mothwing | Entries tagged with books

In Cashore's Fire, everything alive is spellbound by the sight of Monsters, creatures of astonishing beauty and the ability to control minds. Human monster Fire finds it difficult to live in a world in which everybody is spellbound by her beauty and/or wants to kill her and has to learn to come to terms with that as well as face a powerful enemy threatening those she loves. And according to Cashore, women are only ever jealous of her beauty, because:

"There is something consoling in the regard of a woman. Roen never desires me, or if she does, it's not the same."

Uh-hu. You do realise that there are women who look at other women that way, right...?

Ugh.

Current Mood: annoyed

Crocky and I like reading books together, and we are always on the lookout for books likely to make the Bechdel-Wallace-test, but lately, especially when it comes to Fantasy, even those that make it leave me dissatisfied. It's not only that there are hardly any books with and about strong female main characters, it's that as long as the female characters are older than eleven, they usually MUST. FALL. IN LOVE.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love love. I love being in love. I do not, however, enjoy reading about people finding love and engaging in activities related to courtship. Which is what seems to be the only thing going on in most love plots. And there really does not need to be a love plot in every single book. They rarely ever add anything to the plot and they rarely ever influence characters in a realistic way, and tend to be as exciting to read and varied as people making sandwiches. They tend to be tacked on, without point or purpose, just because it apparently is a part integral to the experience of being a woman to fall for a man - any man - because lesbians don't exist, and god forbid female characters get a plot without throwing a male love interest into the mix somewhere, because there might be riots in the streets and people will protest in front of publisher's houses with torches and pitchforks.

Because Crocky has similar inclinations, we started searching. And searching. And searching. Thus, the challenge came about.
It does not sound like much, but try it, and you'll see what I mean.

niaseath joined it, spent an hour in a book shop and couldn't find one single book that made it. I must be reading the wrong Fantasy books, because without the odd Discworld novel and the Worst Witch series, which is for young children, and a couple of books by MZB, I've drawn a blank. There are slightly more titles that come to mind outside the genre, but it's only a tiny fraction, and that's usually because the main character is considered to be past datable age or too young.

Granted, there are also few books about men without a love plot in them, but how many can you think of that do exist?
That's more than none, right?

The following are the categories in the children's section of the nearest Hannover city library (and I quote):

- Fantasy
- Action
- Crime
- Reality
- Romance.

...

Yeah. I don't know. Fantasy and action, sure, but reality?? Really? (That's where they put the books on WWII, drugs, child pregnancy and life in the GDR. Reality is depressing in Germany. Romance is a redundant category, because every book I looked at in the other categories had a pretty prominent romance plot, yuck. Kissing books, man).

Am I happy about that because it means no one will have to go through the trouble of teaching the kids these words at school, or am I worried for the future of my mother tongue?

Current Mood: annoyed

I finished it today.

I am really not what to make of it yet. I'm worried about a couple of things, especially with regards to word choices, and love others.

( Spoilers and yes, trigger warnings. For domestic abuse and misogynistic language. Yes. In a Discworld novel. )

So, I loved the way that coming of age in a misogynistic world as a powerful woman is dealt with, I really didn't agree with the way misogyny is portrayed. I have to think about this a bit more.

Current Mood: blank

niaseath : "Look at this."

mothwing : "Elfen wie Stahl (Elves like steel)? What a title."

niaseath : "Sounds as though they'd truly manly heroes.

mothwing : "Oh yeah. A duo, fighting crime.

niaseath : "Talking exclusively in snappy one-liners."

mothwing : "Riding into the sunset."

niaseath : "In their low-riders."

Not only did he join The Challenge (Crocky and I are trying to find a book (preferably Fantasy) about a female character without a love plot. No one's won so far), he also picked out the worst Fantasy book in history as a birthday gift for his friend. It's got a fascinating chapter about a hero walking down a hallway. There are a lot of descriptions of this hallway while the hero is walking down the hallway.

That's the title of one of the topics our Abi (A-level) candidates have to do.

Anyone else worried?

Yeah.

I was secretly convinced they'd read "To Kill a Mocking Bird", but it turns out they're reading "Black Like Me", which, while I have to admit that I don't know it, doesn't really inspire confidence, either (a white man in blackface goes to segregated New Orleans and writes about his experiences - why not at least take "Soul Sister", which has the experiences of a white woman passing as black?), and they're supposed to listen to "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash:

The students taking the advanced course are reading "A Lesson Before Dying", which, again, I'm not familiar with, so I have to wait and see what it's like. Still, the fact that it's not by a white author makes me hopeful.

I fear that neither curriculum inspires great confidence in the classes of '11 and '12's knowledge of this topic. Still, what with white Europeans teaching white Europeans about racial segregation and the situation of POC in the in the US today, I'm not sure what else I'd expect. Can't say I'm all that convinced I'd do better.

Current Mood: doubtful
Current Location: Hannover Oststadt

I'm job-hunting and our jobcenters couldn't be less helpful. It looks as though I'll have to do with several small freelance teaching jobs for various tutoring centres (part-time and full-time positions are rare anyway, and most of the centres seem to want to employ people as freelancers before taking them on full-time later on), which is a headache to file taxes for (though, who am I kidding, I doubt that I'll get together that much in the first place) and usually combined still barely allows me to make ends meet with covering rent and insurances.

While filling in my forms and online applications I'm listening to the audiobook versions of the HTTYD series read by David Tennant and I'm rapidly falling for this character:

It's hot. I am bored. I'm unemployed. I have nothing else to do. Still. What the hell is this? Someone posted this on

theaudiolibrary and in spite of better knowledge, I gave it a try. I'd like to believe that this is ironic, but I can't, because this is so close to similar nice-guy narratives. It'd make a good litmus test for feminist allies, though.

It's about a whiny-ass sleep-deprived misogynistic white ~nerdy~ socially inept bully victim finding his muse in a dark and ~edgy white gawth ("post-goth") girl. I don't even know where to start. I'm guessing it's supposed to be "ironic" in that hipster sense that makes me wonder if people are using the same kind of dictionary.

This hero's misogyny and racism is incredible, as is the female characters flatness and her tendency to try and be "one of the guys", and in spite of the hyperbolic tendencies I can't bring myself to believe that this is not an author writing from his own personal and completely unironic experience.

I especially enjoyed the main character's whining about being treated badly when he's walking around thinking of female bodies as decoration, and the casual ass-pats he gets from his Goth-muse for staring at women like pieces of meat, because it's "fine for him" to do that. Because he's still young. Also, it's important to note that his chest-baring muse chooses not to "flaunt" her breasts. Unlike those hussies, you know? She still shows him her boobs, because that's just what girls do instead of explaining about minimizers. With, you know, words.

Oh, or the hero being upset with his one friend and bringing up the fact that he is one of the few white guys who know why black history month exists! So how dare he be upset with the white hero!

Or the countless occasions when the storyline is twisted away from NG's obvious shortcomings in the human decency department at the moment where he's almost about to get called out on them, and get re-rendered as a pity party for the hero or morphed into a wish-fulfillment sequence. Like the scene in which the "nerd guy", when the "goth girl" calls him out on his obvious sexism, calls her out on her failed, attention-seeking suicide attempt. That'll show her. Or when the girl he lusts after without knowing anything about her just because she is beautiful tells her about how girls sometimes can be shallow, especially if they turn him down. And then makes out with him. Because's he's just that special.

He does seem to realise he's just as bad as the other guys, but the realisation is a mere blip of cognitive activity in a sea of self-centred ignorance, and while I wish readers are supposed to see that and point and laugh, I am not convinced. This appears to be a character honestly trying, and I am not sure whether this is book is someone cleverly telling the story of a privileged-as-fuck male teenager trying and failing to improve, or a failed attempt at writing a story about a quirky, yet relatable and most of all redeemable hero.

While it is possible to read this as the story of an inept narrator with an incredibly ironic focalizer I find it hard, and that still does not mean this book is worth the paper it is printed on, because it is not less annoying than similar and completely unironic accounts. It is so over the top that I wish I could be certain it was meant to be a mental kick in the rear for the target audience, but since I find it hard to believe that an audience who'd find this character relatable or interesting would even be able to see the irony I have my doubts about that working out. Maybe I'm underestimating people, but this book is still a waste of space unless you always desperately wanted to see the subtle workings of a privileged whiny white guys' mind and needed this book to come along to tell you about that, because you hadn't encountered any other sources on that so far.

For me, it's white noise and whining. It's whining about comic books, whining about not getting girls, whining about having a step father NG doesn't approve of, whining about having an unborn sibling, whining about not getting to go to a convention, and curiously enough, the fictional world always bending to his whiny will, which is annoying as hell, as by the middle you, or at least I started hoping for him to finally get a comeuppance. Even though this character clearly is in need of some serious therapeutic help.

In this as in the comic books/graphic novels the hero enshrines, I really, really don't manage to see the appeal.

My most recent acquisition is a German book on essay writing for German students from 1868, though the book I own is a later edition from 1893. The author, Karl Leo Cholevius, a German teacher teaching at a Gymnasium, issues his advice in letter format to an imaginary addressee who is an Abi or A-level student in need of essay writing advice.

