Sometimes I think my sense of humor is broken. Take something like The Royal Tenenbaums, which most everyone seems to think is hilarious with a capital H. (Query: When saying something is [adjective] with a capital [A], should [adjective] be capped, or does that make the “with a capital [A]” superfluous?) I saw The Royal [...]
Archive for February, 2011
Constantine Cavafy
Posted in Misc., tagged #teampoetskissing, Bosie's biographer didn't even like him, CP Cavafy, I now long and long for My Dear Good Friend to be a real thing, I would genuinely trade the existence of the Browning letters for the existence of the Wilde-Cavafy letters, if Oscar Wilde and Constantine Cavafy had been an item then the Brownings and the Waldman-Chabons and the Palmer-Gaimans would have to watch their backs as far as awesome literary coupledom goes, one of those times when the post gets away from you and ends up in a very different place from where it started, oscar wilde, poetry, to whom can I apply to arrange for Oscar Wilde this life trajectory that I find to be greatly superior to his actual life trajectory? on February 22, 2011 | 33 Comments »
C. P. Cavafy: I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM. I have such a crush on Cavafy right now. I want to collect every translation of his poems that has ever been done, and compare them. I want to learn modern Greek, an impulse I have never had before, just so I can read Cavafy in [...]
Review: The Oracle of Stamboul, Michael David Lukas
Posted in 3 Stars, Heard about from the internets, tagged a very tiny tiny bit of magical realism, books the FTC needs to know about, historical fiction, I am so behind on reviews! Ack!, I know how the Ottoman Empire falls in the end because I read a book about it, I may or may not be watching Gossip Girl as I write this post, Michael David Lukas, The Oracle of Stamboul, TLC Blog Tour on February 16, 2011 | 27 Comments »
And magical realism rears its ugly — no, I’m kidding. The Oracle of Stamboul has the tiniest ever amount of magical realism, actually the perfect amount. At the start of the story, when our protagonist Eleonora is about to be born, the author mentions a flock of hoopoes (they look like this, if you’re curious) [...]
Review: A Star Shall Fall, Marie Brennan
Posted in 4 Stars, Heard about from the internets, tagged A Star Shall Fall, fantasy, hurrah for being grounded in historical reality, I checked out a book by Elizabeth Bear that has like the exact same premise as Midnight Never Come, I had delicious Mexican brunch this weekend, I know I have been terrible about writing up reviews and I swear I will get better, Marie Brennan, saving the world, vivid dreams screw up my day sometimes on February 13, 2011 | 19 Comments »
I could swear I wrote this review already. I wonder if I dreamed it. I frequently have vivid, detailed dreams where I do things that need to get done, which I think is my subconscious’s way of trying to keep me asleep. One day last month I dreamed I checked my email and we had [...]
Review: The Metropolis Case, Matthew Gallaway
Posted in 2 Stars, Heard about from a person, tagged another use for my highly specific moral is Rent, but I saw La Boheme years before I saw Rent, fact is I just like the Tudors better than opera, Matt Gallaway, maybe I will really go to BAM one of these days and watch a high-def screening of an opera, my supervisor at work is deeply concerned that I have never seen any professional opera and keeps suggesting ways that I cheaply can, second book in a row I read where I didn't connect with the characters but I wouldn't read the sequel to this if there was one, the book makes me think Wagner is the one to see?, The Metropolis Case on February 4, 2011 | 34 Comments »
When I was telling my friend tim about the plot of this book, the title of which I did not mention, she said, “Oh hey! It sounds like The Makropoulis Case,” which evidently is an opera by a Czech composer I’ve never heard of because I am very, very ignorant of all things opera-related. I [...]
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Review: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and The Broken Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin
Posted in 4 Stars, Heard about from the internets, tagged books in a series, fantasy, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, The Broken Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin, you do not really need to praise me in the comments; I don't really think it was all that clever, words I have invented for my own use, gods and mortals, Jemisin portrays Oree's blindness really well too and I was going to link to her post on disabled protagonists but then I didn't do that on February 26, 2011 | 34 Comments »
I hate reviewing sequels. Once I have reviewed the original volume in a series, I have a hard time motivating myself to review the subsequent ones, even if I really, really liked them. Patrick Ness was an exception to this, probably because his books were so insanely good and rich and full of themes to [...]
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