Month: August 2018
Angela Carter: The Bloody Chamber
The Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault meet the Creatures of the Night What a great early start to this year’s Halloween Bingo. I confess I didn’t care so much for the first (i.e., the titular) story — leaving aside the obvious similarities to Ann Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho, it feels like I’ve read essentially this […]
Read MoreSo close. So, so close!
Reblogged from: Moonlight Madness Is everybody ready? Books stacked? Pumpkin spice on hand? Autumnal candle ready to burn? Because tomorrow is the day. You can start reading as soon as it is September where you are! Obsidian Black Plague drops the first call tomorrow! Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1787611/so-close-so-so-close
Read MoreIt’s here!! It’s here!!
My super-pretty, phantastic, printed physical bingo card was in the mail today. Yey!! Thank you so much, MbD and MT!! And MM, again, for creating its digital version … And it even comes with its very own spreadsheet on the back side! Woohoo! You guys have really outdone yourselves … once more. Thank you so […]
Read MoreOK – let’s do this!
As per Moonlight Reader Madness: Well, alright — here we go! Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber is a collection of short stories, so spreading these out over the course of a week will allow me to make progress here while at the same time finishing up my “Summer of Spies” reads. My Bingo […]
Read MoreYou know me – I can’t resist messing with you guys!
Reblogged from: Moonlight Madness So . . . This year, you can read ONE book in the week leading up to bingo to get a head start on filling your card! Ready. Set. Read! Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1785865/you-know-me-i-can-t-resist-messing-with-you-guys
Read MoreElizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer
A largely autobiographical ode to reading and to the peace and quiet of a summer garden … with more than an occasional sidelight on early 20th century Prussian country life and mores. Reading progress updates: 3 / 190 pages 9 / 190 pages 14 / 190 pages 22 / 190 pages 30 / 190 pages […]
Read MoreThe Countdown Begins…
Reblogged from: Moonlight Madness Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1784076/the-countdown-begins
Read MoreElizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 147 of 190 Pages
“A man once made it a reproach that I should be so happy, and told me everybody has crosses, and that we live in a vale of woe. I mentioned moles as my principal cross, and pointed to the huge black mounds with which they had decorated the tennis-court, but I could not agree to […]
Read MoreElizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 140 of 190 Pages
“All those maxims about judging others by yourself, and putting yourself in another person’s place, are not, I am afraid, reliable. I had them dinned into me constantly as a child, and I was constantly trying to obey them, and constantly was astonished at the unexpected results I arrived at; and now I know that […]
Read MoreElizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 133 of 190 Pages
“I am frightened once more at the solitariness in which we each of us live. I have, it is true, a great many friends — people with whom it is pleasant to spend an afternoon if such afternoons are not repeated often, and if you are careful not to stir more than the surface of […]
Read MoreElizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 131 of 190 Pages
Lupins! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Summary post HERE. Further reading progress updates: 3 / 190 pages 9 / 190 pages 14 / 190 pages 22 / 190 pages 30 / 190 pages 41 / 190 pages 46 / 190 pages 55 / 190 pages 62 / 190 pages 65 / 190 pages 67 / 190 pages 69 / […]
Read MoreElizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 126 of 190 Pages
“I walked out of the village and through the fir wood and the meadow as quickly as I could, opened the gate into my garden, went down the most sheltered path, flung myself on the grass in a quiet nook, and said aloud “Ugh!” It is a well-known exclamation of disgust, and is thus inadequately […]
Read MoreElizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 110 of 190 Pages
Back to Solitary Summer, and to anybody who thinks this is just fluffy garden talk, I’d heartily recommend to read the section on the disastrous intersection of poverty, prejudice and ignorance in the village, particularly insofar as it concerned the children. “There is a great wall of ignorance and prejudice dividing us from the people […]
Read MoreDiscworld Group Reads
For those who haven’t seen this yet and for anybody who’d like to join: The Discworld group is going to read the books from the series in publication order, beginning on September 15. As from December 1, we’re planning on a bimonthly schedule (alternating with the bimonthly Flat Book Society reads), but of course, with […]
Read MoreElizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 106 of 190 Pages
Hooray — and once more, Elizabeth is decades ahead of her time, in not (at least not at heart) joining the local clergyman’s and the city population’s uproar over the rural custom of “prefacing” a marriage by its consummation … and the inevitable consequences! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Summary post HERE. Further reading progress updates: 3 / 190 […]
Read MoreElizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 95 of 190 Pages
Ugh. Those four-families-to-one-building cottages, with a single room per family, shared kitchens and looking out on a pig sty if you’re unlucky … I’d say humanity has advanced just a bit since Elizabeth’s day. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Summary post HERE. Further reading progress updates: 3 / 190 pages 9 / 190 pages 14 / 190 pages 22 […]
Read MoreElizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 93 of 190 Pages
More baby talk about the hereafter, occasioned by the “June baby”‘s insistence that she doesn’t want to go to paradies because there’s nothing there for her to play with, which prompts this response by her sisters and her mother: “‘Why, she can play at ball there with all the Sternleins if she likes!’ The idea […]
Read MoreElizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 89 of 190 Pages
“The Man of Wrath says all women love churchyards. He is fond of sweeping assertions, and is sometimes curiously feminine in his tendency to infer a general principle from a particular instance.” Hah! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Summary post HERE. Further reading progress updates: 3 / 190 pages 9 / 190 pages 14 / 190 pages 22 / […]
Read MoreElizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 87 of 190 Pages
After one of her daughter’s had fallen into a neighbor’s slimy green pond: “It was no use sending for the doctor because there is no doctor within reach; a fact which simplifies life amazingly when you ave children. During the time we lived in town the doctor was never out of the house. Hardly a […]
Read MoreElizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 83 of 190 Pages
So Elizabeth loves sweet peas! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Summary post HERE. Further reading progress updates: 3 / 190 pages 9 / 190 pages 14 / 190 pages 22 / 190 pages 30 / 190 pages 41 / 190 pages 46 / 190 pages 55 / 190 pages 62 / 190 pages 65 / 190 pages 67 / […]
Read More