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Reading the End Posts

Lexicon, Max Barry

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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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HHhH, Laurent Binet

THIS BOOK RIGHT HERE. LISTEN. Listen to me about this book. It is awfully good, and I am going to recommend it to you very highly. I am going to highly recommend it in spite of: Nazi brutality; and Translated (from French) Never mind about the grammar of that list. Just understand that it is a list of two things I am unfond of. I read HHhH because I got a copy for free from a coworker and finished my other book on the subway. And also because I picked HHhH to win the Tournament of Books (it did not),…

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More Than This, Patrick Ness

PATRICK NESS PATRICK NESS. I love me some Patrick Ness, and here is his brand-new book coming out tomorrow so PLACE YOUR ORDERS because Patrick Ness is amazing. The beginning: A boy called Seth drowns. When he wakes up (from death), he is at the house in England where, through some unspecified but terrible fault of Seth’s, an unspecified but terrible Event with lasting neurological consequences befell his younger brother Owen. Seth has not lived in England for years; his family lives in America now, and he goes to an American school and has American friends. But here he is…

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