Care of Care’s Online Book Club, who always makes me smile, has made a bold claim: She claims that she would brave a pack of raving zombie chickens in order to read my blog. This is a very nice thing to say because chickens are already really yucky and stupid, even without a craving for tasty brains. Consider that. I had to think about it very hard before passing it on, to Schatzi of the stacks my destination, and Jeane at Dog Ear Diary, and Jackie of Farm Lane Books. Inspired by Nymeth’s sterling example, and the fact that something…
11 CommentsCategory: Misc.
The other day I was reading through my blogroll, and the double-barrelled Elaine Simpson-Long – who reads L.M. Montgomery’s journals and so shall I soon, I dearly hope, and who lives in Colchester, my old Colchester, darling Colchester! – had received a cute pink copy of one of Ada Leverson’s books. From Bloomsbury which apparently has put it back into print as part of a series of delightful charming books that I want to read all of. (Pls ignore that sentence.) Ada Leverson is amazing. Out of all of Oscar Wilde’s friends, Ada Leverson is maybe my favorite. I do…
3 CommentsThis is not so much a review, as a big political thing involving this book and the author of the last one I read. I decided to make it a separate post from the one about Iran: A People Interrupted. Mainly because otherwise the post would have been too disjointed; and because the stuff I want to write about right now is really about Reading Lolita in Tehran. See, Hamid Dabashi really does not like Azar Nafisi. Y’all, he really doesn’t like her – not in a box, not with a fox, not in a house, not with a mouse. …
8 CommentsStolen Voices: Young People’s War Diaries, from World War I to Iraq, Zlata Filipovic and Melanie Challenger We had to read Zlata’s Diary in ninth grade, and I remember thinking, Sheesh, if I were Zlata as a grown-up, I would really wish these diaries weren’t out there. They are just like the diaries I kept at that age, lots of Oh why is this happening to me, and How can these trivial things make me happy when there is so much darkness in my life? – the difference being, of course, that she actually had bad stuff happening to me;…
2 CommentsI was all sick and unhappy today, but on the other hand, I got a bunch of books from the library on Sunday, including a number of books about Iran – would you believe, with all this shit going down in Iran that is all over the news all the time and everyone is fighting for their freedom, and on Saturday I received from the lovely Colleen a copy of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (hooray! It sounds just like one of Barbara Michaels’ books, with the spooky past and everything!), and today, oh heaven, I received from PaperbackSwap…
2 CommentsInternet, I will tell you what I love. I love stories set in Britain right before, during, between, and right after the World Wars. I LOVE THEM. Cf. The Little Stranger, The Shooting Party, The House at Riverton, Baltimore, Those Who Hunt the Night, Love Lessons, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, The Night Watch, etc. If you say “Britain” and “World War” in your synopsis of a book, I tend to bump it way up on my reading list. If you also say “aristocracy” and “disintegrating way of life”, I tend to put a hold on it…
10 CommentsFirst trip to Foyle’s The Ordinary Princess, M.M. Kaye My review of this book is here. I recently bought it in hardback at Bongs & Noodles, but I really hate the cover, and when I saw a paperback at Foyle’s with a proper cover, I couldn’t resist getting it. I mean, how could I? Compare them, and you will see how right I was. I was going to offer the hardback to you lovely people, but then my sister asked for it, so I’m giving it to her when she gets back from law school. I know, right? Sheesh. White…
21 CommentsLove this Booking Through Thursday question: What book would you love to be able to read again for the first time? Oh ever so many books. Mainly maybe The Chosen? And The Color Purple, and, oh, The Charioteer, and Watership Down. I can’t choose one. There are dozens of books that were such the most amazing experience ever the first time I read them – Fire and Hemlock was superb. Absolutely definitely The Far Pavilions and I Capture the Castle and Jane Eyre. Yes, Jane Eyre. If I had to choose one. I would choose Jane Eyre, my beautiful Jane…
Leave a CommentI got books in the post from the fantastic Ella at Box of Books! Not only was this a lovely surprise, but it was all wrapped up in thick brown paper. I defy you to find a nicer packaging for books than thick brown paper. And what wonderful books to get in the mail! Changing Planes, a collection of stories by Ursula LeGuin in which a central character called Sita is able to go to different worlds. Gorgeous cover, and the illustrations in the book are wonderful – I’m looking forward to this! A book by William Sleator called Blackbriar…
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