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At night - my little Lamp - and Book: April 2013
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Tuesday, 2 April 2013. OK, I'm a little late on this one; it won the Carnegie. Year But better late than never, particularly with a book as darkly beautiful and profound as this one. Written by Patrick Ness (quickly becoming. Name in YA literature, particularly for boys), but based on an idea by Siobhan Dowd. Stories are wild creatures," the Monster said. "When you let them loose, who knows what havoc they might wreak? There is an element of Fight Club. One word of warning though - for the last quarter o...
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At night - my little Lamp - and Book: Go Set a Watchman
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Saturday, 25 July 2015. Go Set a Watchman. WARNING: There are potential spoilers in this review. I recommend you do not read it until you have read the book. As a book lover, how could I not wade in on this one? Not only did I study To Kill a Mockingbird. Myself when I was young, but as a high school English teacher, I have also taught it many times, and it never, never grows tired. So I was nervous when the news came that this missing manuscript had 'turned up', and that Go Set a Watchman. Floated throu...
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At night - my little Lamp - and Book: Fidelity
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Monday, 20 July 2015. Persephone number 4 is a strange book. I enjoyed it immensely and yet, at the same time, I found it rather boring. How can this be? Well, to start with, it follows a well worn plot path: woman is shunned by society after social misdemeanour. This is not enough to bore me, however. Indeed, far from it. I love books that fought for the position of women to be better understood in times when the female voice was little more than a whisper. Is the book well-written? Are frequently used)...
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At night - my little Lamp - and Book: Behind the Scenes at the Museum
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Sunday, 19 July 2015. Behind the Scenes at the Museum. I read this purely on the strength of Life After Life. Which I read last year and absolutely loved. I was declaiming its virtues in work one day, when a colleague asked if I'd read Behind the Scenes at the Museum. At my negative response, she raved lyrical for a good while, and I was convinced. Having now read it, however, I'm not quite. As convinced as I was. But then, it's not the over-arching plotline in Behind the Scenes. Whilst in Life After Life.
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At night - my little Lamp - and Book: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
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Sunday, 19 July 2015. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I love Victorian Lit. I love stories with female protagonists. I love female writers. I love Jane Eyre. And yet, an ill-timed - and ultimately deeply unsuccessful - attempt to broach Villette. Whilst on a road trip through Andalucia a few years ago prevented me, until recently, from attempting any of the other of the lesser known of the Bronte oeuvre. A schoolgirl error, I now concede. Anne uses, rather clumsily, it has been said (and I'm tempted to agre...
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At night - my little Lamp - and Book: July 2014
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Friday, 4 July 2014. The adjective most applied in publicity for and reviews of this novel is "timely", which in some ways does it a disservice. It is about the First World War, and so, in this centenary year, is indeed auspicious, but there is a richness to Wake. That raises it above the average. I could easily see this as a BBC drama, and if you want to see how it would look, check out the YouTube footage of the procession of the coffin; you can almost see Ada and Ivy laying wreaths at the cenotaph.
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At night - my little Lamp - and Book: March 2015
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Monday, 9 March 2015. I do not allow myself to gorge on Murdoch. I am pacing myself, leaving time between each book I read so that I can fully digest it; to read them one after another might taint them, I might attach a character to the wrong book, they might bleed into each other. No, better to separate and to always know there are more to come. This particular book is up there with the best of the Murdochs I have read so far. I absolutely. The novel rather than being part of it. I also question whe...
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At night - my little Lamp - and Book: #bookfacefriday
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Friday, 7 August 2015. Such a gorgeous thing to do. Some of these are real genius. Simple but so creative and funny. There's only two minutes of Friday left, but I'm going hunting through my shelves to see what I can find anyway. #bookfacefriday. Dr kold kadavr flatliner, MD, the sub/dude. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator. 25 August 2015 at 10:57. Hullo . it is ages since you have posted . I hope all is well. I do miss your reviews and book suggestions. Anne (surrounded by books).
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At night - my little Lamp - and Book: The Jewel in the Crown
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Saturday, 25 July 2015. The Jewel in the Crown. Every so often, I crave a book about India. I think that subconsciously I'm trying to re-live A Suitable Boy. For me the most perfect novel ever written. I loved. That book, from the opening scene to the last. And it gave me a thirst for more about that extraordinary country, although I have yet to find another novel that comes even close to Vikram Seth's. I remember my mother watching the television series of The Jewel in the Crown. The second chapter, how...