Meme: Top Ten Favorite Heroines

Yay! I have finally managed to post a Top Ten Tuesday meme on time...

This was a tough one, but here goes, in no particular order:

My top ten favourite literary heroines:

Anne Eliot from Persuasion by Jane Austen. She’s a quiet, uncomplaining and unappreciated but incredibly kind-hearted, patient and loving woman who finally learns that sometimes we need to trust our own feelings and not listen to others. Of all Austen’s heroines she is the one I like the best.
Minerva Dobbs from Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie. A woman who doesn’t hesitate to say what she thinks.
Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery. I was a bit like her as a girl, which is why I think I like her so much. I don’t like her so much after she marries, which is why I specify in which books I like her best.
Miss Marple, from the books by Agatha Christie. She’s a sharp and inquisitive old bat who knows human nature in and out and uses that knowledge for good.
Celie from The Color Purple. An incredibly strong and resilient but also human and fallible heroine who survived terrible treatment and came out even stronger in the end.
Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg from the Discworld books (Witches sub-series) by Terry Pratchett. I put them in as a unit because they are a team and wouldn’t be much fun without each other’s tempering influences. Granny would never describe herself as a heroine, whereas Nanny would proudly do so but only if it got her a free drink.
Susan Sto Helit from the Discworld books (Death sub-series) by Terry Pratchett. Sharply intelligent and brave, resilient and determined to make it on her own merit. Perhaps a little too obsessed with being normal when she clearly isn’t and never will be.
Flore Poste from Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. Determined, self-assured and accomplished, I would love to have her on my side in any situation, even if she is a bit managing at times.
Sophia Stanton-Lacy from The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer. An accomploshed and clever heroine who has a solution for everything.
Léonie de Saint-Vire from These old Shades by Georgette Heyer. A lovely, loyal, kick-ass spitfire I would love to have for a friend. Married to my favourite bad-boy hero.

Book 7: Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński (reading notes)

-This reads like fiction - prose more beautiful than one has come to expect from non-fiction and many of the chapters are structured like fiction stories. There is little continuity between most of the chapters, although some of the narratives or stories spread over more than one chapter. This is therefore more a collection of short narratives than a cohesive entirety. You could pick it up and read the chapters at random and still get a good sense of what is going on. -Here is an author who is not trying to find himself, recover from a broken heart, set a record, visit 30 countries in 3 weeks or build a perfectly enviable home in a perfectly enviable location, which is a rarity within travel literature, but of course Kapuściński was in Africa to work, and not to travel for spiritual, mental or entertainment purposes (he was the Polish Press Agency's Africa correspondent for nearly 30 years). -I have no way of knowing how well Kapuściński knew Africa - I have never been there...

How to make a simple origami bookmark

Here are some instructions on how to make a simple origami (paper folding) bookmark: Take a square of paper. It can be patterned origami paper, gift paper or even office paper, just as long as it’s easy to fold. The square should not be much bigger than 10 cm/4 inches across, unless you intend to use the mark for a big book. The images show what the paper should look like after you follow each step of the instructions. The two sides of the paper are shown in different colours to make things easier, and the edges and fold lines are shown as black lines. Fold the paper in half diagonally (corner to corner), and then unfold. Repeat with the other two corners. This is to find the middle and to make the rest of the folding easier. If the paper is thick or stiff it can help to reverse the folds. Fold three of the corners in so that they meet in the middle. You now have a piece of paper resembling an open envelope. For the next two steps, ignore the flap. Fold the square diagonally in two. Yo...

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...

Reading in Reykjavík

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