octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

I'm don't think I've ever come across a modern picture book where the moral thesis is so bluntly and apologetically stated. Steal a carrot, GET SHOT. Of course, Potter's illustrations leave off the blood trail as the Fierce Bad Mutilated Rabbit gets away, but it's very prettily drawn for all that (perhaps because of all that), if rather thin on storyline.

An anthology of speculative fiction themed around mythic beasts, and including stories on creatures such as mermaids, centaurs, and dragons. There's 13 stories in here, for 13 different beasts, and as a collection it's better, I think, than a companion book based around magic spells that I also read recently. This particular anthology is one I received as a child, and I've just reread it. Strange how some of the stories have stuck with me through the years, while others I've blocked out entirely as being of very little interest... and as an adult rereading, my judgement on each remains the same. The stand-outs here are Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" and two of the sci-fi offerings: Jack Vance's "The Kragen" and F.A. Javor's "The Triumph of Pegasus". My absolute favourite, however, and one of my favourite short stories of all time, is Tanith Lee's "The Gorgon", which is strong and sad and memorable - together these stories are enough to merit this anthology 4 stars. Unfortunately the book as a whole could use a stronger ending - the last 3-4 stories are distinctly the weakest of the bunch.

Do not ask me what a planisphere is doing with an ISBN, because I have absolutely no idea. I've had this for years (it was useful when spending time with my wee telescope) and hauled it out again recently for research purposes, which was when I noticed the ISBN and thought "Surely not, Goodreads can't possibly list this." BUT IT DID. So here I am to say that in close to two decades of use this has been continually helpful when looking at the southern night sky, and my only caveat is that I wish it were larger, because the text can sometimes be extremely small.

An enjoyable book covering a wide range of topics. Roughly half of the essays are to do with science, and the rest are miscellaneous, with such topics as Sherlock Holmes, New York City, and the struggle of the author's wife with breast cancer. As much as I enjoy science communication, generally the miscellaneous articles are slightly more successful here I think - not because of any inherent flaw in the science communication (although, being published some decades ago, some of the information the book contains is outdated or even occasionally wrong) - but because there's a lot more overlap and repetition in the science essays. If Asimov has written three essays on the same topic, for instance, all three are included here and while each has a different approach, with different emphases, there is nonetheless substantial covering of the same ground, and this happens several times. Notable also, if a trifle sad, are Asimov's predictions of the space-based industries which he thought might be up and running by now. Alas, no lunar colony as yet... although the essay on what the sky would look like from a colony on the moon might be the best of the bunch.

I'm not gonna lie, the cover's so bright and gorgeous it attracted my magpie self regardless of content. And in all fairness I have to say that I was biased going into this. I mean, I'm making an effort to try and read more widely, to try and read new things (or things that are at least new to me) and this is... not my usual reading material. I'm not religious, not at all, and I think divination is frankly bunkum so clearly I am not the target audience here. But for all my scepticism when it comes to divination, I do accept that people can use meditation as a way to explore their own problems and to assess the probable usefulness of future actions. If that meditation works best for them when guided by religious or mythological symbolism, then whatever floats their boat. And looking at it from that perspective, this book took on a new value of sorts - some of the systems and symbolisms used were genuinely interesting. There seemed to be, in some of the methods described, an implication that the diviner already knew the answers and/or future likelihoods subconsciously, and the divination methods merely gave a means of accessing them. This isn't true in all cases, I think, but the example of the Druid's Wand struck me as particularly apt. Basically, you decorate a stick of wood with symbols and use it to make astronomical measurements; the measurement corresponds to a symbol and that gives the answer. But the measurement in question - between the moon and Polaris - is a repetitive pattern deriving from orbital movement, essentially, and it wouldn't take doing this too many times to, at least subconsciously, choose the night and time of observation that would give the most appropriate answer. It's not the way I'd figure out a problem, but as a meditative means of accepting something you already know... eh, there are worse things you could do I suppose.

It helps that the book's underlined - as much of Wicca is, at least so says my very slim exposure - by a robust sort of practicality. If you're sick, don't go divining for medical advice, but get thee to a doctor. If your relationship's failing, take a good hard look at yourself and how your actions contribute. And so on. That, at least for me, balances out the, um, less convincing bits. I mean, I'm still not going to try any of it, but I am interested regardless as to how people think about things I don't believe in, so it was worth the read for that. And the cover's still gorgeous.

Interesting little volume! It's a collection of traditional Cornish recipes frequently cooked during the author's childhood, spent in Porthleven village during 1930s-1940s time I think. Interspersed with the recipes are anecdotes of how grandparents, other family members, and the local community cooked and ate during the year. I'll probably give a lot of the savoury recipes a miss as they're pretty lard-centric, but I'll definitely be trying some of the cakes. I've never made saffron buns before, for instance, and I'd like to give them a go.

Some interesting recipes in this book! There's a strong Christmas flavour to many of them, but most could be made any time of the year without comment, which is useful. Being vegetarian I'm not going to try it all, but there's a lot here I can eat and everything does look really yummy. (The photography is admittedly glorious.) The recipes themselves are clear and easy, but I did think the text needed another pass. The sentence about melting chocolate in the microwave must have been cut and pasted a dozen times, and despite what the ingredient list says about needing a lemon to make roast pork and crackling, the recipe doesn't actually call for it.

Slight and mildly entertaining, this small collection of cartoons appeared in a number of student uni mags in New Zealand, back in the day. Brunswick's a snarky giant rat that lives with a BA student, and much of the humour here comes from its recognisability - especially for people who've lived in Wellington and can recognise the references to places and people and so on. There's also a fire-breathing dragon...

An anthology of retellings inspired by Greek mythology that I've finally gotten round to reading. One of my early stories ("Requiem") is in here, however, so this is hardly an unbiased review. It probably says more about me than anything else, but my main reaction was surprise at all the sci-fi retellings! I feel stupid for not thinking of the possibility myself, but I like science fiction and I like myth and so mash-ups of the two worked well for me. In fact, my favourite story of the collection, "Demeter's Heir" by Leigh Dragoon, was Persephone-in-space and I thought it was fantastic.

I've only just got round to reading this, some years after it turned up in the post. (Oh, to-read piles, you are large and intimidating.) One of my very early stories, "Eye for an Eye", is in here though, so this is hardly an unbiased review on my part. As always in short story anthologies, some of the tales are more interesting than others. The best one here, I think, is "Under the Skin" by Rebecca Lloyd, which is a creepy little piece about a woman turning into a reptile - the description of her skin-shedding hands is genuinely revolting, so that was fun. I also liked the road-trip after the zombie apocalypse story "'Til the End of the Road", by Tony Simmons, which had zombies potentially evolving into more intelligent creatures than the norm.