Ketutar

I really like miss Pym. The rest of the book wasn't as good as the first one, which wasn't as good as it could have been.The ending was quite abrupt and not quite satisfying. There is much more material here than can be put in a little “pulp fiction” like this. I recommend [b:A Company of Swans 963274 A Company of Swans Eva Ibbotson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1311649502l/963274.SX50.jpg 3271817] All in all, it's a harmless, cute regency romance novel.

I rather liked it, though there are some problems with the historical accuracy... I am 100% certain that NO English lady would wear a la Grecienne in the middle of the winter as day dress how ever “fashionable” it was. And... how common was it for a kitchen maid to rise to become a housekeeper? Especially in a household that seemingly didn't have a butler. And would a single lord keep a household without a butler, but with a housekeeper? Also, the guests would leave tips whether they knew the servant had inherited or not, because that's what you did. And the lord was a bit too comfy in the kitchen with the ladies. But - who cares. It was entertaining, very entertaining. They even managed to wind in a murder mystery! (Or murder attempt mystery, to be precise :-D) The romancing wasn't too heavy either, so I don't think this counts as a romance novel either... hmm... cozy mystery?

It's horribly boringly written. It feels like William Morris was trying to be very medieval and epic, and... sigh it wasn't poetic and beautiful, it was boring, tedious, irritating.The story itself... A boy is married to a beautiful woman who is unfaithful and he loses everything, and goes away and never comes back. He finds an even more beautiful woman, and becomes a king of a faraway place, and... sigh sigh sighI kept expecting the heroine to be a villain, and the villain to be a heroine, and I really cannot understand why — killed —, and... I mean they didn't even love that one. I don't understand why all these people loved this book, or story. It's seriously just a very bad version of fairytales, especially those from [b:The Arabian Nights 93101 The Arabian Nights Anonymous https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1617241455l/93101.SY75.jpg 859375]. Read those instead. Oh, and the style reminds me of [a:Edgar Rice Burroughs 10885 Edgar Rice Burroughs https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207155710p2/10885.jpg] (Read him instead)I don't like anything about this book... well... the design is nice, I suppose.The hero is irritating, boring milksop, full of himself. I think we are supposed to see him as something positive. The heroine is... I suppose there's some promise in her. The witch mistress is... mostly confusing. I seriously don't understand why she is supposed to be so scary, when she never really does anything scary. She just says things and Looks. Frankly, the only reason we have to believe she's evil is that the heroine says she is. The prince is an a-hole, though we are to believe he's a good guy. He is totally fine raping the heroine. It's not rape if she is a slave. It's not rape if she says “yes”, even though you threaten to harm her if she refuses. It's not rape if she's pretty. The racist caricature is basically nothing more than that. Nobody has any character development, or any consequences for their actions. I don't think William Morris really understood fairytales at all.The way the people choose their kings is... WTF? I am kind of impressed by the Bear People episode.

This one is better than #3, but most books are better than that :-D
I love Katy's wedding, I love the letters, I hate mrs. Watson, but I'm happy that story ended well, and how Clover responded so very differently to the different propositions was very, very funny :-D
“He never denied Clover anything her heart was set upon, and he could see her heart was very much set upon this”. :-D

Amy is the most spoiled, self-centered, entitled little 8 years old I've met in literature.
Susan Coolidge is one of the most prejudiced, racist authors I've read. Everything in Europe is horrible, nasty, dirty, unpleasant, ill-mannered, or if not, they speak some other language.
Considering how disappointing Europe was to Katy, I doubt she will want to go there again, though she probably will when she marries...
I like this book the least of all the Katy books.
I really hate Amy.

Well...
I suppose the main couple is Rose and Harry, though I don't like Rose. Too dishwater and YA “strong heroine” for my taste. And Harry... I don't get him. He's a bit too fluid, always adjusting to the part he's supposed to be playing, a bit robotic.
I love Daisy, though. Beckett is a darling, too.

I'm not too fond of Marion's ideas of the upper class and Edwardian England. There is obviously social criticism, and I believe she wrote Rose and Harry deliberately dumb because they are both nobles. Also, I suppose she has her own formulas. I need to read more to see how these people fit the pattern. So far I have only read Agatha Raisin books (not all of them, just the 9 first ones)

I think Marion Chesney is a great author because even with all this criticism, I don't mind reading these books. Right now I'll only touch some books to get more ammunition against the author, and their books always make me irritated. :-D

The murder mystery part... it's really not a murder mystery. Sure, there are murders, and we get to know whodunnit and how, and all that, but it's not something... it's more a side note on the story.
It also felt a bit... fake.

