After two weeks of anxious waiting for my damn book to arrive and two weeks of enthusiastic readalong participation, the Wilkie Collins: A Life of Sensation has reached its close. It was a magical and sensational time in which we found that it is hard to write a biography of someone who sensibly avoids putting incriminating information in writing. The main surprise to me in this readalong is how together Wilkie Collins was. I always thought of him sort of the same way I think of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, high all the time, unworldly, and perpetually strapped for cash. This…
8 CommentsCategory: Readalongs
I DID NOT FORGET ABOUT WILKIE COLLINS. Wilkie Collins has been perpetually on my mind since last we spoke of him. Though I said the words “chillest Wilkie Collins readalong ever,” I did not intend for that to mean that I would altogether fail to participate in the readalong until it was halfway over. It’s just that I ordered a used copy of the book because it maybe wasn’t published in the US? and then it took a really long time for it to reach me. First up, I’d like to apologize for making a small joke at Alice’s expense…
5 CommentsThis is a day late because I will not abide by putting out a tardy podcast!1 But the beautiful and brilliant Alice of Reading Rambo is hosting an excellent A+ readalong in which we all will learn all the facts of Wilkie Collins’s life. And I am doing the thing! Stay tuned for WILKIE COLLINS FACTS every Wednesday/Thursday through mid-July. 1. Where are you located! Louisiana! Hurricane season has begun, which I’m trying not to think about. Meanwhile we are in the midst of summer weather, which is sunny mornings and thunderstorm afternoons, i.e., the best weather if you are…
6 CommentsThis is my master post for readathon, so strap in! I’ve never done one of these things before! Hour 11 I was going to say that it’s hour 11 and I haven’t lost steam, but I seem to have read much less in the past three and a half hours than in the foregoing hours. Am I slowing up? Is my old age catching up with me? I did take a break to do some end-of-month budgeting and fold my laundry. Read: 2 chapters of my genocide book (only 7 chapters now remain!), Paper Girls, vol. 1 Currently reading: Vision,…
12 CommentsWell, Americans, how were your Thanksgivings? I hope you sternly noped any racisms you encountered from your relatives and ate plenty of delicious turkey. We are reaching the end of a wonderful Nonfiction November, hosted this week by the fab Lory from the Emerald City Book Review. It’s been a month full of amazing nonfiction books! Which ones have made it onto your TBR? Be sure to link back to the original blogger who posted about that book! I may as well confess now that I have not been as riotously active a participant in Nonfiction November as I intended.…
11 CommentsThe best legal and investigatory minds of Moscow are on the trail of Woland and his crew, and look, again, I am all about the bureaucratic details of organizations tasked with addressing supernatural issues. That’s what I wanted Agents of SHIELD to be, if you’ll recall: A workplace drama where the characters perhaps are taken hostage by supervillains occasionally but mostly are bickering over whose turn it is to make coffee and which budget codes to use for reimbursements when Thor hammer-smashes most of the furnishes in a 5th Avenue McDonald’s by accident. So, very fun for me to have…
9 CommentsWell, Satan’s Ball did not disappoint me in the slightest and in fact kind of reminded me of the balls in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Do you think this book was an influence on Susanna Clarke? (Y’all, I think Susanna Clarke is going to never write another book. That’s honestly what I’ve come to believe. She wrote one incredible book, we were so lucky to have it, and that’s all we get from her. Thanks, Susanna Clarke. Thank you for this gift.) Woland and his crew even kick around our old pal Berlioz’s head (remember that?) for old times’…
10 CommentsLook, either I have Stockholm Syndrome or the book has really kicked into high gear in this, the third section of our Master and Margarita Readalong. Have I eaten any M&Ms yet? NO, but only because I am boycotting Hershey, Mars, and Nestle until 2020 which is when they’ve pledged to go to all fair-trade chocolate suppliers. But we’re halfway through the book and I appear to have stopped caring if any of it makes sense. I guess that’s the point Bulgakov’s trying to make anyway, right? Community Russia makes NO DAMN SENSE. Now. I will admit that I began…
10 CommentsLet’s pause for a moment and wish a very happy 154th birthday to my girl Ada Leverson! She was a friend of Oscar Wilde’s. He adored her and called her “darling Sphinx,” and when he went to jail and such, she stayed his faithful and stalwart friend. Which not that many people did. Wonderful Sphinx! Anyway. Onward. This segment of the Master and Margarita readalong featured a magic show, so if you think that you are going to escape this post without plenty of Arrested Development gifs, you have seriously misunderstood who I am as a person. First up, we…
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