3.5 stars After Hugh Dunne, the Earl of Briarly, was thrown of one of his prized horses and comatose for more than a week, he has come to realise that he needs to get married and sire an heir before it’s too late. As his main interest and preoccupation is his stable and his horses, he doesn’t really have the time or the patience to go to social events like balls and the like. He asks his younger sister Carolyn for help to make a […]
We’re not going back to this
The 2016 presidential election is already causing a lot of hurt feelings. Over the last couple of months, I’ve heard some friends draw lines in the sand. If this person doesn’t get the democratic nomination, I’m not voting. Or I’ll vote for the Republican. My vote will only go to the candidate that matches my viewpoint 100%. I respect your right to have an opinion and all, but I have a message for you (and if you are still planning to vote Republican, you are […]
The War Was In Color
My Queer War is the WWII memoir of James Lord, who I knew nothing about prior to picking up this book. The title is an intentional double entendre–James Lord is gay and his war was weird. He never saw combat and the vast majority of his service involved copious amounts of free time during which he was free to explore his sexuality in a way that he had never before considered possible. Bouncing from POW camps to Picasso’s social scene to underground bars where […]
Oh, just grow up, Marianne!
4.5 stars After their father dies and leaves pretty much everything to their older half-brother, the three Misses Dashwood and their widowed mother have to find a new place to live, which isn’t exactly easy with the meagre income they have. After some searching, a cousin of Mrs. Dashwood’s offer them lodging in a little cottage on his estate in Devon. The eldest daughter, Elinor, admonishes them to make the best of it, but the middle sister, Marianne, is determined to be miserable. Then she […]
Sometimes the things presented to us as choices aren’t choices at all.
Few writers can gut punch readers with an ending the way Stephen King can. Written in the first person, 11/22/63 is ominous from the start. But why it is so ominous takes over 850 pages to understand. For all his flaws with endings, the final lines are usually cutting. Take another story told in first person, The Green Mile. It’s only at the end, the very end, that the true cost of the story is revealed with that haunting final line “We each owe a […]
A Busy Season
Bill Bryson’s One Summer: America in 1927 invites you to the party. Bryson narrates the major historical events of that summer (and there were a lot of them), weaved together loosely with aviation (Charles Lindbergh’s historic flight and its aftermath are recurring motifs) and law and order (multiple murders and executions, including that of the controversial Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti). The book has a freewheeling feel to it that perfectly captures the 1920s and the decade’s major influences. Lindbergh’s nascent airplane with limited forward […]
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