a lot of feelings, and most of my feelings for the first Deathly Hallows post are wrathful feelings. And Disney makes me feel happy feelings. Exhibit A: Rita Goddamn Skeeter How dare she. I get so angry when I read the excerpts from her rotten biography. Righteously angry! With much stomping around and wishing I had her here in my living room. You know what especially pisses me off? I will tell you. It’s when she calls his relationship with Harry…
27 CommentsOut of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis; or, I am never going to read the other books in this series ever
Published 10 May 2013
by
Gin Jenny
That’s right, NEVER. It’s not because I hated Out of the Silent Planet (I didn’t). It’s because I think if I read them, I would be in a huge fight with C.S. Lewis, and I hate to be in a fight with C.S. Lewis. I’d rather focus on his agreeablest qualities, viz.: I love how crazy in love he was with his wife. That is touching. If you can read A Grief Observed without crying you are just not human. I love how crazy in love he was with God. That is also touching. I love that he’s able to…
17 CommentsRevisiting Harry Potter: “I am not worried, Harry. I am with you.”
Published 3 May 2013
by
Gin Jenny
Oh the feelings. Oh I have them. I was reading the end of this book on one end of the couch while Miniature Roommate was reading Good Omens on the other hand, and every time she laughed at something in Good Omens, I would think she was laughing at me for crying. And in my mind I’d be all, THIS BOOK IS SAD OKAY? But I didn’t say it out loud because I recognize that would be irrational. But this book is hella sad. I forgot how Harry-Dumbledore-heavy the last part of this book is. All my notes on rereading…
11 Comments