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Reading the End Posts

Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor

Published 2 Jul 2013 by Gin Jenny

I’ve read a few articles recently about diversity in fantasy, the main point of which is, There is diversity in fantasy, and if you don’t see it then you’re not paying attention. One name that came up repeatedly — and I remembered it from Aarti’s A More Diverse Universe blog tour last year — was Nnedi Okorafor. So I was pleased to spot the beautiful hardcover edition of Who Fears Death on the bookshelf of a coworker, and he was kind enough to lend it to me even though he has no idea whether I treat books well. (I do.)…

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A Woman Entangled, Cecilia Grant

Published 30 Jun 2013 by Gin Jenny

Okay okay okay. Greed for Cecilia Grant’s new book compels me to admit that this has been the year I’ve started reading romance novels. I have read enough of them now to have a pretty clear idea of what I like in a romance novel. I like historical romance novels in which the characters are constrained in interesting, specific ways by the time they live in. I like it when the primary characters each have other stuff going on, and I especially like it when the reason they like each other is that they’re impressed with some skill set the…

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Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.1: Jennifer Weiner, Where’d You Go Bernadette, and Arctic explorers

Published 26 Jun 2013 by Gin Jenny

At last, at last, the promised podcast commences! Welcome to our inaugural (and slightly disorganized) Reading the End Bookcast (with the demographically similar Jennys). You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 1 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 0:43 – Jennifer Weiner and Claire Messud are NEMESES. (NB they are not actually nemeses) Here is the (Publishers Weekly, not New Yorker! sorry, I got…

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Jenny and Mumsy go on about the Brownings (Part 1)

Published 24 Jun 2013 by Gin Jenny

Welcome one and all to the Browning Letters Readalong! We are kicking off this readalong by chatting about the letters between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett from January to May 1845 (the first five months of their acquaintance). I am your humble host Jenny, and I have roped my lovely Mumsy into talking about these Browning letters with me. We talk about them all the time anyway so it’s not that difficult for us. I hope you are enjoying them as much as Mumsy and I are in this first round! Jenny: Obviously Robert is the sweetest dear in all…

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The new site is live!

Published 23 Jun 2013 by Gin Jenny

This is not a proper post, just a quick update to let you know that the new site, ReadingtheEnd.com, is now live! I’ll be duplicating posts for a little while on the old site, but I’d like to stop that fairly soon. So please update your feed readers and bookmarks with the new web address. The new feed is here, and the podcast feed will be here. Our first podcast, in which my friend Jenny and I discuss Claire Messud and Where’d You Go, Bernadette (among other things) drops this Wednesday. We will be insanely excited if you download it. Other than…

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The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar

Published 17 Jun 2013 by Gin Jenny

Verdict: Here is a book that deserves all of its accolades and its foundational status. I’ve hit a point with my TBR reading (seriously, y’all should see these piles, they are ridiculous) where I’ve picked off the low-hanging fruit (the quite-short nonfiction like Janet Malcolm’s Psychoanalysis and Anne Fadiman’s At Large and at Small) and now there’s a lot of enormous books left, and particularly enormous nonfiction books. And since I have had a rough month, I decided to treat myself by reading the (presumed) loveliest of my nonfiction books first. And indeed, I chose well! The Madwoman in the…

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Revisiting Harry Potter: “Kill the snake?” “Kill the snake.”

Published 14 Jun 2013 by Gin Jenny

Here is my main complaint with this section of the book, which I otherwise love very much: How’s Harry going to use the Cruciatus curse on the Carrow sibling who spits in McGonagall’s face? (I find the Carrows boring and have not bothered to learn their names.) He was unable to do this curse on Bellatrix Lestrange two seconds after she killed Sirius Black, but somehow he can manage to do it just because some Death Eater insults one of his teachers? Number one, that is bullshit. Number two, don’t torture people. Torture is wrong, and Harry could have accomplished…

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Review: The Woman Upstairs, Claire Messud

Published 12 Jun 2013 by Gin Jenny

Verdict: Good, but heavy-handed. The exciting thing about The Woman Upstairs is the intensity of its protagonist’s anger. Nora is an elementary school teacher and artist manque, who bitterly regrets the opportunities she has given up in her life in the interest of being “a good girl”. Into her life comes the Shahid family: the young son, Reza, is in her class; the mother, Sirena, a video installation artist who befriends Nora; and the father, Skandar, with whom Nora comes to enjoy discussing philosophy and politics. Feeling that she has been brought to life by these new friendships, Nora throws…

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Review: At Large and at Small, Anne Fadiman; or, A Review Post that Took a Turn for the Introspective

Published 10 Jun 2013 by Gin Jenny

Verdict: An excellent and eclectic collection of essays. I liked-not-loved the first Anne Fadiman collection I read, her book Ex Libris, which contained essays only about books. I think the problem may have been the similarity in subject matter — when everything’s books, it’s easy for me to feel like I’m in an argument with Anne Fadiman about one thing or another. The essays in At Large and at Small cover a much wider range of topics, from ice cream to Arctic explorers to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the constant throughout is Anne Fadiman’s enthusiastic interest in and affection for…

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