The book, Praktische Anleitung zur Abfassung Deutscher Aufsätze (Practical Guide to Writing German Essays) was a success at the time because it wasn't a collection of rhetorical figures of speech, but offered a how-to approach for, as the author says, "weaker students" who might require it. As one of the few of its kind it was an immediate success at the time.

In the second letter (and the second paragraph in the excerpt below), he addresses tutoring and its lack of usefulness when it comes to essay writing:

I'm too lazy to translate, but the short version is that he made the experience that it's usually the sons of rich fathers who'd like some tutoring a couple of months before their finals and think that paying for private lessons will fix everything.

Right now, I can think of three students I've been tutoring in the course of this school year to whom this applies. Heh.

Current Mood: nerdy

I have a problem resisting old school books, especially for English and German classes - though I suppose ancient Biology books have the potential to be even more fascinating.

My most recent purchase is "The New Guide 1", which is from the early fifties and for Volksschulen, a school that covered years 1-8 for those students who were not likely to go on to tertiary education - until 1964 (West Germany), when they were replaced with a primary - secondary system and the secondary system got more differentiated as the Volksschule was replaced with the Grundschule for primary education, Haupt- and Realschule for secondary education.

The book frequently confuses me - I can see that the point of this is to teach students sounds, but the progression doesn't make sense to me - sentences like "My name is _____, what is your name?" that we covered in session two don't feature at all until Lesson 33, and the first things people learn are individual words and texts written to introduce the students to new sounds and what the book considers to be important spellings of the sound.

The book doesn't introduce characters the students can get used and attached to, and the stories in the book frequently touch upon poverty and hardship. Or they start out as cute and and then take a sudden turn, like this one:

( More weirdness - father is not rich and Enid does not like black people (chimney sweeps in this case) )

Current Mood: calm

Because I survived my oral exam I went on a brief shopping spree and got myself some gratuitous goodies.

Like this:

Yes, that is an Auryn replica. Sadly, I couldn't find an affordable one with both colours (or one with the inscription, or one created by people who know how the thing is connected with the necklace and don't turn it on its side. Seriously, how hard can it be...?), but this one was cheap, and I like it better without the gold, even though the geek appeal is not quite the same.

Oh, also something that I guess qualifies as pride earrings.

Current Mood: pleased

So, what did the lake poets think of Gothic novels?

To be brief, they didn't like them much. They thought no worthy man could write such a thing, too fanciful, and a danger to children. They disliked the sensationalism and the bawdiness especially.

Wordsworth did not really read many of them and generally didn't seem to have bothered - even though he could appreciate horror stories - Coleridge especially is aghast (which I did not necessarily expect, especially because he is later asked to translate Faust because of his own reputation as a writer of the demonic) - he has to write a few reviews as a "hireling" for the Critical Review and seems to fall so in hate with them that he takes up reading Radcliffe's novels for fun.

«Coleridge, in a letter to Miss Robinson»

"I have a wife, I have sons, I have an infant Daughter--what excuse could I offer to my own conscience if by suffering my name to be connected with those of Mr. Lewis, or Mr. Moore, I was occasion of their reading The Monk . . . . Should I not be an infamous Pander to the Devil in the seduction of my own offspring?--My head turns giddy, my heart sickens at the very thought of seeing such books in the hands of a child of mine."

STC, 18.12.1801.

«Review of The Monk»

"A more grievous fault remains, a fault for which no literary excellence can atone, a fault which all other excellence does but aggravate, as adding subtlety to a poison by the elegance of its preparation. Mildness of censure would here be criminally misplaced, and silence would make us accomplices. Not without reluctance then, but in full conviction that we are performing a duty, we declare it to be our opinion, that the Monk is a romance, which if a parent saw in the hands of a son or daughter, he might reasonably turn pale. The temptations of Ambrosio are described with a libidinous minuteness, which, we sincerely hope, will receive its best and only adequate censure from the offended conscience of the author himself. The shameless harlotry of Matilda, and the trembling innocence of Antonia, are seized with equal avidity, as vehicles of the most voluptuous images; and though the tale is indeed a tale of horror, yet the most painful impression which the work left on our minds was that of great acquirements and splendid genius employed to furnish a *mormo* for children, a poison for youth, and a provocative for the debauchee. Tales of enchantments and witchcraft can never be *useful*: our author has contrived to make them *pernicious*, by blending, with an irreverent negligence, all that is most awfully true in religion with all that is most ridiculously absurd in superstition. He takes frequent occasion, indeed, to manifest his sovereign contempt for the latter, both in his own person, and (most incongruously) in that of his principal characters; and that his respect for the *former* is not excessive, we are forced to conclude from the treatment which its inspired writings receive from him."

Coleridge, The Critical Review 2.19 (2/1797).

It did my heart good to read, however, his opinion on the Mysteries of Udolpho:

«Review of the Mysteries of Udolpho»

If, in consequence of the criticisms impartiality has obliged us to make upon this novel, the author should feel disposed to ask us, Who will write a better? we boldly answer her, *Yourself*; when no longer disposed to sacrifice excellence to quantity, and lengthen out a story for the sake of filling an additional volume.

Coleridge, The Critical Review, 8/1794.

Also, in a letter which describes what he thinks are repetitive features in Scottish poetry,

«Letter to Wordsworth»

"I amused myself a day or two ago on reading a Romance in Mrs. Radcliff's style with making out a scheme, which was to serve for all romances a priori--only varying the proportions . . . A Baron or Baroness ignorant of their birth, and in some dependent situation--Castle--on a Rock--a Sepulchre--at some distance from the Rock--Deserted Rooms--Underground Passages--Pictures--A ghost, so believed--or--a written record--blood on it! A wonderful Cut throat &c. &c. &c."

Coleridge, October 1810.

The manliness comes in in a review of a story by Walpole, in which he writes,

«Review of the "Mysterious Mother"»

The Mysterious Mother is the most disgusting, detestable, vile composition that ever came from the hand of a man. No one with one spark of true manliness, of which Horace Walpole had none, could have written it

Published posthumously in Table Talk.

Go get them, Col!

I received this in the mail today:

"Vielen Dank für Ihre Bestellung. Ich wünsche Ihnen viel Freude und viel Erfolg (falls es für eine Prüfung ist :D) mit dem Buch. Herzliche Grüße, SR."

"Thanks a lot for your order. I hope you enjoy it and are successful (in case it's for an exam :D ) with the book. All the best, SR. "

Current Mood: good

That also goes for reviews on Amazon! Stupid me. Still, reviewers, if you have to sign your review with "BTW, I'm neither racist nor religious, just my opinion", then you ought to know that there's something wrong with what you were writing in the first place?

Also, I just read through the entries for the 4th lesbian literary award hosted by Édition El!es (if you speak German and like bad writing, check it out!), and those entries scare me. They read like something that has a high potential to end up on either

canonrants - only that stylistically, I'd expect that kind of stuff on FFR or

verreiss_mich . Though considering the host I probably should not be surprised - apparently, they're publishing books of authors who terminated their contract with this publisher and changed to the other notable lesbian publisher, the Konkursbuch, and there's also been trouble concerning authors not getting paid for their work. Classy.

Trawling the internet in search for an article (which I'll have to pick up at the uni library. No e-copies for this one), I found this workbook that is supposed to up the readers' vocabulary in preparation for US standardised tests:

Now, I agree that this series is God's Gift to ESL teachers because everybody, or at least every single one of my wee tutees over the age of fourteen, have read it in English - even if they're really weak learners, so I agree, this can be a powerful teaching tool and motivator to get kids interested in reading a book in a foreign language. Learners.

I didn't know native speakers needed to revise their knowledge of the meaning of "marble", "murmur", or "butterscotch" for their SAT scores so badly that there needs to be a workbook.

Current Mood: curious

Half-way through 2009, I abandoned the project of keeping track because I was busy with other things. This is an attempt to reconstruct what I have been reading that year.

A Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, Ian Mortimer
Homosexualität und Crossdressing im Mittelalter, Stefan Micheler
Making Money, Terry Pratchett
Going Postal, Terry Pratchett
The Black Jewels Trilogy, by Anne Bishop
Schwuler Osten - Homosexuelle Männer in der DDR, by Kurt Starke
Harvard's Secret Court, by William Wight
Die Stumme Sünde - Homosexualität im Mittelalter, by Brigitte Spreizer
Sodom und Gomorrha - zur Alltagswirklichkeit der Verfolgung Homosexueller im Mittelalter, by Bernd-Ulrich Hergemüller
Guards! Guards! - The Play. Adapted by Stephen Briggs
Wyrd Sisters - The Play, adapted by Stephen Briggs
Thud!, by Terry Pratchett
The Amulet of Samarkand, by Jonathan Stroud
What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, by Daniel Pool
Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold!, by Terry Brooks
Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
The Golem's Eye, by Jonathan Stroud
Ptolemy's Gate, by Jonathan Stroud
Nation, by Terry Pratchett
Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett
Feet of Clay, by Terry Pratchett
Graceling, by Kristin Cashore <- read this book. You won't regret it.
Fire, by Kristin Cashore
Victorian London, by Liza Picard. In large parts, that is.
Fighting Talk, by James Inglis.
Privilege: A Reader, Michael Kimmel.
John Donne: Selected Letters, by P.M. Oliver (ed.)
John Donne: The Reformed Soul: A Novel, by John Stubbs.
Brown Angels, by Walter Dean Myers <- This is a real treasure.
Push, by Sapphire. Brutal at times, but definitely worth reading!
Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, by David Sedaris
Blonde Roots, by Bernadine Evaresto.
The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry, by Gerard Moore (ed.)
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
The Nixie's Song, by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi
A Giant Problem, by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi
The Wyrm King, by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi
The Screwtape Letters, by C. S. Lewis
Circle of Magic: Sandry's Book, by Tamora Pierce
Circle of Magic: Tris's Book, by Tamora Pierce
Circle of Magic: Daja's Book, by Tamora Pierce
Circle of Magic: Briar's Book, by Tamora Pierce
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon
Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his son, by David Roberts (ed.)
Renaissance Self-Fashioning, by Stephen Greenblatt
The First and Second Dalhousie Manuscripts, Ernest Sullivan (ed.)
When Jeff Comes Home, by Catherine Atkins
Unseen Academicals, by Terry Pratchett.
Whipping Girl, by Julia Serano. <- You need to read this book.

