"The Beggar Maid" was originally published in "The New Yorker" in June 1977. It's hard to imagine that chunk of glossy pages, for it's one of the longer stories (with "Mischief") in the collection. It's also hard to imagine reading "The Beggar Maid" without knowing everything about Rose
Nathacha Appanah's The Last Brother Translator Geoffrey Strachan (French) Graywolf Press, 2011 A Graywolf Press publication, a contender for The Tournament of Books, with a gorgeous and haunting cover image: all excellent reasons for picking up a copy of The Last Brother without reading a single word. And then you meet
No need to wonder whether you fit in this novel: Harriet Baxter is speaking directly to you, Reader. Even before the novel has properly begun, she is saying "Reader, if you wonder -- as I suspect you may..." Even though you weren't wondering yet. And, on the next page, she
It's our last week to discuss A Game of Hide and Seek, officially, but if you're late to the party, and are still reading -- even if quite some time has passed -- please, feel free to comment. But for those of us who have read the novel through already,
In which I chatter about Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief, the Mythlopedia series, the third in Bill Willingham's Fables series, and make hasty notes about my other reading for the un-challenge. The Lightning Thief is intended to be larger than life. Percy Jackson is not a normal boy. He is
