bibliographing

Yes, that’s right, I read it. And I read all seven of the other books too. Deal.
Actually, not being a real HP fan (I definitely liked the books, but not like that), I wasn’t going to read this. But Christmas brings surprises, and a tiny book of fables has its way of surfacing to the [...]

Well, I know better than to actually set myself real reading lists, as I don’t have that kind of self-discipline (but how jealous I am of verbivore’s 10-year reading plan!). All the same, there are some goals I have for the coming year, and some things to expect.
First, as I mentioned, I’m planning to do [...]

In The Art Instinct, Denis Dutton, a professor of philosophy and founder and editor of Arts & Letters Daily, sets out to write an evolutionary account for why humans create and appreciate art. He argues that art-making is an evolutionary adaptation that came about through sexual selection, indicating intelligence and desirability in a potential mate.
One [...]

Not to be all whatever about it, but I think it’s been a pretty good thing I started this blog. While I’m glad there are a few interested souls out there reading it, I definitely do it for myself and it’s been a welcome change from just reading without saying anything about it. And my [...]

So. Still in the natal bosom. Not flying home until Thursday. And I think I’ve gotten a cold here. (Does anyone not have a cold right now? This is what’s gross about the holidays; you just shouldn’t spend time with that many people. Unhygienic.)
I’ve been reading some short stories by Daphne du Maurier in the [...]

Via Schott’s Food & Drink Miscellany, “a curious exhibition recipe sadly long out-of-fashion”:
Break a dozen or two of eggs and separate the whites from the yolks. Tie the yolks in a pig’s bladder, boil them hard, and remove them. In a larger pig’s bladder, place the whites. Into the midst of the whites, place the [...]

Thank you, baby Jesus, even for the ones I didn’t pick out, but especially for the ones I did.

The main reason I started December’s mystery/ghost stories project was for the atmosphere. It’s cold, it’s snowy, it’s dark and dreary, and I wanted something to warm up with. Most of my selections have been good on atmosphere, but The Hound of the Baskervilles was great. Dartmoor is, to borrow a phrase from Bertie Wooster, [...]

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is one of those books where the ending was spoiled for me long before I ever picked it up, and in this case that pretty seriously affected my reading of the book. So my discussion will assume you know who murdered Roger Ackroyd, and if you don’t want to find [...]

“The Chimes” is one of Charles Dickens’s “other” Christmas stories—except that it is actually a New Year’s story. Wuthering Expectations has an excellent post about it, and there’s a bit of a discussion at The Valve as well.
First, let me say that while somewhat baffling it was a really fun story, and anyone familiar with [...]