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Category: Reading Challenges

Film Review: The Awakening

Film Review: The Awakening

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  Peril on the Screen: The Awakening Thanks to a recommendation by reader Joanna over at DanseNoir, I watched the ghost movie The Awakening. The Awakening features a story within a story, so there’s a mystery aspect as well as a supernatural one. As the movie opens, Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) exposes a fraudulent seance followed by the dramatic arrests of the perpetrators. Britain is reeling from the momentous losses of World War I and the flu pandemic, and grieving…

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Book Review: The Haunted House by Charles Dickens

Book Review: The Haunted House by Charles Dickens

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Review: The Haunted House Publisher: Dover Publications Format: Print, 136 pages Source: Purchased The Haunted House is an anthology of connected stories, three of which Charles Dickens wrote, the others penned by writers of his time. The premise is that the narrator, for reasons of health (have you noticed how prominent discussions of health are in Victorian literature?) rents a country house for three months with his sister. They fall in love with the house and decide to invite their…

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Wings of Fire by Charles Todd

Wings of Fire by Charles Todd

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Book Review: Wings of Fire by Charles Todd Publisher: St. Martin’s Format: Print, 323 pages Source: White Elephant Sale at the Oakland Museum In Wings of Fire by Charles Todd, Ian Rutledge is a damaged Scotland Yard inspector, recently returned from the horrific conditions of World War I. He’s something of a pariah in the stuffy bureaucracy, suffering from a debilitating case of “shell shock.” I must confess I did not fully grasp how horrific World War I was until…

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Review: Heartless by Gail Carriger

Review: Heartless by Gail Carriger

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Heartless by Gail Carriger Heartless is the first novel I’m reviewing for the 2014 R.I.P. Challenge at Stainless Steel Droppings. image courtesy of Abigail Larson I made the acquaintance of the Parasol Protectorate series with the first book, Soulless. Alexia Tarabotti, a misunderstood misfit preternatural resides in an alternate, steam punk Victorian England replete with foppish vampires and rustic werewolves. (The werewolves are, after all, from the wilds of Scotland.) Soulless is a delight. Despite the smart beginning to the series, I…

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Join the R.I.P. reading challenge!

Join the R.I.P. reading challenge!

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image courtesy Abigail Larsen R. I. P. aka Readers Imbibing Peril I love gray skies, don’t you? Of course you do. That time of year when pumpkins multiply in mysterious ways (you turn your back for a second and suddenly whole fields of pumpkins surround you–it’s spooky!), when footsteps echo on a foggy eve, when the graveyard beckons, whispering,”I see you. Come closer.”     Not the least of the reasons for autumn joy is the R.I.P. reading challenge hosted…

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Once Upon a Time Reading Wrap-up

Once Upon a Time Reading Wrap-up

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   It’s a wrap! The Once Upon a Time reading challenge has come to an end. Here’s what I accomplished. I read: Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle for the folk tale category Life After Life by Kate Atkinson for mythology The Wanderers by Cheryl Mahoney for fairy tale Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane for fantasy (Okay, it’s a stretch to put this into fantasy, but in my defense, I could point to some inhuman, non-mythological and, I might add, wholly unsavory…

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Tamsin review/Once Upon a Time

Tamsin review/Once Upon a Time

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  One of my fellow readers suggested that I pick up Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle (author of The Last Unicorn). Tamsin is a time slip novel in which the melancholy eponymous ghost takes the reader back 300 years to a foiled rebellion that cost her the love of her life. Here’s the Goodreads blurb (because…well, yes, I’m feeling lazy): Arriving in the English countryside to live with her mother and new stepfather, Jenny has no interest in her surroundings, until she…

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Once Upon a Time Book Review: Life After Life

Once Upon a Time Book Review: Life After Life

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Once Upon a Time Challenge: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson Reincarnation. It’s been around since the Iron Age. The Celts, Norse, Greeks, Indians all entertained beliefs in life after life. I wasn’t going to read this book. In fact, I probably would not have read it except that my book group chose it. Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely adore Kate Atkinson’s writing. If you’ve never read her, I wholly recommend When Will There Be Good News? as your first…

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Bout of Books 10 Spell It Out Challenge

Bout of Books 10 Spell It Out Challenge

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Kimberly Faye Reads has issued an acrostic poem challenge for Bout of Books 10–to form a name or phrase using the first letter of words from book titles. Not one to do the ordinary (I know, I’m weird), I created my own quirky phrase. Hint: it has to do with my favorite novel topic! I did not include the articles “the” or “a” as first words since titles are not alphabetized with them. Without further ado, here goes. Girl Who…

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Bout of Books 10 Book Pairing Challenge

Bout of Books 10 Book Pairing Challenge

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Today, or tonight, really, as it’s growing late, I’m trying my hand at the challenge from My Overstuffed Shelves. The idea is to pair a book with another book or movie or meal, etc. I’m all about books, so two books it is. I tried to avoid obvious choices such as The Language of Flowers with White Oleander (aside from the horticultural influence, both novels deal with a teen’s struggle in the foster care system). Or The Curious Incident of…

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Bout of Books 10 Goals and Updates

Bout of Books 10 Goals and Updates

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Bout of books is finished! The End. Fini. It was great fun as always. I ended on a good note with another long drive and two hours of listening to Soulless plus an hour of reading Unholy Ghosts. Here are my results (pause while I pull out my calculator): Listening 8.5 hours + reading 7.75 hours =  16.25 hours. My goal was 12, so I’m pretty jazzed with the results. How about you? Updates: Monday I listened to 25 minutes of Saints…

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Once Upon a Time Review: The Wanderers

Once Upon a Time Review: The Wanderers

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The Wanderers by Cheryl Mahoney is the first book I read for the Once Upon a Time challenge. It was fun to wander trippingly through a novel by Cheryl from Tales of the Marvelous, one of the Once Upon a Time challenge participants. The Wanderers proved the perfect beginning for this challenge, and I put The Wanderers into the fairy tale category. The story opens in a magical land and features Jasper, an opportunistic fortune hunter, who puts himself in the right place at the…

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Bout of Books 10 Read-a-thon

Bout of Books 10 Read-a-thon

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Book lovers unite in a new bout! Actually, bout has two meanings 1. contest among antagonists 2. a period of time spent in a pursuit I’m going to go with the second definition and so should you. Here’s why: The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 12th and runs through Sunday, May 18th in whatever time…

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