I have been a wee bit obsessed lately with Kay Nielsen, a Danish illustrator from the Golden Age of kids' lit. I spent quite some time several weeks ago trying to find an affordable print of my favorite illustration (below). So it seemed pretty remarkable last week when, on vacation in Arizona, we visited a used bookstore and I found a nice big art ( Read more... )

"That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the ( Read more... )

I got a hankering recently to watch Mansfield Park. Then I decided to read it. Some 400 pages later, I understand why this Jane Austen's least popular novel. But it had been obvious during the movie that some liberties had been taken with the Antigua/slavery angle of the book, at the very least, so I was curious. It turns out that along with some ( Read more... )

I saw the Golden Compass in a sneak preview this weekend. I guess I'd rather not say what I thought of it, for fear of spoiling. I was inspired to reread the book yesterday, and P. Pullman's infantile and backward theology aside, boy howdy is he a good storyteller.

Here is Slate's review of the movieAnd for old times' sake (specifically March 2004 ( Read more... )

In tribute to the season, I have just finished reading Frankenstein. I enjoyed it, but not for the reasons I expected. Mary Shelley is obviously a talented writer, but she didn’t linger over the details a modern reader is looking for: the monster’s gory appearance, a detailed (or any) description of the scene in the laboratory when he is brought to ( Read more... )

Tonight I thought I would list a few of my favorite books (OTHER than Narnia & LOTR), because just thinking about them makes me happy.

Beauty, Robin McKinley
The Changeling Sea, Patricia McKillip
Dragonsbane, Barbara Hambly
Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis
The Last Slice of Rainbow, various
The King of Elfland's Daughter, Lord Dunsany
In the Forests ( Read more... )

I finally read Alphabet of Thorn, and I must say, I was disappointed. I was hoping for something as delightful as In the Forests of Serre, but this one just didn't do it for me. For one thing, it really seemed to drag on and on, and what was supposed to be a slow building of tension was for me a slow building of boredom. I just couldn't see what ( Read more... )

I've decided that writing whole books is for loonies. I'd much rather read them. Instead, I will take David's advice and just write short stories ( Read more... )