Tag: Jo Walton

Miscellaneous Thoughts34 Comments

Fun for Monday: Good to Meetcha *Original Tag*

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I made a tag! In my continuing quest to retrieve my bloggy mojo, this seemed like a good idea. Time will tell, eh?   I hate the usual “what do you do?” and “where are you from?” questions that normally get fired out upon making a new acquaintance. The answers invariably fail to give me any sense of the person I’m talking to, and feel … judge-y. So this tag is about the things I actually want to know when I first meet a new person (specifically, the ones I want to be friends with). (I know I should insert … Continue reading Fun for Monday: Good to Meetcha *Original Tag*

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Fun for Monday: Quick Fire Fantasy Books

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Tammy did this tag just the other day and it was too tempting to ignore. It was originally created by Jo The Bookworm Dreamer whose responses, along with Tammy’s, only added to my already-quite-large-enough-thank-you TBR. (Reader problems, eh? *grins hugely*). Anyway, let’s see Wyrd and Wonder out with a wave and a smile, and some rapid-fire responses to Jo’s prompts …   5 Star Book:   What’s that? I’m getting repetitive? Well, I don’t read as fast as some of you and when I like something I do tend to go on and on and on … I don’t think … Continue reading Fun for Monday: Quick Fire Fantasy Books

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Fun for Monday: The Get to Know the Sci-Fi Reader Tag

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Maryam the Curious SFF Reader found this tag over on the booktube channel BooksWithEmilyFox and answered the questions for SciFi Month back in November last year. I wasn’t able to squeeze it in back then, so the All Systems Read mini-event is the perfect excuse to do this now. Because Yay for tags!     What is the first science fiction you read? I read both The Iron Man by Ted Hughes and Eva by Peter Dickinson when I was about eight years old, and then Moonwind by Louise Lawrence when I was about ten. I’m pretty sure they were the … Continue reading Fun for Monday: The Get to Know the Sci-Fi Reader Tag

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2020 Progress Report

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It’s an understatement to say that 2020 was a weird year, I know. In my own working world we closed our libraries in March not knowing when we were going to reopen. We were redeployed to the phones, calling the elderly and vulnerable first, then contact tracing later on. Right now I’m working shifts in a testing centre. Each lockdown and reopening has me more and more worried that this may be the slow death of libraries. Reading has, therefore, been a very welcome escape, as it has been for so many of us. And while nearly all of my … Continue reading 2020 Progress Report

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Fun for Monday: The Confessions Tag

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I found this tag over at The Book Nut when trawling for tags to do this month while taking part in the Kushiel’s Dart read-along. Be warned: that’s all you’ll be getting from me during September – read-along posts and tags – I’m on countdown to some much-needed leave, during which time I’ll try to rebuild my store of prepared posts ready for the inevitable depression that’s on it’s way. In the meantime, forgive me fellow book-lovers for I have sinned, it has been I don’t know how long since my last confession…      Which book, most recently, did … Continue reading Fun for Monday: The Confessions Tag

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Fun for Monday: The Mid-Year Freak Out Tag

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The Orang-utan Librarian did this tag last week and I’m jumping aboard because I wanna do a tag to cheer myself up (it’s a grumpy Sunday over here as I’m writing – I’ve no idea why). So what better way to do that than with a half-year (already?!) squeeing over books read and books still to read? Here we go …     Best Book You’ve Read So Far This Year   It’s between Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho and This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Don’t make me choose. … Continue reading Fun for Monday: The Mid-Year Freak Out Tag

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Jo Walton: Not just one world …

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“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody – no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they’ve all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds… Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.” Neil Gaiman   Maybe you’ve read something by Jo Walton, maybe you haven’t. For such a wide-ranging and multi-award-winning author I am always surprised when her books don’t appear across a whole swathe of blogs like some others do. She is an automatic-purchase author for me … Continue reading Jo Walton: Not just one world …

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The Prize in the Game by Jo Walton

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  “Your name in my heart.” Having mentioned recently that I’d like to do a post about the awesomeness that is Jo Walton I thought I’d better reread some of her books that I remember less clearly, as well as catch up on her most recent book Lent, which I have yet to read. So, with every intention of picking up her Small Change trilogy, naturally I started reading The Prize in the Game instead. A companion book to her The King’s Peace and The King’s Name, The Prize in the Game is a prequel for a handful of lesser … Continue reading The Prize in the Game by Jo Walton

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Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

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  This has got to be the oddest thing I’ve read in a while. Utterly engrossing and absolutely brilliant (definitely a keeper), but … yeah … odd. It’s a story of a world with many of the priorities and interests of Victorian Britain, but in which all players are dragons. Winged, clawed, fire-breathing dragons. Yet it’s partly a comedy of manners (Austen-ish), partly a humanitarian novel (Dickens-ish), and it both echoes and parallels Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage, which Walton quotes at the beginning of the book and mentions in her ‘Dedication, Thanks, and Notes’. It’s not odd while you’re reading … Continue reading Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

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The King’s Peace & The King’s Name by Jo Walton

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Book Bingo – First book by a favourite author = achieved!   Have I mentioned that Jo Walton is one of the most awesome authors ever? No?? Well let me do so now! Jo Walton is an amazing author. She is one of my absolute favourite authors of all time. There are writers who deliver the same kind of awesome every time (you know what you’re going to get, for example, from a Terry Pratchett book or an Alastair Reynolds, a Robin Hobb or a Stephen King), and there are those that like to change things up and shift between … Continue reading The King’s Peace & The King’s Name by Jo Walton