The Wordy Shipmates is about the Puritans, John Winthrop and his lot, who came to America, and all the stuff they did. Vowell admires their courage and intelligence without giving them a pass on all the things we don’t like about Puritans – the intransigence, the praying for American Indians to die of plague, etc. [...]
Archive for the ‘Heard about from the internets’ Category
The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell
Posted in 1 Star, Heard about from the internets, tagged nonfiction, Sarah Vowell, The Wordy Shipmates on November 19, 2009 | 25 Comments »
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, Laurie R. King
Posted in 3 Stars, Heard about from the internets, tagged Christmas, Laurie R. King, mystery, Sherlock Holmes, The Beekeeper's Apprentice on November 13, 2009 | 25 Comments »
Mary Russell is a (half?) Jewish (half?) American girl who takes up with Sherlock Holmes. Like him, she is brilliant and unemotional; she becomes his protégé at age fifteen, and they solve cases together. In The Beekeeper’s Apprentice they run up against a villain more villainous and clever than all the clever villainous villains heretofore [...]
The Magicians, Lev Grossman
Posted in 3 Stars, Heard about from the internets, tagged C.S. Lewis, fantasy, Lev Grossman, Narnia, The Magicians on November 7, 2009 | 18 Comments »
Whoa, how did I not review this yet? I thought I had – but apparently I only thought about it, A LOT, and then forgot to do it because I was reading through the Amelia Peabody books. (Still fun!)
The Magicians is about a boy called Quentin Coldwater who is obsessed with a series of books [...]
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, Kate Summerscale
Posted in 3 Stars, Heard about from the internets, tagged Kate Summerscale, nonfiction, rip iv challenge, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, Victorians on October 31, 2009 | 18 Comments »
I was determined to finish this book before the end of Halloween which I have now done. This is my bonus book to wrap up the RIP Challenge, which, along with everyone else, I thank Carl for hosting. I’ve had fun reading all my spooky books and reading what everyone else thought of spooky books [...]
Silent in the Grave, Deanna Raybourn
Posted in 3 Stars, Heard about from the internets, tagged Deanna Raybourn, glbt, historical fiction, mysteries, Silent in the Grave on October 24, 2009 | 10 Comments »
My fourth book for the RIP Challenge, because apparently I just cannot get it together to read The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher right now. Silent in the Grave is the first of (so far) three mysteries with Lady Julia Grey, whose husband passes away at the start of this book. After his death, private investigator [...]
The Seance, John Harwood
Posted in 3 Stars, Heard about from the internets, tagged creepy, John Harwood, rip iv challenge, The Seance on October 19, 2009 | 14 Comments »
I read this book mostly in bed over several nights, while the weather outside was obligingly turning into fall. Although there are things about the cold weather that are miserable (mainly miserable for my hands and feet, which get very poor circulation as my blood is too busy keeping the rest of me warm like [...]
How it all went down
Posted in 3 Stars, Heard about from the internets, tagged nonfiction, DogEar Reading Challenge, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan on October 12, 2009 | 33 Comments »
Reading In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan for Jeane’s DogEar Reading Challenge.
I am anxious about food-type books (because I love food), and I was planning to put this off to the very end of October, except someone has a hold on it at the library. So if I don’t read it by 18 October [...]
The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson
Posted in 3 Stars, Heard about from the internets, tagged nonfiction, Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map on October 11, 2009 | 7 Comments »
Don’t you love titles with semicolons? This one’s full name is The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World. In a lot of ways, it’s like And the Band Played On – a medical mystery! The book follows a cholera epidemic in London [...]
West with the Night, Beryl Markham
Posted in 2 Stars, Heard about from the internets, tagged Africa, Beryl Markham, memoirs, nonfiction, West with the Night on October 3, 2009 | 14 Comments »
For Jeane’s Dog Ear Challenge: West with the Night was the nonfiction book on an obscure topic/on a topic you don’t often read about. I had a broad selection of Jeane recommendations for this one, since she is always reading books that sound interesting but that I would never pick up on my own.
West with [...]
Ballerina, Edward Stewart
Posted in 3 Stars, Heard about from the internets, tagged trashy, ballet, Edward Stewart, Ballerina on September 25, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Many thanks to Schatzi for the recommendation; I enjoyed it so much. Ballerina is about these two girls, Christine and Stephanie, who are dancers in the same ballet school; upon graduation, they wind up in separate ballet companies but remain quite close. Stephanie has a crazy stage mother who ditched ballet For a Man, and [...]
