So when I was a wee lass, struggling with greater than/less than and detesting long division that ended with remainders (this is why I don’t like math! – because lots of things end up with solutions that are very untidy and not whole numbers AT ALL), the BBC was creating a miniseries about a DJ at a mental hospital radio station and the patients there, called Takin’ Over the Asylum. And although I was too wee to care at the time, they were being surprisingly careful not to be an asshole, and getting their actors to perform four major mental…
4 CommentsReading the End Posts
Oh, this started out so promisingly. I loved the idea of a bunch of different people telling the story of this one women. I loved how the book would create a space around her that would leave you wondering and wondering what she was thinking all along – like The Moonstone does with Rachel, you know? There are several different narrators, and they all talk about the mysterious, recently-murdered Athena. The witch of Portobello. I was thrilled! I thought Paulo Coehlo was my Next Big Thing! However, the book ended up sort of preachy, and the dialogue fell prey to…
8 CommentsInternet, I will tell you what I love. I love stories set in Britain right before, during, between, and right after the World Wars. I LOVE THEM. Cf. The Little Stranger, The Shooting Party, The House at Riverton, Baltimore, Those Who Hunt the Night, Love Lessons, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, The Night Watch, etc. If you say “Britain” and “World War” in your synopsis of a book, I tend to bump it way up on my reading list. If you also say “aristocracy” and “disintegrating way of life”, I tend to put a hold on it…
10 CommentsFirst trip to Foyle’s The Ordinary Princess, M.M. Kaye My review of this book is here. I recently bought it in hardback at Bongs & Noodles, but I really hate the cover, and when I saw a paperback at Foyle’s with a proper cover, I couldn’t resist getting it. I mean, how could I? Compare them, and you will see how right I was. I was going to offer the hardback to you lovely people, but then my sister asked for it, so I’m giving it to her when she gets back from law school. I know, right? Sheesh. White…
21 CommentsI am not able to steer myself away from books that deal with the dying aristocracy in Britain before and during and after the World Wars. Or just books set in Britain before and during and after the World Wars (recently before and recently after, obviously; otherwise that would comprehend the whole of British history). I love them. I love books set in Britain in this time period even more than I love books set in the Victorian times. At least more reliably – there are some books with Victorian settings that are shocking tedious crap. The House at Riverton…
6 CommentsI actually wrote this review at the end of May – May 19th, if I recall correctly (as of course I unfailingly do) – but I couldn’t post it because I was planning to send a copy of the book to my good friend tim for her birthday (which was May 15th – yes, I’m a bad friend), and I couldn’t remember whether she read this blog or not, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I wanted her to be joyously surprised by the arrival of her book. Um, yeah, Ella Minnow Pea is awesome. I will just…
6 Comments