We had a sad end of Thanksgiving – my family dog died quite suddenly on Sunday. She was a lovely dog, really just the best dog you ever met. We got her when I was eleven, and she was three months old and very fluffy. For the longest time we couldn’t think what to call her – we called her Porcupine as a placeholder nickname, and my mother finally came up with Nora. Nora was extraordinarily beautiful if difficult to capture in photographs (but here’s a picture of her anyway), and even when she was an old dowager dog, she…
32 CommentsReading the End Posts
I have been hearing about this book all over. The first line is captivating: “After she threw the baby in, nobody believed me for the longest time. But I kept hearing that splash.” So I decided to read it even though it is several things I tend not to like: a Southern novel, set in the Depression, and featuring The Mines. My final opinion is, The Well and the Mine is quite good for a Southern Depression Mines novel, which – it confirmed once more for me – is just not the best kind of book for me. Nine-year-old Tess…
25 CommentsSo this is my adult fantasy or science fiction book for Jeane‘s DogEar Challenge, and I have managed to finish it before the end of November, which I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do, what with all the applying to grad school I’ve been doing and whatnot. Chalice! I have figured out the key to Robin McKinley, and I will tell you what it is. In each of her books, she has a world that she’s created, and she plops you down right in the middle of the world. By and large, her books are not…
9 CommentsI know this is the second time I’ve mentioned Aaron Sorkin in the past few days, but that’s only because I’m rewarding myself for applying to grad school by letting myself watch episodes of Sports Night and The West Wing. Anyway, I’m watching Sports Night and this is the dialogue that just went by: Jeremy: This, you’re gonna love! This is maybe the most important piece of boxing writing ever done. Casey: And what with all the important pieces of boxing writing to choose from– Jeremy: The Marquis of Queensberry Rules…written by? Casey: The Marquis of Queensberry? Jeremy: No, boxing…
12 CommentsThe Wordy Shipmates is about the Puritans, John Winthrop and his lot, who came to America, and all the stuff they did. Vowell admires their courage and intelligence without giving them a pass on all the things we don’t like about Puritans – the intransigence, the praying for American Indians to die of plague, etc. It’s more of an essay collection than a history book, with Vowell speaking to her own life and how she has found strength in the writings of the Puritans, plus some fairly predictable party-line remarks on American politics. Plus all the stuff about the Puritans.…
27 CommentsGo watch “The Waters of Mars” and then come back here so we can have spoiler-filled comments about all how bleak and scary and crazy it all was, and how excited we all are that John Simm is coming back again. (I am very very excited. I would even go so far as to say very very very excited. I love me some John Simm.) You may think that you have seen David Tennant put on some crazy eyes previously, but in fact you have never seen David Tennant do crazy eyes until you have seen “The Waters of Mars”. …
15 CommentsThere are only a very few books by Diana Wynne Jones that I don’t own, and here they are and this is why: 1. The Time of the Ghost. Written in 1981, right before Diana Wynne Jones went on her crazy winning streak made out of amazing brilliance and win, between 1981 and 1986, this is my very least by a lot favorite of Diana Wynne Jones’s books. I have read it over and over, and I have never managed to like it. 2. A Tale of Time City. Because I have only started liking it recently, and I have…
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