Susan Hated Literature

Author: Georgette Heyer
DDC: 823.912

Another Heyer book, and although I’ve listed this as being Napoleonic it is really set a little after that time frame. More regency I think?
I think my favourite thing about this book was the way Freddy talked. Full of contractions and leaving out pronouns. Just like real people talk, but rarely in books.

Over all the book was entertaining enough, dealing with three different relationships although centring on Kitty and her desire to escape from rural, virtual seclusion, into city life.

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author: Christine Dwyer Hickey

I really liked this book. The writing was simple and straight-forward but wonderful. Dwyer Hickey makes Tatty, the character, come alive, and gives her a voice of her
own. A voice that is childlike, but also one that hints at the damage beneath her youth.

The book tells the story of Tatty’s dysfunctional family, her indifferent and occasionally violent parents, both with drink problems.

And that is what makes this a hard book to summarise and review. The narration is slightly strange, almost first person from Tatty’s perspective, but not quite an “I” narrator. It almost reminded me of Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Virgin Suicides, but that book left me cold and I didn’t finish it, where as this one pulls you in to the story and into Tatty’s life.

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Author: Audrey Niffenegger
DDS: 813.6

I read this books for Fantasy Favorites, but I’m a bit late so haven’t read any of the discussion there yet.

I’ve listed this under chick-lit as it is basically a romance story, with a little bit of sci-fi (in the form of time travel) thrown in. The plot revolves around Clare and Henry, who meet when Clare was 6 and Henry 36. But marry when Clare was 22 and Henry 30.

However the time-travel is really just a plot device, the real story is the romance between the two characters. And I’ll admit that at the start I didn’t really like the idea of this older Henry being so close with the child Clare. I felt it was a little close to “grooming.”
But that feeling was only ever very slight, and for the most part this was a well-written, enjoyable romance.

Tags: 8 Stars, 813.6, Audrey Niffenegger, chick-lit, Fantasy Favorites, group read, romance, sff, time travel, Time Traveller's Wife

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Episode 1.01 and 1.02 - written by JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof

* Naveen Andrews …. Sayid Jarrah
* Emilie de Ravin …. Claire Littleton
* Matthew Fox …. Jack Shepard
* Jorge Garcia …. Hugo “Hurley” Reyes
* Maggie Grace …. Shannon Rutherford
* Josh Holloway …. Sawyer
* Malcolm David Kelley …. Walt Lloyd
* Daniel Dae Kim …. Jin Kwon
* Yoon-jin Kim …. Sun Kwon (as Yunjin Kim)
* Evangeline Lilly …. Kate Austen
* Dominic Monaghan …. Charlie Pace
* Terry O’Quinn …. John Locke
* Ian Somerhalder …. Boone Carlyle

I’ve heard lots of good rumours about this programme, but haven’t actually read anything about it, didn’t want to get spoiled if I decided to watch it.

RTE showed the pilot (2 episodes) back to back last Monday, and there wasn’t much else on so I figured I may as well watch it. So far it is okay, I’m not sure why there has been so much raving about how great it is. Then again, I can’t really judge after only one episode.

The opening scene was good, I liked the image of Jack just lying there in the forest, and I do think that they were right to show the plan crash in flashback, instead of an almighty confusing opening. Plus it gives the viewer a chance to see what happened on the plane from different perspectives.

For the rest of the programme it seemed pretty run-of-the-mill, the character of Jack annoyed me, simply because he was such a hero. It annoyed me that no one else was even thinking about doing anything until he made an appearance at the crash site and started giving orders. I suppose the writers were saying that everyone else was pretty much in shock, but as a doc, Jack was used to crazy chaos-filled situations.

As for the rest of the episode goes, well I think they overdid it on the whole “something is out there”. There are only so many times you can show trees shaking, and hear strange noises before any tension evaporates, changing into boredom.

That been said, I did like the appearance of the polar bear, and the wierdness of it. Plus that french woman’s recording at the end was a little creepy.

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I haven’t done a pointless quiz-type thing in a while. Course this doesn’t really qualify as all I had to fill in was my star sign…

Star Wars Horoscope for Aquarius

You can be cruel and torment people who disagree with you. Deep down, there is a peace-loving, friendly side to you. You have a knack for inflicting pain on people and use your intellect during battle. Star wars character you are most like: Darth Vader

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Well it is kind of obvious what this book is about isn’t it?

This is very much a narrative history, so it misses out on any indepth analysis of what was going on. Plus I suppose such a long time frame, and covering so many different topics, if it had been in-depth it would have been several miles thicker.

Overall it was an okay read, but nothing special. Very much for an overview of Europe at the time, although there are some interesting comparisons with what was going on elsewhere in the world

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Author: Joss Whedon & John Cassidy
DDC: 741.5973
ISBN:0785115315
X-Men verse

I’ve always been a theoretical fan of the X-Mencomics. What I mean is that I’ve always thought they were cool, but I’ve never bought one. I did love the X-Men cartoon, but never really got to watch enough of it. So when the films were released I knew a bit of background, but I wouldn’t really say I knew a lot.

I guess the problem for me is that there is just so much back story that it is hard to know where to start with the comics. I’ve always been a person to start at the beginning, and work my way to the most recent, but OMG the expense! So I never bothered. But I’m a Joss-girl, so I thought that his X-Men would be a good place to start.

Gifted is the first volume of Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men and I did enjoy it. But as with many comics/graphic novels there is the sense of slightly being cheated price-wise. I know it isn’t really, considering how many people are needed to make a comic (writer, inker, colourist, speech-bubble-head etc), but still..

Whedon places Kitty in the central role (yet again a young female character, more than a little bit of a pattern), but most of the other familar characters are there too. Of course there are also a few I don’t know, but I’m sure the majority are more than familar to real fans.
I read it in one go, but will probably go back over it in order to pay more attention to the actual graphic part.

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