Back in March, I bought several journals because Paperblanks was having a sale. It took me almost 9months to fill up the 18th and 19th journals, which was what I was expecting. So here we are with the 20th one and I wanted to show off the pictures, because a good journal should be as beautiful on the outside as the treasured contents on the inside.
It might seem silly to some to put such emphasis on my own words, especially considering how mundane are the details I write each week, but to me, those words are my innermost being. They are important to me and that is all that matters. Everything I can’t write here, everything private that isn’t your business, everything private that I don’t even have business thinking, I put them down in these journals. I exorcise my thoughts and feelings by transmuting them out of my head and onto the pages of these journals. It doesn’t always work and there are times I write the same thing over and over as the years slide by, but each iteration lessens the pain inside.
My journals are my therapy. That way you don’t get tortured angsty posts every week from me, hahahahahaa.
This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Emma Series: ———- Author: Jane Austen Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Genre: Classic Pages: 341 Words: 160K
This is my least favorite of Austen’s body of work, including her unfinished stuff. Emma as a character embodies everything that I most dislike about young women. I didn’t care for the character back in 2006 when I first read this and I didn’t care for her this time around either. I think my biggest problem is how Emma is a busybody and thinks herself superior to everyone around her.
With that being said, I still enjoyed this book quite a bit. It was very much a “Manners Romance” story and the changes in society in regards to manners made me smile. In one instance, Mrs Elton (a new to the area woman who married and is trying to be the social queen) is talking to a single young woman and calls her “Jane”, which is her name. Emma and Janes’s secret fiance overhear and both are outraged that Mrs Elton would presume to talk to Miss Fairfax so familiarly on so little acquaintance. For me, it was like reading about them being outraged because Mrs Elton said “Purple Elephant” while wearing white shoes. It just struck my funny bone, thankfully.
Much like Edward from Sense and Sensibility, Mr Knightley as a romantic lead does not make up a large part of the story. He’s there to support Emma and is busy doing real life stuff. I fully support that. He’s not swanning off writing goopy poems about her eyes and letting his own business go. This was a second instance of Austen writing about a young woman (Emma is 20 when the story starts) getting romantically involved with an older man (Mr Knightley is 37) and things working out. Was this because Austen was into that or because “Society” itself liked that and so she wrote about it to sell her stories? Most of the married couples I know are within 0-10 years in age of each other. I’ve known a few other couples with great age disparities, but they all tended to be at a stage in life when that didn’t matter (if one is 45 and the other 70 for instance) nearly so much. I know if I had a friend who was in his mid-30’s and he was interested in some cute young thing, I’d caution him about a lack of common cultural relevancies. It might seem small, and in all fairness it CAN be overcome, but something as little as knowing the same movies and the same books can ease the friction of being with another person. You don’t even have to LIKE them, just knowing about them is a common tie. Once you move beyond a certain amount of time, you don’t have those common ties to help bind you to another person. The faster a society moves, the less time those ties have to cement, and vice versa. So in Austen’s time things moved slower so the commonality had many more years to exist, which would make it much easier for a greater age disparity in a marriage to work.
Austen’s prose still makes me work. I had to just slow down to engage with this. One sentence, with multiple commas, could carry on multiple thoughts concurrently and I had to follow them all or I’d miss something, like who was even present in the room. There was one instance where Emma was talking to someone and suddenly Mr Knightley interjects a comment and I couldn’t figure out for the life of me when he had come onto the scene. I had to go back about two paragraphs, and buried in the middle of a long paragraph was a short sentence obliquely referring to him having entered the room. I love and hate that. I love it because it shows skill and I hate it because I’m lazy.
It has been over 17 years since I first read Emma and I suspect it will be that long, if not longer, before I read it for a third time.
★★★★☆
From Wikipedia.org
Click to Open
Emma Woodhouse’s friend and former governess, Miss Taylor, has just married Mr. Weston. Having introduced them, Emma takes credit for their marriage and decides that she likes matchmaking. After returning home to Hartfield, Emma forges ahead with her new interest against the advice of her friend Mr. Knightley, whose brother is married to Emma’s elder sister, Isabella. She attempts to match her new friend, Harriet Smith, to Mr. Elton, the local vicar. Emma persuades Harriet to refuse a marriage proposal from Robert Martin, a respectable young farmer, although Harriet likes him. Mr. Elton, a social climber, mistakenly believes Emma is in love with him and proposes to her. When Emma reveals she believed him attached to Harriet, he is outraged, considering Harriet socially inferior. After Emma rejects him, Mr. Elton goes to Bath and returns with a pretentious, nouveau-riche wife, as Mr. Knightley expected he would do. Harriet is heartbroken, and Emma feels ashamed about misleading her.
