I seem to have done nothing lately but reviews. And this after I made my grand “returning to blogging” speech. I guess I don’t have very much to say. Either that or I have too much to say, but to start typing it all out would involve actually processing thoughts and forming arguments and constructing a post. That’s just not my bag baby.
I’m more with the whole stream-of-consciousness. Much less work I feel. Plus I’m less likely to think, this makes no sense, hit delete. Cause none of it should really make sense, you know, or it should make sense but only in a nonsensical way.
Whatever.
The real reason I haven’t been around much this week is that I travelled up to Sligo for the week. Twas de sister’s confirmation so I had to mosey on up for that, and I’d time worked up so reckoned I may as well take the week off. Perfect timing as the sun has been shining, and the warmth warming.
That’s our summer over and done with, prepare now for the weeks and weeks of rain.
I told myself I’d do a big tidy yesterday and today. But while I threw out some crap I got bored halfway through. Mess is good right? Also, I have far too many books. I think some need to be culled from the herd. A job I’m always reluctant to start, because I end up stumbling over books going “oooh, I really enjoyed that I should reread it” when the proper reaction would be “that was a fun read, but if I take it off the shelf I’ll have space for new books”. Dilemma indeed.
Anyone know the best way to clean a laptop screen? There seem to be little smudges on Vera’s shiny shiny screen. I don’t want to use too much elbow grease, just in case I make them worse.
Tags:
De Sister,
laptop,
weather
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Posted by: Fence in Books
Author: Rohinton Mistry
ISBN: 057123058x DDC: 813.54
See Also: LibraryThing ; Oprah’s Discussion ; BlogCritics ; Simon and Janet’s blog
Dina Dalal seldom indulged in looking back at her life with regret or bitterness, or questioning why things had turned out the way the way they had, cheating her of the bright future everyone had predicted for her when she was in school, when her name was still Dina Shroff.
I’m not really sure where to begin with this review. This is a big book, both in the amount of pages and in the amount of ground it covers. Set in an un-named city in India during the State of Emergency after India’s founding it deals with four main characters whose lives intersect in the house of Dina Dalal who hires two tailors and rents out a room to a young student in an attempt to keep her independence.
Each character gets a chance to backtrack and tell their story; Dina’s is one of love and then grief as her husband is killed in a road accident, and then of her desire to remain independent of her over-bearing older brother. Ishvar and Om are two Hindi tailors who have travelled to the city to make their fortune and escape the caste system of their home village. Maneck is the student lodger whose family lost much of their fortune during the Partition.
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Tags:
1970s,
813.54,
9 Stars,
A Fine Balance,
Booker Prize nominee,
corruption,
historical fiction,
India,
India - 1970s,
Oprah pick,
poverty,
Rohinton Mistry,
sterilization
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Posted by: Fence in Books
Author: Michael Collins
ISBN: 9780753820605 DDC: 823.914
See also: LibraryThing ; MichaelCollinsauthor.com ; Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind ; Lizzy’s Literary Life
In the Friday-afternoon lull within the English Department of Bannockburn College, E. Robert Pendleton sat listening to the sound of life outside his window.
The E. Robert Pendleton of the title is a professor struggling to keep his tenure at Bannockburn College where he lectures in English. He is also an author; although recently he has been suffering from writer’s block. He hasn’t had any successful books in years. And he is feeling the strain. A strain made even worse when an old rival shows up to give a guest lecture. This rival is a best-selling author; in many ways he represents everything that Pendleton yearns for.
It all seems to much for Pendleton, he has suffered previous break-downs, and he attempts to commit suicide. But graduate student Adi finds him and gets help for him. Pendleton had left his writings to her, for her thesis, and so she takes it upon herself to look after him as he recovers. Along the way she discovers a self-published novel, Scream, which details the abduction, rape and murder of a young girl. It is a true work of art, she feels, and helps arrange to get it re-published. But then discovers that the details match up with a real murder. Could Pendleton have been responsible?
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Tags:
7 Stars,
823.914,
academia,
Death of a writer: a novel,
IMPAC nominee,
Michael Collins (author),
murder,
mystery,
The Secret Life of E. Robert Pendleton
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Posted by: Fence in Books
Author: Graham Joyce
ISBN: 1857983424 DDC: 823.914
Read for the Once Upon A Time Challenge
See also: LibraryThing ; Author’s Site ; Scooter Chronicles ; SF site ; Tier 3000
Clive was on the far side of the green pond, torturing a king-crested newt.
