The story of my Diana Wynne Jones reading life is this: Stage One: Begin book. Find world it is set in confusing. Find characters depressing and unpleasant. Give up reading it, or finish it with grim sense of duty to beloved author. Lament dissimilarity to books previously read by Diana Wynne Jones. Attain acceptance by telling self that no author can write good books every single time. Reread Fire and Hemlock consolingly. Stage Two (discovery of DWJ – 2003ish): Receive assurances from sister that book in question is good. Doubt her taste because of Juliet Marillier and similar. Point out…
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The university library here doesn’t have Bluestockings. I know, right? It’s this massive fancy university library, and yet somehow it allows other patrons to check out The Thirties when I really wanted me to have it, and besides that it doesn’t have Jane Robinson’s Bluestockings. I was all excited to read about the first women to attend British universities, but when I searched “Jane Robinson”, I discovered instead this book Angels of Albion about the memsahibs during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. I thought that was going to be quite cool too. I am interested in the evolution of British…
9 CommentsIt’s because I believe in percentages, not in probability. I took against probability on one of our family vacations to Maine, when we stopped in Washington D.C. on the way there to visit some friends. The newspaper was running an article, I remember, that said that one in ten black men in Washington D.C. had a criminal record, and I could not wrap my head around this. “So if you take any ten black dudes from Washington D.C.,” I said, “one of them will always have a criminal record.” “According to this article,” said my mother. “But what if you…
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