I have this strategy – I’ve mentioned it before – where when I really like an author, I save some of their books. I haven’t read two (2) of Salman Rushdie’s books. Martin Millar has written a number of books that I haven’t read, and I haven’t made the small effort it would take to order them used online. This is not because of any shortage of love in my heart for Martin Millar’s books. It’s because I’m saving them. I do it with rereads too. It’s been at least five years since I last read Persuasion, although (well, actually…
29 CommentsTag: fantastic protagonists
Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers
Published 4 Oct 2009
by
Gin Jenny
A few days ago, my friend tim mentioned Gaudy Night, and I realized that I wanted nothing in the world more than to read Gaudy Night. I know I refused to read it or even think about it earlier this year when I was reading Strong Poison, but I have rarely enjoyed a reread as much as I did this one. Reading Gaudy Night this time was like eating cilantro – you know what it’s going to be like, and you are thinking, man, this is going to be great, but no matter how high your expectations are, you find…
24 CommentsIrish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess: The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde, Merlin Holland
Published 1 Sep 2009
by
Gin Jenny
Ah, the book that Started It All, The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde, the transcripts of his libel trial against the Marquess of Queensberry. Yes, if it weren’t for my having seen this book in a Bongs & Noodles in Atlanta, I would never have had this wild (ha, ha, ha) fascination with Oscar Wilde. At that time I was very interested in the Scopes trial (I still am! It was interesting!) & spending lots of time trying to find excerpts from Scopes trial transcripts. I expect that is partly to blame for the fact that I saw this book…
9 CommentsBayou, Vol. 1, Jeremy Love & Patrick Morgan
Published 26 Aug 2009
by
Gin Jenny
Jeremy Love‘s Bayou, evidently the first physical book to be created from DC Comics’ webcomic imprint Zuda, is about a little girl named Lee who lives in 1930s Mississippi with her father. When he is accused of raping and murdering Lee’s young white friend Lily (who actually got eaten by an enormous monster in the bayou), and carted off to jail, Lee sets out fearlessly to find Lily and thus save her father from death. Before I head off to bed*, I just wanted to say, Holy God, this book was scary. I read about it (where else, for my…
10 CommentsThe Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
Published 18 Aug 2009
by
Gin Jenny
I recently reread this book, and I was planning to wait on writing about it until I could see the movie, but the people I see movies with are either like “Are you nuts? I saw it the first instant it came out!” or else “I can’t watch it! The book is too precious to me!” or else (more rarely) “Looks mushy. Let’s go see (500) Days of Summer instead.” (And we did. And it was excellent. But I am still curious about The Time Traveler’s Wife film, because I loved the book so much.) The Time Traveler’s Wife I…
6 CommentsSaffy’s Angel and Indigo’s Star, Hilary McKay
Published 16 Aug 2009
by
Gin Jenny
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 CommentsHave His Carcase, Dorothy Sayers
Published 10 May 2009
by
Gin Jenny
Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, together again, hooray! Harriet Vane has gone off for a vacation in a watering-place (watering-place. Brits are so weird.), and she happens upon a dead body, all throat-cut and bloody. The corpse is dancer Paul Alexis, who is engaged (slightly sordidly) to an extremely rich older woman called Mrs. Weldon, and appears to have been part of a strange Bolshevik type plot. All of the possible suspects have unbreakable alibis. Harriet will still not marry Peter, but he carries on badgering her to marry him anyway. I am mildly bothered by Peter’s continual badgering of…
3 CommentsStrong Poison, Dorothy Sayers
Published 3 May 2009
by
Gin Jenny
Strong Poison is a comfort book of mine. I bought it at Bongs & Noodles one time on the way back from a doctor’s appointment regarding my tendonitis. It was a very trying year – I was doing four AP courses and two honors ones, and I was very stressed about getting good grades so I could get into college – and anyway, we stopped by Bongs & Noodles and my mother suggested Strong Poison if I was after a new book. I read it under my desk in calculus (bad, I know, but trust me, nobody was learning anything…
6 CommentsLux the Poet, Martin Millar
Published 3 Oct 2008
by
Gin Jenny
I am afraid that if I keep saying sweet to describe Martin Millar’s book, it will seem to be that I am damning him with faint praise and denying that he has any edge. Because his books contain themes about racism and drugs and sex and whatnot, and these aren’t things generally associated with books that are sweet. On the other hand, if Martin Millar didn’t want his books to be described as sweet, he should not have written such extremely sweet books. So it’s not really my fault. Lux the Poet is about several things. It’s about a poet…
2 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 Comments