Category: Uncategorized
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Affinity by Sarah Waters
Well, Sarah Waters has done it again. She’s completely hijacked my life with one of her engrossing, agonizing novels. I’ve previously read Fingersmith and The Little Stranger and loved them both so turned to Affinity with much anticipation. I bought a copy of it about a year ago and just couldn’t work up any interest…
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Pryday
Hello all! I’ve decided not to participate in the Library Loot event anymore because I check so many books out and only read about 5% of them and it seems silly to post pictures of books on my blog that I’m never even going to crack open. But, I still want to do some kind…
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Library Loot, August 10-16
It’s been one of those weeks. One of those weeks where you feel dissatisfied with everything in your life, including every single book you try to read. I abandoned many books this week, even those I had made a good start in or was really looking forward to. I tossed Franny and Zooey by the wayside after…
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The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe by Andrew O’Hagan
I suppose it’s not very auspicious to start a post telling you that I had very high hopes for this book because it indicates that perhaps my hopes were dashed. I’m afraid to say that they were! What doesn’t sound appealing about a story told by Marilyn Monroe’s dog, Maf? You may be intrigued; I…
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A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper
Sophie FitzOsborne lives on the island of Montmaray with her sister Henry, cousin Veronica, Uncle John and their housekeeper Rebecca. Sophie has just turned 16 and suffers the usual self-doubt and anxiety about her looks and skills that many young girls have. She shares a loyal friendship with Veronica and suffers her sister’s eccentricities and…
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Library Loot, August 3 – 9
This week’s loot reflects my current passion for everything early ’60’s. I started watching Mad Men last week and I am infected. I’d never had any interest in Mad Men before now, but found myself watching the first season one evening when there was not much else on TV. I’ve now made it to the…
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Snowdrops by A.D. Miller
Snowdrops is the kind of vicious, cynical little book that I usually avoid because I find it hard to read a book in which none of the characters are sympathetic or valiant, though I know that this probably reflects true life more than I like to believe. Moscow in the 2000’s – drunken, corrupt, violent…
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The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin
Titled My Last Duchess outside of the US Many reviews of this entertaining novel have mentioned that “If you’re missing Downton Abbey, read this to fill the void” and really this could have been the story of Lady Grantham if she had married a dissembling dirt bag instead of Lord Grantham, who seems like a…
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Library Loot, July 27 – August 2
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the…
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The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
There’s been an interruption to my scheduled reading plans because I have been stressed at work and needed pure escape. I haven’t read a good British mystery in a while and when I saw a review of this on Book Group of One it sounded like just the respite I needed. I plunged into it…
A Certain Fondness 