Oh I just love Hilary McKay. She has written these Casson books, which are among the most endearing books I have ever read. I organize my bookshelves (more or less) by how much I couldn’t do without the books, with the books on the right being the absolutely most essential ones, and then getting less and less essential moving to the left. And the Casson books, despite being a recent discovery, are on the far right of my children’s books section, along with the likes of The Ordinary Princess and Peter Pan and Indian Captive, which I read when I…
19 CommentsTag: best books ever
Ordinary Victories, Manu Larcenet
Published 7 Jul 2009
by
Gin Jenny
I got this at the library because I am always on the hunt for good graphic novels, and it said THE BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL OF ALL TIME EVER or something like that on the front. I believed this because I’m easily taken in by the printed word. Fortunately for me, this may actually be one of the best graphic novels of all time ever. I loved it. I really, really loved it. It’s translated – I didn’t even care! Hooray for Joe Johnson, the stalwart translator! Mr. Johnson, you have done an excellent job in translating, and thanks for that,…
9 CommentsThe Ordinary Princess, M.M. Kaye
Published 21 Apr 2009
by
Gin Jenny
I am so pleased I got this book! I got it in hardback! For eight dollars! At Bongs & Noodles, totally unexpectedly! This, and jPod, and a hardback of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (I know, right?), and a nice new copy of Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, and The Annotated Alice (the annotations are ever so interesting), and for twenty dollars altogether total, all seven of the Chronicles of Narnia on CD, read by cool people like Lynn Redgrave and Kenneth Branagh. But of all these things, I am the most pleased…
10 CommentsLove Lessons, Joan Wyndham
Published 18 Feb 2009
by
Gin Jenny
I just want to excerpt massive passages of this book. I almost didn’t get it out of the library, and when I did check it out, I almost didn’t read it. It’s this woman’s diaries from World War II – she was living in London during the Blitz, which you’d think would cause her to, you know, write about the Blitz, but she’s seventeen and mainly unsupervised, and largely what she’s writing about is all the men she’s running around with. I keep thinking “Oh, the author has done things so cleverly here, look at all the things she’s leaving…
7 CommentsHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling
Published 18 Oct 2008
by
Gin Jenny
Mm, this is the one I’ve been waiting for. My original plan was just to read Prisoner of Azkaban, my most favorite of all the Harry Potter books, but then I decided to read them all, since I knew that would take longer and afford me more lasting satisfaction. In Azkaban, a supporter of Voldemort (and, it more or less goes without saying, murderer) breaks out of the wizard prison Azkaban and is out on the lam, desperate – say the prison guards – to get to Harry and kill him dead. Meanwhile the soul-sucking dementors that generally spend all…
1 CommentTom Finder, Martine Leavitt
Published 27 Sep 2008
by
Gin Jenny
I just bought a bunch of new books. Tom Finder is the fifth from the bottom. Two of the other books I got, I have not included in this picture, because I am going to get them for my oldest sister for Christmas, and although I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read this blog, I don’t want to take chances. See, it turns out I was entitled to get this gift card from Amazon for $100, so I claimed it, and then I spent it. I spent my money very sensibly, which allowed me to get free shipping and two of…
5 CommentsGreensleeves, Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Published 6 Sep 2008
by
Gin Jenny
Omens are medieval. But – so are masks and dominoes, and a merrie singing cuckoo and a song called Greensleeves that will probably haunt me all my life. To me that whole fading summer has rather the flavor of medieval music. It had the shifting key changes, the gay, skipping rhythm and minor melody, and that unresolved, inconclusive end. I never feel that any review I could write of Greensleeves will ever be adequate. But I lent it to my friend Teacher to read during the hurricane, and she loved it a lot, and it made me jealous that I…
22 CommentsLonely Werewolf Girl, Martin Millar
Published 13 Jul 2008
by
Gin Jenny
I was very skeptical about Martin Millar. I heard about Martin Millar from Neil Gaiman’s website, because he (Neil Gaiman) wrote an introduction to The Good Fairies of New York extolling its manifold virtues, so I got it from the library because I liked the title. I didn’t expect much out of it. The last time I trusted Neil Gaiman’s opinion, I read four books by Jonathan Carroll and hated them all desperately. (Yes, the obvious question is why did I read four of them then, and the answer is, I’ve no idea, it was long ago and I can’t…
4 CommentsThe Color Purple, Alice Walker
Published 5 Mar 2008
by
Gin Jenny
You know what I don’t understand? I don’t understand why The Color Purple is so ridiculously awesome, and why when there are all these really subpar books running around, why people don’t just go ahead and read The Color Purple all the time. Why don’t people just read The Color Purple all the time, and forget about that Atonement crap? The Color Purple. Wow. When I was young, my mother had told me once that The Color Purple was one of her favorite books of all time, and I remember her telling me her favorite line (“White folks is a…
5 CommentsThe Book Thief, Markus Zusak
Published 23 Jan 2008
by
Gin Jenny
Seven. You roll and watch it coming, realizing completely that this is no regular die. You claim it to be bad luck, but you’ve known all along that it had to come. You brought it into the room. The table could smell it on your breath. The Jew was sticking out of your pocket from the outset. He’s smeared to your lapel, and the moment you roll, you know it’s a seven – the one thing that somehow finds a way to hurt you. It lands. It stares you in each eye, miraculous and loathsome, and you turn away with…
2 Comments