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Recent Posts
- What’s New for the 16th of August: Deborah Grabien’s music criticism essays; new Americana and jazz, and some music for the Dog Days of Summer
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Midsomer Strangeness
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Contradances
- What’s New for the 26th of July: Witches in fiction, both books and film; an Americana reissue and some music on a smoky theme
- A Kinrowan Estate story: chicken pot pieces
- What’s New for the 19th of July: Charles de Lint’s Ottawa novels with a quote from Drink Down the Moon, Gary’s review of Nordic fiddle music, It’s Michele Walther and Irina Behrendt playing Aaron Copland’s ‘Hoe Down’ from his Rodeo album
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Midsomer Odd Things
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Library and Its Librarian
- What’s New for the Fifth of July: Remembering Jane Yolen; some new Americana and jazz music; Fishing Blues
- A Kinrowan Estate Story: Recursive Loops
- What’s New for June 21: Jennifer Stevenson’s ‘Solstice’
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Turkish Coffee
- What’s New for the 7th of June: Foxes in literature, live Balkan music, comforting jazz, Americana jazz, and wonderfully weird fusion jazz; and John Fogerty live
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Bloodied Kings
- What’s New for the 24th of May: Gary’s Review of Elizabeth Bear’s White Space novels, iain’s review of the Lonely Signal Burns novellas by her, she reading her own story, ‘The Chains That You Refuse’, and I see Gary has some tasty music reviews fir us as well
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Our Greensward
- What’s New for the 10th of May: books reviewed by Jennifer Stevenson, music by Teddy Thompson, Americana music from all over, and some live music from John Fogerty
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Walk
- What’s New for the 26th of April: the nature of Stories; some new and newish SF, plus new world, jazz, folk and Americana music
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Spring Day
- What’s New for the 12th of April: Some new and recent SF; new Americana, Norwegian folk rock and jazz; and thoughts on War For The Oaks
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Unified Theory of Libraries (A Letter to Anna)
- What’s New for the 29th of March: Beer and spirits, in song and text, some new Scandinavian fiddle music and jazz flute music, and more
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Ghostly Librarian
- What’s New for the 15th of March: some DeLint stories for early spring; lots of polskas, Serbian folk rock, progressive jazz, and Nordic music from the archives
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Hedge Witches
- What’s New for the 1st of March: Emma Bull’s War for The Oaks, Rosanne Cash’s ‘Runaway Train’, Johnny Cash at San Quentin, plus new Americana and jazz music
- A Kinrorwan Estate story: Cranachanh
- What’s New for the 15th of February: Some Seanan McGuire fantasy, Alison Bechdel’s latest, Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin; Nordic sounds, old time, Americana and Tex-Mex music
- What’s New for the 1st of February: Kage Baker retrospective; new Americana, Buddhist chants and Finnish songs, new and reissued jazz, and more
Category Archives: Books
Maria Tatar’s The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales are well known, even to those who’ve never heard his name. His stories have entered our cultural consciousness (who doesn’t know of “The Little Mermaid,” even if it’s only through Disney’s version) and verbal lexicon … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged fairy tales, Hans Christian Anderson
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Terry Pratchett’s The Fifth Elephant
Terry Pratchett’s latest Discworld novel, The Fifth Elephant, presents something of a thorny problem for the reviewer. As much as the dedicated Pratchettian (such as myself) may wish to rush into reading the story, the book itself demands attention, and … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Discworld, Terry Pratchett
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Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather
Don’t look now, but Terry Pratchett has gotten serious on us. Technically speaking, that’s not quite true – there are still plenty of laughs to be found in Hogfather, the semi-current installment in Pratchett’s Discworld series. (The US and UK … Continue reading
Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine’s Last Chance to See
Reading Last Chance To See is a bit of an odd experience these days, what with the much-loved primary author having gone prematurely extinct himself. That being said, Last Chance To See is a joy, a reminder of what we’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged endangered species, Global ecology
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Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere
Pity Neil Gaiman, doomed forever to be held up as proof that comic books can be respectable literature. The barricades of academia (not to mention hoity-toity review pages everywhere) are being overrun by aggressive first-year grad students waving copies of … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged London, Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere, urban fantasy
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Andrew M. Butler, Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn’s Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature
It has been said, with some justification, that dissecting a joke is much like dissecting a frog. One may figure out what makes the subject tick, but the end result is inevitably a dead frog. Unfortunately, the “respectable” literary establishment … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Discworld, Terry Pratchett
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Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin
It’s been said that there are only seven (or nine, or thirteen, depending on whom you ask) original plots out there, and that everything else is just variations on a theme. If one takes that notion to heart, then no … Continue reading
Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s End of the World Blues
Jon Courtenay Grimwood, to my mind, is one of a handful of contemporary writers to have successfully made the whole concept of “genre” moot. I might point out that there are many who are working at it, but Grimwood just … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged science fiction
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Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s Arabesk trilogy
El Iskandriya sits at the Delta as she has done for thousands of years, a city of great wealth, staggering poverty, intrigue, indolence, and, because she is technically a free city open to the currents of influence from the lands … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged mystery, Ottoman Empire
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Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s 9Tail Fox
The book cover claims that Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s 9Tail Fox is “A novel of science fiction.” Considering what science fiction has become over the past generation, that could well be valid — with some qualifications. I’m going to call it … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Chinese mythology, mystery
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