This Is a Good Book Thursday: Bad Book Warning

~ Jenny

Sean Penn has published his novel.  

I generally do not diss other living writers (once you’re dead, your ass is mine), but I’m going to break my rule and say that is just . . . bad.  I won’t even use the “Lord, it wasn’t good” cartoon for this one.  This is abysmal::

“Hence his life remains incessantly infused with her identity-infidelity, and her abhorrent ascensions to those constant salacious sessions of sexual solitaire she’d seen as self-regard.”

That’s on page 11. I think it means the male protagonist is upset that some female within his grasp is masturbating, but that’s just a guess.  (More quotes at the link above.)  I thought Penn had reached the bottom of my estimation when he said that film was too important to waste on entertainment.  (Entertainment is the delivery system for ideas, you moron.)  But this, this sinks him far below that.  This isn’t just dumb pseudo-intellectualism, this is  Bad Writing.

From now on, whenever I look in despair at some of my own Bad Writing, I can comfort myself with the knowledge that at least I’m not Sean Penn.

For the love of god, tell me something good to read.  

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116 thoughts on “This Is a Good Book Thursday: Bad Book Warning”

  1. Not my Father’s Son by Alan Cumming. Non fiction. Uncovering family secrets.

    Playing James by Sarah Mason. Plucky, clumsy English reporter shadowing a detective.

    Lessons in Letting Go by Corinne Grant. An Australian Comedian and former hoarder

    I’ve just reread Agnes and the Hitman again for the umpteenth time. It would be perfect for a limited run series on Netflix. I’ve only just got Netflix and have been binge watching everything which has been perfect over this summer when it has been too humid to leave the house.

    What book/s does everyone else reread on a yearly basis?

    2. I would LOVE to see a series done of Agnes and the Hitman. It would translate perfectly to a 6 or even 10 hour series. The characters are wonderful and the action is great. I recommend this book to everyone and keep copies at home to give to anyone who says, ” I need a good book to take on a trip. Do you have anything?”

    4. Speaking of Crusie masterpieces that should become movies or TV-series: Maybe This Time! I think that one would be creepy as all hell in movie/tv-series form. Don’t Look Down would make a good candidate, too. And Wild Ride!

      My only objection to making movies or TV-series out of books I love is that they rarely become even close to as good as the original story. Things are always scrapped or altered to fit the format and though I deliver less critique about that nowadays than when I was a kid/teenager, I’m still very sceptical about the whole thing. Unless Jenny would take part in the adaptation and approve of the script, that is.

      1. Adapting a book to screenplay is like translating it to another language. The best adaptations always change things.

      2. The problem is usually that someone options a long book with several sub-plots and then has to cut the screen script to, at best, the single main plot line. An interesting book to read about this is Jessamyn West’s TO SEE THE DREAM, about the making of THE FRIENDLY PERSUASION.

        My literary agent told me once that he’s grateful when a screen version of a book doesn’t actually ruin an author’s reputation . . . .

        1. That’s why I think a limited run series would be such an excellent fit for Agnes. No need to strip out much at all to make it fit the format, there’d be enough time to reveal all the plot lines in, say, a 6 episode series, and no need to add filler to drag it out to fit 22 episodes. I have thought about this a little bit too much methinks. Which is Jenny and Bob’s fault of course. If they hadn’t written such a great book I wouldn’t be able to see it in my mind so easily.

        2. I’m going to hunt down Jessamyn West’s TO SEE THE DREAM. Thanks for the recommendation Ann.

          I realise movies and books are different beasts but there are some that are both equally good in their own ways in spite of artistic licence. I really liked the adaptations of Darling Buds of May, To Kill a Mockingbird, Room with a View, The Green Mile, Bridget Jones’ Diary (the first one, the second one was appalling), The Railway Children, The Firm and many of the recent Jane Austen.

  2. Just finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and I just have to wonder how I’ve managed to miss it until now, because it was wonderful!

    3. Ooh is it really that good? I bumped into it on Goodreads some weeks ago while hunting for comfort reads, and it sounds so very promising! Haven’t read it yet though.

    4. It is a wonderful book. I remember reading The Hunger Games directly afterward and weeping like a fool because of the parallels.

