Princess Orchid
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Posts posted by Princess Orchid
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That pesky mistress!
I actually wanted to slap her so badly. It always makes me so sad to read about poor, loyal women in China who get stomped upon (ok. or anywhere). My mum had a horrible time during the Cultural Revolution, and it makes me spit with anger when i even think about people being mean to her!
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Well...
David Eddings
Terry Pratchett
Jasper Fforde
Amy Tan
Xinran
Alexander McCall SMith (well, the Edinburgh-based series)
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"The Penelopiad" is one of my favourite books. Tbh, "The Blind Assassin" is one a lot of people absolutely rave about, but I found quite hard to get into.
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Not always - I can think of quite a few where the main character is quite happy at the end of a DK book, although quite often one of the main characters dies horribly, and they certainly go through many trials and tribulations...
Aha! I just navigated through the John Saul website (amid much squinting - it's not very reader friendly!), and I *did* have the 2 confused!
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*devours muffin*
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Birthday: 10 April
Age: Um...26ish. Ok, 28.
Starsign: Aries
Where do you live?: Edinburgh
Do you work?: Yes, I'm working right noe - can't you tell?
Favourite author?: Xinran, David Eddings, Banana Yoshimoto, Amy Tan, Adeline Yen Ma, Blake Nelson
Favourite book?: Miss Chopsticks, Girl, The Kitchen God's Wife
How did you get here?: I followed the cat
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Hi, I'm Lucie, and I've been posting for the past week or so without introducing myself, so can I just say:
- I tend to overuse the comma
- I have a habit of reading several books at once (one in my bag for the commute, one for bedtime reading, one for lazy lie-in mornings...)
- My current favoured themes are: modern AND not-so-modern Chinese and Japanese fiction, anything by Alexander McCall Smith set in Edinburgh, small town Americana (and Canadiana, of course
), forensic textbooks, accident and emergency escapades, dead people, food fiction and no-fic, biogs of psycho serial killers, and anything creepy and likely to make me double bolt my door at night... -
As Lilywhite said, I also thought this would be about something completely different, but got quite hooked very quickly.
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I really enjoyed this book - I bought it from Pages in Toronto whilst on holiday, for something to read over lunch. I finished it by breakfast the next morning!
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I have recently got into fantasy and i have been told to read his books as well as Raymond Feist.
I have got hold of these David Eddings bookd really cheap off ebay:
Polgara the sorceress
All the Elenium books and all the Tamuli books
Do these books have to be read in specific order of series?
If so i will have to get the others off ebay or from charity shops
What do people think of Raymond Feist too
I read the Elenium first (I got the first one in an airport in Bangkok, as it was one of the only 2 English language titles available), and then the Tamuli.
As for the other series, I read "Belgarath the Sorcerer" first, then started on the Belgariad, then the Mallorean, then "Polgara" last.
I love David Eddings. I'm not a big fan of the collaborations
he did with his wife and with other authors, but he remains one of my favourite fantasy writers.
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Now, I always get Dean Koontz and John Saul confused, but I seem to remember - is DK the one who makes a point of NOT expressing a happy ending (as it, the monster still lives, or the main character dies)?
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I read Allende's "Zorro", and I swear, by then end of it I was in love with the protagonist! The only other book of hers I've read is "Aphrodite".
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I picked up the first one in a Bangkok airport - I think I just bought the only 2 English language titles they had in the news stand! The other one was David Eddings' first in the Sparhawk series. Anyways, I loved it - the Stephanie Plum novels are shamelessly trashy, and I do finish them within hours, but that's beside the point! I like that the details are just weird and quirky enough to stop short of the bog standard chick fiction we see so much of these days.
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Anybody else read this? I'm fairly close to finished, and although I'm loving the book, a fair few bits elicited a sniffle or two from me! I was absolutely heartbroken when WL took on a mistress and allowed that awful slave woman into his house.
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I think in the past, if 2 people married who both came from quite posh or upper class families, they'd keep both names because neither family wanted to lose their identity. It doesn't make a jot of difference now, as some of the chavviest people I've ever met have had double barrelled surnames! Does anyone remember that horrid bleached blonde from Big brother last year - I'm sure she had a double barrelled surname!
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Lol. Clearly.
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I came across a post on another forum about a "question" an audience member posed for Alexander McCall Smith at a recent event at the Edinburgh Book Festival, which was quite aggressive. This person asked, since AMS has a double-barrelled surname, he was "obviously" born bourgeois, and didn't he think he should drop the "McCall", and publish under the name "Alexander Smith" so he could write about more blue collar issues.
I find this sort of attitude incredible narrow-minded, as well as hypocritical. The same sort of people who think this is an appropriate question would probably be up in arms if it was insinuated that an author like Irvine Welsh should start writing on less gritty topics (maybe meandering away from the "working class" characters and portraying posh Morningside residents, for example).
Disgusting.
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As someone who went to school in Canada, this book was definately on all our reading lists! I have to say, it's been a few years since I last picked this one up, but I do remember enjoying it at the time. I found the Anne series to be appropriate for children as well as adult readers, but tbh, I preferred the later (?) Avonlea books, which were probably aimed towards older readers.
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I wouldn't! What if you have no access to the internet at that particular time!
It's a bit faffy, isn't it?!
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I love, love, love reading about food.
I really utterly recommend Jeffrey Steingarten's collections of essays from Vogue magazine, particularly the first book The Man Who Ate Everything; although It must have been something I ate is also very good.
My favourite foody novel is The Debt To Pleasure by John Lanchester, which is fantastic, funny, black, and written as a cookbook.
I've read both the Jeffrey Steingartens, which I thoroughly enjoyed! Will have a look for the John Lancaster at some point soon.
There are a couple more I've just remembered - "Vanilla beans and Brodo" (by Isabella Dusi), and the Rue Tatin books by Susan Loomis. Neither are fiction. And a fantastic murder-mysery that I cann't for the life of me remember the title of, but involved a pastry chef killed off by being locked into an industrial freezer.
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I was thinking more along the lines of Joanne Harris, or Nina Killham's "How to cook a tart: a novel". Not recipe books. Although I do have a fair few of them, as well.
Deviating from the "fiction" theme, I really enjoyed Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential" and "A Cook's Tour".
And also the writings of Ruth Reichl, MFK Fisher, Elizabeth David etc.
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I love food. I love reading about food. Am I the only one?!
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I really enjoyed the book - read it over a year ago. He also wrote "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister", didn't he? I love the twisting of the original fairytale, and the giving of depth to characters that I felt could have been given a little more of a mention in the original.
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I've discovered a fondness for certain books set in Edinburgh (where I live), or Toronto (where I lived for 12 years). My current favourites are Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie and Scotland Street Series. I love being able to identify the people and places mentioned...
Favourite Feline Literature...
in General Book Discussions
Posted
I quite enjoyed Nick Smith's "Milk Treading" (about a cat detective), and just discovered he's got another one out with the same protagonist. There's also a Japanese writer who did "I am a cat", which is on my TBR list.