As you’d expect of a novel by Philippa Gregory, the Queen’s Tale is a historical tale. It follows the fortunes of Hannah Green, a Jewish girl who has fled the Inquisition from Spain to London. However, it appears it’s no safer here, as she is discovered to have the gift of prophecy, forced into becoming a holy fool at court and trapped in the intrigue that takes place.

I wasn’t much enamoured with the book. My biggest problem was with the characters. I felt there was very little depth to them, particularly on an emotional level. They felt rather wooden, simply going through the motions of history. Hannah was shallow, irritating and was conveniently in the right place for the big historical moments. Often she came across as more of a plot device than anything else, and on a few occasions I wondered why she wasn’t cut completely and the story told from the perspective of the actual historical figures.

Queen Mary stood out as being more well rounded, though I still feel that there wasn’t sufficient depth given to her changes of heart in places.

It did get better towards the end, where Hannah’s personal story is given a bit more space. It was also nice to see her grow into a more mature character. In the beginning, in particular, she comes across as being far too outspoken for someone who has lived so many years in fear. Nor do I feel that her “Sight” is sufficient excuse for this plain-spokenness, given how rarely this gift manifests itself.

All in all, it was vaguely interesting to see how the historical characters were portrayed, but it has not won Philippa Gregory another fan.

I’m somewhat of a rock collector, but relatively new to it, so I found this book to be a wonderful resource.

It’s hard for me to decide what the most fascinating thing about this book was—the text or the pictures. I found myself eagerly turning the pages to see what would be revealed next.

The book groups its subjects into families of rock (such as beryl, quartz, jade and feldspar, to name a few). I found this gave a wonderful overview of how each gem family forms and the slight differences that give birth to particular variations.

The book also details the general history of the gem family (and particular history of notable gems, such as the DeLong Star Ruby), legends and mythology surrounding it, how that particular kind of gem is evaluated and where it is mined. There is also some interesting history on the Museum and the famous jewelry company Tiffany.

The photographs are spectacular. Photographing gems is difficult to do well and this book provides wonderful examples of how it should look. Nor is there any shortage of space for the photos—the stars of the show are given plenty of room.

I do have a couple of quibbles with the design however. There are a few pages where there is an abundance of white space. It would have been nice to have a few smaller photographs to fill it in. The second down point was the captions, particularly for photographs with multiple gems and multiple kinds of gem. The tagging of gems in the captions was not done in a methodical way and I found this lead to some confusion over which gem was which.

But overall, I felt it was a fascinating book. It was on loan to me, so I shall have to see about finding my own copy. And perhaps visiting the Museum…

I read this comic book the day after seeing the movie. Some comparisons are inevitable. I hope you’ll bear with me.

This is an alternate history, with the main bulk of the story set in 1985. It’s centered on two groups of super heroes; the first generation are mostly old or dead while the second generation have largely been forced into retirement. Aside from a few notable exceptions, these super heroes are simply regular people in costume. The story begins with the murder of one of the heroes. This brings a few of the other second generation heroes out of retirement to investigate.

In the tradition of Alan Moore, the comic has a gritty feel to it. Society is corrupt and the future is looking bleak. Even our “heroes” are tarnished, with each one having a clear and unique flaw. It’s a story that examines ethics and asks big questions that will leave you thinking long after you’ve finished reading it. I enjoyed the complexity and the philosophy.

What I felt was lacking a bit was emotion. Perhaps this was my lack of literacy in the genre or simply because I’d seen the movie so recently. There are obviously going to be differences in form and the movie was better able to draw out that emotion and linger on it.

On the other hand, the comic had the edge on delivering the story and was full of rich detail that the movie cut back on a bit, no doubt due to time constraints. The comic book provided this detail by featuring a section at the end of each chapter that was not actually in comic book form. Instead these sections were presented as extracts from biographies, text books, letters, newspapers and advertising.

Overall, it was a thought-provoking read and gripping enough for me to read the whole lot in a single day, despite already knowing the ending. Well worth the time.

