Hey Nostradamus!
by Douglas Coupland

For the To Be Read challenge.
English
260 pages
Harper Perennial
ISBN: 0-00-718258-9
First line: I believe that what separates humanity from all else in this world—spaghetti, binder, paper, deep-sea creatures, edelweiss and Mount McKinley—is that humanity alone has the capacity at any given moment to commit all possibly sins.
Back cover blurb:
Cheryl Anway, 17, secretly [...]

Posted on March 15th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: B, English, Fiction, To Be Read | 1 Comment »

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
by Dorothy L Sayers

English
243 pages
Harper Mystery
ISBN: 978-0-06-104354-3
First line: “What in the world, Wimsey, are you doing in this morgue?” demanded Captain Fentiman, flinging aside the ‘Evening Banner’ with the air of a man released from an irksome duty.”
Back cover blurb:
Ninety-year-old General Fentiman was definitely dead, but no one knew [...]

Posted on March 12th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: B, English, Historical, Mystery | 1 Comment »

Unnatural Death
by Dorothy L Sayers

For the A-Z reading challenge.
English
280 pages
Harper Mystery
ISBN: 978-0-06-104358-1
First line: “But if he thought the woman was being murdered—”
Back cover blurb:
The wealthy old woman was dead—a trifle sooner than expected. The intricate trail of horror and senseless murder led from a beautiful Hampshire village to a fashionable London flat and a [...]

Posted on March 10th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: A, A-Z Reading Challenge, English, Historical, Mystery | 5 Comments »

What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew
by Daniel Pool

English
416 pages
Touchstone
ISBN: 978-0-671-88236-5
First line: What were the assizes?
Back cover blurb:
For every frustrated reader of the great nineteenth-century English novels of Austen, Trollope, Dickens, or the Brontës, who has ever wondered whether a duke outranked an earl, when to yell “Tally-ho!” at a fox hunt, or [...]

Posted on March 9th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: B, English, History, Literature | 4 Comments »

Lost in Austen
by Emma Campbell Webster

For the A-Z reading challenge.
English
348 pages
Riverhead Books
ISBN: 978-1-59448-258-8
First line: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young Austen heroine must be in want of a husband, and you are no exception.
Back cover blurb:
Your name: Elizabeth Bennet. Your mission: to marry both prudently and for love, avoiding family scandal. [...]

Posted on March 5th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: A-Z Reading Challenge, C, English, Historical, Romance | 1 Comment »

Dragon’s Bait
by Vivian Vande Velde

For the Here Be Dragons and A-Z challenges.
English
196 pages
Magic Carpet Books
ISBN: 0-15-216663-7
First line: The day Alys was accused of being a witch started out like any other.
Back cover blurb:
It is going to eat her… All because the villagers in her town think she is a witch and have staked her [...]

Posted on March 2nd, 2008 by Love
Filed under: A-Z Reading Challenge, C, English, Fantasy, Here Be Dragons, Young Adult | 3 Comments »

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
by Tom Stoppard

For the Decades ‘08 (first performed in 1967) and the A-Z reading challenges.
English
77 pages
e-book
First line: “Heads.”
Back cover blurb: n/a
Thoughts: A couple of years ago I saw bits and pieces of the 1991 film adaption of this play. I don’t remember a lot of it, just that it seemed [...]

Posted on February 24th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: A-Z Reading Challenge, B, Decades '08, English, Humour, Plays | 1 Comment »

Postcards from No Man’s Land
by Aidan Chambers

For the Young Adult reading challenge.
English
312 pages
Speak
ISBN: 0-14-240145-5
First line: Not knowing his way around, he set off back the way he had come.
Back cover blurb:
Jacob’s plan is to go to Amsterdam to honour his grandfather who died during World War II. He hopes to go, set flowers on [...]

Posted on February 24th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: A, English, Fiction, GLBT interest, YA Challenge 2008, Young Adult | 4 Comments »

Standish
by Erastes

For the Back to History reading challenge.
English
215 pages
P.D. Publishing Inc.
ISBN: 1-933720-09-3
First line: The candle guttered, and Ambrose looked up at it with a frown, the long blond hair falling away from the sides of his face.
Back cover blurb:
A great house. A family dispossessed. A sensitive young man. A powerful landowner. An epic love [...]

Posted on February 24th, 2008 by Love
Filed under: Back to History, D, English, GLBT interest, Historical, Romance | 2 Comments »

The World According to Clarkson: And Another Thing…
by Jeremy Clarkson

English
340 pages
Penguin Books
ISBN: 978-0-141-02860-6
First line: I suppose all of us were out and about before Christmas, pummelling our credit cards to within an inch of their lives.
Back cover blurb:
Jeremy Clarkson finds the world such a perplexing place that he wrote a bestselling book about it. [...]

Posted on February 23rd, 2008 by Love
Filed under: D, English, Humour, Non-fiction | 1 Comment »