There are more, but I can't seem to remember them right now. Most of them I did not buy but borrowed at various libraries, so it's hard to remember which book I read when.

Current Mood: annoyed

The post I made recently on my qualms with the difficulties many Fantasy writers seem to experience while writing female characters resulted in most amazing recommendations from the community I posted it in.

I thought I'd share:

( SF/F books which feature convincing female characters )
... good thing I got a gift certificate for Amazon for Christmas. I don't even know what to buy first. I'll probably start with checking the library for what they yield.

If you have read a Fantasy book, novel or otherwise, which had a particularly convincing female character, please do comment here. I'm really curious as to what people have read and liked when it comes to strong and/or convincing female characters.

Current Mood: cheerful

As is always the case with the more recent books I felt rather apprehensive towards this one. My worries were rather unfounded. It is not a masterpiece compared to many of the books he wrote in the late nineties which I loved, but it does work, and the characters he introduces are charming.
Romeo and Juliet and football. Yes.
Lady Margolotta. I really like her, but I think I liked her more as an éminence grise. I am not quite clear on why she needed to be bested by Glenda, but she is as charming as ever.
Lord Vetinari seems to suffer from a spell of Villain Decay, or there is a lot more to Glenda than meets the eye, whose character puzzled me.
I love Madame Sharn and Pepe and all their gender complicatedness.
Dwarf fashion. Dwarf fashion! Glittering pick-axes just in case the dwarf in question spots a seam and just can't help herself! Hyperfeminine assecories self-confidently invading a traditionally hypermasculine culture. Take that, femmephobia.
Speaking of which, what does bother me is the recurring coincidence of being dense as a brick and unbelievably stunning. I am about to forgive him because of the utter awesomeness of his other female characters as well as the fact that she is not the only woman who is good-looking, while she is definitely one fo the few dense ones.
It's always good to see Ridcully again.
Ponder <3. Although it's sad to see that he managed to liberate himself somewhat from the Archchancellor, I rather enjoyed their original relationship.
Nutt. I'm fairly meh about him apart from in his function as a love interest for Glenda. They are so cute together.
Trevor. Equally meh.
Repetitions, gnuh. I wonder what went wrong there. Would it really have hurt to cross out a few "I am an Orc"s or "but I promised my old Mum"'s? These lines were repeated so often that they really annoyed me towards the end.

Current Mood: calm

Day 01 → Your favourite song
Day 02 → Your favourite movie
Day 03 → Your favourite television program
Day 04 → Your favourite book
Day 05 → Your favourite quote
Day 06 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 07 → A photo that makes you happy
Day 08 → A photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 09 → A photo you took
Day 10 → A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 → A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 13 → A fictional book

Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. All of it.

Other than that, I'd really recommend Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

Day 14 → A non-fictional book
Day 15 → A fanfic
Day 16 → A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 → An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
Day 18 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 → A talent of yours
Day 20 → A hobbie of yours
Day 21 → A recipe
Day 22 → A website
Day 23 → A YouTube video
Day 24 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 → Your day, in great detail
Day 26 → Your week, in great detail
Day 27 → This month, in great detail
Day 28 → This year, in great detail
Day 29 → Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 → Whatever tickles your fancy

Current Mood: bored

Day 01 → Your favourite song
Day 02 → Your favourite movie
Day 03 → Your favourite television program
Day 04 → Your favourite book

Can't pick just one of the Discworld novels, but in general, I prefer the Witches and the Watch series to the Wizards, and most of the books he wrote before 2000 to the later ones (the Wee Free Men series being a very notable exception).

Day 05 → Your favourite quote
Day 06 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 07 → A photo that makes you happy
Day 08 → A photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 09 → A photo you took
Day 10 → A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 → A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 13 → A fictional book
Day 14 → A non-fictional book
Day 15 → A fanfic
Day 16 → A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 → An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
Day 18 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 → A talent of yours
Day 20 → A hobbie of yours
Day 21 → A recipe
Day 22 → A website
Day 23 → A YouTube video
Day 24 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 → Your day, in great detail
Day 26 → Your week, in great detail
Day 27 → This month, in great detail
Day 28 → This year, in great detail
Day 29 → Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 → Whatever tickles your fancy

( Newspaper clippings (1940ies) with maps )

( Atlas (1943) )

( English Course for soldiers (1945) )

( English (1960) for first year learners )

( Singing book (1961) )

( English (1963) for second year learners )

( English (1989) for students in their first year of learning English )

( And the more recent version, an English book (2004) for Hauptschul-students in their first year of learning English )

Current Mood: bouncy

I sorted through links I had saved on del.icio.us a while ago, rediscovered Wordle, a device that turns the most common words in a text into pretty word clouds, and decided to feed it shady online versions of popular Fantasy books.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

So, who is this book about?

( More worldes )

Take a look at this:

Does this look... somehow... adult-themed to you? (Click here if you want to look at it in all its NSFW glory).

No?

Well, sorry, you sexually depraved deviant, you obviously don't share Amazon's family values (and shame on you, just look at it. It's clearly promoting not only the homosexual lifestyle, but also bestiality). This is clearly more offensive than, say, the 120 days of Sodom. At least according to Amazon.com - as you may have already read, they're removing some titles from "some searches and bestseller lists and the sales rankings from books they consider "adult themed".

Personally, I have no idea who makes the chops and why. King and King retains its ranking, so does The Different Dragon. My Daddy's Roommate does not, nor does Alan Hollinghurst's The Swimmingpool Library, or Fingersmith, but as I said, some editions of the 120 Days of Sodom do.

I wonder where this is going, especially considering some of the other books and merchandise allowed to keep its rating.

There's a summary of what has been going on here in case you're interested, and here is an affected writer's timeline.

This is gonna be good, I can tell.

EDIT: And the plot thickens. A SA employee's post on the AmazonFail proposed a different theory. According to him (1) either a vigilante organisation comparable to Innocence Jihad during during strikethrough/boldthrough/LoLJ's been reporting books with a specific kind of tags en masse, resulting in their adult flagging, (2) in addition to that, considering that apparently, Amazon's reporting system is not automatised, someone made "mistakes" influenced by personal bias when marking books as "adult themed" - or (3) someone did it for the lulz.

What gets me about the whole thing are the kind of books which were affected - LGBT books, no surprise there, it's common practice that any media with LGBT content are flagged as "adult", BDSM-related books, see above, but survivors, too? And feminists? Huh.

There is also early troll claims authorship of this and oh god, there is a twitter and an article on the Guardian (thanks, Bron).

Oh, I'll be needing some more popcorn for this.

Current Mood: cynical

16.

Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey.
Ick ick ick ick. I don't think I can read this. It is a story about Lessa, last remaining heir of a died-out aristrocratic family, Fax, the evil overlord who has seized power over seven of the dragon holds and killed Lessa's family in the process, and F'lar, sent to search for a female rider for a newly hatched queen dragon. That rider will of course turn out to be Lessa, who is hiding as a kitchen drudge in Fax's hold. They'll also most probably dispose of Fax somehow and then Lessa has to get a love interest, most likely F'lar.

( Just no. )

So, no great big space dragons for me. I heard that other series by McCaffrey are less failtastic, though.

As an added bonus, the author strikes me as incredibly dense, going by her ( supposed views on human sexuality. )

Current Mood: lazy

Seeing as I am going to write my final paper on the man's poetry I thought I'd waste time today creating some motivating Donne icons.

Teasers:

( 12 )

x-posted to

book_icons, sorry about your flists, my fellow members!

Current Mood: cheerful

Let's see... homosexuality in Harvard, the GDR and medieval times and some old favourites. If I pass out half-way through of this, it's because I breathed in some dust of the bleach that I used to get our terribly grey towels white again. Just what I needed after the sudden attacks of nausea yesterday.

15.

Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold!, by Terry Brooks.
I am reading this with Crocky. We have talked about this series several times, and while I now don't enjoy it as much as I did when I read the series with fifteen, I still think he's handled the main character's acclimatisation and his various predicaments and his new surroundings very well. I had never realised how poor the writing is - but I wouldn't have. When I first read it, I had studied English as a foreign langauge at school for five years and my proficiency had me struggling with this book. I really dislike is Willow. Her characterisation drives me crazy. Even though she has a lot of potential the entire premise for their relationship is terrible, and her position in the story is frankly disappointing. No cookie points.

