Zaphod?
If it was my cat, we'd have winner.
Anya, the Shopkeepers of America called. They wanted me to tell you that 'please go' just got replaced with 'have a nice day.'
Xander ,'Selfless'
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."
Typo Boy - Sep 19, 2008 7:23:35 am PDT #7408 of 28404
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.
Hil R. - Sep 19, 2008 6:53:54 pm PDT #7409 of 28404
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l
I've been reading Girls of Riyadh. The blurb on the cover says, "Imagine Sex and the City if the city in question were Riyadh," and that's basically it. It's pretty compelling so far. I'm about halfway through right now. It was translated from Arabic, and there are a bunch of places where there are footnotes on cultural things or on Arabic words that didn't really have an English equivalent.
Fay - Sep 19, 2008 8:15:03 pm PDT #7410 of 28404
"Fuck Western ideologically-motivated gender identification!" Sulu gasped, and came.
That sounds fascinating, Hil! I'll keep my eyes peeled for it!
Hil R. - Sep 19, 2008 8:38:41 pm PDT #7411 of 28404
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l
It's definitely the rich girls of Riyadh -- they take vacations to Europe and sometimes the US pretty often, and they almost never seem terribly concerned about money.
Also, I've been noticing that, in contrast to most similar-type American and British books that I've read, there are very few descriptions of clothing (aside from wedding dresses and things like that), but the description of someone's makeup can go on for an entire page.
It's written as if it were being sent out, chapter by chapter, to an email list, by an anonymous Saudi girl, with little bits at the beginning of each chapter of the "author's" reactions to what everyone's been saying about it. That was wearing a little thin for a while, but it's starting to pick up again.
Barb - Sep 20, 2008 4:04:11 am PDT #7412 of 28404
“Not dead yet!”
I'm trying to finish Susan Wiggs' Just Breathe. Not sure I'm going to get there-- it was one of those cases where the book is thisclose to really going somewhere interesting and unique and the author chose the cliché, every single time.
That and the lead character is a complete waffle.
Beverly - Sep 20, 2008 5:43:27 am PDT #7413 of 28404
Days shrink and grow cold, sunlight through leaves is my song. Winter is long.
Barb, I'm quoting this post of yours in GWW because my response to it belongs more there than here.
P.M. Marc - Sep 20, 2008 6:32:51 am PDT #7414 of 28404
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear
I'm trying to finish Susan Wiggs' Just Breathe. Not sure I'm going to get there-- it was one of those cases where the book is thisclose to really going somewhere interesting and unique and the author chose the cliché, every single time.
That's a shame! Her historicals are some of the few romance books I have that survived the purge, because she *did* go somewhere interesting so often.
Barb - Sep 20, 2008 6:50:21 am PDT #7415 of 28404
“Not dead yet!”
If you want, Plei, I'll send it to you when I'm done. Could be I'm completely cracked.
sj - Sep 20, 2008 7:11:34 am PDT #7416 of 28404
"There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."
Has anyone read the novel Good Faith by Jane Smiley? I'm listening to the book on tape in the car, and I am finding it very boring. I can't tell if it is the book or just the narrator.
Steph L. - Sep 20, 2008 7:53:25 am PDT #7417 of 28404
this mess was yours / now your mess is mine
Barb, on your recommendation, I got A Rake's Guide to Pleasure from the library. I plan to start it this weekend, so I'll let you know what I think.
I'm also reading Virgins of Venice: Enclosed Lives and Broken Vows in the Renaissance Convent, which I stumbled upon a couple of weeks ago, when we were talking about "get thee to a nunnery" in Bitches; I googled that phrase to make sure I wasn't talking out of my ass when I said "nunnery" = "whorehouse," and one of the links led to a review of that book, which sounded intriguing.
(Hey, I went to Catholic school for 12 years, and I currently work freelance for nuns, so they fascinate me, *especially* the account of these Renaissance-era Italian convents.)