Verdict: Odd and good. More of both than I was expecting. Okay okay. I admit that I should have read The Land of Decoration (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) a while ago, when Mumsy told me to. It’s really quite good. I resisted it because it’s an odd little book. It’s about a little girl called Judith growing up in an unknown period in British history. Richard Dawkins exists but computers don’t seem to, and many of the adult characters work in a factory. Judith and her father are members of a church of Brothers that takes them out to witness…
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Maggie O’Farrell and Kate Morton are inextricably linked in my mind. I am not sure whether it’s because they’re truly similar — with olden-times Britain and modern-day family members finding out secrets — or because they’re very faintly similar and I encountered them at the same time in my life. Weigh in if you have an opinion! And now on to Maggie O’Farrell’s brand new book. Instructions for a Heatwave (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) is less suspenseful than the previous books by Maggie O’Farrell that I’ve read (or else I am maybe remembering her previous books all wrong). Gretta Riordan’s…
4 CommentsThis is the Tudor segment of the Tudors-and-Plantagenets pair of posts that you may expect from this blog. The second episode of the Reading the End Bookcast, which appeared last Wednesday, does also mention the Plantagenets, although quite a bit farther back in time (Henry II). (PS I love the Plantagenets.) So, the Tudors! Susan Bordo has written this book (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) that is right in my wheelhouse, a biography slash cultural history of Anne Boleyn as a person and as a semi-mythic figure. In the first half of the book, she explores what is known about Anne’s…
23 CommentsAnd now, the Plantagenets and the Wars of the Roses. Can someone British please tell me how British schoolchildren feel about learning the Wars of the Roses? Because I can see it two ways. On one hand, I can imagine it would be a great relief to get out of the thicket of battles and mess and dethronings and usurpations and arguing that went on all through the fifteenth century. On the other hand, I love political scheming and the Wars of the Roses are all schemes all the time. The Sunne in Splendour (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) is about…
10 CommentsAnd now, the second podcast you’ve all (hopefully) been waiting for! This week, the demographically similar Jennys are here to update you on Claire Messud, report on an author event attended by Whiskey Jenny, review Daniel Wallace’s The Kings and Queens of Roam, and answer your mail! You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 2 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).…
8 CommentsAt 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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