I’m currently rebuilding the website as the old one got totally messed up when i was playing around with things (no idea what happened).
So i thought that while it was a total clusterfuck mess of SQL, i would take the opportunity to give it a whole new life and everything.
So if you go clicking on things you might find that very strange things happen. Don’t moan, i know a lot of things are broken, i’m working on it, it takes time.
I’ve got tons of old posts and pages from three websites that i’m working through and will be gradually posting all the stuff i want to keep on here while fixing all the broken things as i go through, one post, one page, at a time.
On top of doing all that, i will, of course, be continuing to add more new content and my latest posts will always appear directly below.
Or, if you prefer, you can also follow me on Twitter and Pinterest where i put a link to all new posts.
Enjoy
The Elegance of the Hedgehog — Muriel Barbery
The Elegance of the Hedgehog is Muriel’s second book after Gourmet Rhapsody, and is actually the bread on a Gourmet Rhapsody sandwich. The Elegance of the Hedgehog is set in the same building as Gourmet Rhapsody and begins shortly before the death bed of Pierre Arthens, and quickly passes by his death with a simple thought from a 12 year old girl in another apartment:
Pierre Arthens for sure was truly nasty. They say he was the pope of food critics and a worldwide chapion of French cuisine. Well, that doesn’t surprise me. If you want my opinion, French cuisine is pitiful. So much genius and wherewithal and so many resources for such a heavy end result … And so many sauces and stuffings and pastries, enough to make you burst! It’s in such bad taste … And when it isn’t heavy, it’s as fussy as can be: you’re dying of hunger and before you are three stylized radishes and two scallops in a seaweed gelee served on pseudo-Zen plates by waiters who look as joyful as undertakers.
As a classically trained chef myself, i couldn’t agree more.
Once Pierre is dead, the story quickly moves on as Pierre’s apartment is soon taken over by a new, wealthy occupant.
So while Gourmet Rhapsody is certainly a good starter, you don’t need to have read it beforehand to enjoy the main course of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, you could actually read it when the Pierre’s death is spoken about in The Elegance of the Hedgehog, or even afterwards, as a desert, if you so wish.
But whether you read Gourmet Rhapsody or not, i highly suggest you read The Elegance of the Hedgehog. At it’s heart is Muriel having some fun with the juxtaposition of the poor concierge on the ground floor with the wealthy inhabitants of the apartments above; peeling back the curtains to see what’s really going on behind these closed doors, throwing in some great little rants, ideas, and wonderful, philosophical, food-for-thought concerning the disparity of rich and poor in society; and how each tend to live in completely separate universes, oblivious to each other, hopefully never having to meet on the stairs.
As i’ve previously mentioned in Night Train to Lisbon, i do enjoy philosophers who write novels, and if i had real books i’d happily put Muriel on the shelf next to Pascal.
Super good, and next up from Muriel will be The Life of Elves which i’ll be sure to get around to reading in the not too distant future.
Muriel’s Page
#murielbarbery
One Good Dragon Deserves Another — Rachel Aaron
Still the same feeling that i was getting with Nice Dragons Finish Last, in that the pacing is still annoying me a bit. I think it’s totally to do with there being so much going on in these books with so many great characters that sometimes the story takes one away from something that one really doesn’t want to be taken away from, leaving one chomping at the bit to get back to that one character’s story line, thus giving the impression that everything’s suddenly going slow and plodding along when it actually isn’t. And then, when you find youself back at that one character’s story line you’ve been aching to get to, you’ll more than likely find that you’re now chomping at the bit to get back to another character’s story.
But — guess what — you keep-on-reading-and-a-reading because these books are really, really good with plenty of really, really great characters.
Which, you guessed it, left me chomping at the bit to get started on No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished.
Rachel’s Page
#fantasy #rachelaaron
The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway — Una McCormack
I’ve been looking forward to reading this for quite some time now but just haven’t gotten around to it until now. And i’m glad i finally did.
