<<TBR CHALLENGE: FEBRUARY 2016>> There is a place where book series go to perish. It’s just outside of BlueCastle. You walk down the green valley and take a sharp right and there before … Continue reading A Grave Matter, Anna Lee Huber, (Or there’s more of gravy than of grave about this…)
Warning: ranting follows. This is a day and age of snark. Which is fine by me, because I am in general a little (a lot?) bit snarky. I don’t care … Continue reading When in Rome, Amabile Giusti, (or Calling for a SNARK-reprieve)
Isn’t funny how books slip through your memories? When you are first discovering them, reading them and subsequently being enchanted by them, you think you are NEVER going to forget … Continue reading A Company of Swans, Eva Ibbotson (or The Archive of the Dis-Remembered…)
<<TBR CHALLENGE: JANUARY 2016>> It has been silent on the moats of Blue Castle…the water still and unmarred by the movement of crossings, heroes on horse back, steely eyed warriors … Continue reading The World Forgetting by The World Forgot…(or my forgetful (heh) foray into Amnesia)
When I was young, the next (big) town up from our non-existent village had an annual used book sale – it was HUGE (at least to my 8 yr old eyes). There were thousands of books, piled onto tables, stacked in boxes against the walls, leaning and supporting each other like so many lopsided towers of pisa.
I am nosy by nature. I like ferreting out information, seeking clues, finding answers and generally just knowing. My previous life was filled with research, statistics, funding submissions, quotas and … Continue reading Banished to the Harem? (or my foray into the world of sheikhs…)
Nostalgia is a curious beast. It is small, slight and seemingly innocuous. It is easy to indulge in, difficult to escape from and has a habit of glossing over important … Continue reading Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan (or Renaissance in an Information Age)
When I was 12, already entangled in all the Annes (green gables, avonlea, windy willows – and my favourite of all – the island…) and the Emily’s (of the new … Continue reading The Making of a Marchioness (or is there a heroine dumber than Emily Fox-Seton?)
I have a confession to make. It’s a little dark. It’s a little obscure. I probably need some sort of support group for it…. But: I collect quotes. Lots of … Continue reading The Cinderella Deal, Jennifer Crusie, (or the power of a good quote)
We have struck a heat wave here. It’s blistering hot. The sky is a brassy blue, my nostrils burn as I breathe in the broiling atmosphere. The bitumen melts between the concrete pavements, leaving puddles of glistening oil slick as the only reminder of their presence.
The respite of a cool change is something only hinted at by the meteorology bureau (and I’m sure that’s just so we don’t throw ourselves off a cliff in despair of never encountering cold breeze again…)
My understanding, going in was that is was a RE-IMAGINING of Jane Eyre. A contemporary Korean American retelling of Charlotte Bronte’s inimitable classic. It looked modern, bright, full of potential…But having learned from bitter experience, and previous forays in to this type of thing, I kept my expectations low. So, say, anything above a blank piece of paper was going to be a good thing.
If there is one thing I can not resist in the world – it’s a romance with food & food peoples. You know how some people are about cowboys? How they start fanning themselves and getting heart palpitations at the mere mention of a jingling spur??? Well, Foodie Romances (is that a thing? I’m not sure – but BlueCastle is making it so), are like my own personal catnip. I can’t resist them. Chefs, cooks, B&B’s with food, kitchens, restaurants, food vans, catering, fast food* – it’s like a book buffet.
Musings, reflection, rumination, cogitation: more of this than an actual review – because I am just not sure how I feel about the whole book really. I discovered Barbara Claypole White’s The Unfinished Garden, whilst browsing.
It was in that nifty little section that triumphantly advises ‘people who liked your book also liked these’; meaning if YOU had the good taste to stumble upon this book, then surely you will like to purchase these OTHER books that people who may have BETTER taste then you liked too…
Dear More Than You Dreamed.
I don’t know if you remember me, but I am the individual, who just last week, threw you at my wall and left you lying awkwardly and splayed in the corner of my lounge-room. I apologise sincerely for any injuries sustained in the course of this event, and I have since (you will note), picked you up, unbent your cover, generally un-smooshed you and placed you high on a shelf in my study. You may be wondering about the highness of the shelf, its relative distance from my lounge room, and its relative closeness to the two daddy long-legs that are inhabiting the corner of said study…
For those following – or caring – I was last writing in the midst of a terrible, horrible, no-good, purple-spotted book slump. It was like being in the fire swamp from the Princess Bride: flame spurts, lightning sand, rodents of unusual size and worst of all: deeply terrible stories.
Fortunately, I managed to stagger through, out into the light, and when I did, I was clasping Kathleen Gilles Seidel’s Again.
I am sad to report and and even more loath to write it… BUT I think it may be possible that I have entered a wee doldrum of book reading.
Yes, like the muppets of treasure island ilk, I have sailed the distant oceans, traversed the waters and just when the I was avast ye-ing into the horizon, I encountered the doldrums…or in this case: the-enormous-pile-of-books-I-started-and-threw-down-again-in-frustration/hatred/annoyance/disdain.
It’s a big pile. My cats edge quietly around it, wondering if its precarious lean to left will end in a squished tail.
Dedicated to that feeling of disappointment when you realise what you have just read, has already been done, better; clever-er, funnier; and probably 50-100 years earlier.
I have just finished reading the most adorable book – possibly in the universe.
I have just finished Tabitha in the Moonlight by Betty Neels. Oh the clothes. Oh the food — Oh Tabitha… Being relatively new to the Betty Neels experience, (i think … Continue reading Tabitha in the Moonlight
Blue Castle Considerations 
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