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Yavanna_Kementari
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Name: Sasha
Metro:
Birthday: 10/27/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: Christian theology, classical languages and literature, literature in general, fantasy lit, music, traveling in Europe, Broadway shows, needlework, philosophy (sometimes!), READING!
Expertise: Teaching....I hope.
Occupation: Teacher
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
1/12/2005
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| I decided I have to go ahead and post the books I've been reading recently, because there are a couple that are really good and I want to recommend them to anyone who might be reading. :) I decided to rate these books with stars -- from five stars (I loved it!) to one star (total waste of time/really lame), with three stars being 'worth reading if you like this kind of book'. Note that I'm *not* rating these on moral content or age-appropriateness....you'll have to check out Refracted Light for that (at least for some of the titles/authors...).
So, first, January:
The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather - *****
Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher - ***
The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio by Lloyd Alexander - ***
River Town by Peter Hessler - *****
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks - ***
To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey - *****
The Children of Men by P. D. James - ****
Dead Beat by Jim Butcher - ***
The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea - **
River Town is a must-read -- it's non-fiction about the author's experiences when teaching English lit to college students in China with the Peace Corps, and it is fascinating, relevant, and gorgeously written. I learned a lot from reading it and enjoyed every page.
And February:
The Death of Achilles by Boris Akunin - ****
Specials by Scott Westerfield - **
Cure for a Charlatan by Caroline Roe - ***
The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor - *****
Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey - ****
Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay - ***
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson - **
Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr - ***
Atonement by Ian McEwan - *****
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray - *
Furies of Calderon is already up on Refracted; Specials and The Looking Glass Wars (a real charmer of a YA fantasy!) will be going up soon. I probably should have reviewed the Libba Bray book too, but it was so lousy that I didn't want to think about it enough to write a coherent review -- maybe I'll throw something together.
~Sash
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| Books I read in December:
Three Days to Never by Tim Powers
He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope
Girls Gone Mild by Wendy Shalit
Blood Rites by Jim Butcher
The Turkish Gambit by Boris Akunin
The Dream-Maker's Magic by Sharon Shinn
Alphabet of Dreams by Susan Fletcher
I seem to remember putting together a list of my favorite books of the year last year, so I think I'll do that again....
1. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (pride of place, of course!)
2. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
3. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
4. A Return to Modesty by Wendy Shalit (adults-only, but a really
important read if you interact regularly with young people -- particularly
girls -- in our day and age)
5. Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling (yay)
7. The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin
8. The Children of Hurin by J. R. R. Tolkien
9. Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones
10. A Year in the World by Frances Mayes
The top three on this list are absolute must-reads. Read them today! Or at least start with one of them. ;)
~Sasha
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| Ring
out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring
out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring
out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring
out the false, ring in the true.
Ring
out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring
in redress to all mankind.
Ring
out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With
sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring
out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But
ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring
out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring
in the common love of good.
Ring
out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring
in the thousand years of peace. Ring
in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring
in the Christ that is to be.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson (In Memoriam, 106)
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| Happy first week of Advent to everyone!
The Golden Compass film is coming out on Friday, and I think it's a good idea for Christians to be informed about these books. Philip Pullman has been extremely up front with his virulently anti-Christian agenda, so it behooves us to know where he's coming from, and to know how to answer people who may have questions for us about the messages of his books. I found this website helpful in researching Pullman's books (I've read the first one, but didn't want to bother with the other two): http://www.facingthechallenge.org/pullman.php . Put your mouse on the "Contemporary Culture" bar, move it down to the "Special Feature: Philip Pullman -- His Dark Materials" link, and then you will see a bunch of different short pages with questions and answers about Pullman's books. I found this page very informative and useful; I hope you do too! And go see some other movie this weekend if you get the chance -- Hollywood is a vote-with-your-dollar business, so, in my opinion, it's always a good idea to think about where you're putting your dollar. (If the movie "Bella" is still playing in your town, go see that instead!!)
Books I read in November:
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
The Book of Time by Guillaume Prevost
Death Masks by Jim Butcher
The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler
The Truth-Teller's Tale by Sharon Shinn
Uglies by Scott Westerfield
Murder on the Leviathan by Boris Akunin
Pretties by Scott Westerfield
Reviews of the Scott Westerfield books are going up on Refracted probably tomorrow. (The Book of Time is already on there.) And yes, I did read a non-fiction book again this month...yay for me. *g* I almost finished an 800-pager by Anthony Trollope too, but didn't quite get to the end yet...so no, I did not actually only read cheesy books this month. *g* (Actually, Boris Akunin is not cheesy, though still kind of brain-candy-ish...)
~Sash
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| I put up four new reviews on Refracted Light this week -- you can read them at www.refracted-light.net . Hope you enjoy them! The format of the site has been updated and changed quite a bit....hopefully to something a bit more user-friendly. The new reviews will always show up at the top of the main page now, for convenience!
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