Jane Litte's Blog, page 118
February 19, 2021
REVIEW: Crooked Heart: A Novel by Lissa Evans
Paper Moon meets the Blitz in this original black comedy, set in World War II England, chronicling an unlikely alliance between a small time con artist and a young orphan evacuee.
When Noel Bostock—aged ten, no family—is evacuated from London to escape the Nazi bombardment, he lands in a suburb northwest of the city with Vera Sedge—a thirty-six-year old widow drowning in debts and dependents. Always desperate for money, she’s unscrupulous about how she gets it.
Noel’s mourning his godmother Ma...
Friday Good News
Readers who have been coming to Dear Author for a while might remember how we got involved with following the fate of Black footed ferrets. There is an author who lifted, verbatim, a long passage from a scientific source to use in her book. This was discovered and discussed at length. At this point several people, myself included, made donations to a fund set up to help with the expenses of trying to bring this species back from the brink of extinction.
In 2016 there was news that the colony wa...
February 18, 2021
Bridgerton: A Discussion, Part IV
This week we discuss Bridgerton in five posts. You can find the first three here:
Part I is centered on the show’s worldbuilding and production values, on its treatment of race, and on Lady Whistledown.
Part II focuses on the show’s matriarchs–the queen, Lady Violet, Lady Danbury, and Lady Featherington.
In Part III we talked about Simon and Daphne’s courtship.
And now for today’s discussion:
TRIGGER WARNING:
Spoiler: Show
RapeSimon and Daphne (Regé-Jean Page and Phoebe Dynevor): Part B—th...
REVIEW: Space Is Cool as F*ck by Kate Howells
Packed with wild art and mind-blowing space facts, this book proves how awesome the universe is—and that space is for everyone.
From astrophysics to rocket science to the future of space exploration, Space Is Cool as F*ck explains everything you thought you’d never understand about the universe in plain-old filthy English. We’re talking Big Bang, aliens, black holes, time travel, degenerate astronomers, and all the fundamental things you take for granted until you stop and think (like matter—w...
REVIEW: This Party’s Dead: Grief, Joy and Spilled Rum at the World’s Death Festivals by Erica Buist
Journalist Erica Buist travels to seven death festivals around the world (Nepal, Madagascar, Indonesia, Sicily, Japan, Mexico and New Orleans) in search of better attitudes towards death
After the death of her father-in-law, journalist Erica Buist decided to travel to seven death festivals around the world, in an attempt to understand how different societies deal with grief, and how people are able to move past the knowledge that they’re going to die in order to live happily day-to-day. In the...
February 17, 2021
Bridgerton: A Discussion, Part III
This week we discuss Bridgerton in five posts. You can find the first two here:
Part I is centered on the show’s worldbuilding and production values, on its treatment of race, and on Lady Whistledown.
Part II focuses on the show’s matriarchs–the queen, Lady Violet, Lady Danbury, and Lady Featherington.
And now for today’s discussion:
Simon and Daphne (Regé-Jean Page and Phoebe Dynevor): Part A—the courtship
Janine: In many ways Simon and Daphne’s courtship played out similarly to a lot of roma...
REVIEW: The Turncoat’s Widow by Mally Becker
Recently widowed, Rebecca Parcell is too busy struggling to maintain her farm in Morristown to give a fig who wins the War for Independence. But rumors are spreading in the winter of 1780 that she’s a Loyalist sympathizer who betrayed her husband to the British—quite a tidy way to end her disastrous marriage, the village gossips whisper.
Everyone knows that her husband was a Patriot, a hero who died aboard a British prison ship moored in New York Harbor. But “everyone” is wrong. Parcell was a ...
February 16, 2021
Bridgerton: A Discussion, Part II
Our Bridgerton discussion, which began yesterday with a conversation about the show’s worldbuilding, its treatment of race, and Lady Whistledown, continues today. Today we discuss the show’s matriarchs–the queen, Lady Violet, Lady Danbury and Lady Featherington. –Janine
Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel)
Janine: The show’s choice to cast a Black actress as Queen Charlotte in the nod to the real Queen Charlotte’s likely ancestry was brilliant for the reasons we mentioned yesterday. But there’s a...
REVIEW: First Comes Like by Alisha Rai
Dear Alisha Rai,
I’ve read and enjoyed the first two books in your Modern Love series so I was very keen to read Jia’s book.
Jia Ahmed is the youngest sister of Sadia from Wrong to Need You. At the end of The Right Swipe, Jia came to stay with Rhiannon and Katrina in Santa Barbara. She dropped out of medical school (thus severely disappointing her parents) and made herself a career out of being a fashion and beauty YouTuber and Instagram influencer.
She’s 25 and cares too much about what everyone...
February 15, 2021
Bridgerton: A Discussion, Part I
Please welcome my friend Layla, who is joining DA as an additional book reviewer. When we were watching Bridgerton, Layla and I texted back and forth about it. It was so much fun that we decided to write a series of posts that included our thoughts on different aspects of the show. –Janine
Production Values / Worldbuilding
Janine: Let’s start with the production values. I loved that the fashions quickly signal that we are not anywhere near actual history, that this is a sexy, glamorous, delici...
Jane Litte's Blog
- Jane Litte's profile
- 174 followers
