Aug 13 2012
I had a number of good possible choices for this week’s “M” AlphaBooks entry. The others on my “possibles” list for this week were Magwitch from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Moaning Myrtle from the Harry Potter series, The Misfit from Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find, and The Monster from Mary …
Aug 06 2012
I was on the fence about whether to “use up” my Harry Potter character on “L” since I had another good choice in Lee Scoresby from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, and because it would knock out Xenophilius Lovegood for the difficult-to-fill “X” spot. My list, as it now stands, is fairly short on …
Jul 30 2012
Man, it was hard to come up with a K entry this week! I’ve been confining myself to books I’ve actually read, and the way I made my initial list was just by scanning my book shelves. That, though, misses potential characters from books I’ve read but no longer own–and between my selling stuff off …
Jul 23 2012
Today’s post is from one of my most favorite books of recent vintage, 2004’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke. The book is an odd combination of fantasy, historical fiction, and alternative history. The basic premise is (as Wikipedia puts it), “that magic once existed in England and has returned with two men: …
Jul 16 2012
Most folks don’t seem to know this, but the 1987 film, The Princess Bride, is based on a book of the same name by William Goldman from 1973. The book is built around a clever and hilarious conceit that for obvious reasons couldn’t be incorporated into the film: it’s supposedly a modern abridgment of a …
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