This book is not really about Zen or motorcycle maintenance. What it’s really about is exellence and reason.

The story has three threads to it that are interwoven. The first thread is about a man on a motorcycle trip with his son. The second is about how a professor went insane. The third thread is a philisophical study of exellence and reason. The man on the motorcycle and the professor are different personalities of the same person. The professor went insane as he pursued the philosophy of excellence and reason.

This is drastically oversimplifying what is quite a complex book. It demands a lot of thought from the reader, particularly in relation to the philosophy. In that respect, it was really the wrong book for me to read at this time, since I didn’t have a lot of energy to put towards it.

Perhaps that was also the reason I found it rather slow to begin with. The philosophy seemed a bit didactic and the story around it was just that—a frame for the philosophy. It picked up a bit once the threads began to come together a bit more, particularly the philosophy and the professor. Overall, it failed to engage me in any great depth, however.

There were two other things that bothered me. First of all, I don’t know anyone that spends as much time maintaining their bike as the unnamed narrator does, and I know quite a few motorbikers. How many times does the oil need to be changed?

Finally, I was aware of how much society has changed since the book was written; the version I was reading was the 25th anniversary edition. This isn’t to say that the things talked of are irrelevant. Yet even so, I wasn’t completely convinced that they were entirely relevant either.

Overall, the book wasn’t at all what I expected and failed to engage me at the level it required.

This book has been sitting on my to read pile for entirely too long, particularly since it is so wonderfully written. Set in England in 1665-6, it’s about a village that suffers from the Plague and chooses to quarantine themselves in the hope it won’t spread further. It is written in first person from the point of view of Anna Frith, an 18 year old widow and housemaid to the young rector and his wife.

The book is divided into four sections. It starts out in the fall of 1666 to set the scene and then goes back to the spring of 1665 to tell of how the Plague befell the village and how they survived it. It returns to 1666 to finish off the tale and an epilogue forms the final section.

I was hooked as soon as I read the first small section. It really is wonderfully written. The whole tale was underpinned by the powerful emotions of those suffering through tragedy—not only the profound grief, but also the small moments of joy, though they are more rare. The historical setting has also been brought beautifully to life, not only in the details of day-to-day life but also in terms of the words Anna uses to tell her tale.

It is definitely a tale with feminist leanings, particularly towards the end. I also especially liked the different portrayals of witchcraft with the real witches being surprisingly modern. It seemed a much more intelligent-and, to me, more realistic-than current stereotypes of the time.

Unfortunately, I did have a few issues with the book. Perhaps the most simple (and probably least relevant) was the titling of the sections, particularly the middle and largest section. It is titled “Spring, 1665”, which is when the section begins. However, it covers the remainder of that year and halfway into the next, and I found it irritating to see the section title heading up every left-hand page.

Another issue was the manner of Anna’s telling the story. In the third section she makes reference to previously having “set down” the first section, giving the impression that she is writing the tale. However, this allusion is never followed up and the rest of the tale is free from any indication it is being written at all. I feel it would have been more consistant to simply leave the reference out.

When I got to the end of the second section, I though to myself that I could probably have finished reading there and be happy. It turns out that impression was right. A revelation about one of the major characters just pages away from the epilogue left me struggling to reconcile the new information with what had taken place before. I felt that, like Life of Pi, it was aiming for a last-minute revelation that shows the rest of the tale in a completely different light. Unlike Life of Pi, I didn’t feel it succeeded, but left me rather disappointed.

I feel it was a great shame because on the whole I really enjoyed the book.

I read this book on a recomendation from my thesis supervisor. It’s a story about Silver, an orphan taken in by the local lighthouse keeper, Mr Pew, when her mother dies. Mr Pew teaches her the importance of stories and relates to her the tale of Babel Dark, a mysterious figure of local history whose father built the lighthouse.

This is a very strange book. Time has a fluid quality to it, with different timelines being woven together. The telling of Silver’s life also jumps around a bit, from childhood, to varying parts of her adult life. I found some of the jumps in the telling of her adult life a little hard to grasp at first, though I quickly settled in.

