Susan Hated Literature

She'd much prefer to read a good book

Tag Archives: Jim Kay




15 May 2011
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A monster calls by

a monster callsEvery night Conor O’Malley has the nightmare. Every night. But tonight something is different. Tonight there is a new monster. A new nightmare. And Conor isn’t sure if this is a dream or not. But either way, this is the monster he was fearing. This monster, the yew tree, tells him that it will tell him three stories. And then Conor will tell the monster a story. A true story. And if he doesn’t, then the monster will eat him alive.

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19 May 2010
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Victory of eagles by

Author: Naomi Novik
Temeraire series #5

I hesitated before starting this book, wondering if I should reread the others in the series, it has been a while after all. But I have so many books waiting to be read that I decided to jump straight in and hope that it would all come back to me. And it did, almost the second I started reading the first page the whole world of Temeraire came back to me and I remember just how enjoyable these books are.

For those of you who have never read any of these books the first thing you need to know is that they are set in Napoleonic Europe, England. And have dragons. It is like Sharp meets Pern. Only better.

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4 May 2010
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The Lace Reader by

Author: Brunonia Barry

When I first started reading this book I’ll admit to being a little bit confused. It was group read, for HistoricalFavorites, where was the history aspect. I kept waiting for flashbacks to old Salem and witch hunts. But instead I got the story of Towner Whitney and her family, and how the past is always around, especially when you try to ignore it.

Many of the Whitney family have the gift of reading lace, they can tell a lot about a person and their future, but ever since her sister committed suicide Towner has tried to escape that life. She herself suffered so much from the trauma of that experience that she felt she needed electro-shock therapy in order to overcome her anxieties. But that treatment ripped away many of her memories; now, back in Salem after her aunt’s disappearance Towner is forced to reconnect with people; friends and enemies from her past.

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19 April 2010
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The underneath by directed by

Author: Kathi Apelt
This is the story of an abandoned cat, an old hound dog who becomes her friend and her kittens, and the family they become. But it is also a tale of old Grandmother Moccasin, a shape-chaning lemia, who is trapped in jar and by her own anger and resentment at her betrayal, as she sees it, by those she loved. And through its blending of myth and floklore it is the perfect fit for my Once Upon a Time reading list. It is also a children’s book, so it shouldn’t take you to long to get through. Although that does not mean that this doesn’t have darkness.
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15 April 2010
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A primate’s memoir by

I first came across a mention of Robert M. Saplosky on Metafilter and I was a little interested, so I did what any librarian might do, and ordered one of his books. To be honest my expectations weren’t all that high. My personal reading challenge for 2010 might be to read more non-fiction, but at the same time I know that non-fiction often requires more concentration and time than fiction, and then there was the fact that Sapolsky is a neurobiologist, and to be totally honest I really didn’t think it’d be all that interested. But I challenged myself, and was I ever glad that I did because from the opening page this really is a delight to read. … Continue reading →

28 March 2010
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The game by

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes have returned home to Sussex in order to enjoy the new year, but soon enough they travel to London to visit Holmes’ brother, Mycroft, whose health is not the best. While there he suggests that perhaps they might look into a case for him. A possibly-missing person. In India.

Of course they head off, and the person they are looking for, none other than Kimball O’Hara, known to many from Rudyard Kipling’s Kim.

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28 March 2010
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Marley & me by

I’ve had this book on my shelves for years now. It was on sale for half-price when I bought it; that’s the only reason I own it in hardback. I much prefer paperbacks, more practical. Since I bought the book it has been made into a film and become even more famous. To be honest the film looked god-awful, so I didn’t bother to watch it. But I always knew I’d eventually read the book, and when better than on a lazy Sunday when I should have been cleaning the apartment?

I’m sure everyone knows the story. A newly married couple decide to get a dog, and so buy a labrador puppy, who grows up into the world’s worst dog. Only of course he isn’t the world’s worst, he simply has some bad habits. Very bad habits that include his destruction of numerous items. But at heart Marley is a sweet good-natured dog whose labrador-ish optimism teachers his owners all about life and, eventually, loss.

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26 March 2010
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A good dog by

We’ve been on a bit of an “animal-human relationship” kick at work lately. I chose this one at random one afternoon. It is the second book that the author Jon Katz wrote about his life after meeting Devon/Orson, the border collie. he has many others detailing his life with other dogs. But Orson was his “once in a lifetime” dog. The one that changes your life. Continue reading →

23 March 2010
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Blankets by

This is one I picked up because I’d seen positive mentions on a few blogs, I think Nymeth’s post was the one that prompted the purchase. So it came with a little bit of hype. That being said, I don’t really read reviews before I read a book, just skim the opening paragraph for a sense of what the reviewer thought of the book, so I wasn’t all hyped out. And Blankets did live up to those positive reviews. Continue reading →

18 March 2010
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Columbine by

I first heard about this book on Metafilter when Susan Klebold, mother of one of the killers, had an article in O Magazine. Before that I had never been interested in the shooting. Not beyond the evils of rubber-necking at some one else’s tragedy. But the discussion there seemed to suggest that this was a well-thought out and reasoned look at the community surrounding the school, as well as the killers themselves. And the author, Cullen, believed that the popular myths about the shootings shouldn’t stand unchallenged. Continue reading →