<![CDATA[Arctic is on page 342 of The Canterbury Tales ]]>

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"finished the knights tale. on to the miller's. "

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]]> <![CDATA[Arctic added 'The Shadow of the Wind']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11007529 The Shadow of the Wind (Paperback) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
bookshelves: 1---on-top-of-the-pile, currently-reading, db, have-but-unread, rgbc
]]> <![CDATA[Arctic added 'Mama's Bank Account']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75951994 to: Mama's Bank Account (Paperback) by Kathryn Forbes
bookshelves: bookchallenge09, essays-and-shorts, favorites, tv-and-film
loved this little collection of family tales. easy, quick, heartwarming read. Makes me want to have a bigger family of my own, and appreciate the one I have all the more. I plan on sharing my copy with my mom in hopes that she'll get as much enjoyment out of it as I have. ]]> <![CDATA[Arctic added 'The Canterbury Tales']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75467412 The Canterbury Tales (Paperback) by Geoffrey Chaucer
bookshelves: classic-lit, currently-reading, gifts
]]> <![CDATA[Arctic voted on a review]]> http://www.goodreads.com/

Arctic read and liked Evil_Dead_Junkie's review of Pattern Recognition:

"It'll happen one day, you'll see. William Gibson WILL right an ending that resembles something other then a last ditch attempt from a man desperate not to default on his contract.

It will not stink of a man who has just watched the sunris...more "

2 comments

]]> <![CDATA[Arctic added 'Pattern Recognition']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/24736430 to: Pattern Recognition (Paperback) by William Ford Gibson
bookshelves: bookchallenge09, modern-lit, sf
Compelling, but progressively far-fetched and ultimately disappointing and unsatisfying. Much easier to get into than Neuromancer though. I also liked that the protagonist was female in this one. However, she starts out as a strong independent woman and degenerates into a confused damsel-in-distress type by the end.

Also, the author inexplicably decides to miraculously 'heal' one of her defining characteristics in the last few pages of the book. It's like the author gave up on the book about two-thirds through and turned it into something else completely, with different characters and a weak plot. I have to wonder if he started with an idea for a book and just didn't know how to resolve it well. ]]> <![CDATA[Arctic added 'The Lottery: And Other Stories']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11007594 The Lottery: And Other Stories (Paperback) by Shirley Jackson
bookshelves: 1---on-top-of-the-pile, ongoing, rgbc, rgbc-tbr
]]> <![CDATA[Arctic added 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/10490572 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Paperback) by Susanna Clarke
bookshelves: fantasy, languishing, modern-lit, own
]]> <![CDATA[Arctic voted on a review]]> http://www.goodreads.com/

Arctic read and liked Ken-ichi's review of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell:

"From deep down in the archives, all the way back in 2005...

Perhaps you've heard of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a work of exceedingly British fantasy by Susanna Clarke that came out last year. Perhaps you've heard it compared to Harry ...more From deep down in the archives, all the way back in 2005...

Perhaps you've heard of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a work of exceedingly British fantasy by Susanna Clarke that came out last year. Perhaps you've heard it compared to Harry Potter, Dickens, and Jane Austen, usually in the same sentence, and such comparisons are dead on. Perhaps you've read some reviews (esp. on Amazon) that describe it as long-winded and boring, and these might be true from a certain, wrong point of view. It is rather long, and has all these ridiculous footnotes, and features many prim British socialites who say things like

'Can a magician kill a man by magic?' Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. 'I suppose a magician might,' he admitted, 'but a gentleman never could.'

which might turn off some. You might even think that I'm one of those people, but there you'd be wrong. I freaking loved this book. I haven't enjoyed a book like this for some time. All the little Britishisms, and subtlety, imperfection, and relative unimportance of so much of the magic is utterly appealing to me. One of my favorite parts about the magic in Lord of the Rings was that no one ever really did any. Gandalf was more wise than powerful, and the rare times he did something supernatural were all the more impressive for it (one of my favorite scenes in the movies is when he rides out and fends off the Nazgul with a flash of light in Return of the King). That's sort of what magic is like in JS & Mr N. No one even does any magic for the first 100 pages or so, even though they can't stop talking about and debating it.

Now that I'm trying to describe it, I'm running into the same problem I usually do with genre fiction, only in reverse. Normally, the books I read sound absurdly childish and ridiculous when I try to describe them (stranded aliens that look like scooters, crabs, and centaurs living in harmony in a distant galaxy; big thorny terrifying metallic killer things from the future; etc), but this one actually sounds terribly boring. I don't know. I found the story and the characters very welcoming. I think the quip from the Washington Post on the back cover sums it up for me:

Many books are to be read, some are to be studied, and a few are meant to be lived in for weeks. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is of this last kind.

Certainly worth your time if you're at all into living in books for a while. My only quibles are the usually silly charcoal illustrations, and the godawful picture of the author on the dust jacket (she really looks a little more like this). That thing really bugged me every time I glanced at it.(less) "

3 comments

]]> <![CDATA[Arctic voted on a review]]> http://www.goodreads.com/

Arctic read and liked Arthur's review of Golden Fool (Tawny Man, #2):

"Finished Fool's Errand and Golden Fool.

A few months ago I re-read The Farseer and The Liveship Traders trilogies. Loved them as much or even more than when I read them first time 7 years ago. However, The Tawny Man trilogy is a major disa...more "

5 comments

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