I love Terry Pratchett’s books. They’ve got me through the first raw days after breakups, through long train and plane journeys away from people I love, through the gloom of having a cold at the beginning of spring when the world is bursting with light and colour. I love the eerie technology of the clacks in Going Postal, the blood and fire of Carpe Jugulum, the pain and anger and sweetness of the Tiffany Aching sequence, the terrible beauty of Lords and Ladies, and the […]
“There may come a time when a lass needs a lawyer”
The Engagements is one of those books that jumps around in time, but instead of focusing on the secrets and passions of a single family or group of friends, it views the post-World War II era through the prism of a diamond ring, passed down through the decades not as an heirloom but by accident, coincidence and carelessness…and in one case crime. This ring unites different couples and families, serving as a symbol of both hope and disappointment, and providing a window on shifting concepts […]
Not as much fun as Real Vampires
I read this book a year or two ago, but I completely forgot that I had, picked it up from the library for some light entertainment, and got about three-quarters of the way through before I realised that the gory crimes and girly characters and burgeoning love triangles seemed strangely familiar. So…it’s basically unmemorable–generic in all senses of the word; indeed, it attempts to play with how closely it follows the procedures and developments of detective novels by being set among a group of avid […]
“Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder”
I used to write for Cannonball Read as Funkyfacecat, but as my twitter handle is doombiscuits, I decided to make life simpler and update my ID here as well. A friend of mine had enjoyed the film, so when I saw Wonder Boys available very cheaply in a January sale, I snapped it up, thinking that a disillusioned and satirical take on academia would be fun to read while waiting for the last stage of my own studies to begin. It’s the story of a […]