Sunday Morning Book Reviews

The very funny Leila Roy blogs at http://bookshelvesofdoom.blogs.com/
her reactions to/book reviews of mainly YA stuff sci-fi/fantasy (but I consider most of those for all ages with their exciting ideas and original writing), also adult fiction book reviews. She's reading some classics with chapter by chapter modern reaction, and here's Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. We join her at:
"Chapter Ten: Two Promises
In which Darnay Has A Talk with Doctor Manette about his feelings for Lucie.

* Another year has passed. I hadn't realized that this book took place over such a long span of time.
* Mr. Perfect Darnay is a go-getter, teaching and tutoring and translating (elegantly, of course)....(Because regardless of how much Sydney Carton lounges around and moons at (Miss Manette,) it's just not going to happen. Right? Right.) I shouldn't be so snarky about Charles and Lucie, but they remind me of another very bland couple -- Ivanhoe and Rowena. SNOOZE. Characters who are completely GOOD are rarely very INTERESTING.
* Then again, did Darnay off the Marquis? That would be interesting and not snooze-worthy at all.
* This made me like him, though: "He had expected labour, and he found it, and did it, and made the best of it." And I loved the idea of him as a "tolerated smuggler who drove a contraband trade in European languages"."

"I don't review books critically and objectively, I respond to them personally and from my gut. So beware. Highbrow intellectual critiques do not live here."

Except for the mistaken implication of "when smart people write complexly they aren't having gut reactions," I like this.

What do you think? Any book you respond to personally and from the gut?

I think I do this to most books...possibly not mysteries, because I like them, and I think if I really really pictured the victims, as if I were there, it would be upsetting. Possibly some historical fiction too--because I like and get the formality and even the wit but if you tried them on me in RL--no.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblo...

"Pretty Good Joke Book" intro by Garrison Keillor (HighBridge Co. and Minnesota Public Radio)
Many of the best jokes from the five years of the April Fools annual shows. Many of my favs appear here.
(Skip the dated sexist Yo Mama jokes.)

It's hard to think about but I think fairy tales convinced me that magic is real, that you can magically get out of impossible situations smelling like a rose, that life requires reckless courage, and that life is sometimes absolutely horrible for no discernable reason (although I sometimes think it's the "moral of the story" or that the cosmos thinks like Leila that good characters are completely boring.) These early beliefs made my life quite interesting.

If you get a chance to hold this book in your hands, do it. One of the most striking things about "Fair Game" is that it has been published with black boxes where one branch of the government blacked out large parts of the manuscript. So it's a document showing how much they censored. Plame Wilson explains it all in the book. Her life is interesting. She was trained in all that adventure story spy stuff. Also, there is an appendix where newspaper stories (already published) provide some of the missing detail. (There apparently was a fight about editing some of that content as well.) I understand the need to not tell too much, and want to strongly protect people in the field, but this author was given a hard time (as opposed to say Woodward--in his earlier books anyway.) One can't help thinking that if it were so important not to tell all this stuff, why did they talk about her at all? (I wonder about Novak's brain problems now: was his judgment impaired?)
Two things that are great about our system is that the book was published with a focus on how censored it was and that you can find "Fair Game" at libraries throughout the country.

How many Desert Islands are there?
Can we make it Dessert Island?
In which case, I pick:
1. Julia Child (the "French Chef" ones made of her TV shows--they show how to make pastries very easily)
2. Fannie Farmer (editions before 1945 or so; pre-war used richer ingredients)
3. Crumpets and Scones by Iris Frey; although if I had more time to pick fruit for pies, maybe the Vegetarian Epicure (which also has a great egg bread (challah) recipe, which I'm sorry but I think, especially with raisins and extra sugar, is dessert.)
4. Moosewood (Best Poppy Seed Cake recipe, good carrot cake (carrots!), popovers, etc.)
5. Family recipes

World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award:

I write fantasy because it's there. I have no other excuse for sitting down for several hours a day indulging my imagination. Daydreaming. Thinking up imaginary people, impossible places. Imagination is the golden-eyed monster that never sleeps. It must be fed; it cannot be ignored. Making it tell the same tale over and over again makes it thin and whining; its scales begin to fall off; its fiery breath becomes a trickle of smoke. It is best fed by reality, an odd diet for something nonexistent; there are few details of daily life and its broad range of emotional context that can't be transformed into food for the imagination. It must be visited constantly, or else it begins to become restless and emit strange bellows at embarrassing moments; ignoring it only makes it grow larger and noisier. Content, it dreams awake, and spins the fabric of tales. There is really nothing to be done with such imagery except to use it: in writing, in art. Those who fear the imagination condemn it: something childish, they say, something monsterish, misbegotten. Not all of us dream awake. But those of us who do have no choice.

Thought it explained the lifestyle much better. And the reality of the job. And I dunno, say, the effect of changes (like barbed wire.) Good history stuff. I love this kind of thing...were you involved in making the book?
Have you seen the updated pictorial history of the cowboy today? Heck, you mighta been the one that mentioned it.

The original!
Read "The Virginian" here if you haven't:
http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/58/105/fr...