bookaddict88: (Narnia)
I went to a really interesting lecture today! Dr. Michael Ward, author of Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis, came to speak at my school. I'm a fan of The Chronicles of Narnia and Lewis, and so I'd been looking forward to the lecture for a couple of weeks. It did not disappoint!

For many people, The Chronicles of Narnia contains a mish-mash of characters and plots. (Tolkien criticized the books for this very reason.) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, for example, contains characters ranging from English schoolchildren to classical mythical creatures to Father Christmas. And the seven books don't seem to have any sort of coherence between them. Lewis says that they are all centered, on Christ, but only three of the four books seem to focus heavily on an aspect of Christ (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has Aslan as savior, The Magician's Nephew has Aslan as creator, and The Last Battle has Aslan as judge). The other three books have theological elements, yes, but those elements don't seem to be the point of the book as a whole. Lewis' works usually have a high degree of coherence. Where is the coherence in The Chronicles of Narnia?

The Ladies

Feb. 13th, 2008 01:51 am
bookaddict88: (Impossible)
About a month ago, I read The Ladies, a short story about Mrs. John Adams found on the online speculative fiction magazine, Coyote Wild.  Unlike most of the speculative stories on the magazine, this one contains no magic or magical creatures. Instead, it is sort of an alternate history. 


Oh, and on a side note, Sherwood Smith ([personal profile] sartorias) has a couple of stories on Coyote Mag that are worth a read.  The first is Summer Thunder, a story set in the same world as Crown Duel, the Inda stories, Senrid, etc..  The second is the lovely story And Now Abideth These Three.
bookaddict88: (Default)
Random links I think you should visit:

Operation Christmas Child - Fill a shoebox with gifts for a child who may not otherwise get any!

FreeRice - Improve your vocabulary while helping donate rice at no cost to you!

The Literacy Site and its affiliates - Help donate money to worthy causes by just clicking a button once a day.

Project Download (which has an LJ community [profile] projectdownload) - Download a file once a day to help Erin, who suffers from two neurological disorders, pay for the brain surgeries she needs.  As with the above two links, the only cost to you is your time.

[community profile] holiday_wishes - Spread the holiday cheer by granting people's wishes and posting your own. I'm a maintainer of the community (and participated last year as well), and I think that it's a wonderful way for people to connect. Not everyone's intentions are altogether altruistic, but overall the spirit of the community is very friendly and giving. (My wishlist is here, if someone wants to grant one of my wishes! ;-) )

YA Fantasy Readers
- A Yahoo! group I set up awhile ago that really doesn't have anyone there yet.  It's meant to discuss - what else? - YA fantasy, and it's open to anyone, teen or not (after all, I'm barely a teen myself now!).
bookaddict88: (Shiny Bookstore)
I just checked out The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner, as I hope to complete one of my chapters for the readaloud over at [community profile] sounis  (note: you must be a member of the community to view the post). Anyway, I couldn't help re-reading parts of it today, despite the fact that I have tons of homework to do. While I was re-reading, I was reminded of just how much I LOVE this book. It's one of my favorite books of all time, though I admit that there are quite a few books in that category. (What can I say? As my LJ username suggests, I love to read!) In fact, I usually don't write book reviews, but this one deserved it, so I went over to several places and posted this review, which I'm now sharing here because it fits here better than on my usual blog:

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bookaddict88: (Default)
bookaddict88

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