To pretend to do good to others is to feed one’s vanity --K.M. Munshi, Prithvi Vallabh (1921)
Review: Illusion by Stephanie Elmas
My thanks to NetGalley and Endeavour Media for a review copy of this book. I requested this one because the combination of Victorian England and magic was one that sounded exciting—something like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, perhaps. This story opens with Tom Winter, a music teacher who gives the daughters of the well-to-do…
Consider orangutans. In all the worlds graced by their presence, it is suspected that they can talk but choose not to do so in case humans put them to work, possibly in the television industry. In fact they can talk. It’s just that they talk in Orangutan. Humans are only capable of listening in…
The Shakespeare Project: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Acts IV and V
This is my final post on A Midsummer Night's Dream under the Shakespeare Project, a series in which I am reading Shakespeare's plays, act by act, and writing out a summary and some thoughts on this blog. More about the Shakespeare Project here. My Posts on Act I, II, and III of the play are…
Shelf Control #10
This is a feature I borrowed from Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies, and is all about celebrating the books already on your TBR. To participate, all you do is pick one of the books on your TBR every Wednesday, and write a post about it (usually what it's all about, what makes you want to read it, where…
Review: Tokyo Tarareba Girls, Vol. 1
My thanks to NetGalley for a review copy of this one. This was my very first manga read. I have watched some of the animated versions of course, Fushigi Yuugi (Curious Play), Nodame Cantabile, Emma, and Yatitake Japan, among them but had never really read any. So when I saw this on NetGalley, and…
Bookquotes: Quotes from Books (14)
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." --Grucho Marx, The Essential Grucho
Book Review: My Real Name is Hanna
My thanks to NetGalley for a review copy of this book. This is a story told by Hanna Slivka to her daughter, about a part of her life that she has so far kept hidden from her—when at fourteen, she was living with her family in Russian occupied Ukraine. Life had become hard, their…
Book Review: Isabella of Angoulême, Part II by Erica Lane
My thanks to NetGalley, BooksGoSocial, and Silverwood Books for a review copy of this book. This is the second in a series of three books centred around Isabella of Angoulême, the ‘tangled queen’. I chose to read this one despite not having read the first as this was about a character and a period of…
Shelf Control #9
I borrowed the feature Shelf Control from Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies, and this is my ninth post under this. This feature is all about celebrating the books already on your TBR. To participate, you simply pick one of the books on your TBR each Wednesday and write a post about it (usually what it's all about, what…
Literary Potpourri 