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October 12
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Hope
gave
 
to:
Jack of Fables, volume 3: The Bad Prince (Paperback)
by Bill Willingham
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in October, 2008
Hope said:
"Oops, I read this out of order - I thought I'd read volume two, but hadn't. I realized it about three pages in, but read this volume anyway :) I may re-read this volume once I've read volume 2. This was a fun read, despite missing some of the inte...more
Oops, I read this out of order - I thought I'd read volume two, but hadn't. I realized it about three pages in, but read this volume anyway :) I may re-read this volume once I've read volume 2. This was a fun read, despite missing some of the intervening story. ...less
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October 10
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Hope
is on page 17 of The Call of the Wild
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Hope
gave
to:
Four and Twenty Blackbirds (Paperback)
by Cherie Priest
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in October, 2008
Hope said:
"
This is a wonderful Southern ghost story. The paranormal elements creep in so slowly, they seem perfectly normal; until you realize just how weird things have gotten.
The writing, the plot, and the characters drew me in, holding me to the las...more
This is a wonderful Southern ghost story. The paranormal elements creep in so slowly, they seem perfectly normal; until you realize just how weird things have gotten.
The writing, the plot, and the characters drew me in, holding me to the last page. I was up late last night reading the end :) I'm definitely looking for more from this author....less
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October 09
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Hope
gave
to:
Italian Witchcraft: The Old Religion of Southern Europe (Paperback)
by Raven Grimassi
bookshelves:
didn-t-finish
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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recommended for: no one
Hope said:
"This book is awful.
I'm willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt. I'm willing to believe that he just doesn't see the logical fallacies he's presenting as facts, and that he just doesn't actually know how to do good historical...more
This book is awful.
I'm willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt. I'm willing to believe that he just doesn't see the logical fallacies he's presenting as facts, and that he just doesn't actually know how to do good historical research, nor how to compile good research into a sensible book.
Frankly, the pseudoacademic nonsense in this book would get a high-school student in trouble.
Raven clearly wants to prove that his 'tradition' of Italian Witchcraft is an unbroken line back to ancient times. But the historical research he cites doesn't support the idea, for all that he insists it does. I'd have had more respect for him citing channeled knowledge, then torturing the historical record into giving false support.
I tried to read this, more than once. I tried. I hoped that, among the chaff, there might be some information worth having. I can't find it by about 1/2 way through the book. I give up. I can find much better ways to use my time. ...less
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October 08
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New comment on Hope's review of
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
(see all 2 comments)
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Hope
read and liked
Cynthia's
review of Selene:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
I finished it. I still have the same opinion, after 19 chapters and an epilogue, as I did after the first five chapters. The first bit was published in the anth...more
Whine, bitch, moan, complain. Occasional sex. What does Nikolai see in Selene, anyway?
I finished it. I still have the same opinion, after 19 chapters and an epilogue, as I did after the first five chapters. The first bit was published in the anthology Hotter Than Hell.Selene is an utterly ungrateful bitch who couldn't catch a clue during clue mating season if she stood in a field covered in clue musk. Nikolai healed her with his blood, right? So when he's injured, why doesn't she at least try to do the same? D'oh.
Yeah, I'm off Saintcrow....less
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October 06
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Hope
gave
to:
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Paperback)
by Robert Louis Stevenson
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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recommended to Hope by:
fictionwise.com
read in October, 2008
Hope said:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
The telling is a combination ...more
Like most folks, I knew the broad outline of this story, but hadn't actually read it. I'm very glad I did. It's both simpler, and more complex, than a tale of one man split between his higher and his baser selves.
The telling is a combination of memior, and epistilary. Dr. Jeckyll's solicitor tells the story, including reading out some documents, including Dr. Jeckyll's final confession. Through the narrative, we meet a group of wholely believeable characters, through a beautifully structured tale. The writing is lovely and engaging. And the more I think about the plot, the more impressed I become. Generally, I can find a hole or two, but I don't mind in a well-told tale, or a story about really good characters. In this case, I can't find any. Nothing happens purely out of narrative imperative. Even at the end, it makes perfect sense that Edward Hyde not only wants, but needs to return to being Dr. Jeckyll, for all that he hates him.
This is a wonderful example of Sciene Fiction, and hard s/f at that. It is a chemical compound that allows him to seperate himself into two identities. The author very neatly keeps the experiment from being duplicated - the effect was caused by an unkown impurity in an indgredient. Dr. Jeckyll himself tries desperately to recreate the compound, but cannot. I simple makes sense that no one else is able to, either.
The story says volumes about the morals and philosopy of morals of the time. Dr. Jeckyll is trying to divorce himself from what he considers his baser urges. Those urges become a seperate identity, which takes on an outer shape reflecting his inner nature. It's taken for granted that morality or lack thereof would be obvious on someone's face.
Dr. Jeckyll may have been, originally, trying to put aside his baser urges. His chemical compound, however, gave him a way to indulge those urges, without consequence to himself. If Edward Hyde indulged in reprehensible acts, no one would think it had anything to do with Dr. Jeckyll. Even those who knew there was a connection, assumed that Hyde was blackmailing Jeckyll.
I find myself comparing this to the Orginal Series Star Trek Episode, "The Enemy Within". (Yes, everything in the world is connected to Star Trek. Hush.) In this episode, a transporter accident splits Captain Kirk into two men. They're physically identical, but one has all of Kirk's higher, gentler aspects, and the other has all of his baser, more violent aspects. The acting (Yes, there was so acting. Didn't I tell you to hush?) was the only difference between the two Kirks. And, unlike the good Dr. Jeckyll, Kirk found his salvation not in repression, but in integration. To be his best self, he needed both his angel and his devil.
Dr. Jeckyll, however, found that give way to his darker side gave that side power. To him and his contemporaries, Kirk's solution was unthinkable. The baser part of man was a thing to be fought, suppressed, ideally to be killed entirely. Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde is a dramatic lesson in the dangers of giving way to your baser urges. At the end, it was just thinking like Hyde that brought on the transformation; that part of him had become that strong.
I don't, personally, subscribe to that philosophy. But you don't have to agree with the underlying philosophy to be moved by the tale. Dr. Jeckyll let something dangerous into his life. Once he realized just how dangerous, he stopped using the compound, and put Hyde out of his mind entirely. But he gave into temptation. You could imagine him thinking, "It'll be okay just this one time." Who hasn't thought that? But that one more time was his undoing. ...less
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October 04
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Hope
gave
to:
The Katurran Odyssey (Hardcover)
by David Michael Wieger
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in October, 2008
Hope said:
"I love this book! It's a treat for both the mind and the spirit. It follows the journey of Katook, a young lemur. Katook's journey is both internal and external. Yes, it is a picture book, but it's not just a children's book. I plan to come back...more
I love this book! It's a treat for both the mind and the spirit. It follows the journey of Katook, a young lemur. Katook's journey is both internal and external. Yes, it is a picture book, but it's not just a children's book. I plan to come back to it again and again. ...less
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Hope read and liked a piece of writing titled "What is going on with Goodreads?!!"
by Anthony Paige
"12.03.07
It's funny.
Goodreads has such a potential for building literary/art appreciation communities, yet over the past couple of months, it has, indubitably, begun to go the way of myspace, wh"
...read more »
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Hope
took the never-ending book quiz.
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GoodReviews: The Official Book Review Contest
— 209 members
— last activity 07/16/2008 06:25PM