I don't think Edwardians believed you can cure STDs by sleeping with a virgin - or that people spoke of STDs, sex etc. as freely as they did in this book.

So clever!

It amazes me that they wrote fan fiction already 200 years ago :-D (And I just realized Y2K was over 20 years ago... and now I'm shocked:-D)

Less cruelty against animals and mindless killing, but just as much racism.
The solution was very clever, though I find it unrealistic, that a handful of white men would have survived some 10 years in the Antarctic, whereas a native tribe of hundreds of people would not. But I suppose that's the spirit of Rousseau. “If I was to raise a child, I'd choose a Frenchman, because we have the best chance of surviving any circumstances. An African wouldn't survive cold, and an Eskimo wouldn't survive heat, but we Frenchmen, we'd survive anything!” (If I remember correctly, he could have raised several kids, that he produced with several French women and then just “forgot”. I suppose it was easier to write a book about how to raise a perfect Frenchman, and not tackle with the embarrassment of one's genes being not so good... :-D)

It is funny, I don't usually feel bad about the people dying in murder mysteries. And I don't really feel bad for Ruth, because she's really a bitch, but I feel really bad for Rufus Van Aldin. He really loved his daughter, and her death was so unnecessary and unnecessary ugly.
Also, I don't feel the characters were as developed in this as they usually are. The side characters are more interesting, really :-D Like Lenox Tamplin, or the old lady with whom Katherine spends time in St Mary Mead. or Kitty Kidd.

This was a huge disappointment.

I was expecting a wise and witty guide to the holidays.
I was expecting to be delighted.
I was expecting to have my holiday cheer maintained.
Nope. Didn't happen.

Some of the Little Golden Book illustrations were wonderful, but the text felt forced and preppy and perky and... so fake. It was a bit like they had a general idea of what they wanted to say, and then just found images that fit the thought somewhat, but that wasn't enough, so they filled it with Christmassy images and something that might fit if shoehorned a little, and then write something to go with the images. I didn't count, but I have the memory that about 1/4 of the images were actually Christmassy and relevant. (And now I kind of want to go back and count :-D)

It was like reading a Christmas-themed Cyrano de Bergerac death scene. The text was going one way and started ebbing out, so Diane went back to the beginning and started over, repeated herself, and it went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and LET THE MAN DIE FOR GOODNESS' SAKE!!!

Oh, and don't forget that this is a Christian-themed book, so when Diane had said all they wanted to say about Christmas as they saw it (cleaning and stress and chores and “don't stress!”), she started talking about Jesus. All the same old cliches.

It's a lovely little picture book.
I love Inga Moore's illustrations.
I love the story about two little pigs who made themselves houses but had visits from the bear and the moose, and their houses were too small and too flimsy to survive the visits. So the four friends decided to build a bigger place together, a house big enough to have all four of them living in it together. And they got help.
The book ends with everyone sleeping. It's a really lovely story with lovely illustrations. :-)
Made me happy.

There is really only one reason why I wanted to read this. Come on, you know what it is. The cover. Edward Gorey was wonderful.

The problem with anthologies is that it's bound to be uneven. Some of these were amazing, some not so.

Edith Nesbit. The Pavilion
- I love Edith Nesbit. I recommend everything she has ever written, her horror stories are sublime.

Joan Aiken. Searching for Summer
- very sweet :-)

Mary Elizabeth Counselman. The Unwanted
- Absolutely fascinating

Dorothy Salisbury Davis. The Muted Horn
- interesting

Grazia Deledda. The Sorcerer
- Oh. Witty, funny, slightly scary. Really good.

Helena Blavatsky. The Ensouled Violin
- A good gothic story.

Jane Roberts. The Red Wagon
- Heartbreaking - but also funny. Very smart.

Grena J. Bennett, Thomas J. Vivian. The Tilting Island
- Interesting. A bit stupid, but good storytelling.

C. L. Moore. Doorway Into Time
- The story was interesting, but the storytelling wasn't good :-D Way too elaborate and flowery

Lady Eleanor Smith. No Ships Pass
- Sorry, I found it rather boring.

Absolutely lovely little story of how to find a husband :-D
We have a chubby little girl with really bad self-confidence, bad clothes, bad posture, and a bad attitude, and then there's an ugly duckling story. She gets help from a friend and ends up finding a husband. With a little “but I thought you...” mixed in.
It's funny and nice.

Yuk, yuk, yuk, yök, perk, yuk!

Ok, so this is a story of a scientist who rescues a young woman from spirits to be all a woman can dream of, a wife and a mother.

