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Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey

Uptown, Downton Author: Countess Carnarvon My reading habits are all over the map. On a scale of “bleak environmental science” to “time-traveling magical romance,” I could be anywhere, or maybe two or three different places at the same time, thanks to the ever-changing potpourri of books that come to me from the library (and not always when I’m in the mood for them). On the other hand, I’m pretty much always in the mood for “breezy historical biography with pictures of gowns and jewels,” so I was excited to finally get my hands on Lady Almina and the Real Downton [...]

2016-12-31T17:56:53-07:00August 22nd, 2012|Tags: , , , , , |

Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion

The Price of Fashion Author: Elizabeth L. Cline Like many of us, author Elizabeth Cline used to buy cheap new items of clothing from discount chains almost every week — even though the shoddy garments quickly fell apart, faded, or never really fit right to begin with. At $5 for a T-shirt, she thought, what did it matter? Then she started wondering about the environmental, social, and economic effects of our compulsive bargain-basement consumption. When did we collectively decide that our desire for cheap, trendy clothing outweighed fair labor practices, intellectual property rights, and our planet’s health? If you don’t [...]

2016-12-31T17:56:54-07:00August 15th, 2012|Tags: , , , , , , , |

Inheritance, The: And Other Stories

Fantasy Feast Author(s): Megan Lindholm, Robin Hobb As much as I enjoy Robin Hobb’s books, somehow it’s never occurred to me to check out the stuff written under her other nom de plume, Megan Lindholm (which is actually closer to her real name, Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden). I think I intuitively grasped what Hobb explains in the foreword of her 2011 short-story anthology The Inheritance: they really are two different authors, and there’s no mistaking one for the other. When she comes up with a promising phrase or sentence, she says, she knows immediately which author it’s for. This collection [...]

2016-12-31T17:56:55-07:00August 14th, 2012|Tags: , , , |
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