"Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster. I am not a monster, but I have not felt exactly what other women feel, or say they feel, for the fear of being thought unlike others." -Daniel Deronda by George Eliot (1876) Image source: Sir Frederick Burton…
Findouters Challenge: Ern, Sea Paintings, and Buster and Bingo
The Mystery of Banshee Towers by Enid Blyton My rating: 4 of 5 stars Findouters challenge: Book 15. The final book of the findouters series, this marks the end of my findouters challenge which I began last October. This one opens a little differently from the rest as while the children are setting out to…
Crito, Emma, and and Some Perspectives on the Social Contract
So the post I was planning to do this week was my review of my non-fiction read of the month, which this time is The Innocent Man by John Grisham, my first time reading something from the true crime genre (unless one counts Arthur and George, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s shorter account of the…
Bookquotes: Quotes from Books (2)
He had all the mental sensations of a man who, having prepared to exert his whole force in opening a supposedly stiff window, finds that his wife has had the carpenter in without telling him, and is consequently precipitated into the street. -Romance to the Rescue by Denis Mackail Image source: Photo by Mikes Photos…
Bookquotes: Quotes from Books (1)
When you sell a man a book, you don't just sell him twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships and sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean. -Parnassus on…
Findouters Challenge: Anonymous Messages and Hidden Secrets (and a rant about the new eds)
The Mystery of the Strange Messages by Enid Blyton Findouters challenge: Book 14. This is the second of the findouters cases to involve mysterious letters, the first being the Mystery of the Spiteful Letters. This time though, the target is not random people around Peterswood but a certain Mr Smith against whom they are directed…
Of Spaces to Play and Nature (or what substitutes for it)
Finally, a post about a poem, after not being able to do this the last two months. The poem I picked this time around (not related to my theme this month) is A City Sand-Pile by Edmund Leamy. Leamy (1848-1904) (I hope I looked up the right one) was an Irish MP, and Barrister, who…
Author Profile: Henry Cecil
I first came across Henry Cecil, or Henry Cecil Leon, as his full name is, in a bookshop I used to shop at some years ago, when I laid my eyes on what seemed like really fun covers (sort of like Wodehouse books). When I asked about them, I was told that they were humorous…
Review: Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye
Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye by Geronimo Stilton My rating: 3 of 5 stars I received this book for review through NetGalley. This is the first title in the Geronimo Stilton series featuring the eponymous mouse (I could hardly call him a “hero”, but he is one of sorts) and characters now familiar from…
Some Wonderful Children’s Books I “Discovered” as an Adult
Reading Lucy Mangan’s #Bookworm (my review is on this page below) took me into one of my favourite genres, children’s literature which I enjoy reading even now (as anyone who reads my reviews or sees this page would know) and inspired by it is this post about a few children’s books that I…
Literary Potpourri 