Travel is this week’s theme, as a British explorer loses himself in a quest for El Dorado and a woman travels to Byzantium to clear her brother’s name.
The Mists of Avalon
Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon is absolutely huge, when it comes to feminist retellings of legends, giving voice and dignity to the oft-maligned Morgaine le Fay. And I mean huge in all sense of the word- not only was its impact huge, but it’s also over nine hundred pages long. When I came across the TNT miniseries adaptation at my school library, I was downright curious about how such an adaptation would even be feasible. So I picked it up.
I spend a lot of time denigrating the Twilight saga. While I think Twilight itself is decent, New Moon and Eclipse are simply pointless. (I’m going to do a Sunday Salon in the future about series- these will definitely come into play.) I’m not fond of the treatment of romance, Bella’s passive character, or the bizarre bastardization of vampire mythology. While I’m more than happy it gets the wee lasses reading, they need to move to better stuff very quickly.
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
Leviathan is one of the books that made me start book blogging, when I heard about it last year. It was featured on my very first Literary Horizon. Steampunk, World War I, a girl disguising herself as a boy to get into the military… it’s one of those novels that feels like it’s expressly designed to appeal to me. It has taken me a while to get my hands on a copy, but my hold finally came through at my local library.
And it was well worth the wait!
The northern hemisphere, at least, is socked in by winter right now… So, on a cold, wintry day, when you want nothing more than to curl up with a good book on the couch… what kind of reading do you want to do?
I want to lose myself in an epic fantasy, quite frankly! The Fellowship of the Ring looks so tempting whenever I see it out of the corner of my eye. There’s something so nice about being curled up in bed with an epic fantasy in your lap and forgetting the cold weather outside with hobbits and kings.
But this year, I’m trying to move away from my beloved fantasy and expand my literary horizons. So, this winter, I’m trying to lose myself in historical fiction, namely Dorothy Dunnett’s King Hereafter. It’s just as massive and epic as any good fantasy, I have to say, so it gives me the escapism I want from a book in winter.
In short- just give me an epic storyline and I am golden.
I’d Rather We Got Casinos: And Other Black Thoughts by Larry Wilmore
I’ve been a fan of Larry Wilmore ever since his opinion on The Princess of the Frog was shown on the Daily Show three years ago. It always makes my day when he shows up on the Daily Show. Something about his wry contempt for the stupidity around him and his particular brand of racial satire just makes me laugh so much.
We’re going to take a look at the first books in two historical mystery series- perhaps they will get me back into mystery after my self-imposed exile from the genre?
It’s February 1st, so you know what that means- we’re cracking open our copies of The Fellowship of the Ring as we move forward in The Lord of the Rings readalong! (But don’t crack them open too hard. Respect the book, kids.)
If you’re completely in the dark, Eva, Maree, and Teresa are hosting a readalong of The Lord of the Rings, each one of us hosting a different book in the series. It’s never too late to jump in. If you’d like to join us, sign up over at Teresa’s initial post and grab your copy of The Fellowship of the Ring!
I’m hosting this particular month of the readalong. My duties as host include this post, another post in the middle of the month to see how we’re progressing, and a final post at the end, accompanied by my review of The Fellowship of the Ring. Like Eva said in her first post, you don’t have to finish exactly on the 28th. Take the reading as slowly or as quickly as you’d like; this readalong is about fun!
