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Category: Misc.

Gender bias

Published 11 Jul 2010 by Gin Jenny

You know how sometimes you have really strong reactions to things that you never thought you cared that much about? Like this one time I was reading through course descriptions at various universities to see what their course-books were (I was craving nonfiction, and this is before I discovered book blogs), and I saw this course about the poetry of the Hugheses. As in, Ted and Sylvia. I’m not even that big a fan of Sylvia Plath: I love her poetry but I think she would have been maddening in real life. But I was gripped with this unbelievable visceral…

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More Diana Wynne Jones books

Published 8 Jul 2010 by Gin Jenny

Don’t blame me. She has written a lot of books. The One Where Words Are Mighty Archer’s Goon The world it is set in: Modern England, in a town The premise: When Howard comes home to find a Goon in his kitchen, it is his first inkling that his town is controlled by seven very powerful wizards, all apparently hell-bent on taking over the world. But something is stopping them. They are all, for some reason, deeply interested in the two thousand words that Howard’s father Quentin writes each month, and each swears that she or he is not the…

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Some of Diana Wynne Jones’s books (but nothing like all of them)

Published 4 Jul 2010 by Gin Jenny

Because I care about y’all and I do not want you to leap into one of Diana Wynne Jones’s books not knowing what to expect, I have hereby decided to construct a list of her books that says what world they are set in and what they are about. And, since I love Diana Wynne Jones, and I find it difficult not to compliment her extravagantly every time I say her name, I shall also say one thing about each of her books that charms me and pleases my heart. My Most Favorite One Fire and Hemlock The world it…

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Dear Canadians,

Published 1 Jul 2010 by Gin Jenny

Happy Canada Day. If I ever meet you in person, it is likely that I will sing you your national anthem. Because I am pleased with myself for knowing it. Kisses, Jenny

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Fagles’s Odyssey: Divided loyalties in the first quarter

Published 30 Jun 2010 by Gin Jenny

Fagles’s translation of the Odyssey is so great it hurts my brain. Granted, I am a sucker for epic poetry. I took eight years of Latin when I was in school, and I never loved anything we translated like I loved the Aeneid. It is epic. Plus I love the Greek and Roman gods. So I am reading the Odyssey right now, in the Fagles translation, which I have to say appears to be the best translation in all the land. Fagles. (Not Lattimore, Capt. Hammer). Check this out: Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists…

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What I have been doing with my fancy university library card

Published 28 Jun 2010 by Gin Jenny

Scaring myself, mostly. This library has a lot of books inside of it, but it also has the scariest damn stacks I ever saw. They have these dark, narrow aisles, and the doors in the stairwells between levels swing open and shut with loud, prolonged, ominous squeaks. I always have the exact call numbers of the books I want before I go, because sitting down at one of the catalogue computers, with my back to the darkened stacks, does not inspire feelings of comfort and safety. The main aisles are lit, but you have to press a button to turn…

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A discontented blog post about quite a quantity of books

Published 31 May 2010 by Gin Jenny

My sister kindly met me at the public library on Saturday and lent me her library card.  She also gave me a baseball cap, which she assures me I should use any time I visit the public library because it will ward off the attentions of creepy old dudes.  I did not take the baseball cap, nor was I bothered by creepy old dudes, but I mostly frequented the children & YA sections, which maybe is not where the creepy old dudes hang out.  I checked out loads of books, and none of the ones I have read so far…

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If you could banish one euphemism forever

Published 12 May 2010 by Gin Jenny

What would it be?  Because I mentioned on Rose City Reader‘s blog today that I hate it when books say “sex” as a noun to refer to genitals, and it made me realize that I couldn’t let another day go by without telling y’all how much I hate that particular use of that particular word.  Does it count as a euphemism?  Whatever, I hate it.  I hate it so much.  I hate it, hate it, hate it.  If I could banish it from the face of the earth, I WOULD DO IT.  Even typing the phrase “his sex” or “her…

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National Poetry Month! It’s nearly over!

Published 27 Apr 2010 by Gin Jenny

That post title sounds celebratory, but actually it is urgent, because National Poetry Month is nearly over and I have still not gotten it together to write a post about poetry.  And now that I am sitting down to do it, I’m not sure what to say, because I do not really understand my tastes in poetry and do not know how to explain them.  Sometimes I will like a poem without exactly understanding it, just because of the strange and interesting ways the words have been put together; and then one day, I will be in the middle of…

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