We welcome back special guest star Ashley to talk about authors we’d promote or demote from the Canon of Great Literature! Our book this week is Edith Wharton’s unfinished novel The Buccaneers, which is about rich American girls going to England to marry nobility, and Whiskey Jenny accordingly provided a game about the peerage to go along with! You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 30 An important note: Whiskey Jenny at one point mentions Roland Barthes’s book Camera Obscura, but she meant…
2 CommentsReading the End Posts
Note: I received an advance ebook copy from the publisher for review consideration, through Netgalley. I’ve read this collection for the past three years now, and every time, the editor has been careful to include science writing on a range of topics. If Deborah Blum’s collection is perhaps a trifle heavy on What Our Hubris Hath Wrought on the planet and its occupants (and a trifle light on SPACE and the things that happen IN SPACE), it’s very little surprise. At this point, the consensus is that global warming is at this point irreversible or close to it and we…
17 CommentsAs you’ve probably heard, the third issue of the wonderful Shiny New Books came out earlier this week. I was lucky enough to get to write a post about one of my favorite-ever authors, Mary Renault, for this issue. You can read the post over in their neck of the woods, and feel free to complain to me in the comments about my obvious preference for Hephaestion over Bagoas. I know that’s a point of contention FOR SOME. While you’re over there, check out the whole issue! The editors and contributors have reminded me again how much I want to…
5 CommentsUgh, y’all, I was going to read Laura Kasischke’s A Mind of Winter for RIP IX, but it made me too angry. I did read it, and I can’t deny that, but I hereby did not read it for RIP IX. I just read it. RIP IX may or may not have been happening at the same time. Two caveats before I begin my complaining: My opinion about The Mind of Winter arises from a personal preference that I have about the outcome of ghost stories. I have complained about this on the blog before, so it may come as…
27 CommentsWe go insane in this podcast and have a discussion topic for each essay in Michelle Orange’s This Is Running for Your Life. This time, we recorded without Randon on the line, and he reports that this episode had more “Sorry Randons!” per minute than any previous episode. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 29 Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).…
Leave a CommentImportant update: Based on the two samples of this genre that I have read so far (this and The Thief, both by widely acclaimed Japanese authors), I have concluded that Japanese thriller mystery type books are not for me. I am not sure why I ever thought they were, given that I struggle with books in translation and I do not like thriller mystery type books above half. Natsuo Kirino has been on several of the lists for A More Diverse Universe, with specific praise for her ability to write about the disaffection of teenagers in the modern world. (Red…
4 CommentsHere comes my second read for the A More Diverse Universe blogging event, hosted by the wonderful Aarti! Visit the event’s links page to find out what other folks are reading, and keep an eye on the hashtag #diversiverse. With the caveat that I stupid-loved my first read for A More Diverse Universe, I have to say that this, my second, was a bit of a disappointment. In a way it’s my own fault: Everything I Never Told You is about a family struggling to deal with the unexpected and mysterious death of the eldest daughter, a teenager called Lydia;…
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