Tag Archives: revisiting

Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol

Posted on June 13, 2010 by Thistle

When the Classics Circuit chose to visit Imperial Russia, I knew immediately I wanted to read Dead Souls by Gogol. It’s a book I’ve wanted to read for awhile now, both for my GLBT Challenge (Gogol was gay) and because … Continue reading →

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Ash, by Malinda Lo

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Thistle

Ash is a retelling of the Cinderella fairy story, with a twist. Aisling, or Ash, lives in a world where fairy tales and reality collide. When her father dies, leaving her orphaned with a (realistically) cruel stepmother and stepsisters, Ash … Continue reading →

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The Big Over Easy, by Jasper Fforde

Posted on March 1, 2010 by Thistle

Humpty Dumpty falls off a wall to his death, but was it murder or suicide or accident? That’s up to Officers Jack Spratt and Mary Mary of Reading’s Nursery Crime Division to determine, if fellow officer and top story detective … Continue reading →

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Matchless, by Gregory Maguire

Posted on January 2, 2010 by Thistle

This was my first book of 2010. I bought it for Jason, who loves “The Little Match Girl,” and read it before I’d read the fairy tale. It’s a retelling and an expansion of “The Little Match Girl,” split into … Continue reading →

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Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Thistle

When the unnamed narrator of this story meets Maxim de Winter, whose wife drowned and left him a widower a year previously, she doesn’t imagine that he will ask her to marry him and take her back to his home, … Continue reading →

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East of Eden, by John Steinbeck

Posted on August 8, 2009 by Thistle

East of Eden is too gigantic and un-plot-based to really have a synopsis. I suppose I can say it follows the sometimes-intertwined lives of the Trask family and the Hamilton family for many years, mostly in the Salinas Valley in … Continue reading →

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Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan

Posted on July 17, 2009 by Thistle

I hardly know what to say about this book. I’m not even going to try to describe the plot. A plot description really doesn’t tell you anything. Each moment of this book illuminated nothing but the moment before it, nothing … Continue reading →

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Zel, by Donna Jo Napoli

Posted on June 25, 2009 by Thistle

This book is a retelling of Rapunzel. I’ll keep this short. I didn’t particularly like it. It wasn’t badly written or anything, but I think I’ve just decided I don’t really like fairy tale retellings. I recently tried to start … Continue reading →

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Lost in a Good Book, by Jasper Fforde

Posted on May 20, 2009 by Thistle

I don’t usually use the book-jacket description, but in this case, I couldn’t explain the essence of this followup to The Eyre Affair better: If Thursday thought she could avoid the spotlight after her heroic escapades in the pages of … Continue reading →

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Mansfield Park: Revisited, by Joan Aiken

Posted on April 30, 2009 by Thistle

Mansfield Park Revisited picks up four years after Mansfield Park ends. The plot primarily revolves around Fanny Price’s younger sister, Susan, who comes to Mansfield at the end of Austen’s book. As you’d imagine for an Austenesque sequel, there is … Continue reading →

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