I’ve read a few Graham Joyce books at this stage; this one by him won the British fantasy award so I was hoping for good things. It tells the story of Sam, a young boy growing up in 1960s England, who one night is visited by the tooth fairy, an entity that is not the insect sized woman with wings that you might expect. Instead he or she changes depending on circumstances. Sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes an androgynous figure, but always unsettling and unwelcome in Sam’s life.
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Tags:
1960s,
5 Stars,
823.914,
Britain - 1960s,
British fantasy award winner,
coming of age,
England,
folklore,
Graham Joyce,
meh,
Once Upon A Time Challenge,
sff,
The Tooth fairy
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Posted by: Fence in Books
Author: Nick Harkaway
ISBN: (Proof: 978043401866) 9780434018420 DDC: 813.6
See also: LibraryThing ; mebelitheBookseller.com ; Book Geeks ; Extract
The lights went out in the Nameless Bar just after nine.
A while back there was a comment left on the blog asking if I wanted a copy of The Gone-Away World, and, as I simply haven’t enough books[1] to read I figured why not. It arrived last week just as I finished Achilles and I thought I may as well give it a go.
The story begins in the Nameless Bar where our narrator, along with ex-special forces turned freebooters, gets a call to deal with a fire on the Pipe. This Pipe is hugely important, in the aftermath of the Gone-Away War it is the only thing keeping the world liveable. He then starts to give us the background to his life, and for most of the rest of the novel the narrator describes his life; childhood and his first meeting with Gonzo Lubitsch and gets pretty much adopted into the Lubitsch family, through his college days and his dabbling in revolutionary thoughts, and on to his role in the Gone-Away war.
Linknotes:
- yes, that was a lie ↩
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Writ & Dir: Neil Marshall
- Rhona Mitra … Eden Sinclair
- Bob Hoskins … Bill Nelson
- Alexander Siddig … John Hatcher
- Malcolm McDowell … Kane
- David O’Hara … Michael Canaris
- Leslie Simpson … Carpenter
- Chris Robson … Stevie Miller
- Sean Pertwee … Dr. Talbot
- Darren Morfitt … Dr. Ben Stirling
- Craig Conway … Sol
- MyAnna Buring … Cally
This film really is utterly preposterous. Unbelievable in the extreme; plot holes every where. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It still kicks ass though. Hugely enjoyable.
It is set in the future, after a virus struck Glasgow the British govt decided the only way to deal with it was to wall off Scotland. Leave the dying to the dead and make sure no one gets through. And so Scotland is abandoned. But years later the virus makes an appearance in England. So a team is sent north, through the wall to the survivors to see if they can find a cure.
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Tags:
7 Stars,
Alexander Siddig,
apocolyptic future,
bloody,
Bob Hoskins,
Britain - future,
canibals,
Chris Robson,
Craig Conway,
Darren Morfitt,
David O'Hara,
death,
Doomsday,
Leslie Simpson,
Malcolm McDowell,
MyAnna Buring,
Neil Marshall,
preposterous,
R18,
Rhona Mitra,
Scotland,
Sean Pertwee,
soldier,
virus
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Dir: Jon Favreau
Writ: Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway. Based on characters created by Stan Lee , Don Heck, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby
- Robert Downey Jr. … Tony Stark
- Terrence Howard … Jim Rhodes
- Jeff Bridges … Obadiah Stane
- Gwyneth Paltrow … Pepper Potts
- Leslie Bibb … Christine Everhart
- Faran Tahir … Raza
- Sayed Badreya … Abu Bakaar
Ever since Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang I’ve loved Robert Downey Jr. and that is the main reason I wanted to go see this film. Sure, I enjoy superhero films, but I know nothing at all about Iron Man, so it wasn’t any grá for that character that made me go. For those of you who share this non-knowledge Iron Man is Tony Stark, a genius of a weapons-dealer. When things go wrong for him in Afghanistan he ends up thinking that the only route forward is to give up the whole destruction business, obviously enough his share-holders object slightly.
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Tags:
7 Stars,
Art Marcum,
based on comic,
Don Heck,
Faran Tahir,
Gwyneth Paltrow,
Hawk Ostby,
Iron Man,
Jack Kirby,
Jeff Bridges,
Jon Favreau,
Larry Lieber,
Leslie Bibb,
Mark Fergus,
Matt Hollowat,
R12A,
Robert Downey Jr.,
Sayed Badreya,
sff,
Stan Lee,
superheroes,
Terrence Howard
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