A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything.

Wash ,'The Message'


We're Literary 2: To Read Makes Our Speaking English Good  

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."


sj - Apr 30, 2004 9:42:23 pm PDT #2557 of 10002
"There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."

Hmm. Trying to be open-minded, but can't imagine anything replacing the '95 miniseries as the OTP&P adaptation.

Me either. I also really can't picture anyone but Colin Firth as Darcy. The Bridget Jones Diary sealed it for me, he is Darcy to me.


flea - May 01, 2004 1:41:08 am PDT #2558 of 10002
information libertarian

I expect to be beaten for this, but: I don't find Colin Firth sexy in the slightest. As Darcy, or as anyone else.

Also, I like Keira Knightley well enough, but I am already getting tired of her Gwyneth levels of overexposure.

In book news, I am reading the New Yorker. Oh, I did read a book 3 weeks ago - a new-to-me Georgette Heyer, Regency Buck, in a very nice UK paperback edition courtesy of Nutty (not 'Butty' as I originally typed). Not my favorite Heyer - hero too superior and always frickin' right, and the heavy use of actual historical figures as characters took some geting used to - but kicked the ass of most books of its type nonetheless.


Megan E. - May 01, 2004 2:54:58 am PDT #2559 of 10002

NovaChild, I just started reading HP book 4 and just got to the Avra Kadavra part! Spooky timing. =)


deborah grabien - May 01, 2004 7:23:27 am PDT #2560 of 10002
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

flea, it just means more Colin for the rest of us. No prob, honestly. And we all have our quirks - I completely missed the John Cusack meeting. His sister Joan, OTOH, knocks my socks off.

"Regency Buck" is one of my favourites - that's the one with Judith and Perry and Lord Worth, yes? You meet those characters again a few years later, in Heyer's wonderful book set in the days up to, during, and right after Waterloo, "An Infamous Army".


beth b - May 01, 2004 7:27:56 am PDT #2561 of 10002
oh joy! Oh Rapture ! I have a brain!

this is the point where I admit with a hangdog expression that even though I majored in history, battle scenes make my eyes glaze over


deborah grabien - May 01, 2004 7:36:28 am PDT #2562 of 10002
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

beth, Infamous Army is less about Waterloo than it is about Brussels and the people (real and fictional) that she's writing about. ALthough she covers the battle, it's not a huge long unbroken battle scene; she does it as much through personalities as through description. It's actually my favourite fictionalised take on Waterloo and the events of that summer; I prefer hers to Thackeray's.

And I know what you mean. Also history major, but most battle scenes? Yaaaaaaawn. Maybe it's because too many of them take them on as somehow heroic, the Grand Sweeping Pageant Of Military Glory.

And I do not now and never have for one moment drunk the Kool-Aid that produces a belief in the rightness of the Grand Sweeping Pageant Of Military Glory.

Also? Don't give a rat's ass about the linear progression of tactics. I want the setting, and I want to care about the people involved. Heyer did that, in spades.


beth b - May 01, 2004 7:42:38 am PDT #2563 of 10002
oh joy! Oh Rapture ! I have a brain!

I read Infamous Army sometime in my high school years. I remember skimming through large chunks. It is one of the few of hers that I never reread. I bet I'd feel differently about it now.


Scrappy - May 01, 2004 7:50:52 am PDT #2564 of 10002
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

I adore Infamous Army. Heyer intertwines the lives of the characters and the battle so naturally and seamlessly that the amoutn of work that went into the piece never shows. The scene where Babs and Judith bond over tea after tending the wounded all day? Brilliant.


deborah grabien - May 01, 2004 8:04:13 am PDT #2565 of 10002
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

The scene where Babs and Judith bond over tea after tending the wounded all day? Brilliant.

Gods, yes. Perfection.

And during the battle itself, what held and kept me were the POVs of people I'd come to care about. Charles, watching a close friend get hit, calling out to another friend shortly after to see if he knew anything, and finding an even closer friend dying nearby...

Crikey. I love that damned book.


Aims - May 01, 2004 9:45:17 am PDT #2566 of 10002
Shit's all sorts of different now.

Has anyone read Woman Thou Art Loosed ?

The movie is being released and I'd kinda like to read it. The little girl on a show I watch is gonna be in it and I'm curious if it's any good.