Lupinus Texensis > Recent Status Updates

Lord George later wrote: "It was told me that all Highlanders were gentlemen, and never to beat them. But I was well acquainted with their tempers. Fear was as necessary as love to restrain the bad and keep them in order. It was what their chiefs did and were not sparing of blows to them that deserved it which they took without grumbling when they had committed an offense."

"[Cattle] were literally the life's blood of poor clansmen. At the beginning of winter some of the animals would be slaughtered and the meat salted away in barrels. The battle that were spared for breeding purposes were bled alive [for black pudding]...This meant that by the time spring came the cattle were so weak they had to be half carried back to the pasture." YIKES

In 1746 some of the foreign officers who found themselves in Scotland were able to converse with the Highland gentlemen in Latin. They found that those gentlemen were at least as well if not better educated than themselves...They were well-read, good conversationalists, elegant dancers and drank the best, albeit smuggled, claret.

'Mail' meant rent, so 'blackmail' became the name given to the levy of black cattle imposed by Highlanders on other clansmen in return for free passage through their territories. It also came to mean the protection money extorted from Lowlanders who were the frequent victims of their raiding parties.

In 1743, there were actually French soldiers on boats ready to invade England! Damn Protestant winds...

This book's weakness is its willingness to hop back and forth between points of view all the damn time. Bohjalian is telling too much and showing nothing at all.

Not sure while Thomas waited until page 292 to pull the trigger on this MUCH more dramatic sub-plot.

I love a good Cromwellian mystery. Again, I'm pleasantly surprised that the male author is able to write Bridget's POV without pissing me off all over the place.

My kids lied to me. This isn't a vampire book. It's two hundred pages of whiny white boy.

I'm beginning to think this story would be much, much creepier (and just better) if it was told strictly from Garnet and Hayley's point of view.

I can't decide how I feel about this book. I'm definitely going to finish it, but I'm not sure I can listen to any more horror books. It's just too hard to tell what the author's tone was intended vs. the reader's.

Best of use of Les Mis in a YA novel. Cruising for five stars here.

"They smiled at each other when I spoke, like they were extra proud of themselves. Like they believed they had successfully drugged the crazy right out of me. Like Unpredictable was a disease and they had cured it."

ba da ba ba ba I'M LOVING IT.

Okay, this just crossed over from banal horror movie into faux lesbian wackadoo.

Still waiting for Bohjalian to rise above the genre clichés here.

This book seems a little formulaic so far. Cute family suffers trauma, moves to big and slightly creepy house in new place, finds hidden knife and axe, and also there's a mystery door in the basement sealed with 39 carriage bolts. Don't we already know where this is going?

Where is the Courtney Milan fan club and does it need a Treasurer?

I'm not sure this is the best book to be listening to on my commute. It definitely raises the blood pressure and anxiety levels.

SERAFINAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (pt. 2)

OH HELL NO. THIS JUST TOOK A TURN FOR THE GALE AND PEETA AND I AM MOST SERIOUSLY DISPLEASED.

+10 to Cass for re-enacting this scene:

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/ori...

NOW we're talking. Dystopian dress porn subverting authority.

Oh good Gd. I'm not reading under some delusion that Cass is a masterful world-builder. But COME ON. If the rebels are this stupid, no wonder the idiot king is still running the country.

That's right. I'm reading this. And for the record, I am Team Aspen and America Run Away Into the Forest and Kill Maxon With a Brick.

It appears that the man Robert Pershing Foster (The Warmth of Other Suns) was named for, General John J. Pershing, was a terrible human being who ordered that "French military personnel shall not eat with, or shake hands with, or visit or converse with negro troops except as required by military matters. Negro troops should not be overly praised, especially in the presence of white Americans, regardless of rank."

"The rest of the NY National Guardsmen, the 'Rainbow Division', they marched off to war in this grand parade...Everybody but us. We weren't asked to march with the 'Rainbow Division' because, as we were told: 'Black is not a color of the rainbow.'"

Holy shit. Max Brooks just called out the Armenian genocide. On page FIVE. I'm in love. Is he married? Shit. He's married with a kid. I'm definitely going to die alone.