In the silence between whisper and shout

I'm back in school. I'm thinking about trying NaNoWriMo again. I keep talking myself out of starting a YouTube channel. I've been reading a lot of Agatha Christie. Miss Jane Marple is my favorite of all her detectives.

I'm not sure if I have a favorite Agatha Christie novel yet. N or M? is one that really sticks out in my mind, probably because it's more of a spy thriller than an actual mystery. I didn't like how I was able to spot the culprit right away in Death Comes As The End, which is a pity, because I'm a sucker for anything involving ancient Egypt. :(

I don't like characters who are bullies, and I don't like characters who have entitlement complexes. It's as simple as that.

I never liked Severus Snape because he tormented innocent children over whom he held authority, and because he believed Lily owed it to him to return his feelings, even after she stopped being friends with him, even after she married someone else, even after she died. I can't entirely sympathize with Erik because he believed he deserved to have Christine, even if that meant deceiving her, manipulating her, and forcing her to stay with him for the rest of her life. On the other hand, I love Holden Caulfield because while he had a very cynical view of most things, he didn't believe he deserved to have anything meaningful in his life.

The original 1924 edition of The Boxcar Children looks more interesting than the 1942 edition everyone's familiar with; I wonder if it's available anywhere.

( Read more... )

Errol Flynn's autobiography and PMS do not mix.

At all.

...The former was an entertaining read, even though I'm pretty sure at least half of it was bullshit. I'd probably have a lot more to say, were I not currently at the mercy of the latter.

I have never read a novel about Norse mythology that (A) I liked and (B) actually got the mythology right.

It's sad. I was enjoying Witches of East End up until the last few chapters, at which point Norse mythology was introduced and promptly thrown out in favor of some utterly WTF shit. On the other hand, The Sword of Summer and Loki's Wolves did a pretty good job with the mythology, but the story and characters failed to interest me.

I won't give up, though. I still hold out hope that one day I'll read a book that meets both of these criteria. And if I don't, well, maybe I'll just have to write it.