This one is technically a cheat because I’ve read it before, and I even reviewed it back in 2012 for CBR2. But with the talk of an HBO adaptation coming up over at Pajiba, I found myself straining to remember the details so I thought I’d revisit it since I still have it in my handy-dandy first-generation Kindle. It was good to rediscover bits I’ve missed before, such as the various different gods and deities that I didn’t recognize the first time around. Or to […]
Finishing it up
After a hiatus I picked this book back up. (Mad spoilers for The Hunger Games and Catching Fire) The third book in the Hunger Games series, Mockingjay follows Katniss Everdeen through a rebellion led by District 13 against the Capital. Peeta Mellark, her maybe boyfriend and definite ally in the games is in the hands of the Capital. Katniss is herself in the hands of the authorities of District 13 which is not exactly freedom. She signs on to be the Mockingjay, the face of the […]
There’s a country house party in the 1920s…what do you think will happen?
A. A. Milne is a million times more famous for Winnie-The-Pooh than he is for this neat, compact and fluent little novel of amateur detectives and a body in a locked room. Which is a shame, as The Red House Mystery (1922), while not brilliant or innovative, is of value because it masters the conventions with precision and humour, creating an entertaining mystery, and likeable characters with enjoyably explicit nods to Sherlock and Watson in their dynamic. Mark Ablett is a patron of the arts, an […]
Do Androids Dream of … Revenge?
With this 2013 novel, Ann Leckie has won the Nebula, Arthur C. Clarke and, as of last week, Hugo awards, and has been nominated for the Philip K. Dick award. Ancillary Justice has a complex, fascinating plot and in its protagonist a kickass corpse soldier. I picked up the book because the author is a woman (serves my quest to read 50 books by 50 women this year) and it has won so many prestigious awards. I’m often wary of Sci Fi — it’s not […]
“On sweet silk grass I stretch me at mine ease,…”
Like J. Courtney Sullivan’s The Engagements, reviewed here, Kate Beaufoy’s Liberty Silk is a tale of different eras and generations connected by a single object–in this case, a beautiful, shimmering, colourful silk dress from Liberty of London. Bought in 1919 by Jessie, a young lady of patrician English background who marries a penniless artist and spends her honeymoon deliriously happy in the summery South of France, it’s eventually inherited by Baba, born Lisa, who is a starlet with an empty life in Hollywood in the 1940s, […]
A Story About Chinese Americans (No Concubines!)
The Year She Left Us is a first-rate novel from a first-time novelist. Using the western adoption of Chinese girls as a plot device, it examines issues of abandonment, adoption and assimilation; the relationships among mothers, daughters, and sisters; and, like Mary Karr’s memoir, the impact of “lies of omission” on a family. The Year She Left Us is the story of Ari, her mother Charlie, her aunt Les and her Gran — the Kong women. Gran was born and raised in China, coming to […]
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