Reviews and Comments

Deborah Pickett

futzle@outside.ofa.dog

Joined 2 years, 2 months ago

Technical nonfiction and spec fiction. She/her. Melbourne, Australia. Generation X. Admin of Outside of a Dog. BDFL of Hometown (Mastodon) instance Old Mermaid Town (@futzle@old.mermaid.town). Avatar image is of a book that my dog tried to put on their inside.

My rating scale: ★ = I didn't care for it and probably didn't finish it; ★★ = It didn't inspire but I might have finished it anyway; ★★★ = It was fine; ★★★★ = I enjoyed it; ★★★★★ = I couldn't put it down.

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The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (Hardcover, 2001, Compass Press) 3 stars

E-book exclusive extras:1) Christie biographer Charles Osborne's essay on The Mirror Crack'd from Side to …

Unexpectedly relevant in this pandemic era

3 stars

Content warning Whodunit spoilers - Agatha Christie - The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side

Port out, starboard home (2005, Penguin, Penguin Books) 3 stars

What is the true origin of the phrase 'one fell swoop'? Does the word 'honeymoon' …

Fascinating but for a very small target audience

3 stars

Every entry in this book about folk etymology follows the same format: “Here’s this word or phrase. People say it originates with this far-fetched etymology, but they’re wrong, it’s actually this mundane etymology.”

I certainly learned a lot of trivia tidbits from this book, but I couldn’t consume more than a few per day before they got monotonous.

Shade and Shadow (Paperback, 1996, Del Rey) 2 stars

Back cover description - Raoul Smythe wanted nothing more than to be left alone with …

Fine, not a very coherent whodunit

2 stars

I shouldn’t expect too much from a first-time author under the Del Rey label, but Shade & Shadow feels like two stories—one about magic research, one about the murder—smushed together. The former wasn’t really hashed out properly, and the latter was acceptable but with some poorly chosen red herrings.