The heroine is pretty. That's about it.

The hero... he's an a-hole. He's a pompous ass, racist, sexist... basically prejudiced in every possible manner a man can be.
And he's a gary-stu. Everybody loves him, except the villains, who hate him. By sight.
I mean... we have this young man coming riding in town, he says he's a scientist, and the heroine's mother immediately invites him to her home and asks him for advice on how to deal with her daughter's future. And instead of saying he couldn't possibly, he seriously considers the question. HE HAS KNOWN THE GIRL AND HER MOTHER FOR A COUPLE OF HOURS IF EVEN THAT. The minister of the community comes to visit, and he immediately sees the man as bad news, even though there really isn't anything wrong with him. He's polite, intelligent, and good-looking... but he is the villain. He has known the family for a long time, but the mother trusts this total stranger's opinion more. Why? Beats me. I suppose because the goodness of a person is totally visible, and even such animals as women can smell it.
Ok, so while he is visiting the family, some weird things happen. There's knocking and the light goes down, and things like that. No explanation, but this scientist man doesn't believe in any supernatural stuffs, so he doesn't seem to notice these things either. Later in the book, they have a seance where things fly around without anyone there to touch them, a wine glass materializes on the shelf from a locked cupboard, things are being written on a notepad, a “horn” floats in the air, and voices are heard. “It must be something totally natural and scientific, like telepathy and telekinesis”. Er... what? You believe in telepathy, but not spirits? Of course! Spirits are totally impossible explanation, as no one was able to actually do these things, as everyone in the present was sitting too far away and didn't move, then it must be telekinesis. Doh!
Yeah... stupid me. Oh, and clairvoyance is also a totally scientific, natural ability.

But it doesn't matter at all, because our scientist man doesn't believe in spirits, he forgets all that happened because it really couldn't have happened, so it didn't.

And through the whole book, he is the only one who can save this girl from the insanity and infamy of being a medium means. She has to be saved so that she can marry a respectable man. Our scientist man. Of course. And it's not her kindness, intelligence, fresh spirit, or anything, really, that he loves. It's her beauty. Again and again, when he thinks of her or speaks about her, it's her beauty.

This is, of course, very nice. But not the best “how did” books I've read. I prefer [b:Just So Stories 34053 Just So Stories Rudyard Kipling https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546075870l/34053.SY75.jpg 2475078] as that, and [b:The Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit 223627 The Tales of Uncle Remus The Adventures of Brer Rabbit Julius Lester https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1391088821l/223627.SX50.jpg 216578] as Americana folk tales. (Now, I read that as an excellent Finnish translation, I don't like the style of writing, as I'm not very good with... I don't know if that is Ebonics or something else, but I like to read my English as proper as possible. After all, it's a foreign language to me.)This is not written with any kind of accent or slang, but it is a bit... too “educational” to my taste. I keep thinking about [b:Animal Farm 170448 Animal Farm George Orwell https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1325861570l/170448.SY75.jpg 2207778], and that is not something one should be thinking about when reading a children's book :-D So, only 4 stars.

Well... second time reading, about 25 years after the first time. Wow, how time flies!Back in the 90s, Jostein Gaarder was very famous for his [b:Sophie's World 10959 Sophie's World Jostein Gaarder https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1343459906l/10959.SY75.jpg 4432325]. I didn't like that one, but I remember liking this one and the tarot card book. Now I re-read this one, as it's Christmas time and this one is kind of a count-down calendar. I noticed things I didn't see the previous time.We have this 5 years old girl who Pro-Palestinians kidnap to force her father, a rather famous journalist, to write about the Palestine-Israel situation. She is taken to Palestine and raised as a Palestinian girl. Her parents never knew what happened to her, so I suppose the kidnapping went awry. That's the frame story, though, and it's not much talked about in the book. The main story is about this young boy who wants a “Christmas calendar” - a countdown calendar with 24 “doors” you open one each day from December 1st to December 24th - which is when the Norwegians celebrate Christmas. His dad and he go to a bookstore and find a handmade calendar and there are small slips of paper with a story written. It's a story about the 5yo. In this version she starts following a little toy lamb that becomes real, and runs through Europe to Bethlehem and from 1945 to the year 0, to be by the manger at Jesus' birth. She meets several different characters during the journey, angels, shepherds, the three wise kings, etc. about one a day, and the stories are about small things that happen during the journey. It is fascinating that they were supposed to find a road that isn't too inhabited, but they go straight through Europe; Germany, Italy, Turkey - and not through Russia. I suppose that was so that Jostein could write about how Christianity spread over Europe, but backward - starting from the 1940s and ending in the 0000s. Anyway, it's like a frame story around a story around a story around a story... so many layers. But that's Jostein Gaarder for you. Anyway, this story is too Christian to me, but at the same time not enough. I don't get a feeling about the ages of the kids. Elisabet behaves like a much older person than 5, and the people treat her as a much older child. I mean, 5yo is a toddler! Joachim - I don't know how old he is, but he's also behaving as... older and younger. Sometimes he's like 5 and sometimes like 10 and sometimes like 15. Really hard to relate. And the parents! So what if the kid invents stories about real places? He could have heard the name on the television or something. How is that in any way alarming? How does that in any way warrant breaking his privacy and looking into his box? It doesn't. And the story isn't that amazing, either. I don't understand why the parents are so amazed and awed and keep talking about imagination and things. Sounds like Jostein Gaarder is tooting his own horn here. Really stupid and irritating.Anyway, the idea is great. Makes me want to have a countdown calendar like that, but with small dolls so that I could play the book with my kids from the 1st of December to Christmas and “walk” the characters from the bedroom to the creche. The story itself sucks though, so maybe I'll write something better myself and make us a countdown calendar like that.

