reviews
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“Who, within his inner conscience, does not feel the same ferine, savage man struggling against the stern, adamantine bonds of morality and decorum?” “Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates” compiled by Merle Johnson Daring and adventurous stories of pirates have captivated audiences (“whether” the book flap suggests, “he be 12 years old or 70”) for centuries,…
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“…it would be exactly like the Mycenaeans to draw it instead of domesticating it.” “Greece in the Bronze Age” by Emily Vermeule Anyone who knows me knows that I’m an absolute nut for books, especially old books that appear to have seen their fair share of use and enjoyment through the decades. When my fiance’s…
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“She had felt somehow that she, by mere exertion of will, could keep him alive, could bring him healing. It seemed impossible for him to die while she lived.” “Magic: The Gathering: The Thran” by J. Robert King Everything has a beginning and this stand-alone book in the Magic: the Gathering series is the beginning…
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” ‘…When a man becomes a writer, he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.’” “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. As a fan of the few Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. books I have read so far, I was extremely pleased to find an old, endearingly battered copy…
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“…for nothing contributes so much to tranquillise [sic] the mind as a steady purpose–a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.” “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley Considering how much of an avid reader I am and that my degree encompasses a Literature focus, it’s a little staggering how few of the ‘Classics’ I’ve…
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“Poor lumpy Maudette, with her bitten thighs, was more interesting in death than she’d ever been in life.” “Dead Until Dark: Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Mysteries Book One” by Charlaine Harris The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris have been on my To-Be-Read list ever since the HBO show based on the books, True Blood, came…
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“…it is, indeed, the art of ellipsis, or of suggestion,–the incredible technique of impressing the inexpressible by non-expression of an impression.” “Renaissance in Japan: A Cultural Survey of the Seventeenth Century, Japan’s Literary Giants: Basho, Saikaku, Chikamatsu” by Kenneth P. Kirkwood Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a bibliophile. I can’t borrow books, because…
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” ‘Eileen,’ Mary Helen said bluntly, ‘every murderer is someone somebody knows.’” “A Novena for Murder: A Sister Mary Helen Mystery” by Sister Carol Anne O’Marie” In my train station here in the Chicago suburbs is one of the greatest things ever: the Book Cart. Passengers on the BNSF line can leave books, borrow books,…
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“I believe the costuming of today’s Japanese young women reveals, in a powerful way, how for many young Japanese females, Japan is a hard place to become a grown-up woman.” “Kickboxing Geishas: How Modern Japanese Women are Changing their Nation” by Veronica Chambers For me, Japan has always been an interesting country, and part of…
L.S. Engler 