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Tag: Elizabeth Peters

Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.15: Awards Season, The Luminaries, and New Zealand or Not New Zealand

Julia joins us again for a discussion of book awards and what we like/do not like about them; a review of Eleanor Catton’s award-winning novel The Luminaries (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository); and a thrilling game, written by me and inspired by these guys, called New Zealand or Not New Zealand? You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 15 Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate…

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The superlatives of an outstanding reading year

DAMN this was a good year for books. As I was scrolling through old posts trying to make a Best of 2013 list, I was astounded at the percentage of posts this year that were four or five stars. Now, I will say that as years go on, I have become ever less inclined to review books about which I felt neutral, but even so, 2013 was an incredible year for books. It was so good that I gave up on the Best of 2013 idea, which would have felt uncurated because it would have included almost everything I read…

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Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.5: Elizabeth Peters, Emma Approved, Summer Reading, and Snow Falling on Cedars

Late but not forgotten! The demographically similar Jennys belatedly post our podcast! (We really are sorry, we won’t let it happen again.) This week we’re talking about the death of Elizabeth Peters, the new series by the good folks behind The Lizzie Bennett Diaries (a show we absolutely cannot shut up about), summer reading and assigned reading more generally, and David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository). You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 5 Or if you…

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Review: River in the Sky, Elizabeth Peters

I have a girl-crush on Elizabeth Peters.  She set a murder mystery at a romance novel writers’ convention; she spoofs H. Rider Haggard and Gothic novels; she made one of her characters lament “the first sour grape in the fruit salad of togetherness”.  The woman cracks me up.  However, I thought that Children of the Storm should have been the last in the Amelia Peabody series (it gave me the pleasing feeling that the series had come full circle), and I have not cared much about the books that came after that. But I liked River in the Sky.  It…

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Some books I have read before

REREADING IS AMAZING.  Sometimes I forget how many amazing books I have already read, because I am busy reading new books, which are also (sometimes) amazing.  But this is what I’ve been reading lately. Magician’s Ward, Patricia C. Wrede Much like Mairelon the Magician.  Too many names of people, but I don’t care because I am more interested in Kim’s learning magic and having a Season and Coming Out at a ball and having Offers of Marriage to turn down.  In pretty dresses.  Can there be more pretty dresses?  And God, pretty shoes?  I need new shoes so much.  My…

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Two books by Elizabeth Peters

Elizabeth Peters – under this pseudonym as well as her other one, Barbara Michaels – is one of my most favorite authors of all the authors.  I like her because she writes the kind of book I like, but she does it (usually) tongue-in-cheek, and furthermore she has read all the same books I have read.  Not just, like, Little Women, which everyone has read, but you know, Rafael Sabatini and The Sheik and trashy things like that.  I appreciate this from Elizabeth Peters. The Love Talker and Devil-May-Care, both of which I read in the last few days, are…

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The Laughter of Dead Kings, Elizabeth Peters

I would say – not her best work.  People are never as interesting once they’re all kissy-face.  Vicky and John have much I&D, as usual, and it was charming how Elizabeth Peters put herself in the book.  I want to be Elizabeth Peters’s friend because she has read all the same trashy novels that I have read (like The Sheik! and she knows the bravest-by-far-in-the-ranks-of-the-Shah-damn-the-girl-she’d-been-laughing-at-him-all-the-time song!).  And Schmidt is the greatest swordsman in Europe.  And that’s about all I have to say about that.

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