Meme: Top ten favorite couples in literature

Funny how the brain works. Yesterday I completed a post on something else to post today, because I had only managed to think of 3 couples I liked enough to put on the list, but this morning I had a list of 12 ready in my head when I sat down at the computer, without having given it a conscious thought. Here is the originating post, and here are my 10 entries:

Elizabet Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. The ultimate romantic couple.
Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley, from Emma by Jane Austen. Great chemistry and a good example of friends falling in love.
Oscar Hopkins and Lucinda Leplastrier, from Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey. This is more for what they could have had than for what they actually had, but they were perfect for each other.
Min Dobbs and Cal Morrissey from Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie. For their fast, funny and furious repartee and undeniable chemistry.
Nina Askew and Alex Moore from Anyone But You by Jennifer Crusie. A perfect fit. And Fred makes three.
Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane from the books by Dorothy L. Sayers (Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night and onwards). Such a wonderful long courtship. She really made him jump through hoops.
Eve and Roarke from the In Death books by J.D. Robb. An interesting, sizzling relationship that keeps developing new angles.
“Cesario” and Olivia, from Twelfth Night, or What you will by William Shakespeare. Technically not a couple, but the chemistry was undeniable.
Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare. The perfect hate-turns-to-love couple, and the dialogue is fantastic.
Jules Cassidy and Robin Chadwick from three Troubleshooters books by Suzanne Brockmann (Hot Target, Force of Nature, All Through the Night). The books are over-the-top thrillers and the romance is tense, since one half of the pair is still in the closet for most of the first two books, but you want them to get together from the moment they lay eyes on each other.

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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