8 April 2011
Call no: 305.5
Genre: non-fiction, sociology
Setting: USA, Virginia
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a memoir of Redneck America ISBN: 9781846272578 It happens perhaps once of twice every August: a deep West Virginia sundown drapes the farmhouse and ponds in red light, as if the heat absorbed during the dog days will erupt from … Continue reading
20 December 2010
Genre: history, non-fiction, sociology
Setting: Britain, Interwar Europe
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Full title: Singled Out: How Two Million British Women Survived Without Men After the First World War ISBN: 9780670915644 In 1978, when she was eighty-five years old, Margaret Jones, known as May, wrote her autobiography. The term “lost generation” is … Continue reading
14 December 2010
Genre: non-fiction, sport
Setting: 1990s
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Full title The Grudge : Scotland vs. England, 1990 ISBN: 9780224082761 JIM Telfer often said that if he’d been knocking about in the 1930s he’d have been a communist. Did you know that 1990 was twenty years ago. Twenty! That’s … Continue reading
26 November 2010
Genre: historical fiction, romance
Setting: Bath, Britain - Victorian
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Miss Annis Wychwood is in her late twenties, and as she is still unmarried, she believes her future to hold nothing but remaining single. However she is not about to retreat into the clutches of her brother’s family and become “the spinster aunt”, as much as she loves her sister-in-law, there are some things which simply can not be allowed to happen. So she has set up home in Bath, with an elderly cousin to live with her, for propriety’s sake. On a journey from her brother’s establishment to her own, she comes across a broken down chaise and offers her assistance. The young woman she rescues is most thankful for not being left at the side of the road, but things are about to change in Miss Wychwood’s life, for she is the ward of Mr. Oliver Carleton, and she has run away.
Okay, anyone who has ever read any Georgette Heyer will probably already know that Miss Wychwood shall not remain single. And that she will end up falling madly in love with Carleton, and that they will live happily ever after. But speculation about that aspect of the plot is not why anyone reads Heyer. Instead you read her to enjoy her writing, her characters, and her dialogue. And in all those aspects this book is a success.
17 November 2010
Genre: historical fiction, sff
Setting: Britain - Victorian, C19th, London
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by Dan Simmons
On the 9th of June, 1865, ten passengers were killed when a train crashed at Staplehurst. Among the passengers who survived the disaster was the novelist Charles Dickens. Meeting his friend, Wilkie Collins, soon afterwards Dickens describes a strange individual he came across at the site of the crash. This man, Drood, is to drag both Dickens and Collins into the depths of Victorian London’s criminal and poverty stricken underbelly. Will he also lead to murder and insanity?
31 October 2010
Genre: sff
Setting: alternate world, Britain - Victorian, Florence
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by Gail Carriger
If you haven’t yet read Soulless and Changeless then I am afraid that this review will contain spoilers for those two books. Always the way with reviewing books in a series.
I’ve just realised that I’ve never really mentioned the covers in my review of these books, but just take a second to take a proper look at them. Aren’t they wonderful! I’m not sure if that is exactly how I picture Alexia, she always seems, how would she put it, more substantial than the model on the cover, but the are so very appropriate. And just look at that othnithopter over Paris. Oops, spoilers, because yes, Alexia heads to France and then on to Italy. How exciting. Continue reading
30 October 2010
Genre: detective & mystery, sff
Setting: alternate world, Britain - Victorian, Scotland
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by Gail Carriger
If you haven’t yet read Soulless then I am afraid that this review will contain spoilers. It is the second book in a series after all. However, the spoilers are, in a way, not spoilers, because you pretty much knew what was going to happen simply becasue of the conventions of a romance. But nevertheless, consider your self warned.
Soulless ended with Alexia becoming Lady Maccoon after marrying Conall Maccon, as well as muhjah to Queen Victoria. Muhjah being the traditional preternatural advisor to the monarch, alongside a hiveless vampire and a packless werewolf. Changeless begins with her husband disappearing off to Scotland after his old pack. A strange lack of supernatural ability in London. And Alexia following Conall to Scotland on the trail of whatever caused the temporary supernatural-less-ness. And she travels on a dirigible. How very steampunk!
21 October 2010
Genre: non-fiction
6 Comments
What do you think when you hear that someone has committed suicide? Many probably wonder why? and then begin to speculate. Some will accuse the suicide victim of being selfish, or cowardly and not being able to live. But for Joiner these responses are not answers. They are myths. He has researched this topic at great lengths, and he also has personal experience, as his father committed suicide. As did his maternal grandfather. In this book he lists the main myths that people use to try and explain suicide, and then he debunks them.
17 October 2010
Genre: sff
Setting: alternate world
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Bon Agornin has led a successful life in many ways. He has improved his status, and his elder children are well on their way in life. But his three youngest need additional help. The two younger daughters need dowries if they are to marry well, and his youngest son needs in the city. And so Bon Agornin has decided that his wealth is to go to them, with the rest of his family merely taking a token, for remembrance and tradition. And by his wealth he means his treasure and his body, for in dragon society it is practice to eat the dead. But his son-in-law does not agree, believing that Bon Agornin meant only his gold. He and his family take much much more of the dead dragon’s body than one token bite. Continue reading
13 October 2010
Genre: romance, sff
Setting: alternate world, Britain - Victorian, London
16 Comments
by Gail Carriger
And the reason for Miss Tarabotti’s lack of enjoyment it that she was promised refreshment at a private ball, and when it didn’t arrive she absconded to the library and ordered some tea. And while there she was attacked by a vampire. How rude!