Admittedly, this book will only be for those of us who totally loved Star Trek Voyager and it’s brilliant captain and crew. If you do fall into this niche market and you haven’t yet read this book, then please do so, i can’t imaging anyone who loved the series would be disappointed with this lovely book.
My only gripe, is that we had to wait for so long for it to be written and published. I would have loved to have read this before, during and after the series, it would have been a wonderful companion for every viewer.
But, it is what it is, and it was wonderful to be taken back in time to relive a few memories of the series, and also to find out lots more about Kathryn and her life before and after.
And i just found The Autobiography of Jean-Luc Picard, and it certainly won’t be long before i read that.
Una’s Page
#autobiography #scifi #startrek #unamccormack
Mother of the Year — Rachel Aaron
As usual i check the loc points when i open a book on my Kindle. This one said 800, so was obviously a short, but i was rather disappointed when it suddenly ended after 242 loc points and i find the rest is just a marketing exercise for a future book in the series. It’s a very short, short masquerading as a normal short.
But, ho hum, it was free for signing up to the mailing list so maybe i shouldn’t moan too much. But just as you’re getting into Bethesda’s character and you’re really looking forward to the other 3/4’s of the 800 loc points being filled with even more revealing stuff, you realise you’re not getting what you hoped so much for.
So what’s the 242 loc points about? Bethesda gets interviewed on another dragon’s chat show.
Sadly, only a little bit of background into Bethesda’s character, and her attitude towards her children, before moving onto the rest of the series: i so wished there was more.
Rachel’s Page
#fantasy #rachelaaron
Nice Dragons Finish Last — Rachel Aaron
All mostly very enjoyable. My only moan is that some passages are a bit tedious: it’s like you just really want the pace to keep going but instead it slows right down to tell you what someone is thinking, or some long winded conversation, right in the middle of a load of fast moving chaos that you want to be enjoying in a fast pace way. I admit that i only felt like that a few times, so it’s not like the book is like that all the way through, and that’s probably why those few passages stand out so much as the rest of it is really on a good pace throughout.
So, yeah, that’s my only moan. Other than that, i really enjoyed it and i’m looking forward to more, and there’s certainly plenty more books in this series. Rachel really has done something wonderful with dragons in this dragon centric story, placing them in a dystopian capitalist environment as totally psychopathic creatures, essentially, the ultimate capitalists. And the dragon clans’ internal and external politics that get explored are really good.
Basically, everything you wanted to know about dragons but were too afraid to ask. Now doesn’t that sound like fun?
Rachel’s Page
#fantasy #rachelaaron
Tales from the Cafe — Toshikazu Kawaguchi
I soooo enjoyed Before the Coffee Gets Cold so i was really looking forward to some more tales.
And i wasn’t disappointed.
One thing that really stood out in this book was that all the niggly little questions that the first book raised got answered along the way: i won’t say what as it may spoil things. So it was rather good that as i started the book and i had questions in my mind that as i went along all the questions got dealt with. I imagine that Toshikazu had quite a few people asking these questions after reading the first book and it’s good to see that they all got answered.
Other than that, it’s pretty much more of the same as the first book whereby we have four people wanting to travel in time to make something right with someone. We also get to know the cafe staff and regulars a lot more along the way.
So yeah, great sequel and i really hope that Toshikazu thinks up a few more in the future and keeps the cafe going: it really is a good stage within which to fit stories into.
I continue to add my gripe from the first book, in that, there’s a cat on the cover but no cat in the book whatsoever. Toshikazu, if you ever read this, please put a cat in the next book.
Toshikazu’s Page
#scifi #japan #toshikazukawaguchi
The Courage to be Disliked — Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga
I couldn’t finish it. Bless me, i tried to, i really did, but i really couldn’t take any more of this tedious mediocrity.
I could barely manage a chapter before i had to put it aside and go off and read something else, but i kept on coming back to it with good intentions, but each time i would just end up putting it down again and go off once more to read something else. After 4 months of this, toing and froing, i just had to give up: it really wasn’t doing my happiness any good whatsoever.
