Monthly Archives: July 2014


Sonnets of World War I ~ The Words of Wilfred Own

Royal Irish Rifles ration party Somme July 1916 Collection from Imperial War Museum

 

 

 

As today marks the 100 year anniversary of the start of World War I, I thought it was appropriate to share a poem by Wilfred Owen who was an English soldier and poet.

Just take a moment to think back to what those men went through and how without them, the world may not be as it is today.

 

Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,–
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

 

Wilfred Owen 18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918

 


A Secret Purchase ~ SHHHH!

I purchased Archangel’s Legion by Nalini Singh yesterday (read the review of the entire series here) and I’m SOOOOO excited.

I love this series so much and am slowly purchasing all the books so I can have the entire series. I only have Archangel’s Blade, which I’ve read 3 times, and now I have a second one (which is the last book in the series).

Maybe I should purchase the first one…o.o

But I’ll work at that.

Do you guys have any books that you just have to purchase the entire series (even if its massive) because you love it so much?

This is my series…because I’m literally in love.


Must Love Dukes by Elizabeth Michels

“Who ever thought a duke would be so daring?”

Summary

She can’t resist a dare.
Lillian Phillips could not imagine how her quiet, simple life had come to this. Blackmailed by the Made Duke of Thornwood into accepting one wild dare after another…all because of a pocket watch. Desperate to recover her beloved father’s pawned timepiece, Lily did something reckless and dangerous and delicious – something that led to a night she’d never forget.

He has a reputation for scandal.
When Devon Grey, Duke of Thornwood, runs into the mesmerizing, intoxicating, thieving woman who literally stole from his bedchamber – with his new pocket watch – Devon plots his revenge. If the daring wench likes to play games, he’s happy to oblige. After all, what’s the use of being the Mad Duke if you can’t have some fun? But the last laugh just might be on him…

-From the back cover

Review

I’m just going to say it outright.

I thought this book was kinda mushy.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love mushy books and such, they are a simple read and fill your head with fluff and make you all warm and fuzzy, but for some reason I didn’t love this book as much as I thought I was going to. I guess I’m not into more….”medieval” romance literature as much as I thought, but I will try more incase maybe it was just this book.

So I’ll present what I liked and what I didn’t like in this book as there were some good things as well.

First off, what I didn’t like. Let’s rip that band-aid off. I didn’t feel like there was a lot of description. There wasn’t a ton of character development and I really dislike how it objectifies women. I’m all for woman empowerment, and I know that a woman wrote this, but it always gets on my nerves when women are treated like cattle, especially in this. The main character talked tough like she would fight back, but she didn’t do anything. She needed the Duke to come in and save her and while the ‘damsel-in-distress’ is good to read and all and many people like it, for this book…I don’t know, I didn’t work for me.

I also felt that the ending was kinda rushed. It was just suddenly all this stuff was happening, all this information was thrown at you, and BAM, the book ended. I was left sitting there like, “WTF…what just happened?”

In addition to this, this is a romance book. Most romance books either are just completely flirting and teasing or there is outright sex. This book I felt was in between. The one or two sex scenes in this book were…kind of lacking in my opinion. The description was fluffy (not saying it should be explicit, but it was too child-like) and it just got on my nerves. I’m not saying that you should use crude language or foul descriptions, but don’t make it all fluffy..it just ruins reading it. Either go for it, or don’t at all. People who usually read these types of books know all about this stuff, so just go for it in my opinion.

Now to the things that I did like.

The story overall was creative on how it progressed and the slow romance between the Duke and Lily, and it had many good qualities of him pursuing her, realizing his feelings for her, and going after her. Then there was the brother Solomon…I just wanted to smack him so much and I love when there is one of those characters. It pushes you to read on to find out if something happens to him in the end.

Overall, I would recommend this book, even though there were downsides. But these downsides pertained to me personally and my overall reading experience. I am sure that many others would like it as it has a classic love story and a male fighting for a womans love. So many would love this book and I say that you give it a shot if you’re interested in this type of stuff.

Let me know what you think and happy reading!

 


And Now For Something Completely Different: C3 Corvette 1968-1982: How to Build and Modify – Performance How-To Series

Summary

“The vast majority of Corvettes built between 1975 and 1982 are affordable and plentiful, and are ideal for high-performance builds. Learn how to transform a mundane C3 into a standout, high-performance car.”

-From Amazon.com

Review

Well now,  this book is definitely something different. I received this book as part of the Early Reviewers Program from Library Thing as I was the reader selected to review it. I love vehicles and all, but a book like this is something that I really would never read, after all it’s not exactly bed time reading. Nevertheless I gave it a shot.

And, as I should be truthful, I didn’t really read this book either (the way you don’t read a cookbook, but flip through). I mostly just flipped through it as a lot of it I don’t really understand. And I don’t have a car to work on which makes it slightly more difficult. However, if I did……..

I’m not really a Corvette girl, never have been and I don’t really know why, so I guess I wasn’t terribly motivated to read this book either, but I was asked to do a review and I will as it was, still, an interesting book. For a car manual.

First off, this book is in color and has LOTS and LOTS of photographs. This is really different from other car manuals I’ve seen. Most just have instructions or small drawings, mostly black and white. But this is in full color with step-by-step pictures which really is useful if you are looking to build and/or modify your vehicle. There are even brightly colored boxes here and there to warn you about different issues and also little tips.

There is also a lot of detailed instructions on how to do different things and explaining what different things are.

Honestly, I didn’t understand most of the book. I may love cars, but I am not a mechanic by any means and so didn’t understand how most of it worked. But if you are into cars and are looking to swap, strengthen, upgrade or do lots of others things you can do to a car engine, this is definitely the manual for you. Clear, well set out and almost the perfect DIY for Corvette owners this is for you.

I recommend that you check it out as it is really quite interesting to flip through, and if someone else knows more about vehicles and reads this book, let me know how you think it would hold up if you REALLY wanted to used it as a manual.

The company did release a few other manuals for other vehicles so check them out as well.

Thanks, and happy reading!