That's my girl... That's my good girl.

Kaylee ,'Serenity'


Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


Ginger - Oct 13, 2012 6:57:39 pm PDT #19914 of 28344
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda

"If you love books enough, books will love you back."

Also, she's persuaded to live by the reminder that she's only read half of Babel 17.

There may be stranger reasons for being alive.

There are books....There's interlibrary loan. There are books you can fall into and pull up over your head.

When things were very bad in high school, if I finished a book at night, I had to start a new one to have a reason to get up.


Typo Boy - Oct 13, 2012 8:56:07 pm PDT #19915 of 28344
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.

I'd rec Hereville, but I don't what age you are looking for. I think you'd have to be 10 or older to appreciate it (or maybe a really precocious eight). [link]

BTW - NOT "a cross between fiddler on the roof and Harry Potter". I think the review is by someone who does not read much fantasy and who has not watched Fiddler on the Roof in a long time. But the hero is a late 19th or early 20th century Hasid girl who rescues witches and fights trolls. But otherwise I think the review is not a bad representation of the book.


Hil R. - Oct 14, 2012 12:24:18 am PDT #19916 of 28344
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l

But the hero is a late 19th or early 20th century Hasid girl who rescues witches and fights trolls.

I think it's set much later than that. In the scene where she falls down the hill and ends up in someone's backyard, they're having a barbecue with a propane grill. And there's an automatic coffee maker in the kitchen, and a cordless phone. I think it's the 1980s at the earliest.


Typo Boy - Oct 14, 2012 1:53:21 pm PDT #19917 of 28344
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.

Forgot about that. I guess I thought of it as 19th century because so much of the setting sounds 19th century.


Hil R. - Oct 14, 2012 2:27:02 pm PDT #19918 of 28344
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l

It seemed pretty modern to me, especially in that scene about preparing for Shabbat -- the cooking and cleaning would have been totally different in the nineteenth century. Nineteenth-century preparing-for-Shabbat scenes seem to always include someone either killing or plucking a chicken, and a whole lot of fetching water.


Typo Boy - Oct 14, 2012 3:25:37 pm PDT #19919 of 28344
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.

There did not seem to be electricity. Maybe I've forgotten that too.


Hil R. - Oct 14, 2012 3:59:31 pm PDT #19920 of 28344
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l

There's definitely electricity. There's no TV, but there's plenty of other electric stuff. That Shabbat scene includes vacuuming and ironing.


Typo Boy - Oct 15, 2012 8:03:02 am PDT #19921 of 28344
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.

My memory does not seem to be getting beter. I do remember it was a very cool book though.


Kate P. - Oct 16, 2012 9:48:53 am PDT #19922 of 28344
That's the pain / That cuts a straight line down through the heart / We call it love

Hil, I think the books you've settled on for your friend's kids are great (I've been meaning to get a copy of The Snowy Day for Rose), but thought I'd put in a plug for our current favorite book, Ten Nine Eight by Molly Bang. It's our bedtime book and is really warm and sweet and charming: [link]


Connie Neil - Oct 16, 2012 10:44:37 am PDT #19923 of 28344
brillig

I'm reading Josephine Tey's "Brat Farrer" for the first time, and I now know what kind of writer I want to be when I grow up. Her style is sort of minimalist, in that there's little overt description, but it's all so evocative. A girl describes Aunt Bee as having a face like an expensive cat, which she is secretly pleased by, and the rector's wife later says, "Yes, but not the fluffy kind." And I can instantly picture Aunt Bee. I don't know the color of her hair or her height or build, but I know her.

In referring to a dead relative, Bee say "Walter has died." The rector's wife asks "Did he die in an odour of sanctity?" "Carbolic. A workhouse ward I believe." I snickered so loud the other people in the lunch room looked intrigued, but I didn't look up to give them the satisfaction.

And she has dozens of books I've never read!