To sum it up: there’s someone who claims to be a philosopher who is having a discussion with a young man, but the young man is asking all the wrong questions and failing miserably to point out the flaws in the supposed philosopher’s babble: the ridiculousness of this conversation just makes one feel like banging ones head against the wall.
Seriously people, you could just keep picking random books off library bookshelves for the rest of your life and not read anything as tedious and pointless as this book.
As such, this book has received my website’s great honour of being placed on “The Bookshelf of Infamy”, i’ve also deleted it from my Kindle and Amazon account: yes, it really is that bad.
I certainly won’t be bothering to read the sequel.
Ichiro’s Page Fumitake’s Page
#japan #ichirokishimi #fumitakekoga #whataloadofcrap
The Constantine Affliction — T. Aaron Payton
I was hoping for some really good old fashioned Steampunk, but it’s certainly not the usual kind of Steampunk that one is used to. It’s alright though, i read it to the end and don’t feel disappointed.
One caveat: this is most certainly not for children, so don’t go giving them a copy or you may be answering some rather awkward questions.
So yeah, an alcoholic private-detective meets his soul mate, a cis-woman, but he’s already married to a trans-woman who has been changed by the Constantine Affliction; then there’s a Frankenstein monster scientist looking for his soul mate, or rather trying to create her from corpses; a mad crazy megalomaniac inventor, Queen Victoria, dark and dingy Victorian London streets and tunnels, criminals and monsters, to name but a few: all designed to keep you thoroughly entertained.
So yeah, have at it.
Aaron’s Page
#steampunk #taaronpayton
Night Shift Dragons — Rachel Aaron
What a thoroughly good ending to a thoroughly good trilogy. It’s been well paced enjoyment all the way through, written/edited really well, great characters and a really great location.
Rachel does hint at the end of the book that she’ll be bringing us more stories from the DFZ at sometime, and i for one can’t wait. This trilogy certainly leaves a need for us to head back there at some point just to find out how Opal and Nik got on in their happily ever after.
And while i’m waiting for more DFZ books, i’ve got lots of other books by Rachel that i haven’t read yet, so i’m looking forward to clearing them out of my to-read-pile fairly soon.
Keep well, folks.
Rachel’s Page
#fantasy #rachelaaron
Minimum Wage Magic — Rachel Aaron
The first book in the follow up trilogy to Heartstrikers. It does say at the beginning of this book that you don’t need to have read Heartstrikers to enjoy this trilogy, but there’s so much in this book that is predicated on what happened in Heartstrikers and i really think you’d be missing out on a whole lot of background and enjoyment if you didn’t read Heartstrikers first.
Plus the fact, Heartstrikers, although tedious in places, is a really good yarn and just worth reading for it’s own sake.
So, anyway, this trilogy begins a few years after the events of Heartstrikers and the DFZ is now relatively calmed down after all those shenanigans. Part of the being relatively calm is that the spirit of the DFZ has become rather strict on her tenants and anyone a month late in their rent gets their place cleaned out by “cleaners” and taken back by the DFZ to rent to someone else.
Basically, there are auctions twice a day for places to clean, and the cleaners go and bid for them. Whatever is in a place then becomes the property of the cleaner who wins the auction for it. The cleaner also has one month to get the place to the standards the DFZ sets to rent it out again. If it’s not fit for re-rental in that month the cleaner has to pay that month’s rent.
A bit like those people who buy storage units, but with magic traps and all kinds of other weird stuff lurking around.
This book is about one of those cleaners. A cleaner who owes a lot of money and who keeps winning auctions on places that fail to turn a profit.
But maybe, this one day, her luck is about to change and she can pay off her debts and be free. Or maybe not, you’ll just have to read and see.
It’s really good. And all those tedious bits i kept moaning about in the Heartstrikers books, the ones that kept slowing the pace down, well they aren’t in this book. And those tedious bits were my only complaint about Rachel’s writing before. So yeah, super good stuff and i dived straight into book 2, Part Time Gods.
Rachel’s Page
#fantasy #rachelaaron
Fiction
. . .me thinks it’s a good time to re-read Asimov.
Nonfiction
Nonfiction
