Inheritance trilogy ; 1 Okay, so I’m behind the times with this. And yes, I’ve heard so many people talk about N.K. Jemisin in such a positive light that I really should have read her earlier. And y’all were totally right, I loved this book. The blurb makes it sound like a fairly generic epic […]
I added this book to my unwieldy Mount TBR because of Smart Bitches description of it as a stunningly different fantasy that mixes Crimson Peak with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. And then I saw that wonderful cover and had to read it. It’s just wonderful. Unfortunately I just never really clicked with this novel. […]
Based on the true story of Grace Marks, an infamous murderer in Canada in the 1840’s, Atwood’s book uses different narrators to tell the story, as well as interspersing the story with extracts from other works. From poems, fiction, newspapers of the time, and other sources. Although this is based on the real story, Atwood has, of course, fictionalised a great deal of the novel.
The two narrators are Grace herself, who tells her story in the first person, past tense, and Simon Jordan, the doctor investigating her claims of insanity or innocence. His parts are told by a third person narrator, and are in the present tense.
This is a really beautifully illustrated book and a girl named Hortense. She doesn’t like her shadow, it is always following her around, so one day she gets rid of it. But of course later she comes to learn that her shadow is a good thing to have around. It is a slight story, but […]
The Murderbot Diaries ; 2 The whole time I was reading this book1 I kept telling myself to slow down. It is short, only 159 pages((not that I’d know that apart from the fact that goodreads tell me I read the ebook because pr-orders and instant gratification are the way of the now! )) so […]
Sometimes the blurb of a book can be a tad off putting. I remember when I first became aware of Wild : a journey from lost to found a few years ago. It became very popular at the library and we had a fair few requests for it. But the description did absolutely nothing for […]
A book in the The Universe of Xuya I do love the idea of ships as people. I really enjoyed Anne McCaffrey’s The Ship Who series way back in the way off times when I read it. It’s just a fascinating idea, a space ship with all the computing power of an AI, but still […]
Read it online at Tor.
reread in April, 2018 and loved it just as much.
A long time ago in Japan, when cats were new there, an earthquake shook Small Cat’s home, and her city caught fire. In escaping the fire she ran too far from her home and her fudoki. “The fudoki was the collection of stories about all the cats who had lived in a place. It described what made it a home, and what made the cats a family.” In fleeing the fire the Small Cat gets lost in the city but decides to follow the story of her aunts, The Cat Who Came From the North. And so she heads North. But she goes too far and soon is so far from home that she thinks she will never find her way to her fudoki again.
A sequel to Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows There are two main reasons I wanted to read this book. First off it is a book by Kij Johnson. Second of all it is a sequel to The Wind in the Willows, so first I reread that back in February, and then I got […]
translated by Diane Oatley Bees are pretty cool insects. They are also pretty damn important. Insects in general are essential to the world we know, so maybe think twice before spraying those insecticides and getting rid of all the dandelions in your lawn. We need insects1 so we should be paying more attention to their […]
I read this because it was my bookclub selection for March. I am afraid that it certainly was not my cup of tea. It appeared to be set in modern times, but the attitudes of the people seemed to belong in the fifties. Or maybe little England really is like that? If so I despair […]
The Winnowing Flame trilogy ; book 2 Have you read this first book in this series? If not then go read it. It is awesome and action packed with great characters and a story that’ll keep you turning pages long after you promised yourself you’d stop. If you have read it, well The Bitter Twins […]