The Snatchabook - Helen Docherty,Thomas Docherty A story about bedtime books and adorable forest creatures: twee and appealing as anything. It's a goThe Snatchabook - Helen Docherty,Thomas Docherty A story about bedtime books and adorable forest creatures: twee and appealing as anything. It's a good thing someone had't been holding the library's copy when I saw the cover, lest fingers had been lost. And it's as good as the idea sounds. But the art really makes it. Somehow it looks very like a children's books from the mid-60s without copying at all. It doesn't look like Scarry's style, but the little homes with the little beds and all, it beautifully evokes those vintage books. library copy
2016 July 14 I love these books so much. Stories about women in wartime are catnip to me. But this book, in which the daily struggle to keep calm and c2016 July 14 I love these books so much. Stories about women in wartime are catnip to me. But this book, in which the daily struggle to keep calm and carry on is so hard for Britons: it gives me all the feels, but also hope for humanity. 2013 January 1 2010 March 14
It was everything I could do not to start this so far ahead of its proper turn in the stack. Just saying.
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My, what a big book. But such an enormous pleasure. Much of the time, after turning the last page on a 500 page book, and discovering a note saying: hey, you'll have to read the next book to find out what happens, I'd be slightly vexed. Here, the only disappointment is that I'll have to wait six months.
Willis uses the device of time-travel so effectively, she's made it her own. It enables her to address modern sensibilities and issues, as well as to enter into the mindset of a given period. In fact, time travel exists in order to permit her characters to really understand a time, and the people who lived through it, as fully human. The historians start out with some information, but with a great deal of distance. She won't let them leave until they really become an active part of the time they're visiting.
In this book she sends historians back to Britain in WWII. One guy is a jerk, the other isn't, the gals are pretty nearly indistinguishable. But trapped in their assignments they become Britons fighting the war, and they become distinct individuals as well.
I've said before that Willis is the master of writing bureaucratic muddle. She can turn it to comic effect, as in To Say Nothing of the Dog, or she can use it to heighten the drama and add poignancy, as in Passage. Here, she does both. And the net effect is to take the accounts of survivors and pull them together into an engrossing and coherent narrative. Blackout, together with All Clear, is going to be one of the most memorable novels of WWII that I've ever read. ...more
I'm nearly out of library books from the big library relocation hoarding I did last month. My, what big books are left on the stack.
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In the twenty oI'm nearly out of library books from the big library relocation hoarding I did last month. My, what big books are left on the stack.
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In the twenty or so years since I read The Gold Coast I had forgotten much of the detail. When asked what this one was about all I could guess was "really rich people". Thanks, DeMille for the recap, and for the nod to The Great Gatsby & The Diamond as Big as the Ritz. I was right in remembering that DeMille's books are fun to read.
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A pleasure to read, even unto a satisfying, but unexpected ending....more
Homer's Odyssey - Gwen Cooper Everybody falls in love with Homer, the badass tiny little blind cat. Me, too.Copy borrowed from MIL Monday night we celHomer's Odyssey - Gwen Cooper Everybody falls in love with Homer, the badass tiny little blind cat. Me, too.Copy borrowed from MIL Monday night we celebrated my beloved FIL's birthday with cake and cards with cats on them and gifts. (My husband's cakes are super delicious, and oh, so chocolaty.) I was returning her copy of Rosemary to her, and my beloved MIL mentioned this book again, saying I should read it, but she couldn't loan it to me, so I should download a copy. Second time she's mentioned it this week. She's loaned me many a fabulous book over the years of our happy association, and started me on many a now-beloved writer (Sarah Rayne and Minette Walters come immediately to mind, both in the same vein as our mutually-admired Barbara Vine novels) so anything she suggests must be considered.
Last night, not feeling any of my current non-fiction books (Shirley Jackson's not-yet-husband isn't content to just copulate with every woman he meets, but he also feels the need to report on it to her, which Shirley hates, and which any good advice columnist, say Mallory Ortberg's Dear Prudence, would agree is just plain mean), so instead I decided to download myriad samples, including Homer's Odyssey and Homer's Nine Lives. This morning I commuted reading samples (KHAN! is a great name for a Maine Coon, but it's apparently a kid's book, which I wasn't in the mood for, Homer's Nine Lives and Homer's Odyssey were adorable at the get-go, The City on The Edge of Forever starts with Ellison going off on everyone else, as he does, and complaining about the money everyone else is making, as if a professional writer can't write a fanfic for fun and enjoy getting paid for it [Ellison only sees in black and white, and seems to think that the devil is real and buying up souls for cheap]. I admire Ellison's fiction and criticism, but find his constant pissed-offedness tiresome. (Dude, it is not all about you. Don't assume malevolence until you have first ruled out incompetence.)
So, I arrive at work and want to place requests for the Homer books and the Ellison book, of which I will certainly read every word he includes, but will mostly laugh at how personally he takes everything. And that's when I discover that I have read Homer's Odyssey and quite liked it. I'm thinking it's time for a reread though, if I didn't recognize the passage I read and didn't say much about it in an my earlier mention.
