Memory read Purple and Black a while ago, and because I am shallow, I added it to my list on the strength of the…um…the fact that it’s printed in two different colors. Don’t judge me! Part of the book IS IN PURPLE. Moreover, it’s an epistolary novel, a correspondence between the emperor of a Rome-type empire and an old school friend of his, who’s been put in charge of sorting out a rebellion force. There is a fair amount of griping back and forth, and reminiscing about the far more fun they and their friends had when they were in…
12 CommentsReading the End Posts
As you have probably all heard, the R(eaders) I(mbibing) P(eril) Challenge has returned! September and October are the months for the blogosphere to be reading books that are spooky and mythic. I have made up a tentative list of books for myself, and I shall pick the best ones to read this month and next month. On Jellicoe Road, Melina Marchetta Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, Galen Beckett Here Lies Arthur, Philip Reeve (does this count? I can’t decide) Affinity, Sarah Waters Blue is for Nightmares, Laurie Faria Stolarz The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos…
72 CommentsMore than Just Race, William Julius Wilson My library said that it had all these books by bell hooks, on whom I developed a girl crush in college, but when I went to the section of the library where bell hooks’s books were supposed to be, there were none! I should have checked to see that it was my branch of the library that has those books. But I was too excited to read about racism to just walk away, and I have heard many shiny good things about William Julius Wilson, so I checked out a few of his…
22 CommentsBefore writing about people writing about parenting, can I say, happy anniversary to my own lovely parents? Happy anniversary, Mumsy & Daddy! Y’all are the best ever! Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon, who are married and writers, both wrote books of essays about parenting and family. I checked them out of the library together. Waldman’s book, Bad Mother, had eighteen chapters and an introduction, and Chabon’s, Manhood for Amateurs, had thirty-nine chapters. So I would basically read a chapter of Bad Mother and then two chapters of Manhood for Amateurs until I had finished them both. This was very pleasing…
34 CommentsMy older sister is a big fan of the simple food. She likes rice, and cheese, and meat. You would think that Mexican food would be perfect for her, since it’s all just different ways of putting together rice and meat and cheese and sometimes potatoes and beans. But she hates Mexican food. All of it. Won’t eat it. The ingredients are perfect for her, but somehow the whole is less than the sum of its parts. That is how I felt about Matthew Kneale’s When We Were Romans. Its component parts were all good: Matthew Kneale, award-winning author; family…
25 CommentsRunaways has been sounding wonderful to me for a while now. It’s a comic book about a group of kids whose parents turn out to be supervillains. The kids witness their parents sacrificing a young woman; duly horrified, they run away from home. Their parents are supervillains and they all run away! Supervillains! Their parents are supervillains! As premises for comic books go, this is a fun one. With runaway children, and parents that are supervillains. It was adorable and charming in many ways. I am sitting here heaving huge sighs of unhappiness, because I wanted to and in many…
18 CommentsWhen I got home from my internship, I went to the library and basically checked out all the books Memory has read over the last year or so that sounded awesome. What can I say? The girl’s persuasive, and she’s been reading a lot of fantasy while I’ve been away, and I’ve been hungry–starved–for fantasy. I checked out Ship of Magic (which, alas, I couldn’t get into), Purple and Black (blew my mind), Jo Walton’s Farthing and Ha’Penny, and Suite Scarlett. (Okay, I guess it was not all the books Memory has read over the last year. It is just…
29 CommentsForgive the probable idiocy and inanity of this review. I read Their Finest Hour and a Half a few weeks ago, and now it is hard for me to remember things about it. It is a funny book–I kept saying “comic book” but that’s not really want I meant–about London during the Blitz. More or less, it centers on a propaganda film the British Ministry of Information is making. The characters are Edith, a seamstress and aspiring clothing designer who keeps getting bombed out; Ambrose, an aging film actor only interested in himself; and Catrin, an artist’s wife, newly tapped…
7 CommentsPoor Dodie Smith. What a shame to have written your first book, and it’s I Capture the Castle, not far off being the best book ever, narrated by a character that is the perfect blend of innocence and charming worldly practicality. Thereafter you can write more books, but none of them will ever be as good, and everyone will feel sad that your subsequent books are not I Capture the Castle. In fact it would not be unbearably dissimilar to the plight of the father in I Capture the Castle, except without the Joyce comparisons. It Ends with Revelations has…
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