Susan Hated Literature

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
ISBN: 9780007189885 DDC: 823.92
LibraryThing ; Other Reviews

Things started to fall apart at home when my brother, Jaja, did not go to communion and Papa flung his heavy missal across the room and broke the figurines on the étagére.

Kambili, the teenage narrator of the book, is a 15 year old girl. In many ways she lives a priveliged life in Nigeria. Her father owns factories; he is a “big man” in the community. A fact that is brought home to her when she visits her less well off aunt and cousins. But wealth doesn’t equal happiness. Kamibili and her brother Jaja live under the strict rules of their father and his fiercely religious beliefs.

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Author: Maria V. Snyder
ISBN: 9780778302438 DDC: 813.6
LibraryThing ; Other reviews

“We’re here,” Irys said.
I looked around. The surrounding jungle bulged with life.

This is the sequel to Poison Study and is the second in the Study trilogy. After the events in the first book Yelana, at the start of this, is on her way to meet her family for the first time in fourteen years. Leaving Ixia she heads for Sitia, where she can learn how to control her magical abilities. But of course things don’t go smoothly, if they did I guess there wouldn’t be much of a story, now would there.

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Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
ISBN: 0571154913 DDC: 823.914
LibraryThing : More Reviews

It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been occupying my imagination now for some days.

The Remains of the Day is about Stevens, a butler in a “grand old English house”. He spent his life trying to be a “great” butler in the service of Lord Darlington. With the death of Darlington he remains in Darlington Hall working for the new owner a rich American, Mr Farraday. It is at Mr. Farraday’s suggestion that Stevens, our narrator, first begins thinking about taking a short trip out into the English countryside, and to see Miss Kenton. Now Mrs. Benn she recently sent him a letter, hinting, Stevens thinks, at her unhappy marriage and her wish to return to service in Darlington Hall. On his journey Stevens reflects over his life and the changes he has seen.

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Author: Mary Doria Russell
ISBN: 9781400064717 DDC: 813
See also: LibraryThing ; Excerpt ; Interview with author

I suppose I ought to warn you at the outset that my present circumstances are puzzling, even to me. Nevertheless, I am sure of this much: my little story has become your history. You won’t really understand your time until you understand mine.

I’ve read two other books by Russell; The Sparrow, which I loved, and Children of God which was very good, but just didn’t hit me in the same way, so when Heather and Andi of Estella’s Revenge emailed their list of review books and this was on it I jumped at the chance. Unlike the other two by Russell that I’ve read this isn’t sff, it is historical fiction, but I think that the two genres have a lot in common really. They deal with worlds and societies that are unfamiliar to the reader. In this case the world is that of the early 1900s in America and Egypt, and the Cairo Conference of 1921. I’m not going to post a full review here, you’ll have to wait for the next issue of Estella’s Revenge, but I really enjoyed this book. Russell just writes so well, and I loved her narrator, I think I’ll have to revise my dislike of first person narrators as I seem to reading and enjoying so many of them lately.

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Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
ISBN: 0571224121 DDC: 823.914
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My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. That sounds long enough, I know, but actually they want me to go on for another eight months, until the end of this year.

I picked this upon impulse. At home, looking for something for the train, I recognised the author’s name and thought that I may as well give it a go. And I’m so glad I did because I loved this book. The narrator is Kathy H., a 31 year old woman, and the book is her memories of life at boarding school. She and other students lived at Hailsham where they were taught by the “guardians” and brought up in a privileged manner. But all is not as it seems and throughout the novels there are hints at something darker.

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Author: Rose Tremain
ISBN: 9780340936436 DDC: 823.914
Read with HistoricalFavorites
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I am, I discover, a very untidy man.
Look at me. Without my periwig, I am an affront to neatness.

Robert Merival, the narrator of Rose Tremain’s Restoration, is, at the start of this book, a 37 year old doctor. He is one of the king’s favourites, and is utterly devoted to Charles II himself. So much so that he agrees to marry the king’s mistress, Celia, in order to persuade another of the royal mistresses that she is out of the picture. In reality though Charles will continue to see her, and Merival must never fall in love with her. She may be married to Merival, but she is the king’s.

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Author: Stephenie Meyer
#2 in Twilight verse
ISBN: 0316160199
DDC 813.6

I was ninety-nine point nine percent sure I was dreaming.
The reasons I was so certain were that, first, I was standing in a bright shaft of sunlight - the kind of blinding clear sun that never shone on my drizzly new hometown in Forks, Washington - and second, I was looking at my Grandma Marie.

This is such an easy book to enjoy, I have a feeling it, and the first in the ‘verse Twilight, will be one that can be reread and enjoyed time and again. In essence it is a teenage paranormal love story. With all the melodrama and hormones that might imply. Bella, the protagonist from Twilight is still in Forks, and still in love with Edward Cullen, and yes, he is still a vampire. Things like that don’t really change.

But things don’t really get any easier either, especially not when a little paper cut can turn a vampire from a relatively normal individual into a blood crazed fiend.

I really enjoy Meyer’s writing; it is gripping and entertaining. A real page turner.

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