★★★☆☆ Funny Mrs Bunny

Mr. and Mrs. Bunny — Detectives Extraordinaire!

Polly Horvath, Sophie Blackall (Illustrator)

I read this ten years ago (24-Jul-2012) and barely remember it now. The main thing that sticks in my memory is Mrs Bunny's clumsy but still somehow effective tricks to get her husband, Mr Bunny, to do what she wants.

Amazon review

Goodreads review

Comments

★★★★☆ What are these people?

Red Side Story Jasper Fforde When I reviewed Shades of Grey , the first novel in Jasper Fforde 's Shades of Grey series, I asked Although I referred to Eddie as a young man, it is not clear to me what the people of the Collective are. I think they are more-or-less human. ... However, in some ways they behave like automata. These are puzzles that I hope Jasper Fforde will clear up in subsequent novels in the Shades of Grey series. Now I'm patting myself on the back, because that is indeed what Red Side Story is about. Or so say I. You might think it is about other things -- a love story, a fight to survive, a battle for justice, a cycle race -- and you would not be wrong. Red Side Story contains multitudes. Shades of Grey ended in a flurry of revelations about the Collective. Eddie, Jane and Courtland Gamboge visited the abandoned town of High Saffron, where Jane revealed that all the people supposedly sent to Reboot were in fact sent here to die. Eddie and Jane vowed

★★★☆☆ Not this

Selected Poems (Dover Thrift Editions) by Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson For me the essential experience of poetry is the “Yes, THAT!” moment, when you read a verse, and you know EXACTLY what it means. A moment was captured, a feeling, a thought. Now, I do not claim that this is the only way to experience poetry, or the right way, or the best way. It is only my way. This works if the mind of the poet and the mind of the reader meet. That makes the experience of poetry very personal. And, I am sorry to say, Emily Dickinson ’s mind and mine didn’t often meet. It was not a complete loss. For instance, this landed The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon Earth,— The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity. But it was one of perhaps three poems in this collection that did. Even the famous “Because I could not stop for Death” didn’t do much for me. Part of the problem for me was that Dickinson

★★★☆☆ Moon gods, metaphysics, and sneers

Tidal Creatures Seanan McGuire Tidal Creatures is the third novel in Seanan McGuire 's Alchemical Journeys series, or the seventh if you include the Up and Under books. The unifying principle behind the series is the personification of things that are not persons, objectively or scientifically speaking, such as the Doctrine of Ethos ( Middlegame ), Winter and Summer ( Seasonal Fears ), and now the Moon. Five of the main characters are Moon goddesses (Aske, Change'e, Artemis, Diana) and a Moon god (Máni). We also meet Kelpie, who is not in fact a Kelpie, but a personification of Artemis's Hind. Each of the gods/goddesses is in fact two persons -- a god/dess and an ordinary human whose body the two share. McGuire explains the relationship at length. Roger Zelazny began his career by writing about thirty stories, which he sent to all the Science Fiction magazines, for which purpose he had made a comprehensive list. In this way he collected 150 rejections and no accept

★★★★★ Twenty-five years of recreational mathematics

Hexaflexagons and Other Mathematical Diversions Martin Gardner In 1967 my Aunt Althea, the very best of all possible aunts, gave me a subscription to Scientific American for my twelfth birthday. I remined a subscriber until the 1990s. Among the best features of SA were the monthly columns "The Amateur Scientist", where you could learn how to build a laser in your garage -- you think I'm joking, but I'm serious -- and Martin Gardner 's Recreational Mathematics column "Mathematical Games". Yes, I know that to many of you the phrase "recreational mathematics" makes about as much sense as "recreational colonoscopy", but there are enough people who were willing to entertain the idea that math could be fun to sustain Gardner 's column for 26 years. I was one, and Gardner was brilliant. These columns were collected and published in fifteen books by SA . The best way to get them now is in electronic form. There is a searchable CD

★★★★☆ The Chinese classic novel with WOMEN!