Frank Churchill, Mr. Weston’s son, arrives for a two-week visit. Frank was adopted by his wealthy and domineering aunt and has had few opportunities to visit before. Mr. Knightley tells Emma that, while Frank is intelligent and engaging, he has a shallow character. Jane Fairfax also arrives to visit her aunt Miss Bates and great-aunt Mrs. Bates for a few months before starting a governess position due to financial situation. She is the same age as Emma and has received an excellent education through her father’s friend, Colonel Campbell. Emma has remained somewhat aloof from Jane because she envies her and is annoyed by everyone, including Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley, praising Jane. Mrs. Elton takes Jane under her wing and announces that she will find a governess post before it is wanted.
Emma decides that Jane and Mr. Dixon, Colonel Campbell’s new son-in-law, are mutually attracted, and that is the reason she arrived earlier than expected. She confides this to Frank, who met Jane and the Campbells at Weymouth the previous year; he apparently agrees with Emma. Suspicions are further fuelled when a pianoforte, sent anonymously, arrives for Jane. Emma feels herself falling in love with Frank, but it does not last. The Eltons treat Harriet poorly, culminating in Mr. Elton publicly snubbing Harriet at a ball. Mr. Knightley, who normally refrained from dancing, gallantly asks Harriet to dance. The day after the ball, Frank brings Harriet to Hartfield, as she fainted after a rough encounter with local gypsies. Emma mistakes Harriet’s gratitude to Frank as Harriet being in love with him. Meanwhile, Mrs. Weston wonders if Mr. Knightley is attracted to Jane, but Emma dismisses the idea. When Mr. Knightley says he notices a connection between Jane and Frank, Emma disagrees, as Frank appears to be courting her instead. Frank arrives late to a gathering at Donwell, while Jane departs early. The next day at Box Hill, a local scenic spot, Frank and Emma are joking when Emma thoughtlessly insults Miss Bates.
When Mr. Knightley scolds Emma for insulting Miss Bates, she is ashamed. The next day, she visits Miss Bates to atone for her bad behaviour, impressing Mr. Knightley. During the visit, Emma learns that Jane has accepted a governess position from one of Mrs. Elton’s friends. Jane becomes ill and refuses to see Emma or receive her gifts. Meanwhile, Frank has been visiting his aunt, who dies soon after his arrival. He and Jane reveal to the Westons that they have been secretly engaged since autumn, but Frank knew his aunt would disapprove of the match. Maintaining the secrecy strained the conscientious Jane and caused the couple to quarrel, with Jane ending the engagement. Frank’s easygoing uncle readily gives his blessing to the match. The engagement is made public, leaving Emma annoyed to discover that she had been so wrong.
Emma believes Frank’s engagement will devastate Harriet, but instead, Harriet says she loves Mr. Knightley, and though she knows the match is too unequal, Emma’s encouragement and Mr. Knightley’s kindness have given her hope. Emma is startled and realises that she is also in love with Mr. Knightley. Mr. Knightley returns to console Emma about Frank and Jane’s engagement, thinking her heartbroken. When she admits her foolishness, he proposes, and she accepts. Harriet accepts Robert Martin’s second proposal, and they are the first couple to marry. Jane and Emma reconcile, and Frank and Jane visit the Westons. Once the mourning period for Frank’s aunt ends, they will marry. Before the end of November, Emma and Mr. Knightley are married with the prospect of “perfect happiness.”
This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Get Me to the Wake On Time Series: ———- Editor: Alfred Hitchcock Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Crime Fiction Pages: 175 Words: 70K
I had another Hitchcock collection on tap before this one. It was titled “Scream Along with Me”. Unfortunately, it was a very bad scan that was nothing but images of the text instead of the text itself. That means I couldn’t change the text size or have it reflow on my kindle or change the font. That kind of thing is why I read ebooks in the first place. If I want a fixed font size, I’ll go read a paper book, thank you very much.
So with that scintillating reading fact under your belt, on to the review itself.
I enjoyed this. The end.
Seriously, that’s all you get, folks. I’m tired and the words aren’t flowing.
Well, the cover is cool. Might have to use it for my cover love at the end of the month. I’ve had several cool covers this month though, so I’m going to be in the unenviable position of having to choose one over the others. If you know anything about books, you know what special snowflakes they are and how easily their feelings get hurt. I’m not looking forward to telling the losers that they ARE losers and just aren’t good enough. Books these days, just a bunch of pansies!
This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Smoke Ring Series: The State #3 Author: Larry Niven Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 226 Words: 82K
This was a decent SF story but not one I ever plan on reading for a third time. Twice is enough.
It’s a good sequel to the Integral Trees but leaves enough unexplored that Niven could probably have written a whole series about the Smoke Ring if he’d wanted to. He was more of a hard science fiction’er though, and you need some good, charismatic characters to keep a series going, so it’s no wonder this was the final book in The State.
