Posted in fantasy, movies on June 27, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Although I actually hated this movie as a very small child, on the grounds that it was scary and Kate Capshaw’s hair was phenomenally stupid.
Reposted from one of my old journal sites…
Some hard-won lessons from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom:
Harrison Ford is dead inside. Seriously, he’s got to be. Why else would he [...]
Posted in books, fantasy, fiction, gaiman, pratchett on June 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Although not, unfortunately, for a Good Omens sequel. At least, not so far as I know (but those multiple editions of Good Omens in every Barnes and Noble certainly do confuse the issue…).
Anyway!
Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky
A friend got me The Wee Free Men as a late birthday present (along [...]
Posted in alexander mccall smith, books, fiction, mysteries on June 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series
I actually read the first novel in this series of mysteries years ago and was so thoroughly underwhelmed by it that I didn’t remember finishing the damn thing. Like, AT ALL. When I picked it back up a month or so ago, I kept reading…and reading…and [...]
Posted in Deirdre Le Faye, books, nonfiction on June 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: The World of her Novels
For the first two hundred pages or so, Le Faye gives a good general social history of middle class England from the time of Jane Austen’s parents’ marriage in the 1760s until Austen’s death in 1817. Having set the stage, she then examines the time and place [...]
Posted in books, catherine friend, farming, nonfiction on June 19, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Catherine Friend, Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn
Friend, a life-long suburbanite/Midwestern city-dweller, finally caved to her girlfriend’s wish to be a farmer and wound up sheep wrangling in Minnesota.
The material in this book was pretty interesting–farming is disgusting, is all I’m sayin’–but Friend’s narrative voice was frankly [...]
Posted in books, fiction, historical fiction, megan chance on June 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Megan Chance, An Inconvenient Wife
The setting: 1880s New York City. The heroine: Lucy Carelton, near-professional hysteric. The only daughter of a wealthy, aristocratic old New York family, Lucy married her father’s stockbroker at the age of 25 and now, four whole years later, is completely losing her shit. She and her husband have been to [...]
Posted in comic books, fantasy, movies, narnia on June 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Ironman
This was good and fun and enjoyable, but I don’t really get the endless flailing and love for it. Although Robert Downey Jr. is a thing of ridiculous beauty…
In conclusion, Gwyneth Paltrow is possibly the worst actress to ever win an Oscar. Okay, okay, second worst after Marisa Tomei. But still. IT’S A CLOSE CONTEST, [...]
Posted in books, fiction, mysteries, tagged book, fiction, mystery, racism on June 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Ruth Rendell, Anna’s Book
I read this as a young teenager and really liked it, but felt…mildly unsettled by the last third in a way that I couldn’t quite articulate at the time. A decade and a Women’s Studies degree later, though, and I sure as hell know what’s wrong with it now!
But first, the synopsis…
This [...]
Posted in books, china, fiction, historical fiction on June 6, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
In the first half of the nineteenth century, Lily (the protagonist of the novel) becomes “old sames” with the titular Snow Flower; basically, it’s like an arranged marriage, only for best friends. Snow Flower is from a “good” family and Lily’s parents are pretty much one step above [...]
