Musings: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

I am so excited to participate in my first Persephone Reading Weekend (hosted by Claire and Verity)!  I have read so many reviews of Persephone books over the last few years and drooled at the sight of all those beautiful gray covers with those fun cloth designs, but alas, I have always stayed on the sidelines.  But now I am a participant!  And while it's very difficult to find Persephone editions of books here in the States, I'll keep my eye on their catalog and be sure to scan shelves for those distinctive covers, too!

My first foray into the world of Persephone was the Cinderella-esque book Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.  It was a fun, quick and light read through 1930s England and exactly the sort of story I wanted to read in the midst of all the stress and turmoil of final exams and my continuing search for a summer internship.

[TSS] Musings: Clouds of Witness

On I continue in my quest to read books that have long been on my shelves but never seem to come down.  This time around, I picked up Dorothy Sayers' Clouds of Witness, book two in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. 

It didn't take me long to remember why these books have lapsed for so long on my shelf.  I understand that it may be unpopular of me to say and I also understand that I have yet to be introduced to THE Harriet Vane and I also understand that supposedly, the first few books in this series are not all that great.

That said, I have very little desire to progress further in this series, which is unfortunate as I own I think the first five books in it.  I just don't like Lord Peter, quite frankly.

But let me start with the plot.  Lord Peter returns to England after a nice trip abroad to find news reports of his sister's fiancee murdered and his elder brother, the Duke of Denver, in jail as the accused.  He is obviously more than a little perturbed by this situation and sets off to help prove his brother innocent.  What follows is a whole lot of red herrings and then a literal play-by-play of the entire court proceedings that goes on for about 30 pages.

[TSS] Musings: Lud-in-the-Mist

Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees is considered one of those forgotten classics of fantasy literature.  It was written before The Lord of the Rings, by a woman, and has a very different feel than that of what we have come to regard as epic fantasy.  Instead of elves, there are fairies.  Instead of good fighting evil, there are superstitions and shades of gray.  I love The Lord of the Rings, though I don’t know if I will ever re-read it.  But sometimes I think fantasy draws too closely from that story, settling easily into stories told in trilogies about voyages fraught with danger and boys growing into men and all the rest.  Lud-in-the-Mist is written along different tropes.

The story centers on Master Nathaniel Chanticleer, the mayor of Lud-in-the-Mist, a city nestled at the meeting of two rivers and dangerously close to Fairyland.  No one ever goes to Fairyland, not since the evil Duke Aubrey was dethroned and replaced by staid and reasonable merchants.  In fact, no one even mentions fairies any more in Lud-in-the-Mist unless they are flinging a great insult.  They just go about their lives, blissfully ignoring the land on the other side of the Debatable Hills.  That is, until people begin acting oddly, schoolgirls start disappearing and the Mayor’s son claims to have voices in his head.

Musings: Silverlock

Silverlock is the story of A. Clarence Shandon, a good-looking, cynical man from Chicago in the 1940s.  On a sea voyage, his ship is wrecked and he is saved only through the help of a man named Golias, who helps him onto a raft and takes him, with a few stops on the way to the Commonwealth of Letters.  There, Shandon goes on a wide variety of adventures, meeting beautiful women, laughing giants, brooding princes and all sorts of others.  His journey takes him to the depths of Hell and back out again, and along the way, he becomes a brighter, better person who calls himself Silverlock.

I am not sure where I first heard about this story.  It gets great praise on the cover, with people calling it "the stuff of wonder" and "bigger than life."  And, of course, "a masterpiece."  It's on quite a few lists of best fantasy stories.  But what really drew me to the book is its premise.  One of the beautiful women Shandon meets is Circe.  The laughing giant is the Green Knight who confronts Sir Gawain.  The brooding prince in Hamlet.  There is also Robin Hood, Don Quixote and Dante.  References to Paul Bunyan and the Alamo.  Beowulf makes an appearance, as does Oedipus.

The Real Detroit: Part II

Apologies for the double post in about fifteen minutes!  Absolutely loved this Super Bowl ad, though, and as I seem to have become a book blogger on a mission- just thought I'd share it with you all :-)