  3. This week I reread Nobody’s Baby But Mine and Dream a Little Dream by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. The first better than the second. The Lucky Charms incident was the best set up in Nobody’s that I can remember so I liked that book better than Dream. That’s why I plan to read the whole Chicago Stars series again over the summer or before to find out why I can’t get into First Star I See Tonight. I’ve started three times and given up. In the meantime last night I started Kristen Hannah’s new book The Great Alone. Looks to be a gut wrencher. Then I’ll follow J.A. Jance’s new Ali Reynolds book Duel To the Death.

    1. I also loved the Lucky Charms scene in Nobodies Baby But Mine-that book is my favorite of the series.

    3. I loved most of Nobody’s Baby But Mine, but I had a really hard time getting over the heroine using a guy to get pregnant when he thought she was on birth control, and thinking it would be ok as long as she never told him about it. Was anyone else thrown out of the book by that?

      1. Yes. Basically I hate the book until he learns she is pregnant and starts dealing with it. Then I love it. I really like the part with the three women at the top of the mountain.

  4. I’m reading and really liking All The Beautiful Girls. It’s woman’s fiction. It’s set in the 60s, in Vegas. Her childhood with her aunt and uncle was hard to read. There is molestation in full detail.

    Here is the description from Goodreads:

    The dazzling, powerful story of a gutsy showgirl who tries to conquer her past amongst the glamour of 1960s Las Vegas – finding unexpected fortune, friendship and love.

  5. Courtney Milan has a new book coming out (I am delirious with anticipation) and also wrote a bit about #meToo on her website.

    Beyond that I got nuthin – I’m here for the reccs

    1. Just read a couple of freebies from her: available if you’re on her mailing list. Am now wondering which of her series to reread.

      1. I like all of her series, but I really love her contemporary one the best. Some of the themes resonated very strongly with me, or I hit upon them when I needed them. Oh, and her revolutionary short story in Hamilton’s Battalion is fabulous 🙂

    2. I actually just discovered her (or, like, finally read her as I have been seeing her name around). Went through Brothers Sinister, that was fun, and was all ready to gulp down the Worth Saga only to realize that she’s just barely started it. 😫

  6. I’m re-reading All the President’s Men. One of the things I like about it is that the last thing Woodward and Bernstein do is set themselves up to be heroes — they’re both willing to let their mistakes and the things that make them annoying show up. (And they did make mistakes…)

    1. I reread AtPM again too recently and was reminded of the fall on the floor funny scene with Bernstein in the newsroom speaking (!) Spanish. I followed it up with Woodward’s recent Last of the President’s Men (2015) which was riveting, too.

      Both totally worth reading and the latter especially relevant to understanding today’s White House horrors. Definitely explains a lot. If you can bear it, plenty of awful bad guy character sketches, too, tho sadly real.

      Bedtime reading is much cheerier, with Austen’s Sanditon as finished by Another Lady. Enjoying it thoroughly and no nightmares, although one character (Edward) might have served as a writing example for Sean Penn, painfully, horribly hilarious.

  7. Just read, skipped pages and a couple of chapters of a new historical then deleted from my ereader after reading the last two chapters. I didn’t miss anything. Awful, I kept reading hoping it would get better. New to me author up for the Rita. Oh well back to rereading.

    On the other hand, will start Dorothy L Sayers’ Gaudy Night and a memoir, They Left Us Everything by Plum Johnson.

    1. MRS. TIM CHRISTIE (MRS. TIM OF THE REGIMENT, originally)
      MRS. TIM CARRIES ON,
      MRS. TIM GETS A JOB, and
      MRS. TIM FLIES HOME.

  10. I’ve just re-read The Others series by Anne Bishop because she had a sixth book in the world (different series) come out. Lovely, delightful, thought-provoking, dry and wry, and, for all they’re monsters, so humane.

    At the same time, the newest Anna and Charles (Alpha and Omega, werewolves) by Patricia Briggs is out. Sigh. So, so wonderful. Not for everyone, I’m sure, but I love this couple, love their devotion/confusion. Their relationship is solid, but they’re endlessly unprepared for how they affect one another.

    I also recently read Lord of Scoundrels. I opened it thinking it might be a bodice-ripper (copyright 1995), so perhaps I enjoyed it more because it wasn’t? These characters were lovely, the emotional arcs satisfying, the writing neither too anything or not enough anything else.