14.

What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, by Daniel Pool.
Provides a very sound overview and some very nice in-depths accounts on the various topics relating to etiquette and everyday life in the 19th Century.

13.

The Amulet of Samarkand, by Jonathan Stroud.
When I read the first page of this novel five years ago, I fell in love. I am still in love, and re-reading this makes butterflies reappear in my stomach. Bartimaeus, Nathaniel and their relationship is incredibly charming.
I'm rereading this because Crocky has to read it for her paper and I want to be able to discuss it with her on a more informed basis.

12.

Thud, by Terry Pratchett.
I could read P'Terry's descriptions of fatherhood all day and I love the various darknesses, such beautiful ideas.

11.

Wyrd Sisters - The Play, adapted by Stephen Briggs.
Another one Crocky and I read and voice-acted together. She's a decent Granny, I must say, and I am rather happy with my rendition of Nanny. Neither of us makes a very good Vetinari or Carrot, though.

10.

Guards! Guards! - The Play. Adapted by Stephen Briggs.
This was actually Crocky's birthday present. We're reading it together, voice-acting the different parts. It's great fun.

Sodom und Gomorrha - zur Alltagswirklichkeit der Verfolgung Homosexueller im Mittelalter, by Bernd-Ulrich Hergemüller ("Sodom and Gomorrha - on the everyday reality and persecution of homosexuals in the Middle Ages")
The gist seems to be that they weren't, really, not methodically, that is, up until the rise of the inquisition and the witch hunts. Homosexual behaviour was forbidden, of course, but apart from the few accounts which do exist of trials in which anal sex and homosexual paedophilia was the primary charge, people engaging in homosexual behaviour seem to have led a rather undetected life. The trials which do mention homosexuality seem to do so only on the grounds of adding more charges and underlining the moral depravity of the people charged - usually with large-scale theft and murder. It is noteworthy that homosexuals were referred to as Ketzer (heretics), and anal sex was known as ketzern. To go against the order of nature as god apparently intended it was heresy. When the witch hunts began and the tempers started to get tetchier the mere accusation was enough to light torches and the wooden stakes.

Die Stumme Sünde - Homosexualität im Mittelalter, by Brigitte Spreizer. ("The Silent Sin - Homosexuality in the Middle Ages).
Very recommendable - it has many origininal sources in the appendix, and reading medieval laws for the proper behaviour of monks in convents makes fascinating reading, even though in some cases my Latin is too rusty to really understand everything.
Especially interesting for me was the development of the laws regarding anal penetration - it was always considered an Especially Bad Sin, but at first, during the times when pueri oblati were uncommon and men entered monasteries as adults, homosexual behaviour was merely one sexual sin among many. As novices entered the monastery at younger ages and the monastery was no longer a place for individuals to share a living space who usually would have become hermits, but took the place of the family in many cases, laws against homosexual behaviour became increasingly strict. Towards the end of that development, those penetrating the other man during anal intercourse were excluded from the monastery, while the one penetrated could hope for redemption.

It is important that medieval sex was divided into "natural" vs. "unnatural" sex and "active" and "passive" parts. "Natural" was only the sex which led to babies, every other sexual practice was "unnatural", therefore against the will of god, and forbidden. "Active" were those penetrating, "passive" the other ones. The "active" partner was usually punished more severely than the "passive" one.
In the beginning, monks had individual cells, but as sexual sins became increasingly bad, dormitories were reintroduced. In those, a young monk would sleep between two older monks to prevent the youngsters from being tempted to commit sins of the flesh. Monks were not allowed to see anyone naked, including themselves, and bathed in light shifts.They were never permitted to sleep in one bed together.

Also fascinating is the pornographic detail in which the kinds of forbidden sexual contact among nuns is described. Nuns were allowed to sleep in one bed - if it was a young and an older nun - but only if there was at least a room of two spans between them, they lay back to back, and did not speak a word until morning. Female homosexuality was regarded as less bad than anal penetration, but female sexual sins were as discouraged.

Harvard's Secret Court, by William Wight.
It's an account of the purges of gay students from the campus after the suicide of one of them that occurred in the nineteen-twenties. Very shocking stuff, especially considering that the purges themselves led to more suicides and completely ruined the lives of the students in question. Not only did Harvard purge their names from the permanent records, they also sent out letters to explain why they dismissed this students if they chose to associate themselves with the university in any CV they wrote for an application to other schools or jobs. This meant that many of these students could not hope for further education at other schools at all or for jobs. The last of these letters was sent in the early seventies, if I remember correctly.

What struck me as very strange is Wight's last chapter which outlines the possibility that homophobia may be as genetically induced as homosexuality. While I get that he probably had to include something of the sort to stop him from being in trouble with the renowned university, it was still rather baffling to see him struggling to explain and absolve these decisions which had ruined the lives of some twenty students for decades to come, sometimes on the basis of mere association with gay students.

Schwuler Osten - Homosexuelle Männer in der DDR, by Kurt Starke. ("Gay East - Homosexual Men in the GDR)

