Right ( Read more... )

I had an odd experience yesterday while reading on the plane. I picked up a copy of a book I'd read and loved as a teen - the House by the Dvina by Eugenie Frasier - the story of her childhood in Russia just before the Revolution ( Read more... )

So I'm reading the Benjamin January mysteries by Barbara Hambly and they are, to my mind, pretty much perfect.

( Review, with some spoilage hinted at )

So, after some consideration, I've decided to do another 50 book challenge. This time, however, I am not just doing the 50books-poc challenge. Oh no! Instead I am combining that with the queerlit50 in a giant quest to read books by the marginalised, to support diversity within the publishing industry and, in all honesty, to kick myself into reading books which aren't ( Read more... )

I am currently reading 'The Maul and the Pear Tree: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders 1811'. And it's awesome. I mean, really really good. PD James really captures the atmosphere of 1811 well, she stops to explain enough that the murders are properly put into the context of the judicial system of the day, but she zips along nicely and doesn't let ( Read more... )

So, I've now read the eARC of Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, the latest (and I suspect last) in the Vorkosigan series, as it's up at Baen books.

( Thoughts with spoilers )

As some of you may know, pierot is currently doing a theology degree, and as such there tend to be theology text books around the house, and I've been periodically reading them. And they are really interesting ( Read more... )

I’ve been reading Jerusalem: The Biography for some time now (it is a big book, in mental more so than physical terms) and am finding it amazing, depressing, fascinating, and horrifying. It is the history of the city, from the days of King David, onward. So far I’ve just got to the fall of Jerusalem to the Ottoman Turks in the 13th century, and I’m ( Read more... )

You know what I’d like in a Young Adult novel?

• A hero or heroine whose parents were actually totally normal people. Ideally one raised in the suburbs.
• An ‘ugly duckling’ heroine whose ugly duckling quality is not that she is skinny and waiflike. A heroine who angsts about being podgy would make my day.
• A quality which makes the hero or ( Read more... )

So, it's the fiftieth anniversary of 'To Kill A Mockingbird', and there are lots of essays on it all over the internet. Some of them are very clever, so I linked to them here.

Reconstructing Atticus Finch. Was he really that good a lawyer?

Malcolm Gladwell on Atticus Finch and Southern liberalism.

A defense of To Kill A MockingbirdI must admit, ( Read more... )