Gibson has this very cool writing style that's just a little off, such that you can't quite identify how. Although the story is presumably set in the Gibson has this very cool writing style that's just a little off, such that you can't quite identify how. Although the story is presumably set in the present of its publishing (2007) a date isn't stated. Something is up. One thread follows a journalist hired by a soon-to-be (maybe?) new magazine called Node. One thread follows a young man in New York who works for his family. The final thread follows an addict named Milgrim who's been kidnapped by government man, although a specific department is never named.
It's all very oblique and unclear, as we follow these three we learn a bit more, but there is never a moment when all is made clear. The best you get here is clearer.
And it works, all this viewing of everything slant, in fact it makes for a pretty gripping caper story. It feels like science fiction, not because it's currently impossible any of it, but because it's just so odd. I don't usually think of art directors in connection with stories, but the oddness is constantly reinforced by the visual images Gibson creates: an enormous futon at a hotel, Tito in a leather porkpie hat, a single boy's coat hanging in a closet.
It's surreal, and all of our characters view it through a slight remove. There is nothing visceral, it's all visual, like the locative art, and the disbanded band. Weird and cool....more
You're probably not going to like the same pieces I do here, just because they cover such a broad range of topics. This does demonstrate nicely why I You're probably not going to like the same pieces I do here, just because they cover such a broad range of topics. This does demonstrate nicely why I read Whatever and why I read Scalzi's fiction. I like his voice, his sense of humor, his pragmatism, and his occasional scathing tone. He writes much like the Spouse, I think, whose writing I'm very fond of. Although the much-touted love of Journey is points-off.
My favorite bits: why some Christians should be called Leviticans, why every political party affiliation is annoying, on the joys of marriage, on poverty, on the Creationism museum. The ones written on 9/11 and the Iraqi war don't hold up as well. But still, I have to love a guy who blithely acknowledges that while he has some very small measure of celebrity, it is less than his cat Ghlaghghee enjoys.
A good book to keep around, because there's something to delight and annoy everyone in here.
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26 February 2020 I am curious to see how well the prediction of gay president holds up....more
David Levithan is going to go down in the history books as a HUGE figure in YA, both as a writer, and as an editor. He writes so simply and sincerely David Levithan is going to go down in the history books as a HUGE figure in YA, both as a writer, and as an editor. He writes so simply and sincerely about people trying to find a way through tragedy, trying to connect with humanity. He's earnest, but not sappy. Hopeful, in a striving sort of way, without any naivete....more
First things first: skip the introduction. It's more boring than any other section, and all it tells is what the general outline of the book is. You cFirst things first: skip the introduction. It's more boring than any other section, and all it tells is what the general outline of the book is. You can get that from the contents.
This is a book which is very well-researched, and well-reasoned, with apt examples. The net result is that what Silver is saying seems self-evident. Forecasting is hard, forecasting accurately is harder. The National Weather Service gets it right, the McLoughlin Group gets it horrifically wrong, but earns ratings. By the time you get to the end you'll be saying "of course" to everything Silver writes, because he's built just that substantial a case.
If someone had told me, ahead of time, that this was a book explaining how Bayesian reasoning can make forecasting better, that it talked a lot about baseball and poker, I wouldn't have read it, probably. Don't let that dissuade you. In real life we are constantly making our own or interpreting the forecasts of others, and Silver explains how we can do that better. It's not flashy or gimmicky, but it's truly useful advice we can all apply to a greater or lesser extent.
I was a little afraid I'd forgotten too much and wouldn't be able to pick it back up. Silly me. I got right back into the story with no problems, evenI was a little afraid I'd forgotten too much and wouldn't be able to pick it back up. Silly me. I got right back into the story with no problems, even when they messed me about by changing the time in the story. Clever stuff. I love the comic shop, and the childish arguments over abandoned plotlines (never an issue for me, I was a fan of horror comics with no through story, but I've known people who could argue about beloved series).
The mayor of New York City was previously a crime-fighting superhero who could communicate with machine, called The Great Machine. The book is set in The mayor of New York City was previously a crime-fighting superhero who could communicate with machine, called The Great Machine. The book is set in an alternate world where only one tower collapsed on 9/11, but which is still on a run-up to war.
It's hard not to love Vaughan. He doesn't go for simple answers. An act of terrorism is pursued as a criminal matter, and the business of keeping the city safe is a complicated legal and ethical one. I can't wait to see where this is going next.
I wouldn't have expected a picture book about a Maasai tribe to move me to tears. Deedy never actually mentions the full horror of what happened on thI wouldn't have expected a picture book about a Maasai tribe to move me to tears. Deedy never actually mentions the full horror of what happened on the morning of 9/11, and yet the book resonates with the pain and shock felt by so many, around the world. A wonderful, amazing, and unexpected tribute to humanity. As well, it offers an opportunity for discussion for children in a way that isn't traumatic. Perhaps part of what moved me is that the lesson of the book, about people caring for one another, holds true for dealing with any devastating event, such as the earthquake in Haiti.
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