Happy New Year!

Another year has come to a close, and its time to recount all the goodies that 2017 brought my way. In no particular order, the winners for me were....


( Read more... )

The requirement of a coming of age book is that it must show all the stages of growth of a central character, from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. It may or may not be part of a series, but in all likelihood, the character must not come to a complete tragic end. A little older, a little wiser, a little more experienced... having learnt from ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Anne with an E (Netflix Original) was such a disappointment, it's almost painful to mention it. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery is the first coming-of-age book of the early 1900s that I ever read about a girl my own age. Before Anne Shirley, it was only ever Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and Pip.


( Read more... )

Let us decide on the route that we wish to take to pass our life, and attempt to sow that route with flowers.
  ~ Madame du Chatelet

The 39 Steps (1939)

I read The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan more than 15 years ago. I did not remember much about the book except that it was about a man on the run from a dangerous criminal mastermind who wanted to reveal the country's military secrets to the enemy. I also remembered that there was no female protagonist in the book, and that ( Read more... )

Lately, I've been consuming speculative fiction centered around Japanese/ Shinto creation mythology. It was not by design, but through a series of posts at various other blogs I follow.


( Read more... )

( Read more... )

This week, I read Freedom and Necessity by Emma Bull and Steven Brust, which had come highly recommended by fans of speculative fiction. From the book blurb:

"It is 1849. Across Europe, the high tide of revolution has crested, leaving recrimination and betrayal in its wake. From the high councils of Prussia to the corridors of Parliament, the ( Read more... )

( Read more... )