Honestly, the covers were the best part of these books. At least for Integral Trees and Smoke Ring. They are why I picked them up back in highschool. Even now, I am forced to admit that the covers are what drew back to this re-read. That’s not a total slam on the books themselves, but Niven wrote for a specific type of SF reader and I’m not that kind. The covers mislead one into thinking there will be grand adventures and brightly colored heroes, etc and you just get a family adventure with lots of “how do we do X in low or zero gravity”. That’s just boring to me.
So I’m done with Niven. I won’t be exploring anything else by him. Too many other new-to-me authors to investigate.
★★★☆☆
From Wikipedia.org
Click to Open
The Setting:
The story is set at the fictional neutron star Levoy’s Star (abbreviated “Voy”). The gas giant Goldblatt’s World (abbreviated “Gold”) orbits the star just outside its Roche limit. While Gold’s gravity is enough to keep it from being pulled apart by Voy’s tidal forces, it is insufficient to hold its atmosphere, which has been pulled loose into an independent orbit around Voy. This orbiting air forms a ring known as a gas torus. The gas torus is huge—one million kilometers thick—but most of it is too thin to be habitable. The central part of the Gas Torus, where the air is thicker, is known as the Smoke Ring. The Smoke Ring supports a wide variety of life. Robert L. Forward helped Niven calculate the parameters of the ring.
There is no “ground” in the Smoke Ring; it is a world consisting entirely of sky. Thus, most animals can fly, even the fish. Furthermore, since the Smoke Ring is in orbit, it is in free fall. There is no “up” or “down”, only “in” or “out” from Voy. Humans moving in the Smoke Ring use a poetic adage to aid their understanding of orbital mechanics – “East takes you Out, Out takes you West, West takes you In, In takes you East. Port and Starboard bring you back”
Most animals have trilateral symmetry, allowing them to see in all directions. Most plants in the Smoke Ring are quite fragile, as they don’t have to support their own weight. A notable exception to this rule are the Integral Trees. These are trees that are up to 100 kilometers long. Tidal locking causes them to be oriented radially, with one end pointing in toward Voy and one end pointing out. The ends of the tree experience a tidal force of up to 1/5 g. Each end consists of a leafy “tuft”, which is where photosynthesis occurs.
Each tuft of a tree is 50 kilometers from the tree’s center of mass. Thus, a tuft is either orbiting too slowly (the in tuft) or too quickly (the out tuft). Since the atmosphere at either end is moving at its local orbital speed, the ends of trees are subject to a constant hurricane-force wind. This wind bends the ends into the shape of an integral symbol: ∫.
The Smoke Ring was colonized 500 years prior to the beginning of the story by a crew of 20 astronauts. Their descendants have adapted to the free-fall environment by growing taller and developing prehensile toes.
According to N-Space, the wings and the method of self-propelled flying featured in the novel were suggested by Isaac Asimov.
Plot:
This book takes place about fifteen years after the end of the original story, when survivors of the Dalton-Quinn tree, a few Carther States jungle dwellers, and two London Tree Citizens have settled on a new tree. This ‘Citizen’s Tree’ has become a stable community which some believe may be too small to survive in the long run.
Kendy, the recorded personality of a citizen of “The State” who exists in the computer of the original space-ship that colonized the Smoke Ring, has become impatient. He decides to re-establish contact with Citizen’s Tree. Kendy manipulates a group into making contact with “The Admiralty”, a neighboring civilization at Gold’s L4 Lagrange Point (which they refer to as “the Clump”). The group explores this more advanced civilization with a mixture of wonder and trepidation.
Although much of the story is a sort of “travelogue” exploring the Smoke Ring and the technology used in the unique environment, The Smoke Ring does spend more time on story and character development than The Integral Trees. One of the drivers for the story follows the latest operator of “the silver suit”, the Citizen’s Tree’s working spacesuit. Few are capable of operating the suit due to its size; due to the lack of gravity, most humans in the Smoke Ring grow too tall to fit into it. The job goes to the occasionally born “dwarves” who tend to develop into humans of Earth-normal height and build. A major sub-plot develops around the latest silver suit operator’s attempts to infiltrate The Admiralty to gain information, and The Admiralty’s near obsession with capturing the Citizen’s Tree’s spacesuit.
This focuses on the story of Kendy and the original mission. The chain of events that led to the colonization of the Smoke Ring through a “mutiny” on the ship is explored. After retrieving the crew’s own records of the events, Kendy realizes that the crew had not mutinied at all, and that he had forced them off the ship, believing this to be in keeping with his orders from Earth. This was apparently blocked from his memory, and he suffers a form of breakdown when he learns (or re-learns) the truth.
