The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

Another year is on the wane, and like so many, I find it a good time to look back and look forward. This year I read more books than I blogged about. Most of the ones I skipped writing a full review of were fun but not exceptionally strong or weak reads, unexceptional sequels to books I did review, books outside of my normal genres, or re-reads. I also quit reading a decent handful of books this year, which is unusual for me. I have become more protective of my time, and I am less willing to waste it on books that don’t grab my attention. This was a really strong year for comics and graphic novels. Half of the books I rated 5 stars this year were graphic novels; three of those are the first in a new series and one is a prequel: Lumberjanes Jem and the Holograms Bitch Planet Sandman Overture As far as comic books that I’m collecting in issues, everyone should be reading The Wicked and The Divine  and The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl . Also if you like dark fantasy, che...

The Raven in the Foregate (Cadfael Series) Ellis Peters, 1986 Crossposted from Mainlining Christmas This is book number twelve in the Cadfael series, but I jumped ahead to it because it's set explicitly at Christmas. Premise: In 1141, a new priest comes to the town outside the abbey. He is harsh with the people and quickly makes enemies. The woman and young man who came into town with Father Ailnoth are not who they say they are, and all mysteries must come to light after a violent death on Christmas Eve. I've very much enjoyed all of the Cadfael books I have read, although this one seems to retread some ground. Cadfael's friendship with and patronage of the young couple particularly, is a repeated thread in more than one of these stories. It's still an enjoyable yarn, with the final solution to the mystery held secret to the end, despite how steadily pieces are revealed. Cadfael, as usual, keeps his own counsel and works only for what he thinks is the ...

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Barbara Robinson, 1972 Crossposted for Mainlining Christmas I have been seeing this book on lists of favorite Christmas books since we started the Mainlining project. But reading the back cover blurb made it sound entirely like a cheese-fest, overly religious, or otherwise sanctimonious, so I'd been putting it off. I have to admit, though, for an eighty-page book written for young readers, this is impressively subversive. Although, it probably seemed less so in 1972. The plot regards a group of unruly siblings who take over the Christmas pageant in a small town. In doing so, they force the townspeople to confront the reality behind the rote recitation of the myth. This may come as close as any religious-ish story ever has of evoking actual emotion in my cold, dead soul. The most interesting thing is the narrator. The story is told in the first person, by a young girl. Her opinions and asides add color, humor and context. The narrat...

The Santa Klaus Murder Mavis Doriel Hay, 1936, ebook reprint 2015 New Release! I received a copy of this book from NetGalley for the purpose of review. Crossposted from Mainlining Christmas Premise: Part of the British Library Crime Classic series of reprints. Sir Osmund Melbury has gathered his fractured family for the holiday. There’s a lot of money at stake for remaining in Sir Osmund's good graces, so naturally he ends up dead, and everyone has a motive. I liked the first half of this book much more than the end and resolution. I don’t know whether it dragged on too long, or I just lost track of who said what to who when. But I did like the first half quite a bit. The book explicitly switches between perspective, especially in the first few chapters. These chapters each take the form of a narrative of events written after the fact by one of the characters. You learn a lot about what the characters think of each other and their descriptions are often amu...

Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories L. M. Montgomery, edited by Rea Wilmshurst Collection 1995, Stories originally published 1899 - 1910 Crossposted for Mainlining Christmas Premise: A collection of holiday tales by L. M. Montgomery. They can't all be winners. This volume occupies a weird space between light holiday collection and academic archive only of interest to scholars. There isn’t any scholarly commentary, but I can't imagine anyone reading this entire book who isn't either writing this review or looking for common themes in pieces from the time period for a research project. Because oh, are there common themes. The strongest pieces in the collection are the two excerpts from the Anne books: a chapter from Anne of Green Gables and one from Anne of Windy Poplars. Both of these have charm, whimsy and warmth in equal portion. The introduction explains that the other stories were among many written by Montgomery in these years for various ma...

Forbidden Fruit (Corinna Chapman Mysteries, Book 5) Kerry Greenwood, 2009 Crossposted for Mainlining Christmas Premise: It's Christmas with the staff of Heavenly Pleasures and the inhabitants of Insula. Time for heat waves, bands of roving hippies, and a family with a lost daughter and a very dark secret… ( Previously reviewed: Book One ) I’ve read all of this series. Yes, I only reviewed the first one until now, (although ironically, the first one was probably the weakest) but I had to come back to blog for Christmas!  It's funny, but for all the different media we've consumed for the mainlining Christmas project, this year might be the first time we’ve done anything conspicuously set in the southern hemisphere. Australia is hot at Christmastime, and yet the holiday comes on all the same, with all the crowds and obnoxious music and such. Corinna’s commentary on the holiday season is especially fun. The two plots Corrina and her friends are investigating this...

A Child's Christmas in Wales Dylan Thomas, 1950-1955 (depending on how you count) Crossposted from Mainlining Christmas I have seen this book on lists of classic Christmas stories for years now, but it just kept falling to the bottom of the to-read list. It probably could have stayed there. There's nothing wrong with it. It's a short story's worth of words poetically describing the activities and feelings of the holiday at a very particular place and time. It's pretty, especially the version I had with big color illustrations. But there's just not much to it other than nostalgia and pretty phrases. There are some very pretty phrases, admittedly. There's food, and weather, and an amusing story about a fire scare fought with snowballs, and a brief interlude where young boys sing carols outside a creepy house. Whether the narrator is speaking to a general audience or one person was unclear; it seemed to shift without clear demarcation of any so...