What I read
Finished A Civil Campaign and honestly, would we really recommend that she marries him? really?
However, I did then re-read The Flowers of Vashnoi (2018) and the short story 'Winterfair Gifts' (2004) to round off the binge.
On Thursday subscribers to KJ Charles' newsletter got a freebie short story tying up threads from Think of England ( Read more... )

What I read
It has been all Bujold all the time: finished Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (still a rather weak entry) , went on to Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (2016) (opinion remained as here), then circled back, not for a complete re-read:
Mirror Dance (1994) - I'd forgotten what a lot of running around there was in the earlier sections and that ( Read more... )

'Why are there no women great artists?' - okay, we know, do we not, my dearios, that there are great women artists? - but there might be more. One of the reasons why there are not as many as there might be could be that they felt they had Other Priorities (not necessarily Being A Muse). I was already apprised of the not necessarily softer side of ( Read more... )

Saying, o, here am I, a lorn lone forgotten old hedjog, no academic demands on my plate -
And I was actually thinking of reviving my old academic blog, as I occasionally do, because there are various things I don't think I'm ever going to turn into Propah Academyk Paperz that I'd quite like to get out there -
So then not only am I reminded of ( Read more... )

Okay, okay, any of you who already saw this, probably said, I bet
( Read more... )

I know people are bored in lockdown, but this is ridiculous: Thames safety warning after film-maker has to be rescued from river. RNLI highlights dangers of jumping into river after apparent online video stunt. I suppose this was in that brief hiatus period, but still. At least I suppose the Thames is no longer a seething stew of Orrible Disease ( Read more... )

Via
( Read more... )

When Maud Pember Reeves published Round About A Pound A Week, and available on Project Gutenberg, blessed be its name.
I daresay the passage about porridge is fairly well-known, when people talk about 'why do they not feed their children lovely healthy nutritious food?', which was what the well-intentioned Fabian ladies were doing in Lambeth. But ( Read more... )

If I could ban any phrase, it would be that overused, viscerally irritating, and far-from-innocent term, the Guilty Pleasure. No one should feel guilty about what they eat, or the pleasure they get from eating; the only thing to feel guilty about (and even then I don’t recommend it) is the failure to be grateful for that pleasure.
Go, Nigella: 'it ( Read more... )

From cut-out confessions to cheese pages: browse the world's strangest books: Edward Brooke-Hitching set out to curate the ultimate collection of bizarre books down the ages. He leads us around the Madman’s Library
Speaking as someone who has worked in at least one of the collections which holds one of the items cited, several of those books are ( Read more... )