Reference Technically a Regency romance is set during the British Regency, 1811 to 1820. Helpful order of precedence chart for European honorific titles. Palladian architecture was a mid-17th and early 18th century English interpretation of a 16th century Venetian interpretation of early Greek and Roman architecture. scorzonera, skirret, cardoon, couve tronchuda Games of chance: Vingt-et-un…
Category: Books
Reviews of books and other printed and visual media
Famous Quotes
Books The book Paul Clifford is the source of the phrase “It was a dark and stormy night”. The full first opening line of the book is: It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up…
Southern Folk Stories
Sister Tricksters: Rollicking Tales of Clever Females retells folk stories of the American South which feature female tricksters. As noted in the insightful introduction, these trickster tales should not be confused with morality tales: the tricksters don’t get their comeuppance for their amoral behavior, and they certainly are not repentant. That’s not to say that…
“Jack of Fables”
The nine volume graphic novel series Jack of Fables written by Bill Willingham tells the story of the trickster Jack (e.g. Little Jack Horner, Jack the Giant Killer (from Jack and the Beanstalk), and Jack B. Nimble – with overtones of the Jackal from other mythologies), his son Jack Frost, sidekick Gary the Pathetic Fallacy…
Text Fragments
(Refer to the Writing Notes post for word usage and to Food Vocabulary for food-related words and terms. Also see Remnants and Famous Quotes.) Interesting Words Contronyms A contronym is a word that has opposite meanings. For example, when Michael Jackson said that he was ‘bad’ in his video “Bad”, he meant that he was really…
One Piece
(For a review of the One Piece Japanese manga series, see the One Piece post on AuntPennies.com.) In more than six dozen volumes available in the series the main characters have evolved, particularly those who started as adolescents. Unfortunately this has also added to the number of Barbie doll figures. On the positive side, Luffy…
Children’s Classics
Rootabaga Stories by Carl Sandburg on Project Gutenburg
Adult Paranormal Fiction
(Also see the Paranormal Romance Novels post.) Peeves Why do sequel blurbs lead off with phrases such as “her greatest challenge yet”, “she must confront dark secrets”, or “she uncovers a dark plot that may forever change the face of Y”? Pish. I appreciate a series in which the characters – antagonists as well as…
Naruto
According to the covers, Naruto is “the world’s most popular manga”. A serialized manga in Shonen Jump, bound volumes are released every few months, first in Japanese and then in English (and other languages); the English version of volume 63 will be published by Viz Media 2013 Nov 5. Author Masashi Kishimoto has a team…
Adult Mystery and Suspense
Books by Patricia Cornwell Port Mortuary I hadn’t listened to (or read) a novel in the Kay Scarpetta series in some time. The detective elements and the technology was entertaining but the emoting of the main character got annoyingly overwrought. The reading by Kate Burton was quite engaging. Books by Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum Series…