A Time to Dance

A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman

Read: 10/17/15-10/24/15
This review mostly written on: 2/17/16

Beautiful, moving book in verse, a YA novel about a girl in India. For those looking for diverse books to read, this one fits the bill in multiple ways. I'm not going to tell you about one of the most important ways, however, as it's a little bit of a spoiler. The majority of the book is about it, but if you want to read those first 30 pages without knowing... Also, if you don't want that spoiler, be very careful to avoid the cover blurb, and don't read any of the Library of Congress classifications on the copyright page.

Or other reviews. Though many of them are better and more in-depth than mine, they do almost all have The Spoiler, so be warned.

I will say that I haven't read many books from a Hindu perspective, and I found it fascinating. I'd like to read more, as it's, um. Kind of a huge thing in our world.

Poe's Dupin Stories

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Mystery of Marie Roget", and "The Purloined Letter", from Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe
Read: 4/2/09-4/3/09
LibraryThing tags: Short Stories, Poetry, Classics, Mystery, MBC

These were cool. I hadn't realized that Poe invented the mystery genre. Reading Sherlock Holmes after this, it was extremely obvious that Doyle stole a couple things from Poe. The "MBC" tag, by the way, refers to the Mystery Book Club I've been going to when I can.

For inventing a genre, these stories aren't bad. But just as stories judged on their own merits, I liked Sherlock Holmes a heck of a lot better. Which is understandable; I mean, Sherlock Holmes. Come on. These ones... they seemed a little more like case summaries taken from a book of logic puzzles than actual stories. Even as far as atmosphere, something Poe is normally the master of.... they were only so-so, I thought. Not the best Poe. Maybe if I hadn't been so distracted by case details conveniently published in the newspaper in systematic fashion. You know, just in case the newspaper's readers want to try their hands at solving the crime. Or police letting them snoop around once they saw their "credentials," which would have been what exactly, on their first case? Meh. The subsequent stories did improve somewhat. I thank him for inventing the genre, and for a bit of entertainment and some good lines.

“‘That is another of your odd notions,’ said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling every thing ‘odd’ that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of ‘oddities.’”


“‘Be a little more explicit,’ I said.

‘Well, I may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its holder a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is immensely valuable.’ The Prefect was fond of the cant of diplomacy.”

Christmas Poetry

I read some Christmas poetry this year (11/27/08-12/1/08), because of SLOBS, although I didn't go to the meeting which discussed the poems. I can't do quite my typical review because I don't have a book of the poems, just a printout, which I will loan to you if you want. But I do want to find more by some of these poets. I particularly liked "Christmas Mourning" by Vassar Miller, "The Nativity of Christ" by Robert Southwell, and "Good Is the Flesh" by Brian Wren. I encourage you all, find some poetry this Christmas. Let yourself pause a moment for beauty and wonder.

"Gift better than Himself God does not know;
Gift better than his God no man can see.
This gift doth here the giver given bestow;
Gift to this gift let each receiver be.
God is my gift, himself he freely gave me;
God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me." -from "The Nativity of Christ," by Robert Southwell