    And I can always recommend–without reservation–Tanya Huff’s Torin Kerr military sci-fi, humans-in-space series. Trust me, it’s not David Weber, who details every space battle down to the micro-second until you feel like you are endlessly trapped in the nightmare of your most-hated high-school class. No, this is all about people (and lizards), full of humor, honor, intrigue, depth, mystery, loyalty, and love.

    Thanks for this post; in my author group we have really been struggling with this. What’s good writing? When is it time to throw in the towel? Who do you write for? What if they hate it? This snippet you’ve shared (I really don’t need to read any more of this book!) puts all our efforts into clear, glowing perspective.

      1. I stayed up way to late finishing it last night! All of the good chills. I was pleasantly surprised at how different the structure of the story is from her usual books.

    2. I really like Anne Bishop even with her big thing of huuuuuuge buildup, little climax.

  11. Just read “In the unlikely event” by Judy Blume, which was on my sister’s Kindle. (We both bought two – and traded, so that we can easily share books without other complications.) I am not sure I would have bought it, but it was certainly worth reading, and I liked the 50’s dating bits.

  12. I intended to read new comfort reading books this week (the ones you wonderful people recommended last week), but things didn’t turn out as planned, so I reread Getting Rid of Bradley, Trust me on This and Charlie All Night instead, and I’m aaalmooost done rereading Don’t Look Down. If things does not improve, I’ll probably be rereading Bet Me and Faking it the coming week as well.

    I’m hoping to start reading a children’s/middle grade book that was released day before yesterday: Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi. I have never read any of her books before, though the book descriptions sound good to me, but since this new one is presented and and has been much promoted by writer Rick Riordan (whose books I learned to appreciate last summer, which I [oddly enough] did not manage when I was 16 but apparently now when I’m [supposed to be] grown up), I’ve been quite curious to read it. I’ve always loved mythology, and somehow putting it into fiction catches my attention nowadays.

    Next Tuesday, Kevin Hearne will release the final book in his Iron Druid Chronicles-series, and I’m both looking forward to it and dreading it – I don’t want the series to end.

  13. My 9 year old DD came to me last night and said “I don’t have anything to read. All the books in this house are too young. Can I read your Nora Roberts?”

    “Um, no kiddo. You need a few more years before you can start reading mommy’s books. But let’s go see what’s on the shelves. We’ve got horse books. We’ve got dog books (Jim Kjelgaard); we’ve got 1 Nancy Drew; we’ve got 1 Dana Girls. We’ve got Elizabeth Enright. We’ve got Calvin and Hobbes.”

    She ended up picking Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” but I don’t think she’s started it. She’s spending the day at my Mom’s and I told her (and Mom) to hit Mom’s bookshelves and see if there’s anything there she wants to borrow.

    I think there’s a trip to the book store and the library in our near future. She’s just finished the 7th Harry Potter book so she’s sort of at a loss.

    2. Have you tried Eoin Colfer? He has several YA standalone books, plus his Artemis Fowl series, which I highly recommend and will be age appropriate but more challenging reading. Also, I find him very funny.

    3. I just finished The Girl Who Drank the Moon (a Newbery Medal award winner marketed to young readers). To be honest, I’m still not sure how I feel about it. However, while I was reading I couldn’t put it down – and there was nothing objectionable in terms of content. There’s also a strong magical element, so she may enjoy it after HP.

      1. I was just about to post on this one. I loved it to bits – loved the combination of humour and darkness, and the exquisite writing, and the fairytale feel of it.

    4. Has your DD read Tamora Pierce? Her fantasy books are full of strong female (and male) protagonists and animals and they’re good for advanced middle grade and YA readers. Also, adults like me.

      1. I second the Tamora Pierce recommendation! The Circle of Magic would be a good place to start.

      2. As long as it’s her earlier works. From the last book of Protector of the Small on, caution should be exercised, because Tamora Pierce doesn’t pull her punches anymore, and she gets into some intense stuff. I adore her books, and the further on she gets the better she writes, but there are some of her books I sob over every time I read them (bad stuff happens to small children) even while I love them. Before Lady Knight, the books should be fine for a 9 year old reader who loved all the Harry Potters. After that, read them yourself first to check.

        1. Get your hands on Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend. That was my favourite book of 2017, and I’m hanging out for the next book coming later this year. If your daughter loved Harry Potter, I suspect she will adore Morrigan Crow.

          1. I got Nevermoor from a friend at Christmas and finished it within a day. There are similarities with Harry Potter but it is it’s own fantastic story.

