Mothering Sunday is the first Streatfeild book I’ve read that was written for adults – unless you count On Tour, which I guess you maybe could since it talks (albeit obliquely) about Victoria’s shocking flirty behavior. In Mothering Sunday, Anna, the mother of five grown-up children, has started acting strangely. She refuses to allow her favorite granddaughter to visit anymore; there are rumors that she has taken to wandering around aimlessly at night; and she refuses to even mention the name of her youngest son, Tony, who is involved in some unnamed disgrace. The four older children agree to get…
8 CommentsReading the End Posts
Imagine my surprise when I discovered this at the bookshop! The American bookshop because the book is here in America now! Who knew? It’s thrilling! Odd and the Frost Giants is about a boy called Odd who has bad luck. His father has drowned, and his stepfather doesn’t much care for him, and an accident with a tree has left him with serious and lasting injuries to one of his legs. He runs away from home, into the forest, where he meets a bear, a fox, and an eagle, who actually are Thor, Loki, and Odin, cast out of Asgard…
12 CommentsMany thanks to Schatzi for the recommendation; I enjoyed it so much. Ballerina is about these two girls, Christine and Stephanie, who are dancers in the same ballet school; upon graduation, they wind up in separate ballet companies but remain quite close. Stephanie has a crazy stage mother who ditched ballet For a Man, and Christine, who is rich, has some sort of medical Condition, severe social anxiety, and parents who never come to see her dance. There are lots of bitchy gay dancers and a slutty Russian guy that Christine and Stephanie get into a big fight over. Heeheehee,…
9 CommentsA.D. is a graphic novel about seven people from New Orleans. The author interviewed these people extensively, visited New Orleans, took pictures, and then created this book. It tells the stories of people who left and people who stayed, wealthyish people and poorish people, black people and white people. I liked reading this book, because it aligns very nicely with my memories of the hurricane. The high school kids talked about how they were going to miss a couple of days of school, and everyone expected it to turn east the way they always do, and the doctor has a…
6 CommentsI realized yesterday that I hadn’t read any of my other books for the RIP IV Challenge, and they all came due today, and I had to renew them by an unnecessarily complicated process because the library is also being fail lately. Anyway so I grabbed Let The Right One In (why is it called Let Me In on my copy?) to read it and I came to a realization. I am just tired of vampires. I have had enough. There are vampires everywhere and it is too many vampires, and I need a break from them. But there is…
30 CommentsAnd today, in light of its being the massive book blog love-fest week, and today being the day where we all say thanks for particular books, here are some that I’d never have read if it weren’t for various people (see below): Thanks to an adventure in reading for Douglas Coupland – particularly Eleanor Rigby. And to Nymeth for Patrick Ness and Bayou. I know went on and on about how scary Bayou was (and I was not exaggerating, that book was scary as hell), but it was also gorgeous and amazing. And oh, also, A Life in Books –…
11 CommentsSo I’ve never had an eReader, but they sound fantastic. I mean you can put dozens of books up on those things and stick ’em in your purse, and there you go, you have a whole bunch of books. That would make packing for long trips GLORIOUSLY EASY. Instead of hurling me into an agony of indecision. I bring this up because the lovely people at Irex have partnered with Bongs & Noodles (Bongs & Noodles! hurrah!) so that they have access to loads and loads of titles in the B&N database. Wait, no, that’s not why I brought it…
6 CommentsAck, I am so behind on reviews. I am working on a project that requires a lot of attention (fortunately I can work on it while still watching classic Doctor Who), which is the excuse I’m using for my negligence. Feel free to be distracted from this by a picture of my beautiful hat: Gerald Morris’s The Squire’s Tale and The Quest of the Fair Unknown Essentially, Gerald Morris writes very sweet retellings of King Arthur legends from various sources, making fun of impractical chivalry rules and having Gawain be the coolest knight of all the knights. Instead of Lancelot,…
10 CommentsThe Bible just got bumped off my five desert island books list. Sorry, Bible! It’s just that you have all that stuff about begatting and oysters, and none of my other desert island books take long breaks from being awesome to talk about stoning your disobedient sons! And you know I can’t do without Shakespeare, and The Color Purple and Angels in America are JUST SO EPIC, and Greensleeves is my favorite book of all time. You understand, don’t you? And we can still be friends? I mean when you think about it, way more people would take you to…
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