tamaranth | Entries tagged with reread

2025/184: Ibiza Surprise — Dorothy Dunnett

I do know the look of a ruby, in the same way that I know sable and ermine and mink. One always knows where one is going, even if one doesn't quite know how to get there. [loc. 2096]

Reread of a novel first read in the 1990s, which I don't think I've revisited since. Certainly I had forgotten all but a few details: melon balls, a corpse on a horse, boring brother.

Ibiza Surprise is set in the late Sixties. Sarah Cassells is twenty years old, the daughter of impecunious Lord Forsey, and (possibly) 'the swingiest chick this side of Chelsea'. She has trained as a cook, lives in London in a flatshare, and makes a living by catering extravagant dinner parties. Her primary aim in life is to find someone 'decent' (i.e. rich) to marry. ( Read more... )

Current Mood: cheerful

2025/156: Dreamhunter Duet — Elizabeth Knox

'I was finished. I wanted time to stop, and to let me stop with it. And I wanted revenge.
I ... said to the land, 'Bury me, and rise up. Rise up and crush them all.' [loc. 5131]

Rereads, after reading Kings of This World -- which is set in the same alt-Aotearoa-New Zealand, rather later than the Dreamhunter duet, which begins in 1906. My original reviews from (OMG) 2005 and 2007 are here: The Rainbow Opera and The Dream Quake.

The link points to the first of two volumes: the second has only just become available on Amazon.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: thoughtful

2025/125: The Corn King and the Spring Queen — Naomi Mitchison

All I can say is that this is a very strange country, and that one has evidence of things occurring here which would certainly be against all the laws of Nature at home. [p. 412]

Reread, with perhaps a better understanding now of the Greek elements: I thought I'd read it quite recently, but it turns out that was in 2015 (review here).

I'd forgotten a great deal: just how murderous Erif and Tarrik are; the snake that protects Kleomenes; the death of Harn Der. And this time around, more interested in the Greek (and especially the Spartan) elements, I found Kleomenes' story fascinating. ( Read more... )

Current Mood: refreshed

2021/099: The Nine Tailors -- Dorothy L Sayers

[The bells] rioting and exulting high up in the dark tower, wide mouths rising and falling, brazen tongues clamouring, huge wheels turning to the dance of the leaping ropes. [p. 35]

Reread to comfort myself on a day of misery. As usual, I'd forgotten nearly all of the plot, and rediscovering it was a gentle delight. The Nine Tailors is not really one of the major Wimsey novels, but it might be one of the most beautifully-written. I love the setting: the wintry fenland, the bell-ringing, the coming flood. Sayers' descriptions are glorious and Lord Peter is charming, likeable and kind-hearted (witness his willingness to step in and help ring a nine-hour peal on the church bells). I found myself focussing more on the prose and the characters, and the depiction of rural Fenland in the years after the First World War, than on the murder mystery. Comfort: achieved.

Current Mood: calm

Bold as Love
Castles Made of Sand
Midnight Lamp
Band of Gypsys
Rainbow Bridge

'We're not their political leaders, we're more like their gods. That's what rockstars are to their public... objects of superstitious devotion. And most of them are clueless, docile cashcows, getting well fed and making the priests rich, same as most of all the gods you ever heard of. Except for the ones who are also criminally insane. It's fair enough. People choose to worship lumps of wood, they're only as fooled as they want to be.'[Bold as Love, loc. 5479]

Reread because I noticed that a new book in the same future (The Grasshopper's Child, review soon!) had appeared, and realised that I hadn't reread the original novels for quite a while. Checked bookshelf: some volumes lost during recent move(s). Luckily, it turns out they're available as ebooks now (though with some typos / formatting issues). And 2015-16 is, I think, approximately when Bold as Love is set ...
( spoilery review )

Current Mood: nostalgic
Crossposts: http://tamaranth.livejournal.com/1152945.html

2015/09: Dogsbody --Diana Wynne Jones

Glimmering, frantic, frosty, the cold hounds came pouring into the open. Everything was helter-skelter gleaming eyes, gleaming coats and the wild pattering of feet, as hundreds of white dogs raced after the dim shape. [loc.2913]

A reread, latest but not first: I think this may have been the first Diana Wynne Jones novel I ever read, back at secondary school. I loved it then and love it still. ( not significantly spoilery review )

Current Mood: calm
Crossposts: http://tamaranth.livejournal.com/1101902.html

Tam Lin -- Pamela Dean (reread)

... the flaw of the novel-reader is to want to know what will happen if a situation is allowed to develop unmolested. [p. 190]

Reread of an old favourite. When I discovered this novel (my review at the time is here) it made me terribly nostalgic for an academic life I'd never really had. ( not really spoilery review )

Current Mood: nostalgic
Crossposts: http://tamaranth.livejournal.com/1093046.html

Red Shift -- Alan Garner

Face was moving in a different time. He knew Macey, but talked to other people, things. He spoke, but in all the words of Rome and the tribes. He seemed to be happy, and for Macey it was the only shield.
"I am well I hope you are can fight now you I. Why come not on Mow Cop yet all please but every not worry. I want know now all see same sky now soon.
... Face's words closed without end. (p. 118)

( spoilery review, or reflections )

Crossposts: http://tamaranth.livejournal.com/909965.html

Tangled Mind

Entries tagged with reread

2025/184: Ibiza Surprise — Dorothy Dunnett

2025/156: Dreamhunter Duet — Elizabeth Knox

2025/125: The Corn King and the Spring Queen — Naomi Mitchison

2021/099: The Nine Tailors -- Dorothy L Sayers

2016/1-5: the Bold As Love sequence --Gwyneth Jones

>2015/09: Dogsbody --Diana Wynne Jones

2015/01: Tam Lin -- Pamela Dean (reread)

2012/35: Red Shift -- Alan Garner

January 2026

Links

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Expand Cut Tags

Profile

Page Summary

Style Credit