Ok... it's better that [b:What Katy Did Next 730503 What Katy Did Next Susan Coolidge https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348327387l/730503.SX50.jpg 1779240], but not much. This is a “let's bash the Englishmen and be so damned pompously chauvinistic while we do it” book.It's a story of a girl, named Imogen (did Susan Coolidge forgot she used the name already about the little liar in What Katy Did?), whose brother went to USA from England, and she was to move with him to take care of his household, like many spinster sisters did back at that time. She is horrible prejudices and snotty, because she doesn't know much anything about USA, other than what she has heard and read in novels etc. And what her brother tells, and he says everything is amazing, better than England, everything is good and beautiful and wonderful. She doesn't believe him, because she's prejudiced and a horrible person. I mean, who could ever love England, and prefer that horrible, wet, cold, savage, primitive, tiny island to Unites States of F-ing Amurica! She meets first one American who bashed England, English weather, English food, English famous places, Englishmen, and basically anything English - there's nothing positive she has to say about England. Then she proceeds to tell a tall story about USA, how New York is basically nothing more than a fort and the Indians attack it all the time. Poor Imogen believes it all, and the lady laughs at her. Then she meets another American, who tells her how USA is a melting pot, how everyone who moves in the USA is American, and all the people Imogen has been recognizing as Americans because they fit her horrible, unfair, stupid prejudices about Americans, aren't really Americans. You see, anyone having a negative opinion on the USA or Americans are prejudiced, but anyone having a negative opinion about England or the Englishmen is just a discerning and intelligent person. Her brother keeps bashing her through the whole book because she is so mean and prejudiced, but thankfully she gets sick, and saintly Clover nurses her back to life, and she is a changed woman, a true American. She confesses her sins to her husband-to-be, and now loves America and Americans, like her brother. So, when they have a double wedding, her brother and she, they don't mind that none of their family is there. The future spouses' whole family is there, and they have now left their parents, their siblings, their childhood home and that stupid, ugly little island called Great Britain, and are now Americans, so their American family is the only family they need or want. Not a tear is dropped, not a thought is wasted on dear mother or motherland. Hooray for Amurica! The best and most beautiful country in the world!

Hmm... Mrs. saves the Christmas, gets chewed out before and doesn't get many thanks after, and gets to serve Santa Claus and all the elves a huge Christmas morning breakfast, and still, it's such pity of poor Santa who has to make his own dinner because Mrs. is too tired after having saved Christmas...
Er... Books like this make me dislike Santa. So... not too good.

I read the Gyo Fujikawa illustrated version from Family Circle magazine, which I think is wonderful. I prefer that to this.

This is one of the best books I've ever read.
I'm reading this and I keep thinking “so THIS is what Jonathan Franzen wants to write...”
I don't understand how she does it. It's at the same time raw and awful and crude and cruel and so very soft, sensitive, subtle, and kind.
And then the ending... I kept hating Pearl and despising Beck, and none of the characters was really likable, but... they were so... real. They weren't supposed to be likable. People aren't likable. They do sometimes nice things and then they do horrible things, and... it really doesn't matter. People are people. The ending made it all all right. It's OK. Good enough. Fine. Everything is fine. It was a very satisfying end.
I was discussing this with my husband. I like endings that wrap things up but don't end the story. All these people will continue their lives and have more stories to tell, but I am satisfied and pleased, and I love this book.