I wish Peter Haining would stop writing books about all the stuff I like. I've got Phantom of the Opera and Sherlock Holmes stuff by him, and then there's this. He always sounds like he's fawning. Over everyone. Granted, this book is clearly "official" in nature, so he's not going to start complaining about anyone, but apart from having a nice list ( Read more... )

This graphic novel (sometimes known as a "comic") tells the story of Bechdel's (Dykes to Watch Out For) childhood, thematically focusing on her father's death, his dark secret, and how Bechdel and her father's lives are intertwined by literature and sexuality. It's a riveting book on its own, as Bechdel is a highly literate writer, but the art is ( Read more... )

When Salamon got carte blanche to follow the production of Brian De Palma’s Bonfire of the Vanities from planning to completion, she couldn’t have known it’d become synonymous with Ishtar in the annals of Hollywood excess. True, De Palma had more or less flopped with Casualties of War, but this was the director of Dressed to Kill, Scarfac, and The ( Read more... )

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I've never gotten into Pratchett. There's something about this breed of humorous novels that rubs me the wrong way; at the risk of opening myself up to arson, I'll call it "obvious" humor novels. Novels which present long-form stories written in the manner of a Dave Barry column; which is fine for a column, but trying over the course of an entire ( Read more... )

Warning: This isn't going to be a review so much as a case-study of one girl's involvement with a series. This is because my introduction to this series, the Mary Russell books by Laurie R. King, affected me in a personal way. This is also because I only read this particular novel out of interest in the fandom itself, thereby rendering fairly ( Read more... )

Sometimes you read a book because it exists in a particular niche that is woefully underpopulated. I held out against this one for a long time, but I finally succumbed to the queer-teen-girl charms of Empress of the World and found it less than charming.
( but... there's girls kissing! )

It's hard for me to write about Philip K. Dick. For one thing, my attraction to his writing more or less defies my explanation. It's to the point where it's his voice I love more than anything else; yes, he's got an amazing imagination, and plots, and all that, but what really gets me is his characters' thought patterns. They're simultaneously the ( Read more... )

I don't usually read books with "book club" discussion questions in the back. It's not as ingrained a warning as the "O" stickers (damnit, I was going to read A Million Little Pieces, too), but it's up there. So imagine my surprise when I opened up The Time Traveler's Wife, read the first few sentences, and took it home from work. This book is ( Read more... )

"But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again."

( I read Herman Hesse )