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Reading the End Posts

Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.5: Elizabeth Peters, Emma Approved, Summer Reading, and Snow Falling on Cedars

Late but not forgotten! The demographically similar Jennys belatedly post our podcast! (We really are sorry, we won’t let it happen again.) This week we’re talking about the death of Elizabeth Peters, the new series by the good folks behind The Lizzie Bennett Diaries (a show we absolutely cannot shut up about), summer reading and assigned reading more generally, and David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository). You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 5 Or if you…

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Programming note re: podcast

We are slightly delayed in posting this week’s podcast. Whiskey Jenny and I are both extremely sorry. For some time now, Whiskey Jenny’s computer has had a cracked screen that has made ordinary computer activities challenging to impossible. She is having her computer repaired, but in the meantime we could not record Episode 5 of the Reading the End Bookcast. The episode was recorded last night and is being edited at TOP SPEED by our champion producer, Randon; I promise I will post it by the end of this week. We are very sorry about the delay! It will not…

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Review: Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

My coworker Baby B started reading Half of a Yellow Sun, our current work book club book, before anyone else did, and she spoke of it with crazy-eyed love of the sort I have previously only seen in her with reference to the creative team behind Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. In case you do not know, Half of a Yellow Sun (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) is a novel about four characters living in Nigeria before and during the Biafran War. The beginning: There are three point-of-view characters, in alternating chapters: Ugwu, a house servant for Odenigbo, a professor…

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Two Feminists Read a Romance Novel: The Heiress Effect, Courtney Milan

Last month, my adjunct sister Kate and I both read The Heiress Effect and discussed it back and forth via email in many paragraphs, with an eye to posting a joint review on the blog based on what we both said about it. I have always been jealous of Teresa and Proper Jenny and their joint reviews, so I am constantly trying to get people in my life to do joint reviews with me. And haHA! I finally conned Kate into doing this. The Heiress Effect (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) is about a woman called Jane who is…

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Paper Towns, John Green

The beginning: In Paper Towns (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository), a band kid called Quentin gets summoned in the night to join in an eleven-part revenge crusade by his neighbor, the gorgeous and popular Margo Roth Spiegelman, whose boyfriend (it turns out) has cheated on her with her best friend. The following day, Margo Roth Spiegelman disappears. But she has left clues behind as to her whereabouts, and Q becomes determined to track her down. Is there a term for that phenomenon where someone points out a flaw or irritation in a piece of media you had previously enjoyed,…

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Review: Pride of Baghdad, Brian K. Vaughan & Niko Henrichon

The beginning: Comics are so short when they’re a single volume! This format feels a little silly for such a short comic. But never mind. I like this format and I’m sticking with it unless you beg me to stop. Once upon a time in Pride of Baghdad (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository), there are four lions (three adults and a cub) living in a zoo in Baghdad, and the zoo gets blown up by American bombs. The lions, who have lived in captivity most (or all) of their lives, must learn to fend for themselves in a war-torn Iraq. The end…

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Review: The Night Flower, Sarah Stovell

Way long ago (well, in 2010), I read Sarah Stovell’s first novel Mothernight. Although I thought it went a teensy bit overboard on the misfortune, I thought Stovell’s writing was absolutely gorgeous, and I wanted to read some of her sentences fifteen times. So when the publisher of her second book (at last!), Night Flower, emailed to ask if I wanted to participate in a blog tour, I jumped at the chance (of course). The beginning: Ah Sarah Stovell. The way she won my heart in the first place was the way she wrote about time in Mothernight. She begins…

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Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.4: Comics Episode! Fraction’s Hawkeye and Bendis’s All-New X-Men

You asked for it (you didn’t ask for it), and now we are delivering! The extra special all-comics episode of the Reading the End Bookcast, featuring recurring guest star Captain Hammer! You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 4 Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes. If you want to skip around, here are the contents of the podcast: Starting at 2:20: We talk about why Randon feels defensive of comics. I only feel defensive of comics when I am…

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Review: Unfinished Desires, Gail Godwin

The beginning: Oddly gripping from the get-go! In Unfinished Desires (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository), Old, blind Mother Ravenal, long-time headmistress at Mount St. Gabriel’s school, is asked by some adoring students to record her memories of her years as a nun, teacher, and headmistress. In alternating chapters are her very Catholic musings on the school’s history and principles, and the story of the high school class of ’55, whose behavior caused her to take a leave (enforced leave???) of absence. The important figures in the class are brash, clever, impetuous Tildy; her former partner-in-crime, Maud; and the new girl, quiet…

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Review: Fighting for Their Lives, Susannah Sheffer; or, what it’s like to be a death penalty lawyer

(I can’t do my shiny new review format in this post because Fighting for Their Lives is nonfiction. I didn’t read the end because I knew the end was going to have lots of people getting executed, which was just what happened in the beginning and also in the middle.) Fighting for Their Lives (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) is about death penalty lawyers. These are the lawyers who come in after someone has already been convicted of murder and sentenced to death, and try to figure out a way to get them out of the death penalty. The attempt is…

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