To Read, or Not To Read

We're re-watching Doctor Who this fall to prepare for the big anniversary special. I know that Doctor Who has been around for 50 years, but for time sake we're going to start with series 1 of 2005. If you've not watched it, but have wanted to. Here's your chance. We're watching via Netflix, so join us if you can. This week we're watching Series 3, episode 1 and 2, and we meet the Doctor's new companion, Martha Jones.




Title: Smith and Jones Original Air Date: March 31, 2007 Directed by:  Charles Palmer Written by: Russell T Davis
In episode 1 we meet the Doctor's new companion Martha Jones: 
Martha is studying to be a doctor herself. She runs into the Doctor at the hospital where she's training. And you know where the Doctor is, trouble follows. So the hospital gets sucked up to the surface of moon. Everybody is freaking out except Martha and the Doctor. I think the Doctor is impressed with Martha's ability to stay calm in crazy situations. Then these …

Title: A Breath of Frost (The Lovegrove Legacy #1)
Author: Alyxandra Harvey
Publisher: Walker's Children
Published: January 7, 2014
Ebook, Arc
ISBN: 080273443X
Genre: Historical Fiction, YA, Paranormal
Source: NetGalley




Goodreads Summary:
In 1814, three cousins—Gretchen, Emma, and Penelope—discover their family lineage of witchcraft when a binding spell is broken, allowing their individual magical powers to manifest. Now, beyond the manicured gardens and ballrooms of Regency London, an alluring underworld available only to those with power is revealed to the cousins. By claiming their power, the three cousins have accidentally opened the gates to the underworld. Now ghouls, hellhounds—and most terrifying of all, the spirits of dark witches known as the Greymalkin Sisters—are hunting and killing young debutante witches for their powers. And, somehow, Emma is connected to the murders…because she keeps finding the bodies. Can the cousins seal the gates before another witch is killed…or …

I’m a sucker for all things British.  And I always have been: memorizing the full list of England’s monarchs as a ten-year-old, saving up money from summer jobs in high school for a plane ticket to London (it went towards college, instead), and--as a high school sophomore--betting that I could retain a Scottish accent for an entire month (I lasted, and not very convincingly, for just one afternoon).  Even today--having attended Oxford for two quarters abroad, graduated with a Master’s from Cambridge, and suffered through the wettest year on record in a drafty, North London flat--my anglophilia remains unbridled.  

I think the psychology goes something like this:

For Americans (or, at least for me) Britain represents a sort of an alternative universe.  We share the same language (arguably), and our histories have a way of overlapping (“our” being a significant stretch for this Californian descendant of Swiss Mennonites, hardscrabble Texans, and Ukrainian and Latvian Jews).  Our differenc…

Can Technology Destroy Us
As a species, humans adapt technologies blindly with the hope of achieving promised benefits. We rarely consider societal impact. This is a huge issue, in my opinion. Technology itself doesn't destroy or evolve societies, our use of these tools does.

Science fiction offers strange futuristic views of technology. Some are positive, others are dystopian. Many like Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312 waver between the two. Science fiction offers us the opportunity to debate whether or not we will destroy ourselves with technology.

Is such dialogue pure fear of change? Or do we always forget the lessons of the past?

I know in the case of robotics, the decades old dialogue started by Isaac Asigemov's robot novels has been greatly beneficial. We have been actively trying to build artificial intelligence that will become useful to society while not becoming malevolent a la The Terminator.

But we are not always so forward thinking. Applied to the Internet we do al…

Title: An Untitled Lady
Author: Nicky Penttila
Publisher: Musa Publishing
Published: December 20, 2013
Ebook, ARC
ASIN: B00HFCUNXU 
Genre: Historical Fiction/Romance
Source: NetGalley




Goodreads Summary:
*Not a traditional Regency* Shocking family news forces Madeline Wetherby to abandon her plans to marry an earl and settle for upstart Manchester merchant Nash Quinn. When she discovers that her birth father is one of the weavers her husband is putting out of work—and a radical leader—Maddie must decide which family she truly desires, the man of her heart or the people of her blood.

An earl's second son, Nash chose a life of Trade over Society. When protest marches spread across Lancashire, the pressure on him grows. If he can't make both workers and manufacturers see reason he stands to lose everything: his business, his town, and his marriage.

As Manchester simmers under the summer sun, the choices grow more stark for Maddie and Nash:
Family or justice.
Love or money.
Life or deat…

Excerpted from the book THE LAST SAVANNA by Mike Bond.  Copyright © 2013 by Mike Bond.  Reprinted with permission of Mandevilla Press.  All rights reserved
THE ELAND DESCENDED four steps down the grassy hillside and halted. He glanced all the way round the rolling golden hills, then closer, inspecting the long grass rippling in the wind, behind him, on both sides, and down to the sinuous green traverse of acacia, doum palms and strangler trees where the stream ran. The wind from the east over his shoulder carried the tang of drying murram grass and the scents of bitter pungent shrubs, of dusty, discarded feathers and glaucous lizard skins, of red earth and brown earth, of old scat and stones heating in the midafternoon sun. He switched at flies with his tail, twitched his ears, descended five more steps, and stopped again. Thirst had dried his lips and eyes, tightened his throat, hardened his skin. Already the rain was drying out of the grass and soil pockets; here only the stream remai…

Title: The Cleaner of Chartres 
Author: Salley Vickers
Publisher: Viking
Published: June 27, 2013
Hardcover, 304 pages
ISBN: 978-0-670-78567-4
Genre: Historical Fiction
Source: Publisher




Goodreads Summary There is something very special about Agnes' Morel.  A quiet presence in a small French town of Chartres she can be found cleaning the framed medieval cathedral each morning and doing odd jobs for the townspeople in the afternoon. No one knows where she comes from or why.  Not Abbe' Paul, who discovered her one morning  twenty years ago, sleeping on the porch, and not Alain Fleury, the irreverent young restorer, who works along side of her each day and whose attention she catches with her tawny eyes and elusive manner.  She has transformed everyone's life in her own subtle way, yet no one suspects the dark secrets of her past.

My thoughts: Twenty years ago she appeared in the cloisters of the  ancient cathedral of Notre Dame, in the medieval town of Chartres in France.  To the town&#…