Category Archives: Books

Historical fiction and cultural assumptions

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Cora

Lately, I have been blogging about my frustrations with historical fiction and film more than once. It seems that Lynne Connolly shares my frustrations with the inaccuracy of many historical romances. At any rate, she writes about titles, inheritances, entails, … Continue reading →

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Contemporaries that aren’t very contemporary

Posted on January 22, 2011 by Cora

I’m having a nasty, weather induced headache, not to mention that I’m pretty pissed off at having to drive eighteen kilometers (one way) this afternoon to a meeting that didn’t take place. So here is Laura Miller about how many … Continue reading →

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Don’t write off vampires just yet!

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Cora

There has been some gleeful reaction to this USA Today article, which states that sales of vampire fiction have dropped compared to 2009. Never mind that the article is actually summing up a whole lot of trends, that Stieg Larsson … Continue reading →

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Birthday Bestsellers

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Cora

This is cool: The New York Times bestseller list, fiction and non-fiction for my birthday week. On the fiction list, there are only entries where I’ve never heard of either book or writer, Semi-Tough by Dan Jenkins at No. 7 … Continue reading →

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Vampires and Supervillains

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Cora

Here are two posts on vampires from Theodora Goss and Nathan Ballingrud. What unites both of them as well as many others in the speculative fiction community is that they see the romanticization of the vampire in decent years as … Continue reading →

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Historical Fatigue Redux – and I find myself agreeing with Bertolt Brecht

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Cora

I’ve been thinking a bit more about my current historical fatigue. It seems to me as if way too many historicals, whether written or filmed, are focussed mainly on the absolute upper echelons of society. Downton Abbey – the much … Continue reading →

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Historical Fatigue

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Cora

In the past few days, I’ve seen several Americans go all crazy about Downton Abbey on the Internet. Here’s an example from Smart Bitches, Trashy Book. There are similar posts elsewhere. Reading the Smart Bitches and similar posts reminded me … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Film, TV | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Linkdump for a busy day

Posted on January 10, 2011 by Cora

I finished up that big translation job, but I’m pretty done for. So here’s a couple of neat links: Damien G. Walter has a neat post about what a writer has to do in order to write. For the linguistically … Continue reading →

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Quick Post and a Link

Posted on January 8, 2011 by Cora

I’m still not feeling well and spending three hours grocery shopping in crowded supermarkets yesterday afternoon didn’t help either. So in lieu of a proper post, here’s an interview with Patricia Briggs. Housekeeping: I’ve IP-banned a really annoying and persistent … Continue reading →

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Fire, Pulp and Romance

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Cora

First the good news, the Moerdijk fire I mentioned in my post yesterday is under control. Locals are still warned to keep their doors and windows closed and not to eat vegetables grown in the open. Shipping on the Hollandse … Continue reading →

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