The “state of siege” on which Lenin insisted with such energy requires “full powers”. The practice of organised distrust demands an iron hand. The system of Terror is crowned by a Robespierre. Comrade Lenin reviewed the members of the Party in his mind, and reached the conclusion that this iron hand could [...]
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We have something of a mixed bag coming up this week. Ferrets, unlovable heroines, torture. . . but thankfully not all in the same book.
Monday: Jackie reviews a modern mystery with the misleadingly cute title of Nothing to Fear But Ferrets.
Tuesday: For the next installment of her Russian series, Kirsty writes a continuation to her [...]
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Let’s play word-association.
You know how this goes: I say a word - like ‘black’ - and you come back at me with the first thing that pops into your head. From your response I can work out just exactly what’s going on in your foetid little brain. (And by the [...]
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Posted in Uncategorized on July 14, 2008 | 7 Comments »
Part of France Week on Vulpes Libris.
Happy Bastille Day!
Paris of 1797 was a tense place. The nobility had lost their titles (if they hadn’t lost their heads), people were addressed as Citizen, not Monsieur or Madame, the currency was near worthless, convents were closed and even the calendar was different. Though the French Revolution [...]
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Posted in Entries by Emma, Fiction: children's, Fiction: general, Fiction: historical, Fiction: literary, Fiction: young adult, Uncategorized, tagged Emma Darwin, Antonia Forest, children's fiction, young adult fiction on July 10, 2008 | 22 Comments »
Perhaps it was inevitable that Antonia Forest should go out of fashion for a while. When you were born in 1915, put life on hold for war work, have your first novel published in 1948, and take the rest of a long life to write eight books about the same family, two books about their [...]
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In the introductory piece on Mayakovsky earlier in this series, we discovered that this chaotic and volatile Old Bolshevik became required reading for generations of Soviet schoolchildren after his death in 1930. We all know there’s no literary turn-off like the stuff you were forced to read at school. And Mayakovsky, or the [...]
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A quick post to tell you about our forthcoming Children’s Book Week (informally referred to as Kids’ Week) which will run from this Sat (5th of July) until the following Sunday.
Really it should be called Children’s and Teenagers’ Books Week and a Bit. But that was a bit of a mouthful.
So, to kick things off [...]
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I am reviewing Restoring Grace - rather than one of Fforde’s more recent novels, or the brand new Wedding Season (which I am yet to get my sticky fox paws on) - partly out of necessity. The bulk of my own library and I have… geographical issues right now, and there’s no handy English [...]
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Laydeez and Gennlemen!! Roll up, roll up for Vulpes Libris’ second Great Book Giveway!!
William Heinemann have very generously donated not one, but TWO - count ‘em, TWO - first edition, hardback copies of Nick Harkaway’s extraordinary debut novel The Gone-Away World (reviewed by yours truly HERE) - and if they aren’t future collectibles, I’ll [...]
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Posted in Uncategorized, tagged book giveaway on June 18, 2008 | 47 Comments »
I was so enthusiastic after my review below that I emailed Faber & Faber and they kindly gave us three copies of Ben Wilson’s Decency and Disorder: The Age of Cant 1789-1837 for a giveaway. Leave a comment in this thread - just say hullo or pip-pip - to enter your name in the magical [...]
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