Wales
Q1 / 2022 Reading Recap
Well, as it turned out 2022 began as 2021 had ended — all work and no play, albeit with the addition of a hospital detour to boot. (Nothing serious, just way more painful and, all told, protracted, than it had any right to be.) So I’m back to posting one summary post for the first […]
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Priscilla Royal: Tyrant of the Mind
Blurb: In the winter of 1271, death stalks the corridors of Wynethorpe Castle on the Welsh border. When the Grim Reaper touches the beloved grandson of the castle lord, Baron Adam sends for his daughter, Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal, and her subinfirmarian, Sister Anne, to save the child with their prayers and healing talents. Escorting […]
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May 2021 Reading Recap
Still a lot of work on the back end of the blog, including on my “featured authors” pages (see the right column on the main Literature page and the introduction of my April 2021 recap post). So, contrary to plans, still no new posts in my alphabet blogging series in May. However, the time-consuming back end […]
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Harriet Rutland: Bleeding Hooks
Harriet Rutland (real name: Olive Shimwell née Seers) fell out of favor with publishers and the reading public even more than Joanna Cannan in the decades after WWII (or at least after her 1962 death); it would take over half a century for the three books that constitute her entire literary output to be republished, […]
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Favorite Rainy Day Reads
24 Festive Tasks: Door 5 – Bon Om Touk, Bonus Task: List / tell us about your favorite rainy day reads. I suppose it only takes one look at my list of read books this year to determine my favorite rainy day books, as 2020 was essentially one extended rainy day: Golden Age mysteries and […]
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Ellis Peters: The Raven in the Foregate
24 Festive Tasks: Door 13 – International Day for Tolerance, Book: Read a book about tolerance, or outside your comfort zone, set in Paris (seat of UNESCO), by or about a Nobel Peace Prize winner, or about a protagonist (fictional or nonfictional) who has a reputation as a peacemaker. Earlier this month I reread […]
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Book Characters Turning Over a New Leaf
24 Festive Tasks: Door 4 – Japanese Culture Day, Task 2: Japanese Culture Day was first held in 1948, to commemorate the announcement of the country’s post-war constitution on November 3, 1946, which was to make a new start for Japan. Which book did you read this year where someone was searching for or starting […]
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Brother Cadfael: An Ideal Teacher
24 Festive Tasks: Door 14 – Diwali, Task 2: Goddess Lakshmi in her eightfold form is referred to as the Ashta-Lakshmi. Vidya-Lakshmi is the 7th of her 8 forms. “Vidya” means knowledge as well as education, not just degrees or diplomas from the university, but real all-round education. Thus, this form of Goddess Lakshmi is […]
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Ellis Peters: The Devil’s Novice
Another (re-re-)reread and, not just in its medieval setting, the perfect follow-up to Michael Jecks’s The Malice of Unnatural Death: The story of a young man professing an earnest desire to become a novice at Shrewsbury’s abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul and yet, soon revealing in his sleep that he is haunted by […]
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Halloween Bingo 2020: The Rest of the Game and Wrap-Up
Sooo, that’s another bingo game behind us already! Many thanks to our game hosts for successfully moving the game from BookLikes to a new venue and organizing one heck of a game despite that venue’s built-in limitations. I had a great time and would only have wished I could have participated more throughout the game […]
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Snakes and Ladders, 2020 Edition – TA’s Master Tracking Post: DONE!
Tracking courtesy of Charlie and Sunny, as always, of course! SPACES AND DICE ROLLS 1. Author is a woman — Patricia Wentworth: Pilgrim’s Rest (finished April 1, 2020) 2. Genre: mystery 3. Set in the twentieth century 4. Published in 2019 5. Published in 2018 6. Title has a color word in it 7. Author’s last […]
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2019 Reading in Review — the Nonstandard Edition, Part 2: The Bookish Academy Awards
The Bookish Academy Awards / Book Oscars is a questionnaire I found a couple of years ago on the Blogger blog of Ashley / Read all the things and decided to steal it for my then-recent and all-time favorites. Most of my “all-time” answers are still true; however, here’s an edition specifically for my 2019 […]
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Favorite Dragons from Fiction and Mythology
24 Festive Tasks: Door 5 – Bon Om Touk, Task 3: Dragons and dragon-like serpents (imugi) are important to Korean mythology (as they are to that of other Asian peoples). So – which are your favorite literary dragons (fictional, mythological, whatever)? First things first: shout-out to the resident Fierce and Friendly Dragon! And speaking […]
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My Rainy Day Reads
24 Festive Tasks: Door 5 – Bon Om Touk, Task 1: List / tell us about your favorite rainy day reads. Any- and everything that — with or without a mug of hot tea and some chocolate or other snacks — makes me feel all warm and comfortable (while still engaging my brain cells, […]
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Ellis Peters: The Rose Rent
24 Festive Tasks: Door 3 – Melbourne Cup Day, Book: Read a book about horses, with a horse or with roses on the cover, about gardening, set in Australia or by an Australian author. For this one, inspired by Moonlight, I decided to revisit one of my all-time favorite series … with a book that […]
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My Historical Fiction Essentials
Finally getting around to this — as per Chris’s invitation, here’s my list (in no particular order, and with major reliance on Chris’s dictum that it’s “fine to list a whole author’s work or series and have it count as one entry”): Hillary Mantel’s historical fiction I’ve yet to try her contemporary writing, but both […]
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BL-opoly: Dice Roll #13
Having finally finished the books from my June 25 roll, I’m allowed to roll again today: This sends me past GO“, where I collect $5, to square 2: Who? — Read a mystery or detective story or a book with the word “who” in the title … thus continuing the mini-tour of “question” squares begun […]
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Crowdsourced: More Books with a Difference – Fiction
You asked, Moonlight Reader? To quote from one of my additional entries below: “As you wish …” Without any further ado: Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies When Lillelara added A Place of Greater Safety to her list, I could have kicked myself — because Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell books were definitely among […]
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My Personal Literary Canon, Part 2: “Veteran” Readership
24 Festive Tasks, Door 5, Task 3: Tell us: What author’s books would you consider yourself a veteran of (i.e., by author have you read particularly many books – or maybe even all of them)? The authors by whom I’ve read the most books don’t coincide exactly, but substantially with those that I’d also consider […]
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Book Rescue, Book-Related Places of Pilgrimage … and My Personal Literary Canon, Part 1
24 Festive Tasks: Door 7 – Mawlid, Task 2: The Five Pillars of Islam almsgiving and the pilgrimage to Mekka. Tell us: Have you ever donated books or rescued them from (horror of horrors) being trashed? Alternatively: Is there a book-related place that is a place of pilgrimage to you? If I donate books, I […]
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