Even identity doesn’t seem quite solid, particularly in relation to Mr Pew.

For all its strangeness, it was a very sweet book. Even as an adult there’s an innocence to Silver which makes her likeable and sets her up in contrast to Babel Dark. The book itself has an almost mythic quality to it—a story with layers and depth. It certainly doesn’t tell all of Silver’s life, but what is does tell is eloquent enough that it doesn’t need to. In fact, it’s only a short book. I read it in a couple of hours.

Overall, a lovely book.

I picked this book up on the recommendation of LunacyBleeding. It’s a non-fiction academic look at Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia (in case you couldn’t guess from the title).

I found the focus on Australia to be particularly interesting. It not only details the history of Witcraft and Paganism in Australia but also examines issues specific to the southern hemisphere, like whether a circle should be cast differently here, given that the direction the sun travels is different (in the north rather than in the south). It also details specifics in Australian law relating to witchcraft and what organisations and celebrations take place here.

My only quibble is that it is almost ten years out of date now. For an overview particular to this country it was invaluable.

I picked this up on the recommendation of LunacyBleeding and also because I’d seen it on the reading list of some of my favourite creative women.

The blurb says “Women Who Run with the Wolves is a seminal work on the inner life of women.” It is a work based on Jungian psychology, which the author weaves in with her training as cantadora or keeper of stories in the Latina tradition. She examines myths and fairytales to see what they reveal about life and the choices women make. At it’s heart, it is a book about how to live life with passion, creativity, wisdom and confidence.

The author freely admits it is a book that has to be studied and I found that to be very true. There were a few chapters that seemed particularly relevant to me, but throughout the whole thing I had a sense that it was full of wisdom. Nevertheless, it was a bit like looking into the mist—I could see what it was saying but I felt like in order to make it substantial I needed to sit down and work out what it meant to me on a personal level, to internalise it. The afterword and addendum make it clear that that is how the book is meant to be used. This is not a quick read, but something that must be returned to over and over.

I also found that the afterword is particularly relevant for storytellers and well worth reading.

All in all, I felt it to be a very valuable book and one whose worth will only increase with contemplation.

This book is the second in the Anita Blake series. Anita is recruited to help the police solve a particularly gruesome series of murders, while simultaneously fending off a client who won’t take no for an answer and the advances of vampire Jean-Claude.

This book isn’t as good as the first. Hamilton has set up a great world with some interesting characters. She’s even got some great scenes that bring the supernatural to life in a relatively realistic fashion.

But somehow it just doesn’t quite hang all together. I fell for the red herring, simply because I thought the true answer was too obvious. And already there’s some inconsistancy between books, with competing stories over what happens when an animator is raised from the dead. We are also told in the first book a brief sketch of what happened to the person that gave Jean-Claude his scar and yet the second book finds Anita seems to have completely forgotten this.

I want to like this book. And I did quite enjoy the parts with Jean-Claude in them. But it really needed some more work.

This book is an urban fantasy about Anita Blake, a necromancer and vampire hunter. Blackmailed by the city’s master vampire into investigating a series of unexplained murders where vampires are the victims, she soon finds herself surrounded by enemies.

This book was a touch predictable. I’d guessed the murderer by about halfway in. The ending was a bit of a let down, with the enemies appearing not quite so powerful in the final confrontation as they had been throughout the rest of the book. Even Edward didn’t quite live up to the reputation Anita gave him—he was much more careless than she was and I was left with the overall impression that she was better.

There was also a party sequence in the middle that seemed to have little or no purpose. It also seemed a little too convienient that there was a zombie raising going on within earshot.

Still, I quite enjoyed the action. It somehow managed to capture drama along with grit and a dash of dry sarcasm. The early sequences at the bar and meeting the city’s master vampire for the first time were handled well and gave a real sense of fear. Things also tended to be not completely black and white (though where they were it was a little disappointing). Anita’s fondness for stuffed penguins was a nice touch and I thought religion played quite an interesting roll.

A quick read, all in all, and good for light entertainment, though not quite as solid as might be wished for.