            I love the chandelier in the hotel transforming.

        2. Her stuff veers off into seriously YA territory fairly quickly, but gets classified in the juvenile section. My kid loves her, but I’m thinking she’s a little young for The Trickster and Bloodhound stuff. She seems to be ok with it, so I’m practicing letting go.

      1. Wait, my husband who has read it says that there are some graphic violence descriptions. “If you wouldn’t let your kid read Hinger Games, you definitely won’t let them read that book.”

        1. We have steps at the Library where I work. YA is almost on a level with adult fiction some times. Our tween heading is still fun to read ( diary of a wimpy kid, the secret garden, Rick Riordan, etc), but a little less likely to veer into darker waters. Also, if you look up a book on Amazon, there are usually a Booklist review that will give a fairly specific age range.

    6. I highly recommend the Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper. Over Sea, Under Stone is book 1a and The Dark is Rising is book 1b. They merge with the 2nd (or 3rd) book, Greenwitch. It may be a little dated. They did make a movie out of The Dark is Rising and contemporized it. It didn’t suck. Actually, it was pretty good for an adaptation.

      1. I reread The Dark is Rising series every few years and Greenwitch more often, but they are very much of their time. Could lead to good talks.

        1. Yes, I agree about them being very much of their time. Particularly the first one, Over Sea, Under Stone. I tried to reread it recently and struggled with it. The Dark is Rising (book, not series) is the one that stands up best, imo.

      2. I loved those books until the final one. The ending makes me so mad I could spit, mostly because I really liked the series so much and then it was wrecked for me. Sigh.

    7. Has she read Tamora Pierce? She might like the ALana series. Or he Mage series which follows it. I love her work. Or E Nesbit The Five Children and It. I preferNesbit’s magic books to The Railway Children.

    8. When I was a kid (long time ago now), I loved Edgar Eager’s Half Magic series. My daughters loved them too, we read them together and they re-read them many times. Oldies but goodies! My girls also loved The Series of Unfortunate Event books by Lemony Snicket. I second the Artemis Fowl books. Eva Ibbotson wrote enchanting books! One of my daughters loved the Hermux Tantamoq books by Michael Hoeye. Another oldie but goodie is the Anne of Green Gables series. I also absolutely adore The Witch of Blackbird Pond! Oh, there are so many good books out there for this age!

    9. Since everyone has already said Tamora Pierce.

      I liked Patricia Wrede, specifically the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, loved those books giving fairy tales a different spin.

      Robin Stevens has brought out a schoolgirl detective boarding school murder mystery series

    10. I always turn to our excellent children’s and, if you’re lucky enough to have them, young adult librarians in these situations. Bookstores with professional children’s lit buyers are helpful, too. They are also enormously helpful when you need to find the right gift books.

      There are so many extraordinary books in print today!

  14. Dear God, that’s! Sean Penn’s book! Wow!
    I thought it would be different. I was not expecting pretentious pap, because the title was so ungrammatical. The sentence is written by either a teenager who needs to show off their vocabulary or someone trying to plagiarize by replacing most of the key words with synonyms.

    I’m slowly reading several books. I bought A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole and the new Aisha Rai book in Forbidden Hearts series. I loved Hate to Want You, need to read Wrong to Need You and am tempted to skip to Hurts to Love You.

    1. Penn did an interview in the Philadelphia Inquirer last week. If you think his writing is pretentious, you should hear him speak about it. Indecipherable twaddle.

          1. Pretty sure he confused novel with spoken word poetry and hasn’t realized he can’t do either.

  15. I followed somebody’s suggestion here and read Jenny Colgan’s “The Little Shop of Happy Ever After” – very nice! Thanks to whoever mentioned it.

    Since I’m contemplating writing a historical – which I always said I’d never do – I downloaded Georgette Heyer’s “Faro’s Daughter”. I’m about 40% in and I wonder … I used to love Heyer’s Regency novels, but this one is really hard to swallow. Did I pick the wrong one?

    1. I’ve been doing a massive Heyer re-read and as much as I love her, she’s hit and miss for me.
      My top four: The Grand Sophy, The Talisman Ring, Cotillion, and False Colours.

    2. ‘Faro’s Daughter’ is quite an early one, I think. I too love ‘The Grand Sophy’; other favourites are ‘The Nonesuch’, ‘Frederica’, ‘The Unknown Ajax’.