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our[a] joy may be complete. ~ 1st John Chapter 1, verses 1-4
Jesus was born on Earth. He was God Incarnate. He was not a myth and the people closest to Him (His disciples and family) wrote what they knew. They gained nothing from that but the status of outcasts and eventually martyrdom. The disciple John KNEW Jesus and he is writing about Him.
Christmas exists because of Jesus the Christ being born. As the picture above say, Hope was Born. Please don’t turn away from that hope this Christmas.
Take everything you know about A Christmas Carol and reverse it and you’ve got this wonderful parody. First and foremost, if you are not familiar with the British tv series Blackadder, this won’t be nearly as funny. Because it’s not just the fact that everything is reversed, but who everything gets reversed on. You have to know the Blackadder cast to get a full appreciation of the comedic genius.
That being said, this being British tv, they are crude, profane and borderline blasphemous.
From Ebenezer Blackadder to Mrs Scratchett and her gigantic son Tiny Tom, to gin drinking, carol singing orphans to the Spirit of Christmas, to Ebenezer’s niece Frederika who steals everything she can, coupled with Baldrick stinking everything up (he’s Blackadder’s witless servant and must have been paid a LOT of money to appear in a leather breachclout on tv) and you have a recipe for hilarity. Even the opening song is a riff on the original Blackadder intro song.
The gist of the story is that Ebenezer Blackadder is the nicest man in the world. He gives everything away to everybody and they take advantage of him. The Ghost of Christmas visits him and is about ready to leave because Ebenezer is such a good fellow until he lets slip that Ebenezer’s ancestors were unscrupulous ne’er-do-wells. This gets Ebenezer curious and sees several Christmas’s past where his ancestors pull dastardly schemes quite successfully. This wets his appetite and make him wonder why he’s being so good. He forces the Ghost of Christmas to show him the future and in one, where Ebenezer turns bad, his descendants rule the galaxy. In the other future where he stays good, his servant Baldrick rules the universe and does it very badly. So Ebenezer tosses all the good out the window and becomes a true Blackadder. In the process he tosses a mysterious couple out on their ear. They turn out to be the king and queen who were going to give him a vast fortune and a title. Which is typical Blackadder. Even when he wins, he still manages to lose.
I laughed my head off. I watched this three times and it was as funny each time.
While I don’t foresee myself ever watching this again after this year, I certainly did enjoy it this time around. It’s silly beyond belief, which fit my mood just fine.
This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Magicians of Caprona Series: Chrestomanci #2 Author: Diana Jones Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Middlegrade Fantasy Pages: 167 Words: 63K
I enjoyed this as much as the first book even though Chrestomanci is not a main character and barely appears at all. Jones tells an engaging story of two rival magical families whose problems are solved by the children in the family. Yet Jones in no way denigrates the adult members of the family. That is an easy “out” for an author to elevate her children characters by tearing down the adults and Jones has no place for that kind of thing in her story, for which I am very thankful.
Most of this story is told through the eyes of Tonino and Paulo, brothers. The issue for me was that Jones would switch viewpoints from paragraph to paragraph and it became very confusing for me to keep track of whose eyes I was looking out of. I felt like it could have been written for easier comprehension, especially as this is aimed at the tween and early teen crowd. Other than that, I don’t have any complaints.
Family, food, magic, love and adventure, with a wicked enchantress making life tough for everyone. What more do you really need in a story?
★★★✬☆
From Wikipedia.org
Click to Open
Caprona is a city-state in the Italy of Chrestomanci’s world (World Twelve A), which never united as a nation-state. The houses of Casa Montana and Casa Petrocchi, both renowned for being powerful magician families, have been feuding with each other for generations. The city has begun to lose its “virtue,” and the states of Florence, Siena, and Pisa intend to take advantage of this by uniting to conquer Caprona. The only way to save the city is if the true words to the Angel of Caprona, both a hymn and a powerful spell, can be found and read aloud.
The story is told through the eyes of the young Tonino Montana and his brother Paolo. They are both members of Casa Montana, one of two spell-houses in Caprona, the other being Casa Petrocchi. The two spell-houses are deadly rivals; the two families are both convinced that the decline of Caprona is all the fault of the other spell-house, and refuse to work together under any circumstances.
Tonino is, unknown to himself or the rest of Casa Montana, a talented enchanter; however, he is unaware of his ability, and prefers to spend his time reading. Paolo is more outgoing and friendly, and does better at school. When representatives of both houses are called to the Duke of Caprona’s palace, they both go. Whilst there, they meet members of the Petrocchi family for the first time, and they also encounter the Duchess, a powerful woman who appears to be the true ruler of Caprona.
During the book, Tonino is kidnapped and finds himself held hostage with Angelica Petrocci and whilst the two houses blame each other, Tonino and Angelica have to put their differences aside to escape. Meanwhile, Paolo teams with Renata Petrocci in order to save their lost siblings.