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Reading the End Posts

Review: The Why of Things, Peter Rabin

Published 7 Oct 2013 by Gin Jenny

I love a taxonomy, particularly a philosophical taxonomy, although I am not fond of philosophy. One of my favorite bits of my high school philosophy class was when we talked about Aristotle’s ideas about the four different types of causes (material, efficient, formal, and telic/final). Peter Rabin incorporates and expands upon the Aristotelian model, pulling in ideas about causation from Galileo and Kant and other thinkers from history, to produce a complicated (but well-articulated) set of models for thinking about cause. His thinking accounts for a wide variety of causes, from straightforward, yes/no (what he calls categorical) causes like A…

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Review: Talking from 9 to 5, Deborah Tannen

Published 4 Oct 2013 by Gin Jenny

Because the cover image icons on my library ebook wish lists are rather wee, I was not able to see that there is a subtitle to this book, and it explains that the book is about gendered differences in conversational styles in the workplace and how it can affect people’s professional lives. Most of my notes for this review were about my sadness that the book focused so closely on gender to the exclusion of other interesting aspects of how people talk at work (when acronyms/jargon get used, what kind of conversational accommodations are made in various settings to visitors,…

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Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.8: Fantastic Beasts Movie, Food in Books, and The Virgins

Published 2 Oct 2013 by Gin Jenny

This week we’re here to talk about some amazing Harry Potter news, depictions of food in books, and Pamela Erens’s new novel The Virgins (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository), and play a game of guessing where movies came from. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 8 Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We will appreciate it very very much). If you want to skip around, here…

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Lexicon, Max Barry

Published 30 Sep 2013 by Gin Jenny

Oh what a fun book this was. What a completely fun and enjoyable book. Kerry from Entomology of a Bookworm described it as “part X-Men Academy, part ode to the power of language, part action novel,” which is a pretty perfect description of the book. The beginning: A man called Wil is abducted from an airport by two men he has never seen before, men who are convinced that he knows a secret they desperately need. Meanwhile, a sixteen-year-old street kid called Emily is recruited by a mysterious organization whose members learn to control others with something that looks like…

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Review: The Charioteer, Mary Renault (plus, a giveaway)

Published 27 Sep 2013 by Gin Jenny

Since nobody loves this book (and when I say “nobody loves this book” I want you to understand that I really mean “Mumsy does not love this book and it breaks my heart”), I have decided to try once again to explain what I love so much about it. The Charioteer deals with a conflict of values, my favorite kind of conflict to read about. The three main characters, Laurie and Ralph and Andrew, are gay men living in British army hospitals in the 1940s: Laurie and Ralph because injuries prevent them returning to battle, and Andrew as an orderly…

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Review: The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault

Published 25 Sep 2013 by Gin Jenny

Lucky you, bloggy friends! Two guest reviews by Mumsy in such a short time! I was expecting Jenny to start Mary Renault Week by reviewing The Charioteer, a novel that (as Jenny correctly notes) only Jenny loves.  And then I would have started my review by saying that Mary Renault is actually at her best when she is writing about ancient Greece, about which she appears to know Everything. (And because I find it difficult to switch tracks, I have now said just that.) The Mask of Apollo is somewhat different from most of Renault’s novels in that it features…

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Review: The Persian Boy, Mary Renault

Published 23 Sep 2013 by Gin Jenny

For lo, this shall be Mary Renault Week on the blog! In case you missed hearing about this (not that I’ve been shrieking loudly about it or anything), Mary Renault’s books have been released in ebook format at last! And are now available for purchase wherever ebooks are sold! Thus, this week I have decreed shall be the week in which I post only about Mary Renault. If you post about her too please tell me so in the comments and I’ll add links to my posts. Today I am reviewing The Persian Boy; on Wednesday my lovely Mum will…

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Review: Night Film, Marisha Pessl

Published 20 Sep 2013 by Gin Jenny

Hurrah, I have convinced my beautiful and intelligent mother to write a guest post for me on Marisha Pessl’s new book Night Film. Whiskey Jenny and I discussed it on the podcast, and now you may also hear a third view, that of my mumsy. This review is certified spoiler-free.   This is what Marisha Pessl’s new novel Night Film is like:  It’s like walking into your living room to find a live kangaroo in there.  It’s unexpected, it’s pretty scary, it’s extremely lively and very uninhibited; it feels dangerous and destructive, and at the same time, almost comically absurd. …

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Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.6: Defying Genre; We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves; and J. J. Abrams’s Book Trailer

Published 18 Sep 2013 by Gin Jenny

We have returned once again to talk about more books! This week, we have a discussion about genre and how to make it better (spoiler alert: WHOLE TABLES OF BOARDING SCHOOL BOOKS), review Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository), and answer a listener question about book trailers. Except we say “reader question” in the podcast. We have no idea why we keep saying that. We know you are listeners. We know that. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with…

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Review: The Memory Effect, eds. Russell Kilbourn and Eleanor Ty

Published 16 Sep 2013 by Gin Jenny

You know how sometimes when you’ve been drinking you hit that stage where you are ready for bed but you can’t actually go to bed yet, and you’re not really listening to people around you but you want to pretend you are to be polite? So you put on a really serious face to make it appear that you are listening and comprehending every word that’s being said, and periodically you nod enthusiastically? Have y’all had this? Because that was how I felt during some of the essays in The Memory Effect. I requested it on NetGalley and I was…

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