    3. I didn’t love Faro’s Daughter either. I think my favorites of her historicals are The Devil’s Cub/These Old Shades. But then I love a dastardly villain turned hero.

    5. Frederica and The Talisman Ring are both great. I remember finding parts of Faro’s Daughter really funny; there’s a scene where the hero is tied up in the basement that was pretty enjoyable. Other than that, I don’t really remember it that well.

    7. Yup. I’m re-reading Regency Buck at the moment. That is much better. Faro’s Daughteris not a favorite for me.
      I took it with me to read on the the road because I’m working on a historical. I just finished up on a film in Rochester. My paperback is from1971 and it’s desintegrating as I read it. The front cover broke into three pieces. The back cover broke off.
      It’s too bad about who Sean Penn has become. I was in one of his first films in the 1980’s. It starred Hal Holbrook and Dixie Carter. I can’t remember the name of the film cause they changed it several times. I do remember my wasband, Barry Corbin, coming home and telling me he’d just done a scene with a kid who was going to be really big. Sorry for the long comment. I’m waiting in the airport. Airports make me garrulous.

  16. Not A Woman Left Behind by Linda Howard. Spoilery rant to follow…

    I am going to push through it I think, but it seriously irritates me that the heroine doesn’t understand why she doesn’t quit and find another job. It’s written in there. She doesn’t know why she is going through with massive amounts of physical training for a dangerous job she doesn’t really want. Sorry, but her “I don’t give up” just isn’t strong enough. Sticking with a goal is admirable, but she doesn’t have one. Bleh.

    Also, her team leader tells her that they don’t want her and that if there is trouble he will choose his team over her. Then he is upset because she doesn’t trust them to take care of her or ask for things she needs. Duh. Grrrr.

    I am enjoying Burn Bright quite a lot. But it is the fifth book in the series, so not something one would pick up on a whim.

  17. I have some Black Panther comics, that I am saving as a reward. They come highly recommended by others.

  18. This week I read Scarlet Pimpernel # 3 (“I Will Repay”) and it was eh, okay, but I think three is my limit for those.

    Currently on a K.J. Charles which is just better in every way.

    1. K.J. Charles is fun! Have you tried K.C. Burn? A fun series of M/M space operas, aliens and other worldly things, but mostly centered around the romance

  20. I recently Did Not Finish “The Devil’s Triangle” by Catherine Coulter due to the excessive eye-rolling it caused in me (the nook book was on sale for $2.99). I can swallow terribly unrealistic fantasies about how government agencies work. I guess. But I made it about a third of the way in and the evil grandfather – who had just murdered a few billion people in China – was clutching his pearls over the death of a coed. Sure, right.

    I am kind of excited about “The President is Missing,” by James Patterson and Bill Clinton. I pre-ordered it, because… you know. A thriller about a president, written by James Patterson and a president… fun!

  21. I’m re-reading Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax series. A little dated (she started the series in the 1960’s), but Mrs. Pollifax is so charming and warm and resourceful that I don’t care. She’s a sixty year old widowed housewife who starts a career as a spy. One of my favorite comfort reads.

    3. My husband and I listened to “A Nun in the Closet” by Dorothy Gilman over the weekend. It was published in 1975. It was cute. Two nuns go to visit an estate that was bequeathed to the nunnery. Once there, they found a man who had been shot, money stashed in the well, and 50 pounds of ‘sugar’, plus hippies.

    4. I like Gilman’s The Clairvoyant Countess back in the day. I read it and reread it for years. And I’ve always wanted to grow up to be Emily Pollifax. She has such lovely adventures!

  22. I recently read Ivana Trump’s RAISING TRUMP (without knowing why), and now I’m reading (also without knowing why) Ivanka Trump’s WOMEN WHO WORK.

    I sense that you are now thinking I need an intervention.

    RAISING TRUMP is well-written, and a few segments of it are mildly interesting (Ivana’s youth behind the Iron Curtain, the strange way she and Donald got engaged (they hardly knew each other)), but the book is essentially just a very flattering PR vehicle for Ivana and her offspring, one which portrays them all as extraordinary people who bear very little resemblance to the personalities of-the-same-names who we see on TV and Twitter. The book also omits any mention of various paradoxes, controversies, and scandals about the family now or in the past.

