Birds
Donna Andrews: The Twelve Jays of Christmas
Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 4 – Decorating: Read a book that has an object that can be used as a Christmas decoration on the cover. I started reading Donna Andrews’s Meg Langslow books a few years ago, with a Christmas book as it happened, and and this point returning to her […]
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An Alphabet of My Likes and Dislikes: “W”
This is a post belonging to a new blogging project — the title is pretty much self-explanatory, I think; the project’s introductory post can be found HERE. Credit for the idea: BeetleyPete. As always, the only thing linking the two items mentioned in this post in my mind is that they both start with the […]
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Favorite Fictional Societies and Ingredients of a Well-Functioning Real Society
24 Festive Tasks: Door 3 – Saturnalia, Task 2: Saturnalia was originally a celebration in remembrance of the “Golden Age” of Graeco-Roman mythology, ruled over by Saturn (Kronos in Greek), and during which humanity existed in a utopian state of innocence, living off nature’s bounty without having to work. Name a book describing / set […]
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Donna Andrews: The Gift of the Magpie … and Yule Candles, Candy, and Other Christmas Cheer
24 Festive Tasks: Door 1 – Winter Solstice (Yule – Dōngzhì – Soyal – Yaldā Night), Book, Task 1 and Bonus Task #2: Book: Read a book that takes place in December, with ice or snow on the cover, where all events take place in a single day or night, that revolves around the solstice, […]
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The View from My Kitchen Window
#StayatHome blossoms — this is the view from my balcony and kitchen window at the moment. And by way of a bonus image, a pair of ducks (visitors from the banks of the Rhine, which is just a few 100 metres from my home) that were making a ruckus round about the front hedge while […]
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Donna Andrews: Owl Be Home for Christmas
24 Festive Tasks: Door 19 – Festivus, Book: Read any comedy, parody, or satire. Not quite as hilariously funny as the first three Christmas books from the series that I read — maybe Ms. Andrews’s brand of humor is beginning to pall for me after all, or maybe Bernadette Dunne (whom I ordinarily really like […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019 PreParty — Question for 08/06 (Day 6): Favorite Seasonal Covers — Mysteries and Crime
Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1931388/halloween-bingo-2019-preparty-question-for-08-06-day-6-favorite-seasonal-covers-mysteries-and-crime
Read MoreBooks With a Difference
Responding to Moonlight Reader’s “call for papers (= titles / authors)” — there are quite a number of excellent lists out there already; anyway, here’s my contribution … or a first draft, at least. Links go to my reviews (or status updates / summary blog posts / author pages) to the extent I’ve posted any. […]
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Donna Andrews: Six Geese A-Slaying
24 Festive Tasks: Door 9 – Thanksgiving, Book: Autumnal covers, set in New England, or a turkey shows up in the story. I decided to backtrack a bit to the series’s first (I think) Christmas entry, which is set right after Meg and Michael’s marriage and in which Meg is in charge of organizing […]
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John Julius Norwich: Twelve Days of Christmas – A Correspondence
25th December. My dearest darling, That partridge, in that lovely little pear tree! What an enchanting, romantic, poetic present! Bless you and thank you. Your deeply loving Emily. 26th December. Mr dearest darling Edward, The two turtle doves arrived this morning and are cooing away in the pear tree as I write. I’m so touched […]
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Donna Andrews: Lord of the Wings
A Halloween entry in Donna Andrews’s long-running series featuring Caerphilly, VA artisan blacksmith and volunteer town events organizer Meg Langslow — what could possibly be more fitting for this bingo square? Caerphilly (that’s CaerPHILLY to you reporters if you don’t want to have the locals screaming at their TVs at the top of their voices) […]
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Halloween Bingo 2017: Update 2
My Square Markers and “Virgin” Bingo Card: “Virgin” card posted for ease of tracking and comparison, as called and read squares will, bit by bit, vanish behind my markers and everybody’s cards are different. Black Kitty: Read but not called Black Vignette: Called but not read Black Kitty in Black Vignette: Read and Called […]
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The Twelve Tasks of the Festive Season — Task the First: The Winter Wonderland; and Task the Seventh: The Christmas
Task the First: – Read a book that is set in a snowy place. Dylan Thomas: A Child’s Christmas in Wales Thomas’s lyrical memoirs of his childhood Christmas experience, read by himself … truly magical. One of the books (or CDs) that I revisit every single holiday season. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task the Seventh: – Read a […]
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Donna Andrews: The Nightingale Before Christmas
The Twelve Tasks of the Festive Season — Task the Seventh: The Christmas: – Read a book set during the Christmas holiday season. The year before last’s entry in Donna Andrews’s Meg Lanslow series: An uninhabited Caerphilly house has been turned into a show house for the local interior designers’ pre-Christmas competition, which Meg has […]
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Jeannie Come Lately Post: BookLikes Round Robin — Favorite Pre-1980s Movies
Pretty much everybody has seen it at this point I guess, but anyway, here is Book Cupidity’s idea: “Let’s list favorite old (or older) movies. The list can be long or short, with a narrative or no, anything goes. The parameters is that it has to have been made prior to 1980, I sort of […]
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Holiday Splurge 2015
The way things have been shaping up in the recent couple of months, the holiday season ending today was most likely my last real reprieve from fairly major (not to say time-consuming and persistent) work-related unpleasantness for the foreseeable future. This being the case, I naturally decided to make the most of it: I […]
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