Hello my sweet chinchillas! You may have noticed that I haven’t updated recently. I’ve been having Internet connection problems, but have also been mega busy in the lead-up to holidays. I...
A Confederacy of Dunces is set in the early ‘60s of New Orleans, written by John Kennedy Toole in 1969, but not published until 1980 through the perseverance of his mother (read: the stalking of an i...
Q. Please highlight one of your favorite books and why you would consider it “literary.” A. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Because it’s quite awesome. Ok, not exactly an ‘A’ wo...
Dear diary, Another fabulous day in the sun, finishing up Bridget Jones’s Diary, and getting my tan ready for summer. Unfortunately, the sun seemed intent on moving from one side of the sky to anothe...
I live in Australia; hence the British spelling, frequent bouts of spell-check rage at WordPress, and, according to an American friend, a distinct lack of sugary breakfast options. Even worse, we don...
Some of you may have seen that I recently did a guest post at The Blue Bookcase for Anne of Green Gables. Apparently, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, because I have somehow found ...
First of all – what a bizarre title! Yes, it comes from a quote in the book, but I still have no clue what bones are lovely, and why, exactly, bones are lovely in the first place. Secondly, my best f...
Like any art form, a book reveals plenty about its creator. For example, Thomas Hardy was rather obsessed with farming being, like, the way of life. Or, at least, that’s what reading Far From the Mad...
Some of you may remember my haiku giveaway a while back – it was actually a blatant excuse for getting reading recommendations from randoms. I even made a pie chart of the most recommended book...
Le Morte Darthur (The Death of Arthur) by Sir Thomas Mallory was my latest project. The book was subtitled ‘The Hoole Book of Kyng Arthur and of His Noble Knythes of the Rounde Table’. Yes, I read it...
We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring a behind the scenes look at what it takes to produce this blog. I have confession to make: I hate blurbs. Or synopsises (but I prefer the wo...
So I’ve just finished books two and three of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (titled The Restaurant at the End of the Universe and Life, the Universe, and Everything), and thought I’d shar...
My favourite characters have always been hedonists. Dorian Gray. Claudine. Robert Forbisher. Blair and Serena (book versions). Holly Golightly. The narrator of Invisible Monsters. They may not have b...
First of all, where on earth have I been? Truthfully, I’m not entirely sure, but I seem to recall The Worst Flight of My Life, the reappropriation of a bottle of whisky, a spontaneous rainforest trek...
I admit I’ve done a bit of a disappearing act of late. Which is why it’s so fitting for me to have spent my time reading about one thousand and one magical kids in Sir Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Chi...
The time has come to announce the winner of One Hundred Great Books in Haiku: Sue from Books, Books, the Magical Fruit. Congrats, Sue! I’m sorry for the rest of you disappointed folks; don̵...
For the next 48 hours, my dears, the Got Books? Event will be running to celebrate all things books. Er, book bloggers. So yours truly is running a contest – my first ever! – to giveaway a book. And ...
So I’ve just finished reading some short works by Voltaire: Candide, or Optimism What Pleases the Ladies Micromégas Plato’s Dream I’m not going to sit here and type out my thoughts on each stor...
I’ve noticed that The Catcher in the Rye is one of those stories that people either love or hate. For example, the following extract is from an important announcement made by the spokesperson o...
I wanted to hate this book. Sure, it was a quirky idea, but there was definitely angst on the horizon, and I wasn’t really keen on stomaching a lovey-dovey couple for 500 pages or so. Then the lovely...
For some reason, I sort of assumed that The Woman in White was a ghost story. You have to admit that the title lends itself to my assumption rather becomingly, and, besides, one of Supernatural’s epi...
In my final year of school, I began studying literary criticism under the guidance of an ardent feminist. She was going through menopause at the time, and would, constantly and violently, dab at her ...
Follow my blog with bloglovin Sorry to spam – needed this for BlogLovin because they have awesome ‘follow’ icons. Will delete in 2 secs… Filed under: 100books
The wonderful, intelligent, stunning, and consistently fabulous Becky, over at Page Turners, has featured me in her weekly segment, ‘Lights Camera Blog Action!’ So if you ever wanted to k...
“Ford,” he said, “you’re turning into a penguin. Stop it.” Did that grab your attention? I thought as much. Originally broadcast as a sci-fi comedy radio show in 1978, H2G2 (dude, I know the slang), ...
Imagine this: I’m reading, la la la, and everything is going along swimmingly, when the thought pops up, ‘Is having the ability to write an integral part of being a good storyteller?’ No. Duh. ‘But w...
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