Books of the Year: The Best Books of 2012

1. "So Big" - Edna Ferber Edna is an ardent lover of art & beauty, who is forced to be a poor cabbage farmer, yet she neither breaks nor loses her sensitivity. She wants educated due to her back-breaking labor son to see what's valuable in life, but sometimes the understanding
comes too late. The ( Read more... )

Yes, I know it's closer to the 2012's end. Anyway, this is the 4th year of my Books of the Year lists.

Ever pitied the time wasted on not good enough books? After many books will appear a short explanation why it is or isn't recommended and its' topic. Hope you'll discover at least one good book. Feel free to ask questions about any of them and I ( Read more... )

Best Posts Series § 3

LITERATURE & WRITING TIPS

On escaping one's context with help of old books. "We acknowledge the ideas of prior cultures relied on their context, but we willfully ignore our own immersion in our context... Even the best stuff still suffers from its immersion in 2012.  If you want to see things differently, you have to approach ( Read more... )

Review: "The Forgotten Garden" by Kate Morton

May contain mild spoilers (~ on the level of the back cover blurb).
But first,  the approximate blurb from its' translation to  Russian:

On the eve of the 1st World War, a little girl is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. A mysterious woman called the Authoress had promised to look after her - but ( Read more... )

 A while ago I complained that for all the talk about HP or Martin's SoIaF "darkness", I couldn't find any dark fantasy, except in a few fanfics. At last, I found 1 example in Lindqvist's 1st novel (set in Sweden in 1981). This review defines what I've been searching for:

It is not for everyone - not so much for the violence (par for the course in ( Read more... )

This is the 3rd year of now traditional books' post with a new feature. Ever pitied the time wasted on not good enough books? For me, sometimes the mistake becomes obvious only after a lapse of time, so after almost each book will appear a short explanation why it is or isn't recommended and its' topic. Hope you'll discover at least one good book. ( Read more... )

"They don't want to spill too much pure blood, so they'll torture us a bit if we're mouthy but they won't actually kill us."

Harry didn't know what was worse, the things that Neville was saying or the matter-of-fact tone in which he said them.

[Chapter 29: The Lost Diadem]

The above "HP and the Deathly ( Read more... )

 Just ended reading it and it's the best boarding school novel I've ever read. Set in 1942, the war is felt through the book, but the main theme is the internal war of Gene, the narrator, against "some ignorance inside me", as he deals with his love-hate relationship with his best friend, Phineas.

"I think we reminded them of what peace was like, ( Read more... )

Feel free to ask questions about any of them and I would appreciate to hear your opinions and recommendations too!

Favorite recommended books of 2009:

1) The Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield

2) "The Pillars of the Earth" ~ Ken Follett

3) "World Without End" ~ Ken Follett [Those 2 books are utterly different from his other work, which I didn't ( Read more... )

But first, Happy Birthday, anthimaeria!

I have just found stoney321's review of the entire 4-book Twilight series in 4 posts, ala DeathToCapsLock, and enjoyed it despite not reading the books. I was very disturbed by the birth scene and especially by the werewolf imprinting on Angela's newborn girl. I read many critical essays about HP, but that " ( Read more... )