Yearly Archive: 2011

Books

Dune group read- Round 1 by

Dune

A week or so ago a blog post from Carl about a Dune group read popped up in my reader. And I thought to myself, Dune, hmmm, that’s one of those classic sf books I’ve never read. Full Disclaimer I have however memories of the film. I don’t mean that I watched it, but I did somehow manage to buy the film’s picture book yoke, so I know vaguely what the story is. So, I decided that what the hell, I was going to give the group read a go. So round one’s questions are below.

15 July 2011
Books

Times for yet another much delayed post

It is now July, and midsummer was last month, so I am slightly late with my Once Upon a Time V round-up post. But things happened to get in the way of posting. Okay, one thing. The puppy. Time consuming she is, but I think I have somewhat of a schedule going on now and she is gradually learning her place. So I have time for the round-up post, you’ll be happy to hear :)

11 July 2011
Books

Touch by

touch

Stephen has returned home to take up from his stepfather as pastor. He has also returned in time to sit at his dying mother’s bed side. He knows she is dying and is writing her eulogy, but at the same time remembering his past, as well as the stories and legends that grew up surrounding his grandfather Jeannot.

Zentner’s debut novel is a slow, atmospheric retelling of those childhood memories interspresed with Stephen’s musings on his current situation and relationships with his family members.

10 July 2011
Books

The hum and the shiver by

hum and the shiver

Bronwyn Hyatt is coming home. A war hero. Or so some people say, others say she hasn’t changed a speck from the trash Tufa slut she was before she left, but to her family all that is important is that she is home. Back among the Tufa. And who are the Tufa? Well that no on seems quite sure of. They’ve been in the mountains of east Tennessee since before anyone can remember. Closely knit, and prizing musical ability, they live apart from other people. And Bronwyn is a true, pure-blooded Tufa, a First Daughter. But a haint is visiting, and there are ominus signs everywhere her people look.

7 July 2011
Books

Old Burnside by

A memoir of a Southern Girlhoodold burnside

In 1913 Harriette Simpson Arnow moved to Old Burnside, Kentucky, with her family. This is her recollections of life in the once bustling lumber town. She was only four years old at the time, and yet she still manages to recreate the town and people she knew back then. It is a small book, only 125 pages in the edition I read, but there is plenty going on.

6 July 2011
Books

Embassytown by

embassytown

Embassytown is a human colony on the planet Areika, the inhaitants are known by the local humans as the Hosts, and they are unique among life-forms as they cannot lie. Their Language is so tied up with meaning that they physically cannot speak what is not true. Avice grows up on Areika, but she has the talent of immersing, which is a sort of navigation through space, and so goes off-world. but one of her platonic husbands is a linguist, and fascinated by Language, so they return to Areika. And just in time to witness the whole world go to hell with the arrival of a new Ambassador.

1 July 2011
Books

I capture the castle by

I capture the castle

Cassandra Mortmain’s father is a famous writer; unfortunatley he has been suffering from writer’s block for years. Her mother is dead, but she has a lovely stepmother now in Topaz. She also has a younger brother Thomas, and and older sister, Rose. And then there is Stephen, who has grown up with them, not forgetting the dog Heloise and the cat Abelard. They live in a ruin of a castle in England, and have no income. Which means no money for clothes, repairs, rent, or food. They have sold everything worth selling. And then the two Cotton brothers arrive on the scene.

18 June 2011
woof

Week 1 in the Ripley house

Ripley

And things are going well for house-mate Ripley.

Yeah, that’s enough of that, but I do hope you were reading it in a suitable accent, that being the Geordie one. Anyway, Ripley has been with us now for 4 full days and she is settling in well. On Friday we went to the vets and she got her first round of vaccinations so she spent the afternoon and evening recovering and was then up bright and early that night to let us know the effects had worn off.

12 June 2011
Books

Feed by

Feed

It is 2039 and Georgia & Shaun Mason are up and coming bloggers. Solid betas they are on the look out for the story that will enable them to break away and start their own site, their own identity. And they are about to get their big break, because presidential hopeful Senator Ryman is about to start campaigning for the Republican nomination. And the Masons are going to be part of his media circus.

Oh, and did I mention the zombies?

10 June 2011
Moving Pictures / Reviews

X-Men: First Class dir. by

X-Man First ClassCharles Xavier and Eric Lensherr weren’t always the famous Professor X and Magento. This is their origin story, the origin story of the original X-Men. Set in the 1960s with the Cuban Missile crises at boiling point, the pot of tensions is being stirred further by Sebastian Shaw, a mutant who has been doing the rounds since the 1940s. He believes that mutants are the superior race, and that they must destroy the inferior human race in order to take their rightful place as masters of the earth. Lebensraum and all that.

6 June 2011
ecnef