I love Minette Walters. I’ve said that though, after every single one of her books. I love her. I especially loved Ice House. The whole lesbian storyline was FUNNY, though I was not especially happy with the way that ended. Still, very funny. Lots of twists and turns and even more sub-plots than her other books. Minette Walters is a genius.
Have I mentioned I am not an Anne McCaffrey fan? Well I’m not, except for the Acorna series. That, I like. Probably because the first one I “read” was on audio and it lured me in, but after half dozen (or more) of these, I’m still enjoying them. Acorna’s Children was just what I needed after a string of non-fiction. It just doesn’t get any better than inter-gallactic unicorn type creatures saving the universe, particularly when the heroes tend to be women and children.
It’s important to remember that Lesbian Images was written 30 years ago. We’ve come a long way since then. Sometimes I think we’ve come too far, but that’s another blog entry entirely.
Jane Rule takes a look at lesbian characters in literature. From The Well of Loneliness to a Colette to Orlando with some discussion of books like The Price of Salt and Rubyfruit Jungle. She does a fairly good job of contrasting the characters with the authors who created them, as well. I think maybe I need to read The Well of Loneliness again, and more Colette.
I’d like to see a similar stufy of lesbian images done with literature from the 1970’s to today. Anyone want to take that on?
Wilson, a secular humanist, speaks to a Southern Baptist Pastor about the need to save “The Creation“. Creation meaning nature.
Very interesting but also just a wee bit depressing. Around here we joked a bit about the potential loss of fish by 2048 but that’s just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Depressing. Particularly since Wilson suggests a one time payment of just 30 Billion could solve the majority of the world’s problems. 30 Billion isn’t a whole lot of money, compared to what the US is spending on the war in Iraq…
Depressing.
I really enjoyed The Painted Drum but the first section was a little slow. Up until she found the drum. I could have done without the storyline with the artist and his daughter, it just didn’t do anything for me. The stories about how the drum was created, and the backstory to that, and then again how the drum was used later – now those were good.
Maps for Lost Lovers started really slowly. So slowly that TW gave up on it early and never finished it. I, on the otherhand, stuck with it and I did finally find myself enjoying it.
It’s a little long. The relationships are muddled. But it was interesting and I did find myself caring about many of the characters and interested in what they were thinking. The end, tying up the loose ends of the “murders” and all of the “minor characters” felt out of place and unnecessary. Sometimes it is better to leave some loose ends, this was one of those times I think.
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Soiled Doves: Prostitution in the Early West reads like a high school text book. A wee bit boring, particularly considering the subject matter. There were some interesting stories, samples from newspaper articles and obituaries and the photos were excellent.
If you’re looking for some deep and meaninful account, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for some straight forward, easy to read text then you’ll find it in Soild Doves.
Crocodile Soup is a weird lesbian coming of age sort of tale. I didn’t find it as weird as weird as TW did, which makes me wonder. Am I weird because it made sense to me – or is TW weird because it didn’t make sense to her?
Dysfunctional family, of course. Gert and Frank are twins. Both have some serious emotional issues, though Frank’s are just a wee bit more serious than Gert’s (and Gert’s may be more related to the dysfunctional family and her twin brother’s issues than anything else). They live in a haunted historical home. The ghost, of course, is a poet. A woman poet. A lesbian woman poet. And she drives Gert a little more nuts than her family is already driving her.
Interesting. And yes, a little weird, but not THAT weird.
Woohooo, The Masque of the Black Tulip is full of women spies! Gotta love that. It is also just as excellent as the Secret History of the Pink Carnation.
I thought I would be disappointed that there was not more about Richard and Amy and Jane but I wasn’t. Miles and Henrietta and the rest of the Londoners held their own and then some. I might actually have liked this one more than the Pink Carnation – does that ever happen with sequels?
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Well, I found the Zombie Survival Guide just as amusing and helpful as the Worst Case Scenario Survival Guides. I think we could easily survive a Class 1 or Class 2 Zombie outbreak. Class 3 and 4… ummm no, I think we’re dead meat, so to speak. Ah well, ya gotta go sometime.
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