Category Archives: Books

What’s New for the 6th of January: del Toro: Pan’s Labyrinth, Yugoslav folk music, Richard and Linda Thompson doing trad Irish music, Cape Breton music, a wee hedgehog puppet, Finnan hadddie, more chocolate, Armenian folk music, fantasy noir and a lot more!

Whatever happened next, good or bad, it would be wonderful finding out. — Mathew Swift, the Midnight Mayor, in Kate Griffin’s A Madness of Angels Ahhhh, plump pork sausages sizzling in their own fat, eggs any way you like them, palacsinta … Continue reading

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Philip Glass And Robert Moran’s Juniper Tree Opera

Anyone who has visited the KInrowan Estate library knows that I’m always playing something for music here unless the Neverending Session is visiting us to grace us with their lovely music. And of course, I love good design that catches my … Continue reading

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Seanan McGuire’s Sparrow Hill Road

Modern American culture has a rich tradition of ghost stories centered around the highways and lesser roadways. Many of the best, if not actually horror stories, verge on horror, such as the teenage girl trying to get home who gets … Continue reading

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Ciaran Carson’s The Táin

The process by which epic poems take their form is complex and relies as much on the efforts of poets, historians, and scholars as on any organic unity of the stories themselves. A good example of this process is described … Continue reading

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W. R. J. Barron, editor: The Arthur of the English: The Arthurian Legend and Medieval English Life and Literature

Originally published in 1999, The Arthur of the English is the second volume in a series of scholarly anthologies centered on the Arthurian literature of the Middle Ages. The series as a whole is a cooperative effort of the University … Continue reading

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Patricia McKillip’s Winter Rose

With his dying breath, Nial Lynn cursed his murderer — his own son, Tearle, who disappeared without a trace on the night that Niall died. Or so say the villagers, although no one is sure what the curse was, exactly, … Continue reading

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What’s New for the 20th of December: Winter Holiday food and drink, a dreydl tale, Debussy’s ‘War Carol’, Kage Baker and Christmas, an egg nog recipe, a Solstice story, an offbeat Christmas film, Steeleye Span & Pratchett, Christmas Revels, music by Loreena McKennitt and much more!

It was Christmas and Kinlocochbervie had a festive atmosphere about it. Decorations and fir trees decked out with tinsel stood in windows, lighting the dull afternoon with flashes of cheerful Technicolor brilliance, and the door to the Compass was adorned … Continue reading

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Ellen Kushner and Shirim Klezmer Orchestra’s The Golden Dreydl

This review is by Judith Gannet . It was the busted TV. It was as big as she was, no, bigger! It was growing to the ceiling!” The Golden Dreydl is subtitled “A Klezmer Nutcracker for Chanukah.” It combines a children’s … Continue reading

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Jeffrey Gantz’s The Mabinogion & Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones’ The Mabinogion 

Grand quests, swords, sorcery, gods, mortals, love, war, and a healthy sense of mystery can all be found in The Mabinogion. These eleven ancient Welsh tales date back to somewhere around 1200 in written form and are classics of the … Continue reading

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Alan Garner’s The Owl service audiobook

I must have first read Alan Garner’s The Owl Service some forty years ago when I was interested in all things concerning Welsh mythology. I wanted a hardcover first edition which cost a pretty penny at the time. I mention … Continue reading

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