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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E-book exclusive extras:1) Christie biographer Charles Osborne's essay on The Mirror Crack'd from Side to …
Pretty good, but pacing problems marred the last third. Onto the next one in the omnibus!
@koosli Super interested to hear what you think of this.
E-book exclusive extras:1) Christie biographer Charles Osborne's essay on The Mirror Crack'd from Side to …
“Well, supposing you went into a shop, say, and you knew the proprietress had a son who was the spivvy young juvenile delinquent type. He was there listening while you told his mother about some money you had in the house, or some silver or a piece of jewellery. It was something you were excited and pleased about and you wanted to talk about it. And you also perhaps mention an evening that you were going out. You even say you never lock the house. You're interested in what you're saying, what you're telling her, because it's so very much in your mind. And then, say, on that particular evening you come home because you've forgotten something and there's this bad lot of a boy in the house, caught in the act, and he turns round and coshes you.” […] “[M]ost people have a sense of protection. They realize when it's unwise to say or do something because of the person or persons who are taking in what you say, and because of the kind of character that those people have. But as I say, Alison Wilde never thought of anybody else but herself— She was the sort of person who tells you what they've done and what they'ye seen and what they've felt and what they've heard, They never mention what any other people said or did. Life is a kind of one-way track—just their own progress through it. Other people seem to them just like—like wallpaper in a room." She paused and then said, "I think Heather Badcock was that kind of person.”
Miss Marple describes a mechanism of how there are people that bad stuff happens to. Bad stuff happened to Heather Badcock.
E-book exclusive extras:1) Christie biographer Charles Osborne's essay on The Mirror Crack'd from Side to …
The first in a bound compendium of four Miss Marple novels.
What is the true origin of the phrase 'one fell swoop'? Does the word 'honeymoon' …
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.
What is the true origin of the phrase 'one fell swoop'? Does the word 'honeymoon' …
This is the kind of book that needs to be dipped into for short reads. To consume the thing top-to-tail is a pretty big undertaking.
Recommended by Zatty after we were talking about Watership Down.
What is the true origin of the phrase 'one fell swoop'? Does the word 'honeymoon' …
It's weird that the title of this book is exactly one of the folk etymologies that the author is keen to dispel. I guess it's what sells.
It's weird that the title of this book is exactly one of the folk etymologies that the author is keen to dispel. I guess it's what sells.
What is the true origin of the phrase 'one fell swoop'? Does the word 'honeymoon' …
From the tsundoku pile.
Back cover description - Raoul Smythe wanted nothing more than to be left alone with …
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.
Back cover description - Raoul Smythe wanted nothing more than to be left alone with his computer research. Unfortunately, such …
@jfinkhaeuser@bookwyrm.social I was gifted this a couple of years ago and I am still dipping into it. Agree it’s not something you’d want to read more than a page or two of as a time. So many of the words are melancholy or of loss, best sipped at sparingly.
Back cover description - Raoul Smythe wanted nothing more than to be left alone with his computer research. Unfortunately, such …
Picked five stories in this collection, published in the 1970s and 1980s. Bounced off two of them. Annoyed at Bear’s depiction of women in two more of them—one featured negative portrayals of sex work and one simply had no women in it. I can get better stories than these.