The Black Jewels Trilogy, by Anne Bishop.
Wow. Bad. Already ranted about it here. I don't mind the torture, but the writing and the characters are so incredibly, horribly dull that we probably won't make it through this. It's a book about an evil, magical matriarchic society in which males are used as sex slaves. Needless to say, all the main characters with the exception of one little girl are male woobies. The girl has extra-special superpowers, but her only function seems to be to make the abused males feel better about themselves. The scary sexual violence and abuse is not as bad as the rampant paedophilia and I don't know how I'm going to face the person whose favourite series of novels this is when we give it back.

~~~

I think I'll attempt to eat some lunch now. I can't stand the sight of pretzel sticks and tea any more.

Current Mood: nauseated

During my journey back to Hamburg today, the man in the seat across mine took out his cellphone and took a picture of the book I was reading (What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew - From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England). Or my leg. I suppose it was the book, though.

This is not the first time, either - it happened before that someone sitting next to me or opposite took down the name and author of the book I was reading, and only two weeks ago an man sitting opposite took a picture of the book I was reading back then (The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England) on his cellphone after considerable neck-craning.

Good to know I'm spreading the word.

Going Postal, Terry Pratchett.
I decided to re-read it to find out whether I really like Spike. I am still not sure.

Making Money, Terry Pratchett
I wonder whether I should be worried about the fact that Spike is growing on me.

Homosexualität und Crossdressing im Mittelalter, Stefan Micheler (ed.)
Very interesting indeed. Apparently, there were several cases of crossdressing in the middle ages, even though only a comparatively small number was documented. Women usually cross-dressed to get around being raped at war times, and men cross-dressed to avoid being killed. Women also cross-dressed to make an army appear bigger, and men to get out of warzones.
Homosexuality between men was frowned upon, though there are only few documents. Most of them are monastic documents. They have homosexuality as one sin among many and don't single it out, even though that changed as monastic tradition in Europe changed. In the beginning, they were places in which individuals who wished to isolate themselves to get more deeply in touch with god lived, each of them wanting to remove themselves from company, looking for loneliness. That changed in later years, when people started entering monasteries as children rather than adults. That shifted the structure of monasteries - suddenly, they needed to provide structure substituting families for the pueri oblati, and meant that rules to cull sexual innuendos among growing males were kept rare. This was achieved by introducing dormitories (younger brothers were placed between two older brothers) and rules about physical contact (monks were required to keep one cubit apart at all times) and nudity (outlawed - monks were encouraged not to look at their own naked body and to bathe in shrits). Active homosexual behaviour was punished heavily (by exclusion from the monastery), and "passive" homosexuality faced seven years penance.

A Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, Ian Mortimer.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The set-up, the individual chapters, the topics, the time frame he chose - all is really good. The only thing that seriously bothered me and made me an increasingly frustrated reader is that this book is aimed exclusively at male time travellers. All the examples in which he attempts to write interaction have people adressing the traveller as "Sir", and the way he describes women makes it obvious that they are strange beings worth observing. It drove me up the wall, and I can't believe that someone who, like Mortimer, can put himself in the shoes of deeply religious plague-stricken peasants from the fourteenth century can find it so very hard to put himself in the shoes of female peasants. I suppose that one could argue that time-travellers to the fourtheenth century would be advised to appear as male as possible to avoid trouble, but I seriously doubt that he had this in mind.

Current Mood: tired

... in which I read too much Terry Pratchett for my own good. This entry is backdated.

★ - I really did not enjoy this book.
★★ - Not too bad, not that good either.
★★★ - Ok.
★★★★ - Very decent read.
★★★★★ - Excellent!

Wicked by Gregory Maguire - ★★★★★
Winnie and Wolf by A. N. Wilson - ★★
Benachteiligung gleichgeschlechtlich orientierter Personen und Paare, von Hans P. Buba - ★★★
Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer - ★★
Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman - ★★★★★
The Stone Gods, by Jeanette Winterson - ★★★★
Tintenherz, by Cornelia Funke - ★★
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian, by Marina Lewycka - ★★★★
Penguin's Poems for Life, Laura Barber (ed.) - ★★★★
Art & Lies. A Tale for Three Voices and a Bawd, Jeanette Winterson - ★★
New Moon, by Stephanie Meyer - ★★★
Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby - ★★★★★
Imperium, Robert Harris - ★★★★
Slam, by Nick Hornby - ★★★★
Pompeii, Robert Harris - ★★★
Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy - ★★★★★
~~The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane~~
Homeland, by R. A. Salvatore - ★
Mein Herz so weiß,by Xavier Marias (I only half-finished this one, I'm going to finish it in '09)
Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi - ★★★★
Middlemarch, by George Eliot - ★★
Eric, or Little by Little, by Frederic William Farrar - ★★★
The English Language - a guided tour of the language, by David Crystal - ★★★
Drachen, by Joseph Nigg - ★★★
Who cares about English Usage?, David Crystal - ★★★
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris - ★★★★
Homoplot - The Coming-Out Story and Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Identity, by Esther Saxey - ★★★
A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Bad Beginning, Daniel Handler - ★★
A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Reptile Room, Daniel Handler - ★★
A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Wide Window, Daniel Handler - ★
A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Miserable Mill, by Daniel Handler - ★★
A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Austere Academy, by Daniel Handler - ★★
A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Ersatz Elevator, by Daniel Handler - ★★
A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Vile Village. by Daniel Handler - ★★★
A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Carnivorous Carnival, by Daniel Handler - ★★★
A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Slippery Slope, by Daniel Handler - ★★★★★
A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Grim Grotto, by Daniel Handler - ★★★★★
A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Penultimate Peril, by Daniel Handler - ★★★★★
A Series of Unfortunate Events - The End, by Daniel Handler - ★★★★
Herr Lehmann, by Sven Regener - ★★★
Slam, by Nick Hornby - ★★★★
Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett - ★★★
Truckers, by Terry Pratchett - ★★★★
Diggers, by Terry Pratchett - ★★★
Wings, by Terry Pratchett - ★★★★
Autumn Term, by Antonia Forest - ★★★★★
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Sparks - ★★★★
Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer - ★
Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence - ★★
Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox, Eoin Colfer - ★★
Monstrous Regiments, Terry Pratchett - ★★★
Nation, Terry Pratchett - ★★★
Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris - ★★★★
Maskerade, Terry Pratchett - ★★★
Breakfast with Scot, by Michael Downing. ★★★★★
I, Claudius, Robert von Ranke-Graves - ★★★★
A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett - ★★★★

Current Mood: cheerful

I have a question for my fellow Fantasy readers out there (I'm looking especially at you,

fourthage ), do you happen to know any (recent) British (high/epic/heroic/parallel world) Fantasy books which have been fairly popular which have a female heroine?
Preferably written by a female writer?

Crocky asked me for suggestions, but all I could come up with were mumbled suggestions along the lines of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Tamora Pierce, neither of who are British, and Susan Cooper, whom I love to pieces, but whose Jane Drew does not make her a good example because the other characters are all male.

The only real example I could think of was Jill Murphy, whose books were fairly popular but whose target audience is a good deal younger than the ones Crocky'd need (the books she's going to examine are Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, The Bartimaeus Trilogy).

Some help?

Current Mood: geeky

I backdated this entry as it is not very interesting and only a way of keeping track of what non-uni books I've been reading.

56.

A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett.
Granny Weatherwax is my favourite character in the entire series. Nothing, not even my love for Vimes and Vetinari, can beat my love for this character. She is one of my main reason why I love Terry Pratchett so much.

55.

I, Claudius, Robert von Ranke-Graves.
I read the German edition. Ranke-Graves actually seems to have supervised the translation - which shortened the two volumes of the original into one slim volume. I need to get hold of the originals some time, as I keep wondering what on earth they could have thought so unimportant that they chopped it down so much.
Even though I love Claudius, his character's development and story, my favourite character and reason for reading this is Livia - I absolutely love reading about her. She is evil, scheming, cold and calculating - and I love her. In spite of what she did to the other characters, I can't help feeling that she deserves becoming a goddess at the end of the book.

54.

Breakfast with Scot, by Michael Downing.
I absolutely adored this book. The relationship between the two parents is interesting and natural, Scot is absolutely adorable and his deviant gender expression is not overdone and interesting. Thoroughly entertaining and heartwarming.

Current Mood: cold

I just realised that I haven't updated this thing since August. I can't remember half the things I read since then, so this is more an informed guess than a correct account of what I've been reading since then. I can definitely remember reading four books, the first four listed here. I can't really get them in any sort of order, though.

53.

Maskerade, Terry Pratchett.
It's an old favourite solely because of Agnes. I am not that fond of the story, but I love Agnes. She is one of the most realistic characters he has ever written, and much of the things which happen to her from the "but she has a wonderful personality" to the fact that she would never be the one to be looked after after a fainting fit but always the one to fetch cold water is incredibly spot on. Crocky and I are reading it together, and it seems that with his observances about opera in particular and the performing arts in general, Terry Pratchett is incredibly and unsurprisingly spot on.

52.

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris.
I love reading his books. Even though I'm usually not a fan of books comprising of anecdotal writing, but he is so funny that it works well. I usually end up reading them out to Crocky because I want to share the funnier bits. Especially his exploits as a language student are incredibly entertaining and reminded me a lot of my own experiences as a language student abroad.

51.

Nation, Terry Pratchett.
Interview with Terry Pratchett on the book.
I usually buy P'Terry's books as soon as they come out, but with this one, I felt slightly sceptical that it would live up to my expectations, which it did, of course. The way the characters deal with the trauma of having lost everything they have known, the way they struggle to find their new position in life as their reality is toppled upside down and everything they have come to take for granted is called into question after the tidal wave which brought them together is much more interesting to read than other, similar "stranded on a desert island" books. What made this book for me are the asides on cultural relativism, cultural equality and the history of science, though. I've always have been a big fan of those.

50.

Monstrous Regiments, Terry Pratchett.
I did not really like this book when I read it first because I did not really like the ending too much although it is realistic as it does capture the complicated nature of situations like these for which there is no simple solution, especially none that help from the outside can provide. I get that. I still felt very uncomfortable with peace-loving Terry Pratchett writing about wars and soldiers.
