"A Fire of Driftwood", D.K. Broster

Finally getting round to reviewing this one, which has been sitting on my bedside table waiting to be reviewed 'properly' since I finished it in June last year! I have to say I'm not sure what the significance of the title "A Fire of Driftwood" is, since it doesn't appear to refer to any of the stories in the collection -- presumably it is intended to evoke the idea of random items gathered together under the same cover?


I read this book shortly after Georgette Heyer's "Pistols for Two" and couldn't help comparing the two, in terms of both being books of short stories by authors much better known for their best-selling full-length novels. I feel that Broster definitely wins out in terms of this comparison; possibly it helps that most of the stories in this volume are not in the same genre as her better-known work, but even those which share the same themes and settings as the novels are much more successful as miniatures in their own right than I found Heyer's short stories to be. ( Read more... )

The Musketeers' Song (Soviet Songs in English)

I was amused (and full of admiration) to find this; a fully-rhymed -- and apparently sung by the translator in person -- English translation of the 'Soviet Musketeers theme song'.

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( French version )

( A Russian folk-rock ballad )