The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:”Please, sir, I want some more.” The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralyzed with wonder; the boys with fear.…
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Don’t call me a fairy. We don’t like to be called fairies anymore….I am a changeling – a word that describes within its own name what we are bound and intended to do. We kidnap a human child and replace him or her with one of our own. The hobgoblin becomes the child, and the child becomes a hobgoblin. Not any boy or girl will do, but only those rare souls baffled by their young lives or attuned to the weeping troubles of this world. The changelings select carefully, for such opportunities might come along only once a decade or…
Leave a Comment“When I was born, my mom wanted to name me Harmony Springs Young, and my dad wanted to name me Mary Frances young.” As she talked, she bobbed her head back and forth to the MTV music, even though the song was the kind of manufactured pop ballad she professed to hate. “So instead of naming me Harmony or Mary, they agreed to let me decide. So when I was little, they called me Mary. I mean, they called me sweetie or whatever, but like on school forms and stuff, they wrote Mary Young. And then on my seventh birthday,…
Leave a CommentTeresa was at sea. The boat moved – would she ever forget it? – away from the land. And something was severed; she felt delivered. “I never want to come back!” she screeched. The grey land made no effort to hold her, gave no final sign of enticement. It lay there, apathetic, allowing her to go. The loud-speaker was playing “Indian Summer”. Down pouring a huge flood of sound, drowning the salty air, paralyzing thought, emotion, everything, a vast crocodile tear of farewell, loudly lugubrious, and up against it soared Teresa’s voice, like a skylark beating its frail wings. “I…
Leave a CommentRecommended by: I vaguely recall seeing the title and author of this book inside an IM window, so I’m going to go ahead and say that somebody told me about this book, but I don’t actually remember. Anyway it’s a reread. I’m giving it four stars because I enjoy it so much. It maybe doesn’t deserve it. I have lost all perspective. Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty pleasure. If you are an intellectual snob at whatever level, this book will appeal to you; but if you feel quite guilty about being such a snob, you might find that you can’t enjoy…
7 CommentsI have no idea where I read about this book, but I’ve been intending to read it for ages. I went to the library yesterday, ostensibly just to return Dark Shadows (which I realized once I got there I had left at the apartment), and I got maybe eleven books, which is pretty restrained, and out of all of them, I decided to read The Keep first. I didn’t like it. I really thought I must have missed something. You know how sometimes you’ll watch a commercial, and you just can’t figure it out? The commercial ends, and you’re staring…
3 CommentsI’m sure someone told me about this book – probably a number of someones, as it is old and famous – but I haven’t got the faintest idea who. It is also an impossible book to review; so I will just say, It was very funny (as it intended to be), and I enjoyed it a lot. Here is an excerpt. The whole thing is like this: The selfishness of the riparian proprietor grows with every year. If these men had their way they would close the River Thames altogether. They actually do this along the minor tributary streams and…
2 CommentsWhich can be read here, as it is out of copyright, and also this website is brilliant and I am all in favor of celebrating women writers. Recommended by: Box of Books (whom I owe an apology) I am sorry for griping abut The Semi-Attached Couple and its unbitchy nature. Emily Eden is very amusing, and in many ways she is quite like Jane Austen but bitchier. So I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions even though Helen in The Semi-Attached Couple was very annoying. Now I have just finished The Semi-Detached House, and it was completely charming. Everyone in it…
Leave a CommentI’m in the middle of The Semi-Detached House, and I’m definitely much more charmed by it than I was by The Semi-Attached Couple. I like Blanche so far much more than I did Helen, and I am now definitely feeling the Jane-Austen-esque but bitchier thing. Behold: “Are you going to this concert, Baroness?” “No; it seems odd, but we are not asked this time,” said the Baroness, with an air of modest pride. “I suspect we are out of favour at Court, but a Drawing-Room is my aversion, and I have been sadly remiss this year; absolutely neglected the Birthday,…
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