Still, it is a good book. I do like the characters, his take on gender, patriotism, faith and fanatism.

49.

Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox, Eoin Colfer.
Wow. I love his books, but this one was really, really less good than I thought it should be. Not only does he exploit the "sick mother" trope ad nauseam, he also uses it and the "dead mother" as a reason to justify all sorts of really unlogical actions and decisions. As much as I love his characters, what he does to them in this book is not really in character for any of them. Yes, it is fun, seeing the old Artemis again, and it is fun reading the interaction of Holly and Artemis, but the plot is forced, the decisions the characters make are not explained or motivated sufficiently, and the characterisation is stretched too much to be comfortable. They practically creak in some scenes.
Also, Colfer can't write little children, much less gifted little children, to save his life. Yes, it is really hard, but it's not as though it isn't possible to do some research or watch a bleeding documentary on gifted children online, at least.
As for what is probably one of the most frequently discussed scene - the Holly/Artemis moment - as squee-worthy as it was, it made me feel very uncomfortable. I don't like the way Holly is changing. Holly is one of my favourite female characters, and the way this character is undermined by the strereotypes she gets saddled with more and more is making me uncomfortable. Holly, the kick-ass-eager-to-prove-herself-Holly from the first book would not likely tear up and go on rescue missions because of her dead mother. She also would not kiss Artemis. Yes, their interaction changed them, but I doubt that it would have changed her this much.

48.

Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
I had expected more, somehow. I do like this book, especially the characterisation of the married couple in the first couple of chapter, but the way he describes Paul Morel's characters' sexual exploits somehow did not really work for me. The importance placed on sex in the novel and the extra dimensions it receives somehow annoy me. I like my sex, and I like it a lot, but it is just that, sex, not something offering a deeper insight into the mystical nature of anything, or a spiritual union.

47.

Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer
Goodness. This is one of the worst books I have ever read, and I have read a few really bad books. It is so bad that it might as well be a parody. It is bad even in terms of the expectations raised by the first three books, which were stylistically not that good. It is really, really awful and reads like bad fanfiction.

Current Mood: cheerful

Crocky and I watched a really sweet movie last night. I's called Breakfast with Scot, and if you can, you need to watch it. It is funny, and the characters stay in character and relatively unclichéd. It's about the couple Eric and Sam who take in the son of Sam's SIL after her death because his father cannot be reached. While Eric, an ex-ice hockey player who is now a TV sports caster, is not too thrilled of their recent addition to the family, especially of the femine ways of the boy, Sam likes Scot. Waiting for Sam's brother, the boy's father to turn up, the three slowly grow together. This is the trailer:

It is not as syrupy as I had expected after seeing that there is a Christmas scene, and it convinced me so much that I ordered the novel it was based on which is also available on Google Books as a preview. I really need to check out more Canadian films if this one is anything to go by.

Ok, back to work. Somehow, the pile of "have to read" books for my paper is growing more than the "read" pile. I'm so scared of Thursday, when I'll need to show my Professor the abstract for my thesis, I can barely sleep.

Current Mood: cold

Around 1 a.m. everything is a good idea, including making graphs of the most popular books used as an inspiration by fanfic-writers based on the number of fanfics written for those books on FF.net.

Here are the (fairly unsurprising) results:

( Graphs )

I can't express how thankful I am that Discworld fics came in last, nor how appalled I am by the fact that there are so many DW ficcers in the first place. I don't know why, but for me, there is something extremely wrong and sacrilegious about the thought of people sitting down to write Vimes/Detritus cross-overs or whatever.
Although, considering how many fanfics there are for the Bible, I probably should not be surprised at the fact that they do exist.

Especially considering that there are 80 Minesweeper fics out there.

Anyway. Good night!

Current Mood: tired

Crocky and I are reading this book together:

46.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Sparks.

This is a riveting tale of a school teacher in her prime who is teaching the girls at her all girls school with her very own, unconventional means. She does this most often by disregarding any sort of given curriculum or even timetable, relating tales form her own youth instead, which are often populated with strange and erotic adventures. The girls, all of whom she considers as being able of being the "créme de la créme", love the unconventional teacher. They even have started writing second-rate real person fiction about the school teacher in her prime and her wayward, deceased soldier lover Hugh. The main characters include Sandy, who is famous for her accent, and her friends, one of whom is famous for sex, and all of whom are famous for something.

Their parents as well as the headmistress are rather sceptical of the school teachers methods and object to them. Miss Jean Brodie's students all have avery close bond to their teacher, who thinks that they all might have been the "créme de la créme" and who often reminds them that her students profit from her being in her prime. In the end, one of the student betrays Miss Brodie, though, with grave consequences for the school teacher.

Seriously, though - in spite of the many annoying, redundant repetitions of what has been said before twice a paragraph, like the fact that Miss Brodie is in her prime, or what the students will be famous for, this book is still charming. This is not only due to the frequent prolepses in the narration and analepses in the character narration, which make this otherwise sometimes quite dull narrative very poignant, but also due to the characterisation of the girls.

I saw the movie adaptation starring Dame Maggie Smith, of course, and even though I hate Miss Brodie with the passion of a thousand flaming suns, I loved Maggie Smith's performance.

Reading the book, I feel as though I lack the background to properly appreciate this novel. It seems to draw on other sources far more than on the tradition of school novels, even though Crocky is supposed to read it as one for a course. What baffles me most about this is the reception, or what I've read of it. It seems that Miss Brodie, who is an at best ambiguous and often extremely negative character in the novel is read as some kind of romantic model teacher, which she is decidedly not.

Like many literary paragons of education, Miss Brodie's education revolves entirely around their own person and which works only under her charismatic leadership which transcends the borders of schools and has a grave effect on her student's life. It is good for teachers to have an impact on the lives of their students, but I doubt that it is necessary for that to abandon all kinds of lessons and impart knowledge only in the form of private chit-chat, disregarding sciences and mathematics almost altogether. Miss Brodie's methods of selection are also highly self-centred, an attribute which can also be used to describe most of what this character does.
In the end, I am glad that Sandy betrays her, as her will to rule her students lives "forever" is megalomaniac and creepy in my eyes.

Current Mood: cold

Crocky and I are reading Autumn Term by Antonia Forest together at the moment, taking turn with reading out loud and doing crafty things or playing games while the other is reading. It's a great way to spend the holidays, and I love reading books with her.

45.

Autumn Term, by Antonia Forest.

It's one of the Faber Children's Classics, and it is utterly awesome. Even though I had the feeling that it must have been published a hundred years before it actually was published, it is a really enjoyable read.

It describes the first term at school of the twins Nick and Lawrie, who join their four older sisters at an all-girls boarding school. Instead of immediately making IIIA like all their sisters did, they are downgraded to the Third Remove because they were not able to learn a lot at home due to various illnesses. Their attempts to shine like their siblings generally end in dismay, until one of their friends decides to write, direct and produce a stage-play for the school's open day, The Prince and the Pauper, in which the twins receive main roles and which earns them a lot of recognition.

The plot is not really the main reason to enjoy this book, but the all-girls boarding school thing got me, as well as the absolutely wonderful characters and the author's style.The interaction between the sibling is very spot on, the language is pretty, the characterisation is subtle and the characters are lovely. Even though I can't say I am interested in Lawrie and Nick a lot, it's still fun reading their exploits, even though I am more interested in their siblings, especially Kay and Rowan.

Both of us have a literature crush on Rowan, enough of a crush to try and get hold of the the other copies through our library system from Great Britain, because all the other instalments are out of print and to get them I'd have to pay £90 for the first edition paper backs.

We were so endeared by the interactions and the characters that we started awarding favourability points for the characters and started plotting in this chart with reference to the scene which scored each character points as favourites.
It became very obvious very early on that Rowan was going to win by a LOT.

Character	Points
Giles	II
Peter
Rowan	IIIIIIII
Ginty (Virginia)
Anne
Karen (Kay)	IIII
Laurie (Lawrence)
Nick (Nicola)
Tim (Thalia)	I
Marie	I
Father	I
Ms Keith	I
Ms Jennings	II

( Quotes )

So, the book is a real gem, as boarding school novels go, and I do not understand why the other instalments had to sink into obscurity that they are out of print while this one has become a classic.

44.

Wings, by Terry Pratchett.
The final instalment in the Bromeliad trilogy. This is Masklin's story and how he managed to get back to their mother ship and get back to Grimma and the store nomes in the quarry.
Which I did not finish because it had been put on hold by someone at the library and I had to take it back earlier than I would have liked. I never thought this instalment was as interesting as the other two, even though Masklin is as likeable as ever and even though the store nomes reaction to meeting a decendant of his deity is hilarious.

43.

Diggers, by Terry Pratchett.
Living together in a disused quarry, especially the store nomes have troubles adjusting and putting by old feuds. Masklin, the main character, decides to go and get help from a decendant of the store nomes "deity" who founded the store. In his absence, the quarry is re-opened and Grimma, who now leads the nomes even though she is female, acts to save them.
Again, my gender-goggles were pleased, even though I keep thinking that Terry Pratchett's positive message is made easier by the fact that his female characters are all coming directly out of deeply prejudiced worlds which are just moving on to more equality. Still, I have a very soft spot for Grimma.

42.

Truckers, by Terry Pratchett
Four-inch or so tall people, originally form outer space, the nomes, who live next to a motorway decide to improve their perilous condition by moving, use on of the trucks that sometimes come by, and find out that there are nomes which live in a store. When the store has to be demolished, they leave together.
When I first read these books, I read them in German on a train ride back from my elderly relatives in Essen and frequently I had to literally bite my hand to stop myself from making a spectacle of myself by repeatedly getting into laughing fits. On second reading, in English, ten years later, I do not find these novels THAT funny anymore, but these predecessors of the Wee Free Men, successors of the Carpet People are still interesting enough for me to read all three novels. Again, my gender-goggles are deeply gratified by the progress perceptible in this world, and even though the plot itself is nothing that new, there are many elements to the story that I liked a lot, like the religion the store gnomes have.

41.

Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett.
A story about the first female wizard who goes to Ankh-Morpork's famous Unseen University, or tries to, as women can't enter the university.
