Note: I received a copy of Sunbolt from the publisher, through NetGalley, for review consideration. So all the bloggers have been on and on about the wonders of Intisar Khanani, and I finally got the chance to read one of her books (thanks, NetGalley!). Sunbolt is the novella beginning of a new series, about a street thief named Hitomi who’s part of a resistance force against the oppressive sultanate, and who secretly is the daughter of two (deceased) mages and thus a fairly powerful mage in her own right. I’d have already been in at street thief in a non-Europeanish…
26 CommentsTag: Once Upon a Time Challenge
The Once Upon a Time challenge is upon us once more! And this year I am not just going to talk about participating. I am going to really do it! And I mean — look at how pretty the button is (as always). So I want to do Quest the Second, in which I will read one book apiece in each of the challenge’s categories: fantasy, folklore, fairy tales, and mythology. Here’s my plan. Fantasy: I am already reading Caroline Stevermer’s A Scholar of Magics, so that’s going to be my fantasy read. It is about an Oxford-like college at which people do magic. There is a…
6 CommentsOh Bruno Bettelheim, you silly bunny. So many things about your book annoyed me until I flipped to your about-the-author and looked at your dates. Turns out, there is some excuse for your dated Freudian psychology: you were born in 1903! After I knew that, so many things about you still annoyed me. I like for writers to use the phrases “oedipal conflict” and “oral incorporative stage” sparingly, if at all. Your dates are no excuse! I would have found it even more annoying if I had not suddenly remembered this (warning for language); and then every time Bettelheim said…
37 CommentsYou know how sometimes you really, really want to like a book? Because maybe people have suggested it to you with great enthusiasm, and you think they are lovely people, and you don’t want to hurt their feelings by disliking their book? And also it is a book by a British author full of British humo(u)r, and when you were in England maybe several different people told you that Americans have bad senses of humo(u)r and don’t understand irony, and even though you know those people were absurd and Alanis Morrisette is Canadian, there is still a tiny portion of…
33 Comments
Immoderately gushing about Megan Whalen Turner
May I begin in justifying myself slightly for the fact that I have not read these books until now although my sister read and recommended them, like, a decade ago? When I really love a book, I want everyone who I think would like it to read it so that they can love it also. To this end, I will wheedle and cajole and sometimes manipulatively give the book to them as a gift so they will feel guilty for not reading it. It’s for their own good. In short, I cannot rest until the joy has been spread. I…
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