House of Leaves put me in the mood for Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which I can’t account for because they are two wildly dissimilar books. House of Leaves is terribly modern and American and all sort of up in your face, and Jonathan Strange is set in early nineteenth-century England (alternate England, but still) and is much with the fairies and book-learning and wry gentility. Anyway I fetched out my convenient three-volume box set of paperbacks, and I read it starting in 2009 and finished in 2010. There should really be a word for a book you start one…
37 CommentsTag: fantasy
So this is my adult fantasy or science fiction book for Jeane‘s DogEar Challenge, and I have managed to finish it before the end of November, which I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do, what with all the applying to grad school I’ve been doing and whatnot. Chalice! I have figured out the key to Robin McKinley, and I will tell you what it is. In each of her books, she has a world that she’s created, and she plops you down right in the middle of the world. By and large, her books are not…
9 CommentsThere are only a very few books by Diana Wynne Jones that I don’t own, and here they are and this is why: 1. The Time of the Ghost. Written in 1981, right before Diana Wynne Jones went on her crazy winning streak made out of amazing brilliance and win, between 1981 and 1986, this is my very least by a lot favorite of Diana Wynne Jones’s books. I have read it over and over, and I have never managed to like it. 2. A Tale of Time City. Because I have only started liking it recently, and I have…
17 CommentsWhoa, how did I not review this yet? I thought I had – but apparently I only thought about it, A LOT, and then forgot to do it because I was reading through the Amelia Peabody books. (Still fun!) The Magicians is about a boy called Quentin Coldwater who is obsessed with a series of books about a fictional land, Fillory. One day, he interviews for and gets into a school of magic, Brakebills, and he spends the next lots of years learning magic, and practicing magic, and eventually (is this spoilers? I feel like no, because you see it…
18 CommentsREREADING 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…
33 CommentsY’all, I’m applying for graduate school. It is stressful as hell. I’m telling you because the more people I tell, the more shaming it would be for me not to go through with it. And yes! I am using shame as a motivator! If it can beat the crap out of me every time I do something wrong, then by God I can make it work for me to do something constructive AND AWESOME. Since launching on this project of telling everyone, I have outlined my personal statement, asked for two recommendations, started an online application, and found the hard…
31 CommentsSo I was mysteriously untempted by the Buffy Season Eight comics for a really long time, and then Fyrefly (inventor of the book blog search, hooray!) started getting all reviewy of them, and that reminded me that I love Buffy like a fat kid loves cake (or a skinny kid – any kid really), and today I went to Bongs & Noodles and (don’t tell) read all four volumes that they had, which was The Long Way Home and No Future for You and Wolves at the Gate and Time of Your Life, but there’s apparently another one after that. …
2 CommentsMm, I hated the troll sidekick. I hated him. The evil sorceress lady Lamorna (only she’s not that evil – good for her to get the robe at the end despite her wicked ways!) is totally justified in smacking his head off. I would smack his stupid head off too. He spoiled every scene he was in. The Robe of Skulls is all about Lady Lamorna trying to raise enough money to make a robe all out of skulls. With spiders. She’s thrilled about the whole idea, but she doesn’t have enough money, and so concocts a scheme to raise…
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