What's with today, today?

The other day at work I was telling a co-worker that I didn't have anything to read, and asked her to recommend me something. "What do you like?" she asked. I answered "Literary fiction, like A.S. Byatt, crime, like murder mysteries, and fantasy, like Kate Griffin..." And from there we got to urban fantasy (but not paranormal romance), and all the genres, sub-genres and genre traits that appeal or repel. It is like a secret handshake, finding someone else who enjoys the same genre as you do. Saying you like reading fantasy can be like asking someone to condescend to you or adopt an air of puzzlement, but being able to talk about the fantasy genre brings an air of freedom. Here, you think, is someone who understands! But this is not always so. After all, there is that multitude of subgenres and other preferences to face. There are large gaps in my knowledge of genre that could encompass someone's entire favourite reading matter- talking about genre is not alw...

Well, every time I plan to get into the swing of regular updates I seem to fail! So sorry about that... I do have some exciting news though. I got a new job! I'm now working as a librarian at a university. I'm really happy to be there, but it means I'm no longer working part-time and I have a longer commute, so recently things like writing (and even reading) blogs have fallen by the wayside a little. Hopefully this will change once I've settled in a bit more. Happily, I have had time for reading books (in fact, lots of time on my commute) and I've been reading a few things that I've really enjoyed. I've been in the mood for fantasy and fantastical books lately, which has been helped by a couple of book group picks- the magic realism of The Master and Margarita and the sci-fi of Inverted World (which was quite strange, and a lot of us found the ending fairly unsatisfying). My two most recent reads have been Among Others by Jo Walton and Sea Hearts by Margo ...

I thought I was getting onto a roll with blogging, but then February happened and no blogs got written at all! Worse than that, even, is that I got into a bit of a reading slump, though I had to push through to finish my book club book, which has helped. And I haven't even started my reading challenge yet! So what better way to get back into things than a short round-up of recent reading? Here are the last five books that I read: Image from Goodreads Unspoken - Sarah Rees Brennan I ended up buying this because I couldn't get it from the library- and sadly I didn't get this cover, which I like, but the book itself made up for it. I really enjoy Sarah Rees Brennan's blog (I think I first heard about her from Ronni ) and this book sounded great to me- it's a Gothic mystery YA book with a small English town, an aristocratic family with secrets and a telepathic connection between a high school girl and her 'imaginary friend' who turns out n...

'The Night Circus' by Erin Morgenstern has been reviewed all over the place, and a lot of those reviews have said very similar things- basically that the plot and characters were not stunning, but the setting was amazing. I love an amazing setting, so I went out and read it straight away. The basic premise is not particularly new: two ageless magicians set up a contest between their protege's, the rules are not defined and the participants have no choice in the matter (or knowledge of the other's identity). The setting, which becomes the contest itself, is a circus which involves not just the duelling magicians but a host of other performers, including a contortionist, living statues, acrobats, a fortune teller, and lion tamers.  The circus is indeed enchanting, but I think the critics are a little harsh on the plot- for the first half at least it unfolds in a similar way to the circus itself, following different tracks without revealing its secrets. It reminded me a...

I've always liked the story of the twelve dancing princesses. It's such a pretty story, with dances and dancing slippers and gold and silver trees, and it also has a sense of mystery to it. The story raises a lot of unresolved questions, like where is this place the princesses are dancing? Who are the princes and is there a romantic interest there? How do the princesses live half in one world and half in another where they dance every night? How do they feel about the resolution to the story and their separation from the princes? What happens to the youngest sister who comes closest to noticing the soldier but doesn't marry him in the end? So I was happy to hear of Wildwood Dancing , which is based on the story, and intrigued to see what answers Juliet Marillier would bring. In some ways, Juilet Marillier does not answer my questions. Wildwood Dancing is not an exact retelling of the fairy tale (and is the better for it I think), so there are only five sisters and the pl...

I had an assignment yesterday, and all I wanted to do was write a blog post. Now it's handed in, and my motivation is flagging. Still! I did have all that time to think about what I wanted to say, so here goes... I remember first reading Harry Potter. I believe it was 1999, my parents were in the UK and when I went to visit they had Harry Potter, which was being reviewed at the time in the papers. But I hadn't really heard of it before. To my family, children's and young adult fantasy is pretty standard reading, and it was pretty natural for us to all read any book that came into the house. So, enough of setting the scene, I read Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone and I really enjoyed it. It had a great world, and it was a lot of fun, the language was so bubbly, it had a great humour to it and the story was a great adventure. But then the trouble started- I read the first review. And here follows the account of my continuing encounter with People's Reactions to ...