About stories of all kinds
The "I can't find a blurb because everybody already knows or doesn't care what this book is about" solution: An Encyclopedia Britannica entry on War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy War and Peace, historical novel by Leo Tolstoy, originally published as Voyna i mir in 1865–69. This panoramic study of early 19th-century Russian society, noted for its mastery of realistic… Continue reading It Got Involved: War and Peace Review
Blurb for Return of the Thief by Megan Whelan Turner The thrilling, twenty-years-in-the-making, conclusion to the New York Times–bestselling Queen’s Thief series, by Megan Whalen Turner. This beloved and award-winning series began with the acclaimed novel The Thief. It and four more stand-alone volumes bring to life a world of epics, myths, and legends, and… Continue reading The Long-Awaited Return of the Thief: Book Review
All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither… Continue reading ‘Driven on by some demon’
Blurb for A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz Before Jane Austen, William Deresiewicz was a very different young man. A sullen and arrogant graduate student, he never thought Austen would have anything to offer him. Then he read Emma—and everything changed. In this unique and lyrical book, Deresiewicz weaves the misadventures of Austen’s characters with… Continue reading Truth Universally Acknowledged: A Jane Austen Education Review
Blurb for A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab Kell is one of the last Antari—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black. Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody… Continue reading London Calling: A Darker Shade of Magic Review
“[T]he besetting sin of a philanthropist, it appears to me, is apt to be a moral obliquity. His sense of honor ceases to be the sense of other honorable men. At some point of his course...he is tempted to palter with the right, and can scarcely forbear persuading himself that the importance of his public… Continue reading “The importance of his public ends”
Dying was nothing and he had no picture of it nor fear of it in his mind. But living was a field of grain blowing in the wind on the side of a hill. Living was a hawk in the sky. Living was an earthen jar of water in the dust of the threshing with… Continue reading ‘Blowing in the wind’
I sat on this one for a while after I read it because I didn’t really know what I thought... what helped illuminate my thoughts about Six of Crows was watching the Shadow and Bone Netflix series.
The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher MorleyMy rating: 4 of 5 starsI really loved this book on first read—the atmospheric bookshop, the eccentric proprietor, the silly love-story, and the espionage plot shoe-horned in throughout. What’s not to like? Recently when I was skimming through it in search of a quotation, I got caught on so many… Continue reading Judging Spies by Their Covers: The Haunted Bookshop Review
Therefore, if we built splendid castles... and pictured beautiful scenes, among the fervid coals of the hearth round which we were clustering, and if all went to rack with the crumbling embers, and have never since arisen out of the ashes, let us take to ourselves no shame. In my own behalf, I rejoice that… Continue reading ‘Let us take to ourselves no shame’
Fictitiously Yours 