Susan Alice Kirby, Miss Carter and the Ifrit (1945) One of the latest of the ongoing series of Furrowed Middlebrow books from Dean Street press, Miss Carter and the Ifrit is a grown-up fairy tale that reminded me of the works of E. Nesbit (another FM author with The Lark). As so often with Nesbit, […]
This month, I read a book in French! I was not blown away by Coeur de Cristal by Frédéric Lenoir, a fairy-tale style novel about a prince who is unable to love, but it was easy to read and helped me with my efforts to improve my French skills. I hope to move on to […]
Octavia Butler, Kindred (1979) Not that far into the reading of Octavia Butler’s fourth novel, recently released in a beautiful new edition from the Folio Society, I realized that the title is a pun. The innocuous term kindred — denoting likeness, similarity, or shared ancestry — can also be split into kin – dread — […]
For a long time, I’ve been wishing that the Folio Society would publish something, anything, by Diana Wynne Jones. And this year, my wish finally came true! Howl’s Moving Castle was the title for the 2019 House of Illustration competition cosponsored by Folio, and the winning entry has duly been published just in time for […]
With the ever-proliferating number of books out there, it’s hardly surprising that some titles are similar or identical. What I do find surprising is that some of these books are not separated by years or genres, but are published close together, making confusion quite likely. One would think publishers and authors would take more […]
Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career (1901) Here’s a book I’ve heard about for so long, but never read — the perfect pick for a Classics Club Spin, as well as a chance to take part in Brona’s Australian Reading Month event, and to represent another country in my Reading Around the World project. But even […]
Hooray, it’s Nonfiction November, one of my favorite blog events! Click on the link for a complete schedule. This week’s topic is “Book Pairings,” hosted by Sarah’s Book Shelves — pair up a fiction and nonfiction book you’ve read, that are linked in some way. I did not have to look far to find a […]
Well, I finally managed to read more than two or three books this month. Along the way, I finished my Classics Club Spin book in record time, and also managed to read two 2019 releases that are sure to be some of my favorites of the year. You’ll hear more about one of these, Shadowplay, […]
Please head over to Calmgrove for the annual celebration of Witch Week, cohosted by Lizzie Ross. I’m so glad these blogging friends have taken up this event, which I initiated in my first year of blogging. so the fun can continue! The theme this year is “Villains,” and it makes me think of the line […]
Inspired by Cleo’s readalong of Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving, I thought I would post some of my favorite quotations on the theme of love. It turns out I’ve collected quite a few … “Love mustn’t forget that she is Wisdom’s sister.” — Rudolf Steiner “If what we love be some Alastair, some mirage, […]