    I’m about halfway through WOMEN WHO WORK, and it’s pretty dreadfully written. It’s a very repetitious stream of self-selling market-speak and vapid “be a winner!” exhortations. Ivanka (or her ghostwriter?) drones on and on and ON about her mission to inspire women to develop their personal brands, craft their mission statements, be their authentic selves, “architect” lives they’re passionate about living, create dynamic spaces, surround themselves with empowerment…. Do you need a bucket yet?

    Ivanka’s book received a lot of scathing reviews when it was published. Now that I’m reading it, I can confirm that the ridicule and contempt were deserved.

  23. I’m reading Wolf Hall for the first time, since I watched the miniseries twice. I like that it moves along despite the subject.

  24. Just finished a reread of Faro’s Daughter, and unlike with others of you it was more hit than miss for me. Certainly not her best in the series, but I spent an enjoyable evening. Also reread The Cinderella Deal and found it more involving than I have previously. Witty, of course, and more touching than I remembered. Must be I’m in a sentimental mood.

  25. Just finished Julie and Romeo Get Lucky, by Jeanne Ray. It is a follow-up to her book Julie and Romeo, and they are both fabulous. (Read the first one first, though.) Not only is it a book that defies categorization, the two protagonists are in their 60’s. I love it.

  26. Two more books than I finished since last Thursday are

    “Switch” by Chip and Dan Heath – it is a book that informs a person on how to create change.

    “Do You Want to Start a Scandal” by Tessa Dare – this book is a junction of two of her series, the spindle cove series and the castle series. It was delightful.

  28. I wonder if it was a dig at Charleze? I could never figger out what Robin ever saw in him. He was so mean.

    1. As I recall, he tied Madonna to a chair to keep her from leaving the house and then himself went out for the evening.

      And as for those very large words? My feeling is he uses them because he knows most everyone in contact with him (I know a few) thinks he’s board dumb.

  29. Good god, that’s enough to make my eyes cross right there. No thank you, you pretentious twit.

    Reread The Kraken King by Meljean Brooks. Love that world, wish she’d write some more.

  30. I just finished Tessa Dare’s The Duchess Deal. Normally I’m not a huge Tessa Dare person, but I loved this one so much I went to the library to give her stuff another try.

    It’s a beauty and the beast style story – Duke disfigured in burn, grumpy as fuck, hides from society + stubborn seamstress who has plans to live her best life while taking care of the people she cares about. Also she puts up with exactly none of his crap. They get married cause he needs an heir and after a previous experience, he assumes no one of his own rank will want him. Plus she’s beautiful and in his study and yelling at him, and how’s he supposed to resist that? She marries him because she would like to not die in poverty, and because she’s attracted to his fascinating surly sexy self. Meanwhile the servants seriously ship them, and are doing everything they can to turn it into a love match, purely because they think it would make the Duke less of a pain in the ass to work for. They are only partly right.

    It’s one of those regencies that really isn’t doing anything new, but it’s doing what it does so. damn. well. And it just swept me off my feet into good book land.

  31. Thanks to those of you who recommended the Junior Bender books! I gave the first one to my husband, who is now ripping through the second. Last night I heard him telling our daughter that she needs to start reading them. I’m so happy to have found a new series to read just before the Easter break, and it’s accompanying bad weather, provides lots of time to curl up with a good book.

  32. Regarding Sean Penn, I loved this sentence from the Guardian:

    And now there’s Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff, which contains the line, “While the privileged patronize this pickle as epithet to the epigenetic inequality of equals, Bob smells a cyber-assisted assault emboldened by right-brain Hollywood narcissists” – which just gave me an aneurism.

    By Stuart Heritage on the Film blog:

    https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2018/mar/29/sean-penn-novel-russell-crowe-jared-leto-jim-carrey-james-franco

  33. I think you knew before you started that Sean Penn wold be bad news…however if you haven’t yet tried them have a look at Genevieve Cogman’s Invisible Library series. Irene the action librarian might be just what you need right now.

  34. A while ago on Good Book Thursday people were raving about The Sherwood Ring so I got it and the only other book the author has written, The Perilous Gard, out of the library and realized that I knew and loved the Perilous Gard. Although it has one of the most awful “everyone loves her” little sisters I have ever read. I’m probably two chapters in to The Sherwood Ring and so far it hasn’t dragged me into it, but it may.

    I feel a Diana Wynn Jones re-read coming on.

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