The Story of the Stone Cao Xueqin There are four widely-recognized classic Chinese novels. Seriously, do a web search for "classic Chinese novels" and you will find dozens of pages referring to "The Four Classic Novels of Chinese Literature". (Wikipedia lists six on its Classic Chinese Novels page" -- these include the usual four, plus two others.) The phrase "Four classic Chinese novels" also appears frequently in commentary on Chinese literature. The four are Romance of the Three Kingdoms The Water Margin Journey to the West The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber Red Chamber is distinctly different from the first three. It is the only one that feels (to me) like a modern novel. For instance, there are WOMEN! And they are not mere objects or cardboard cut-outs, but real, complex characters who carry the plot. Cao intended Red Chamber to be a memorial to the women he knew in his youth. And there is a love story! The protagonist,

★★★★☆ Portrait of a REALLY good politician

The Goblin Emperor Katherine Addison ** spoiler alert ** I'm marking this review as a spoiler because the central fact of The Goblin Emperor is that Maia is a really, really good politician. It is impossible to say that convincingly without also saying that he has political success. Of course, it could always happen that something goes horribly wrong in the end. But I would still have to admit that at some point in the book he is politically successful, which would be a spoiler. So, I'm taking the easy way out -- just mark the entire review a spoiler, and then I don't have to waddle awkwardly around the fact that Maia survives a coup attempt and an assassination attempt and ends the book as a successful and mostly well-liked leader. Now, I want to be clear, when I say "Maia is a really good politician", I understand that as a good thing. Politics is the name we give to the social mechanisms for making difficult decisions without violence. That is an extraordina

★★★★☆ Corruption and Witchcraft

A Hunger of Thorns Lili Wilkinson Don't you really want to hear more about evil and dark magic from the evil witches who choose it as a career? After all, Satan (AKA Lucifer) is the most compelling character in Paradise Lost , and Darth Vader is a pretty cool dude, when you think about it. Surely the Wicked Witch of the West has something to say for herself ? So, yeah, Wicked Witch point of view has been done. But not with this kind of conviction. Maude Jenkins, the main character of A Hunger of Thorns is a witch, as are her two grandmothers and as was her late mother. Are they wicked? Well, some people think they are. They don't see themselves as evil, but then the evilest people never do. These witches are no innocent nature-loving Wiccans. If you're addicted to the same pop culture trash as I am, think Elizaveta Arkadyevna , or Dark Willow . Maude and Mam and Nan are dark, powerful, and dangerous witches. They sometimes hurt people, although only rarely intentional

★★★★☆ Matrimonial predators

The Brides of High Hill Nghi Vo We catch up with Chih, who is accompanying the Pham family -- Mr and Mrs Pham and their daughter Pham Nhung to the castle of Lord Guo. The Phams are a family of merchants down on their luck, and Nhung has been proposed in marriage to Lord Guo. She and Chih met cute, and she asked them to accompany her to Lord Guo's castle for the marriage negotiation. Chih appears to have a mini-crush on Nhung, which she appears to encourage. Chih desperately misses their neixin Almost Brilliant, who is mysteriously absent. Nhung is naturally worried about being married. Chih, who knows many stories, true and fictional, about husbands and wives, would like to reassure her, but cannot honestly do so. Stuff happens. You will recognize the story pretty quickly. It's Bluebeard. You probably already figured that out -- the plural "Brides" in the title kind of gives it away. In this one Chih faces serious personal danger, more immediate than in any other S

★★★☆☆ If you cross historical fiction with biography

The Old Lion: A Novel of Theodore Roosevelt Jeff Shaara A book recounting the life of Theodore Roosevelt could be one of (at least) two things: a biography (including in that category autobiography -- these exist ) or a novel. The subtitle of The Old Lion: A Novel of Theodore Roosevelt makes it clear which of these author Jeff Shaara was aiming for. And his "To the reader" note explains that choice The best way to describe this book is perhaps to describe what it is not. This is not a biography (and there are many), nor is it an academic examination of the man or his political policies (and there are many of those). Consider that the definitive biography of the man, by Edmund Morris, covers three volumes and totals more than 2,400 pages. Morris’s admirable work is essential to anyone seeking the most minute details of Roosevelt’s life. I did not have the means to expand this story into three volumes, nor would I wish to. What I have tried to do is create a story, with

★★★★☆ The First Law of Quantum Communication

Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe Sean Carroll The First Law of Quantum Communication is that all explanations of Quantum Mechanics for general audiences are really, really bad*. Sean Carroll 's Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe is very different from every previous pop quantum mechanics explanation I have ever read. The question before us is whether it is an exception to the First Law, or a uniquely creative new example. Where I'm coming from: I am a retired neuroscientist and mathematician. I am familiar with and comfortable with quantum mechanics. I have also, to my sorrow, read dozens of pop physics explanations of quantum mechanics, because every pop physics book begins with the same tiresome six chapters intended to bring the presumed ignorant reader up to speed on relativity and quantum mechanics. And they are almost uniformly TERRIBLE. They are terrible for multiple reasons, but most of these come down to a determination on the p

Search This Blog