bookshelf

David Blázquez 

I would like to have this bookshelf. I think it would go very well in my living room.

Sensibility

My excitement with Duchess by Night has wained somewhat. Eloisa James, the author as well as a professor of English literature, misused the word Sensibility. A professor of English literature misused Sensibility! I may die of horror.

Just so everyone is clear, what sensibility (connotatively) means today is not what sensibility meant in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sensibility was the opposite of sense. Thus Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility. Duchess by Night is set in 1784. James should know about Sensibility. Since she made a special point of talking about Sensibility, she must have thought she was being clever in using a concept of the time. But she completely misused it.

Once again, so everyone is clear, here's Merriam-Webster on the subject:

Definition of SENSIBILITY

1

: ability to receive sensations : sensitiveness 

2

: peculiar susceptibility to a pleasurable or painful impression (as from praise or a slight) —often used in plural

3

: awareness of and responsiveness toward something (as emotion in another)

4

: refined or excessive sensitiveness in emotion and taste with especial responsiveness to the pathetic

In Which Breasts Play a Not-Insignificant Role

I started reading the next novel in my Great and Brilliant Romance Project last night: Duchess by Night by Eloisa James. I chose it because the cover is striking. OK, it's my favorite color (the picture below does not do the shade of green justice). I used to pass this book in the grocery store (good ol' Sammish Haggen!) and stop to laugh at the romances with titles like The Italian Millionaire's Virgin Wife.

I read the prologue and first three chapters of Duchess last night, and may I say I am so far quite excited and pleased? For one thing, the second chapter has the subtitle "Another chapter in Which Breasts Play a Not-insignificant Role." Points for humor. The second thing that makes me super excited is that it involves cross-dressing. The protagonist disguises herself as a man to sneak into scandalous Lord Strange's abode.

You may not know this about me: I love books with cross-dressing. There are so many erotic possibilities, so many sites for sexual tension. My two favorite manga in high school and college were Hana-Kimi, in which a girl disguises herself as a boy to join an all-boys' school, and Kaze Hikaru, in which a girl disguises herself as a boy in order to join a group of samurai.

Conclusion: I'm excited for Duchess by Night, and will let you know how it goes.

Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage starts the moment we become conscious that life itself is a sacred journey, carrying with it the responsibility to act accordingly.

—John Brierley

I'm going on a pilgrimage through Spain this summer. I don't tell you this because it relates to this blog's usual topic of books. It doesn't. I tell you because I will have internet access in Spain, so I'll be blogging about my pilgrimage right here on Jujubes and Aspirins. Be prepared.

It's called El Camino de Santiago. I'll be taking the route Camino Frances. I'll start in St. Jean Pied de Port in France, hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, west to Santiago, then a bit farther to Finisterre on the coast.

When I was making my itinerary, I didn't plan it this way, but the pilgrimage (not including plane and train time at either end) will last forty days and forty nights.

On Esme's Bookshelf

Books I Finished Reading in March

Deepstep Come Shining by C.D. Wright
Stop in the Name of Pants! by Louse Rennison. One of the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson books. This is actually my second time reading it; I couldn't remember where I left off in the series so this is the one I got from the library.
Lighthead by Terrance Hayes.
Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts. The second book in the Bride Quartet.
Persuasion by Jane Austen.
Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me? by Louise Rennison. The final Confessions of Georgia Nicolson.
Crafting Wiccan Traditions: Creating a Foundation for Your Spiritual Beliefs and Practices by Raven Grimassi.

Sorcery and Cecelia

Hank Green on Sorcery and Cecelia:

Adorable book! Like a mix between Harry Potter and Pride and Prejudice... Two young women get caught up in a magical mystery that's dangerous and dreadful and all kinds of horrible things are happening. But what the story's really about are those infuriating boys in marvelous outfits.


For Hank Green's entire book-review vlog, go here. For my post on Sorcery and Cecelia, go... Oh, I never posted it. I wrote it up a year ago and didn't post it. Well, damn.

Here's what I said:

Sorcery and Cecelia is a bit like Jane Austen plus magic. Austen but more playful and slightly more risque. A Mysterious Marquis, a fake marriage, an enchanted chocolate pot: Could it get any better? And yes, it does have Lord Byron. I suggest you read Katie’s blog post on it.


Note: While a year ago I said that Sorcery and Cecelia is slightly more risque than Jane Austen, I don't know if I'd say that now—since I go to school to study sex jokes in Jane Austen. Indeed, that is what grad students in English do.