Not in this pretty version, obviously. What I love about Terry Pratchett is that you can analyse his books at leisure and still hardly ever be disappointed. I have never used race goggles on his books, he may have skeletons in the closet there, but gender-wise, and my gender-spectacles are permanent by now, I'm afraid, this man is perfect. This is one of his earliest novels and even though he cheerfully draws on the same stereotypes as many of his Fantasy-writing colleagues do it does not matter, as he does so tongue-in-cheek, as he deconstructs the things he does use as he goes along. The deeply prejudiced world he depicts at the beginning of the story is already going somewhere by the end of the novel, and this deeply optimistic view of his world as a place which starts out bad but is evolving to something better every novel makes his Discworld novels such a great read.

Current Mood: cheerful

40.

Slam, by Nick Hornby.
Still one of my favourite books, and I am still not sure what to think of the content. It is an interesting commentary on teenage fatherhood, in a genre in which I've only ever encountered accounts of teenage motherhood, and the style make this one awesome, but there are just some things I really have problems with, like Sam being "whizzed into the future" by a poster. Just... No.

39.

Herr Lehmann, by Sven Regener.
The first chapter I slept through entirely. I was bored and annoyed by the main character and really, really could not be bothered to feel for him. This continued to stay the same until his best friend was about to have a nervous breakdown. Before that, the plot just seems to be incredibly bland, and the style aggravating, a variation of "young male intellectual gets laid by beautiful woman". Who at first appears to be a match for his loquaciousness, but then is of coursed too baffled by the sheer force of his manly maleness and rhetoric to continue being brainy.
From the moment on at which his best friend starts cracking up I started to love this story, and now the novel's strange, passiv and detached, yet supposedly brilliant and completely useless main character are somehow endearing to me. The way it utterly fails to give an account or relate the events in this novel to the political situation of the Wende is believable, as the more significant events of the political reality completely get lost among the gritty, smaller events of every-day life.

Current Mood: calm

38.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The End, by Daniel Handler.
I am still not sure what to make of this ending. There seem to be some loose ends, but I daresay that it's possible to assemble clues from the series to fill in the blanks. I don't really know what to make of the dilemma that the last book's end presented me with, though, and I like that. It seems that the series itself leaves the heroes in this grey zone between heroes and villains, and that is a really awesome thing to do at the end of a series for young readers. I also loved learning more about Count Olaf's backstory, curiously enough.

37.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Penultimate Peril, by Daniel Handler.
Another better novel. It's awesome to finally meet the sister of the fictional author of the story. The added information on the main plot were really worth the read, although I had a hard time justifying the actions of the children towards the end of the series. It seems very hard to do, and even though I feel that the plot means to make them remain in the roles of heroes, their actions rather show that they have become, in fact, villains. I'm really curious how the last book deals with that.

36.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Grim Grotto, by Daniel Handler.
Another great instalment that was fun reading. Especially the introduction of yet another grey zone between heroes and villain made this book really awesome for me.

35.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Slippery Slope, by Daniel Handler.
I loved this one, really loved. The way the romance sub-plot is not played out as something of utmost importance, finding out about V.F.D, the continued use of the Swinburne-quote - I loved it. Finally, the overall plot has gathered some momentum, and the style continues to stay awesome. I also stopped being aggravated by the lack of realism in the baby's behaviour.

34.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Carnivorous Carnival, by Daniel Handler.
This book was really interesting. It's slightly depressing that this is really the first one which is so thoroughly entertaining and quite suspenseful at times, although I couldn't say whether or not this wasn't already the case in the eighth book, which was out at the time and which I had to skip.

33.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Vile Village. by Daniel Handler.
Yay! Finally! Plot! The return of the useless guardian is even made bearable by that.

32.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Ersatz Elevator, by Daniel Handler.
This book had one of the most annoyingly unrealistic scenes of the entire bloody series - the baby climbing up the elevator using her teeth. No creative licence in the world can make that ok. Also, the reappearance of the one evil-and-one-incompetent-guardian-thing makes this boring. The glimpses of an underlying plot of the series makes it worth the read, though.

31.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Austere Academy, by Daniel Handler.
I really enjoyed reading about the Triplets, although the more blatant moments of children's literature and the resulting lack of realism and sense were annoying again. I liked that there seems to be plot on the horizon there somewhere. Can't wait.

30.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Miserable Mill, by Daniel Handler.
Yawn. Also, the less realistic things are getting annoying. I still enjoy the Snicket parts and the style, but the children's book literature moments get on my nerves.

Current Mood: awake

29.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Wide Window, Daniel Handler.
I hated this one with the passion of a hundred flaming suns. Why? Because of the fact that one of the brats thought that the henchman of the sinister Count Olaf whose gender is unclear is the "scariest", and apparently because of that alone, and because they called hir an "it".
The "hooked arm" and "wooden leg" things were bad enough, but this one was really over the top, as it seemed to be the only reason for the person to be horrible.

28.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Reptile Room, Daniel Handler.
Even as a young child I would have found Mr Poe too aggravating to believe. I do wonder about the dedications of the books, though, and I've come to like the tone. On the whole, the backstory of Lemony Snicket is far more interesting to read about and think about than the children's predicament. The two layers of the story work very well together.
Maybe it's only because I've gotten used to them, but the characters seem rather likeable all of the sudden, and although I still find it very difficult to actually sympathise with them, they do seem likeable.

27.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Bad Beginning, Daniel Handler.
I think I'm only reading the series because I couldn't resist the temptation and irresistible appeal of the cover and design of the books.
I have to say that I hated the movie, but that was mostly due to the presence of Jim Carey whom I really can't abide. I think that the Eternal Sunshine and The Truman Show were the only movies which feature him which didn't make me aggressive and nauseous in equal parts.
Something about the books strikes me as incredibly phoney, which may well be the attempt to stuff as much Gothic-novelesque imagery into this book as humanly possible combined with the language. It's like a Tim Burton movie in book form for early readers.
The language of the narrator annoys me slightly, but I think that I would have enjoyed the books as a young child, before the missing logic would have gotten on my nerves.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Universität Hamburg, Germany

I absolutely loved Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and I'll try to get hold of some of his story collections ASAP. Seems like other people like him, too, though, all the books at my library are out.

26.

Homoplot - The Coming-Out Story and Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Identity, by Esther Saxey.
I hate coming out stories, and this book raises a few very interesting and critical issues about the genre. So far it's very interesting.

( Why I dislike coming-out stories )

Current Location: Uni Hamburg, RRZ
Current Music: Printer

I really should stop reading several books at the same time. It usually means I don't finish all of them.

25.

Dress Your Family in Cordoroy and Denim, David Sedaris.
I have to admit that after reading the enthused voices of various newspaper critics on the first page I would have expected something completely different, but I am by no means disappointed. I love the main character, Sedaris' style and the way he effortlessly combines autobiographic episodes with social commentary and humour.
Not as "Hilarious!!!" as the critics said, but I love it nontheless. Or maybe I misunderstand the meaning of "hilarious". I always thought that that meant something like "pant-wettingly funny", but that's not what this book is to me; it has a rather heart-warming, if sometimes slightly wry humour? Hmm.

( So complete was their power that I actually felt honoured when one of them hit me in the mouth with a rock. He'd gotten me after school, and upon returning home, I ran into my sister's bedroom, hugging my bloody Kleenex and crying, 'It was Thad!!!' )

24.

Who cares about English Usage?, David Crystal.
Oh, this is a book that several of our prescriptive grammarians need, need, need to read. It's both short and also a really funny read, and illustrates some of the things very nicely which grammar nazis on the intarwebz regularly throw fits about and which are just evidences of language changing, as it tends to. Good heavens.

("S.O.S., as everyone knows, stands for 'Save Our Syntax'. At various places in this book, I'll be discussing under this heading a grammatical point which regularly causes people to send up distress rockets, and demand linguistic lifejackets.")

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: RRZ Hamburg
Current Music: Scratch-scratch-scratch sound of the wheel of my neighbour's mouse, scrolling

23.

Drachen, by Joseph Nigg. (How to raise and keep a dragon)
This probably doesn't even count as a book, but it is so incredibly cute I wanted to include it.

22.

The English Language - a guided tour of the language, by David Crystal. For my semester, or at least the WS0203 IELS course, the Welsh professor probably is the godfather of Linguistics, as we were treated to a taped lecture he held in Hamburg a few semesters before by our teacher, Ada Whitaker.
("Accommodation has gotten me into the worst sort of trouble. I was talking to another arts enthusiast in Glasgow the other day, and we were agreeing about funding and exhibitions and all sorts of other topics, and after a while, Ah felt me voice go like thes. And then it happened. My partner in conversation was delighted and asked, 'Are ye from Glasgow?" Now, there's the problem - the Glaswegians are used to having their accent ridiculed, and react rather violently, so what was I supposed to say? 'No!' - he would think that I was making fun of him, and he would hit me. 'Yes!' - 'Which part of Glasgow?' - 'Uh, I don't know!' - and he would hit me again.")

21.

Eric, or Little by Little, by Frederic William Farrar.
A boarding school novel. A gripping tale of the snares of moral corruption that lurk behind every corner in the every-day life of a schoolboy in the nineteenth century (like cheating in exams, smoking the pipe, or using bad language that god does not delight in, oh my).
Most of the conflicts that arise between the students and the teachers seem absolutely ludicrous (one boy pinned a note that said "[teacher] is a surly devil" to the board and did not confess when he had the choice. As a punishment, he was "tried" in a mock trial by the entire student body. Their punishment for him was making him "walk the gauntlet", a beating from all of his fellow students. He was also subsequently caned in front of the entire school by the headmaster and expelled afterwards) from today's perspective - or at least my perspective, but it is still a charming window into a world that is comparatively whole and simple.

20.

Middlemarch, by George Eliot.
Mostly because I couldn't remember what happens towards the last third of the novel. I like it a lot, although there are parts that are incredibly tedious, and parts that are incredibly charming.

19.

Reading Lolita in Teheran, by Azar Nafisi. (Reading "Lolita" in Teheran - a memoir in books)
A fascinating read with many unbelievable insights into the daily life of an Iranian college professor. It made many of the things I already know about more real and thereby more horrifying.

18.

Mein Herz so weiß,by Xavier Marias. (A Heart so white)

17.

Homeland, by R. A. Salvatore.
Ever since duckygirlrocks wrote that entry in her LJ about the main character I wanted to read the series.
