What Are You Reading Wednesday

What Have You Just Finished Reading?
Sherry Thomas' "Not Quite A Husband":  An estranged British couple is caught in an uprising against the British in turn of the (19th to 20th) century Pakistan (though that area was part of India at that particular time).

I felt a bit 'blind' re: the locale and the political conflict of this one.  I don't know much about it, and I didn't feel that the book told me more than the very basics.  Plus, I didn't think  the locale was described well enough to 'see it' in my minds eye.  (As a kid, I remember reading 'Merlin's Keep' and being enthralled with 19th Century Tibet. I've retained some of that fascination ever since.  This book didn't bring that sense of place).  However, I did like the developmental stages of the characters' estrangement with their long term marital problems and the emotional minefield that the story navigated.  The situation effectively prevents them from running from one another (as they would've if not prevented from doing so) and forced them to depend on one another such that they actually have to reveal, discuss, and face their issues, which they never would have done otherwise.  So, while I would've liked more background, I did like the central emotional arc.


What Are You Reading Now?
The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt


What Are You Reading Next?
Haven't thought that far ahead. 

Oxymoron Alert

Speechless.  Rendered without speech.

I just...  [Tyrion bitchslap gif]

12 Years a Slave just won the Oscar for best picture, and a conservative pundit has to complain:

From The American Spectator:

"If ever in slavery’s 250-year history in North America there were a kind master or a contented slave, as in the nature of things there must have been, here and there, we may be sure that Mr McQueen does not want us to hear about it. This, in turn, surely means that his view of the history of the American South is as partial and one-sided as that of the hated Gone With the Wind."


Dude, you do 'get' that slavery is owning another person, right?  There may be varying levels of direct physical abuse on a case-by-case basis but there is no such thing as benign slavery. The social and economic system that depends on it is, was, and will forever be evil at its core!

Also, the book from which the screenplay was adapted was written by the actual man who was forced into slavery for 12 years.  It was non-fiction!