Review: Who Could That Be At This Hour?

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Who Could That Be At This Hour? (All The Wrong Questions, #1)Who Could That Be At This Hour? by Lemony Snicket

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is not-exactly-a-prequel to Snicket’s previous A series of unfortunate events, narrated in first person by Snicket himself and set in his formative years as an apprentice to a secretive organization which we can only presume to be VFD.

Who could it be at this hour? presents itself as an ordinary mystery/detective novel, but followers of the Baudelaires’s misadventures will not be surprised … (Read more)

Review: Un polpo alla gola

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Un polpo alla golaUn polpo alla gola by Zerocalcare

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Prima storia lunga per Calcare dopo il precedente libro ‘a episodi’. Come sempre ben fatto, e risuona particolarmente bene con la generazione di cui fa parte e per cui scrive, ma alla fine della fiera mi sembra che manchi un qualcosa in più. Sarà che alcuni dei temi erano stati già trattati in precedenza, sarà il finale da ‘dietro le quinte’ a cui forse avrei preferito il mistero … (Read more)

Review: Shada

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Doctor Who: ShadaDoctor Who: Shada by Gareth Roberts

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Three stars veering towards a fourth.

This book is a late novelization of a six-parter story that Douglas Adams wrote for Doctor Who, but which never got fully filmed because of a strike. Since then Shada has had a troubled history and nearly as many incarnations as the Doctor: bits of it were used in The five Doctors, Adams himself recycled some of his own ideas in Dirk … (Read more)

Review: Titus Awakes

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Titus Awakes: The Lost Book of Gormenghast (Gormenghast, #4)Titus Awakes: The Lost Book of Gormenghast by Maeve Gilmore

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I think Maeve Gilmore did a wonderful job with this book. While it certainly lacks Peake’s sense for the grotesque (which anyway felt more at home in Gormenghast than outside of it) it certainly does read like a Gormenghast book and, in particular, is an excellent counterpoint and closure to the part of Titus’ life that started in Titus Alone.
The story of Titus … (Read more)

Review: Titus Alone

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Titus Alone (Gormenghast Trilogy, #3)Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Titus Alone turns the whole world introduced in Gormenghast on its head: gone is the aloof gothic castle with its quasi-fantasy atmosphere and its days punctuated by rites and tradition, and in its place is a country of squallor and modernity, Bond-like contraptions and sentient machinery, sleek airplanes and smelly cars, menageries of animals and factories populated by identical drones. The only constant is Titus, wandering lost and alone, … (Read more)

Review: Witch Week

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Witch Week (Chrestomanci, #3)Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first Chrestomanci book I read and I feel it’s a great introduction to the series. Set in a boarding house in a world similar but not quite like our own, where witches are real but illegal and burned to the stake, the story starts with a bang when an anonymous note accuses someone in the class of being a witch. But if there only is … (Read more)

Review: Lud-in-the-Mist

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Lud-in-the-MistLud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This a wonderful book that, in a way, could be called a fantasy of manners. The story is about a small city bordering with Fairyland, something which the citizens pretend doesn’t exist since the merchants too control of the country. The tranquillity of the town gets turned upside down when some people are found partaking of fairy fruit, and odd happenings start popping up all around Lud. It will take … (Read more)

Review: The Long Earth

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The Long EarthThe Long Earth by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While the idea of infinite parallel worlds is not a new one, Pratchett and Baxter manage to give it a new spin, touching not only on the adventurous explorations and dangers that these new world represent, but also on the very real social, economical and political effects that such a discovery would have on our own world. The exploration thread follows mostly Joshua and Lobsang, a man with … (Read more)

Review: Glamour in Glass

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Glamour in Glass (Glamourist Histories, #2)Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Glamour in Glass follows the turbulent honeymoon of Jane and David as they travel to a small town in Belgium right during Napoleon’s return from exile.
This is a good book and I enjoyed reading it but I think it’s not as compelling as the first in the series. First of all, Shades of milk and honey was a straight-up Austen with magic, while Glamour in Glass … (Read more)

“Lenta conversazione” a Montechiarugolo

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Lenta conversazione è il progetto fotografico di quattro diversi fotografi: Stefano Anceschi, Gabriella Becchi, Ian Gazzotti e Barbara Leoni.

Le 30 immagini esposte nelle sale del palazzo Civico di Montechiarugolo dal 23 giugno al 29 luglio 2012 presentano una particolarità: sono state scattate insieme, nello stesso posto (l’onirico scenario dei boschi di Carrega) e alla stessa data. Sono poi state scelte e stampate insieme.

Non si tratta quindi di una collettiva di lavori diversi, ma di un lavoro … (Read more)