★★★
Guy Gavriel Kay can be a very, very good writer and it’s precisely for this reason that I felt disappointed by this book, because I know how much more he is capable of. Ysabel covers ground which is similar to Kay’s early Fionavar Tapestry books, in that people from the ‘real’ world suddenly find themselves drawn into the centre of ancient or magical events.
★★★
Short novels are always the most difficult to review, especially the kind of short novel where you have to be very careful what you say so as not to spoil anyone else’s enjoyment… So here we go… I’ll keep it very brief.
★★★½
Before I picked up this book in the library, I’d never heard of Michael Arditti, but I found this story fascinating. Following various members of the Granville family, it explores the difficulties that people feel when trying to reconcile their faith and the modern world – or perhaps, more accurately, how faith can still provide a necessary haven of peace and purpose in a world that can otherwise seem heartbreakingly cruel.
★★★½
While still at school, I somehow acquired a copy of the Folio edition of Procopius’ Secret History, which I’m ashamed to say I never read and always regarded with slight suspicion. Since I didn’t encounter Byzantine history until one particularly complex and unsuccessful week in Hilary Term of my first year at university, I’ve no idea what possessed me to buy it. Did I think it was some unusual edition of Donna Tartt’s excellent novel (one of my favourites)? At any rate, poor Procopius lingered unloved and unread on my bookshelf until, at some point in the last ten years, he was obviously consigned to the charity shop. It’s typical that, as soon as I yearn to plunge into his small-minded and salacious history, it turns out that I gave it away. After reading this book, I definitely want to go back to it.
★★★
Let me start with a disclaimer. I’ve had this book on my Amazon wishlist for two years and so, when I stumbled over it on the shelves of the addictive Book & Comic Exchange in Notting Hill, I snaffled it immediately. I’ve long been fascinated by the few details I know about the real Cyrano de Bergerac and, since I first saw it, the film version of Edmond Rostand’s play has been one of my all-time favourites.
★★★★½
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Apologies again for flitting in and out rather a lot. I’ve read quite a lot of books recently, but haven’t been doing much else; and I’ve just discovered the fantastic website LibraryThing, which has finally enabled me to catalogue my books and make a definitive record of what I actually own. Hopefully it’ll enable me to avoid any duplicate purchases… If you’re like me, and make a beeline for people’s bookcases on visiting their houses, feel free to take a look at my own collection here.
★★★½
(directed by David Cronenberg, 2012)
My friend invited me to come to see this with her last night, on its first day of release. I went knowing very little about it, and without having ever seen a film directed by Cronenberg before. I know that when it was shown at the London Film Festival last year it had mixed reviews, but I found it a subtle and thought-provoking introduction to Freud’s and Jung’s psychoanalytic theories, and a film that was very well acted by all three of its protagonists. Writing these words, I’m becoming aware that everything I’ve seen or done recently has been described with a surfeit of superlatives, but I’m not being unduly nice, I’ve just been fortunate to have a spate of really enjoyable things to keep me occupied.
★★★★
(directed by Jane Campion, 2009)
Even as a self-consciously angsty teenager I never got into Keats or, indeed, the rest of the Romantic poets. When I needed romance or torment, I turned to Shakespeare. But tonight, for the first time in my life, I wish I had a proper book of Keats’s poetry. Bright Star is one of those rare films which didn’t really grip me at the beginning, but which grew on me throughout. Now that it’s finished I’m sitting in silence in a lamplit room, watching this year’s second snow fall in dark London streets. I am almost afraid to do anything, lest it shatter the mood.
★★★★½
How on earth did I manage to miss the first season of Sherlock? Mark Gatiss’s and Stephen Moffat’s sleek, modern take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories has been catapulted into the stratosphere of cult shows over the last few months. I feel very much like a latecomer at the party. Over the Christmas holidays I watched the first and last episodes of Series 2, which was enough to get me absolutely hooked. After watching The Reichenbach Fall, I spent hours reading through comments on news websites, trying to figure out how he did ‘it’. My wonderful parents bought me the Series 1 and 2 boxset for my birthday and, since then, I’ve been luxuriating in this marvellous programme, which has rekindled the kind of geekish fervour I previously reserved for The Lord of the Rings.
★★★★
There was apparently a very bad TV series about the Borgias in the 1980s, but fortunately I’m too young to remember that. Nevertheless, when I heard that the production company Showtime were following up The Tudors with The Borgias, I felt a frisson of excitement mixed with slight dread. The Tudors began with such promise, but I rapidly lost faith in a series which didn’t have the courage to show its protagonist ageing and thickening out. Its focus was not on the history, but on the series of unfeasibly Sloaney-looking girls who caught the eye of Jonathan Rhys Meyer’s implausible king.
The Idle Woman 