It is good so far, although I had to take the book back to the library before I finished reading it, though, so I still need to take it out again to find out how it actually ends. Needless to say, someone else has it in their clutches now and won't give it back.

Current Mood: recumbent

17.

The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane.
Blegh. This is one of the coming-of-age stories we really can do without.

16.

Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy.
I love this book. It is the second of Hardy's books I ever read, in a small cottage in the Brecon Beacons, and in spite of the prominence of the love plot, I always loved this book. Gabriel Oak is one of the most likeable characters I ever read about, and his and Bathshebas love plot one of the most interesting, too.
Why can't all couples in all love plots be like this? I liked it such a lot during my teenage years that I am worried that if I reread it now, it will be worse than it is in my head.

15.

Pompeii, Robert Harris.
Watch the manly, grieving widower battle the forces of bisexual promiscuity (although the terms are apparently interchangeable in this book) and see the world's first volcano with moral awareness who spares the innocent.
In spite of the fast-paced account of the final hours of the city this book does not live up to my expectations at all. This could have been so much better.

14.

Slam, by Nick Hornby.
So the drooling in front of the shelf with the hardcover version is finally over. I could not wait to get my hands on this one. So far (p.13), it's a really good read, not that I seriously had expected anything else. Nick Hornby is one of the few authors who really have never disappointed me. Even though there are recurring patterns, especially as far as the structure of his characters is concerned, his books remain very distinct, probably because the topics they deal with are so different.

13.

Imperium, Robert Harris.
An account of Cicero's life told by his slave - this biography actually existed, but was lost. It covers his life until he is elected Consul.
Even though the main focus of the story is obviously the political manoeuvres necessary to get him there, my favourite character will forever be the orator's wife Terentia. She is such an incredibly strong woman, and I admire her greatly. I will never forgive Cicero, the historical figure, nor the character in this book, for leaving her for a much younger girl late in life. Of course I can't know the circumstances and he probably did have his reasons, but I find it very hard to understand how anyone can want to leave this amazing woman.
Brushing up names of speeches and politicians as well as some of the affairs while reading this did not do any harm, either, considering that I had to translate parts of the very speeches he was writing in the book in my Latin class this week. It's a nice way of bringing the world back to life.

I really should read more historic novels, they are usually fun ways of reading an interpretation of times past, and looking up on whether they are historical correct is also good for jogging the memory. Which reminds me, I really need to check out the series by Rebecca Gablé that

lordhellebore recommended.

Current Mood: chipper

Er... after A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian, there was...

12.

Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby.
I love Nick Hornby. Whenever I buy one of his book I get uneasy and hesitate, worried that it might not be as good as the preceding ones. It was the same with this one, but of course, again, I have not been disappointed. This one was no exception, of course.

11.

New Moon, by Stephanie Meyer.
I am not sure what to say. I enjoyed reading it a lot and was unable to put it down, while I was not thinking about it and merely concentrating on the characters, who have really grown on me. I love Jakob, in particular, which is most probably because I love werewolves. Lupin is probably the only werwolf in fiction I did not get exited about in the slightest. Oh, well, and the ones in Holbein's Wolfsherz or what it was called were not too great, either, but that's mostly down to the awfulness of the author.
As soon as I put it down, the months of discussing the role of women in Harry Potter and the resulting voices became difficult to close out and I am ( not so sure about it now. )

10.

Art & Lies. A Tale for Three Voices and a Bawd, Jeanette Winterson.
Not sure what to make of this yet.

Penguin's Poems for Life, Laura Barber (ed.)
Oh this made me so angry. It sucks. The poems don't, but the selection isn't very good to fit the (megalomaniac) title. It should be called, "Poems for Life for Men over fifty" or something, because the way she presents "life" and it's relevant issues through her selection clearly is not intended, by and large, for anyone who is not a British heterosexual upper middle class white male over fifty - although there are a few poems that are not exclusively directed at that target group. Well, maybe she has a point, maybe only that part of the population would buy and read a Penguin anthology called "poems for life". The "love" section especially is aggravating. It's almost exclusively men's experiences of first love.
It is difficult, of course, as the vast majority of canonical poets out there are heterosexual males who wrote for heterosexual males, I am aware of that. Still.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Home

LOOK AT THIS AND REJOICE WITH ME IN FRENZIED ALL-CAPS:

This is the copy of "In Memoriam" that Crocky was allowed to use as the "old book" read by Mr Hardcastle in their initial scene in the play. The owner gave it to her, and she gave it to me.
It's a really beautiful little book, bound in green leather that's turning brown around the edges, with that leaf pattern burnt into it and almost faded gold leaf at the top, and, to my great pleasure, a handwritten dedication from someone who gave this book to a "Stella" as a present.

( In Memoriam )

Current Mood: ecstatic
Current Location: Uelzen
Current Music: A song sung by a Finnish church choir

A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian, by Marina Lewycka.
I loved that book and I fell in love with the notion of mixed languages that is ever present in the book right away - even though there are no passages in Ukranian, there are frequent references of things being said in Ukranian or a mixture of Ukranian and English, and I know how that feels well enough to enjoy the reference a lot. I also fell in love with the main character and her idiosyncratic ways of describing her family right away.
It's not as funny as I thought it would be, it's a tragicomedy more than a comedy. Still, the relationships of the characters and the light they shed on the history that many people in my country would probably not find on their internal map is great.
Even though there are many books on migration and immigration and otherness in a strange country, there are not many books that address the situation of immigrants from Eastern European countries, that made it even more interesting for me to read this novel.

Tintenherz, by Cornelia Funke.
Yeah. I whined about it here. I do not like the characters, the names, her language, the way female characters are treated (sigh. Again.), the way she always immediately ends any suspense she might create, the predictability. I don't get why this is so popular. But maybe I never gave her a chance. I'm going to re-read it in English and see if there's a difference, I am really curious about that. I have the feeling that many of the things that set my teeth on edge- for whatever reason - like the names ("Staubfinger") will probably sound better to my ears in English ("Dustfinger". Huh).
I kind of want to buy the book because the cover is so amazingly pretty, though. Silly. Still, maybe Crocky's and my F1 will enjoy the books when they are ten and under.

(Oooh, there's an interview with the author here. Huh, her English is better than I would have thought it would be.)

The Stone Gods, by Jeanette Winterson.
I love this book and I was really sad that I had to take it back to the library, I would have loved to re-read it. I rather enjoyed Winterson's style and the refrain-like passage:

The new world – El Dorado, Atlantis, the Gold Coast, Newfoundland, Plymouth Rock, Rapanaui, Utopia, Planet Blue. Chanc'd upon, spied through a glass darkly, drunken stories strapped to a barrel of rum, shipwreck, a Bible Compass, a giant fish led us there, a storm whirled us to this isle. In the wilderness of space, we found...

Even though I usually do not like love stories, especially not if they are so freighted with doom and foreboding, I did like this one, and the circular world it is set in.

Current Mood: cold

I know that as a German from Hamburg and a lover of German children's literature I should not be saying this, but I really loathe her writing.
I don't know what the woman has done to me. I think it must have been Drachenreiter (Dragon Rider). It comes with purple prose, random metaphors, a very predictable plot and boring characters. My brother had to read it for school years ago, and since my entire family loves Fantasy literature we ended up reading it together with my mother, reading it to each other in turns as we so frequently did read books together back then. All three of us weren't able to cope after the first few chapters, because every single interesting complication was immediately explained, resolved, clarified. We abandoned it half-way through, after we had checked that our theories about how it was going to end were correct (every single one was) and I never picked up a book by the woman again.
I thought that she was a local author and that that was the main reason why the school teacher had taken an interest with her.

Not so.
Suddenly, Tintenherz (Inkheart) is hyped, and people from all over the world are developing an interest in this woman whose style rubs me the wrong way so much.

So I decided to read Tintenherz, trying to see why it is so popular. I am probably not giving her enough of a chance, but something about her style and her settings and her characters just drives me up the wall and makes it impossible for me to enjoy the story. I am not sure whether it's the names, the return of the random metaphors, the book obsession which is emphasised to the point of kitsch, the extremely precocious heroine who has read novels that fit in nicely with the highly anglocentric ideal curriculum of children's literature a teenager would have read - maybe fifty years ago, or just the fact that again, the characters are... well, boring, and everything that could be potentially interesteing or suspense-creating is immediately explained away.

Maybe the book is better in English, but I have the feeling that to like this book one either has to be really, really young, or someone who doesn't have German as their mother tongue, or really willing to make a huge effort to read these books. TIME said the book was, "her most elegant and accomplished work to date" and the New York Times even had it on their best seller list, and I really, really don't see why.

Maybe I am going to like the movie better.

Current Mood: calm

Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman.
It's been ages since I've read anything by Neil Gaiman. I think Stardust was last. I like his writing, and I fell for Fat Charlie almost instantly. I love, love, love Neil Gaiman for incorporating a West-African myth, that happens so rarely.

Current Mood: calm

Profile

Mothwing

Books

January 2022

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31

Page Summary

Oh, Kristin. I am disappoint.
Join The Challenge.
Reality check
I Shall Wear Midnight
I enjoy going shopping with my brother
"The African-American Experience"
Job-hunting again
... the hell is this?
Tutoring doesn't fix everything, 1868 edition
Book habit
Good things.
"Won't someone think of the children", lake poet style.
Good Things
Never read the comments.
Now I could do with lordhellebore's "aghast" icon...
50 book challenge 2009
Book recommendations!
Unseen Academicals
Day 13
Day 4
Three generations of English textbooks and other things found on our attic
(no subject)
Amazon.com asshatery
Dragonflight and tent pegs
Donne icons
50 book challenge
Book snapshots
50 book challenge 2009
The 50 book challenge 2008 masterlist
Fantasy books with female heroines? British fantasy books with female heroines?
Strong women
50 book challenge: 47-53
Procrastinating...
Fanfiction: Books
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Reading Autumn Term, by Antonia Forest
Lots of Terry Pratchett...
50 book challenge
50 book challenge
50 book challenge
50 book challenge
Book
50 book challenge
Book challenge
Book challenge
Book challenge
Best present ever
50 book challenge
Cornelia Funke
Book challenge

Style Credit

Style: Fruit Salad for Leftovers by sforzinda

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Thursday, July 17th, 2025 05:21 pm

Uton we hycgan hwær we ham agen, ond þonne geþencan hu we þider cumen

Entries tagged with books

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags