Friends of the blog know I am a “Downton Abbey” fan, addicted to the upstairs-downstairs lives being chronicled on PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre. Last night’s episode was especially entrancing with the return of the viper Vera and the wounding of Matthew and William in France. And didn’t you love dowager Lady Violet doing battle with the vicar? I’ve seen a number [...]
Archive for January, 2012
Up with Downton: more reading
Posted in Fiction, Thoughts on Books, Thoughts on TV, Uncategorized, tagged Downton Abbey, Elswyth Thane, English country house, family sagas, Fiction, Masterpiece Theatre, Philip Rock, R.E. Delderfield, The Light Heart, The Long Afternoon, The Passing Bells, Theirs Was the Kingdom, Ursula Zilinksy, Williamsburg novels, World War I on January 30, 2012 | 7 Comments »
Gypsy curse?
Posted in Fiction, Reviews, Thoughts on Books, Uncategorized, tagged crime fiction, England, Gypsy, Romany, Stef Penney, Tana French, The Invisible Ones on January 24, 2012 | 2 Comments »
I was going to wait and save this book as part of a mystery round-up, but then I realized it would be a crime to wait. It’s not that often anymore that I sit down with a book and read it start-to-finish, reluctant to break for meals or other distractions. Thankfully, I finished Stef Penney’s [...]
Behind the scenes
Posted in Fiction, Reviews, Thoughts on Books, Uncategorized, tagged Fiction, mothers and daughters, Natalie Wexler, Suzzy Roche, The Mother Daughter Show, the Roches, Wayward Saints on January 19, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
The title characters of folksinger-songwriter Suzzy Roche’s appealing first novel, Wayward Saints, are a mother and a daughter who haven’t seen each other in years. Mary Saint left small-town Swallow as a teenager, escaping from her abusive father and gaining fame and fortune as the lead singer of the alt-rock band Sliced Ham. But that [...]
Days and nights at the Circus
Posted in Fiction, Reviews, Thoughts on Books, Thoughts on Movies, Thoughts on TV, Uncategorized, Writing and Reading, tagged Alec Guinness, espionage, film, Gary Oldman, George Smiley, John le Carre, Karla, MI5, miniseries, Smiley's People, spy, the Circus, The Honourable Schoolboy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on January 11, 2012 | 1 Comment »
I caught the elephant walk on the local news last night; yes, the circus is back in town. As much as I enjoy the animals and the acrobats, I’m too busy to head to the arena. Besides, I’m being vastly entertained by events at the Circus, which John le Carre fans know is his name [...]
Reboot
Posted in Fiction, Reviews, Thoughts on Books, Uncategorized, Writing and Reading, tagged androids, Cinder, Cinderella, cyborg, dystopia, fairy tale, Marissa Meyer, science fiction, YA on January 5, 2012 | 1 Comment »
“She was cyborg, and she would never go to the ball.” Laugh if you want. I admit to a chuckle upon reading that sentence early on in Cinder, Marissa Meyer’s first novel, a YA SF reboot (sorry, couldn’t resist) of the familiar fairy tale. It’s an inventive adventure, but most of the humor is inadvertent. Meyers [...]
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