Annie Kapur
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I am:
🙋🏽♀️ Annie
📚 Avid Reader
📝 Reviewer and Commentator
🎓 Post-Grad Millennial (M.A)
***
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📖 300K+ reads on Vocal
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🦋/X @AnnieWithBooks
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🏡 UK
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Book Review: "Parade's End" by Ford Madox Ford (Pt. 1)
Rating: 5/5 - A depressed masterpiece of love, loss and wartime terror... *** This is how it happened: Tweet by Me This was exactly how it happened. For my Why It's a Masterpiece series I took a quick reread of my copy of The Good Soldier, which is great because it's short and easy to read. (It's also incredibly depressing but you've read the article on it, you should know). I then thought to myself 'this can't be right...I never got around to reading Parade's End which is considered to be Ford's best work...' and quickly ordered it (it was only a couple of £ and so, nice and cheap). I didn't bother to look it up in any way, shape or form but seemed to assume it would be of similar length to The Good Soldier which can't be more than 150 pages.
By Annie Kapurabout 10 hours ago in Geeks
Book Review: "American Poetry: A Very Short Introduction" by David Caplan
Help me, I'm stuck in the Very Short Introduction series and I can't get out! No really, this is becoming the same problem I had a few years ago when I got my limbs caught in the British Library Crime Classics series and ended up reading almost 100 of those books in perhaps a few months. Now, I've managed to find one on American Poetry, I have to say it is probably one of my favourites so far. I mean The Beats is good, but American Poetry has Phillis Wheatley and Emily Dickinson so it is, by default, better. The writer doesn't only display his knowledge of American Poetic History, he also provides some historical accounts of the people who wrote them, commenting on where they fit into the greater American landscape.
By Annie Kapura day ago in Geeks
Rereading Review: "Martin Chuzzlewit" by Charles Dickens
Martin Chuzzlewit is one of Dickens' lesser known novels and I'm not going to lie to you but I originally wrote thousands of words for this review before cutting it down. I first read this book (and disliked it) when I was about 20 years' old and I thought that perhaps coming back to it older would make me appreciate the humour more. Spoiler alert: it didn't. I don't like the snide humour of this book, or the attempts at slapstick comedy in atmospheric writing. But I will say that it is satirical and fun and has some of the best examples of writing that the young Dickens had to offer at the time. It may not be in my top five Dickens novels but that's besides the point. Let's take a look at some of my favourite scenes and characters...
By Annie Kapur2 days ago in Geeks
Apple and Almond Tart
So I spent the first half of Sunday making pancakes (of course, for my mother) and then I baked an apple and almond tart. Did I have to use a recipe from someone else? Nope. This is something quick and simple that you can do with a little bit of patience and a lot of ease. If you're looking for a quick dessert that's filling and tasty then I'd go with this, serving suggestions include:
By Annie Kapur3 days ago in Feast
Book Review: "Consuming Passions" by Philippa Pullar
I don't know why I picked this book up, perhaps because it was cheap. But I can honestly say that between this and the book The Feast in which there are multiple poems and writings on food, I have learnt more about food culture from two books than I have learnt at any other time in my life. I was first thinking about splitting this review into 'parts' because the book itself has a lot of information in it. But I don't want to spoil it for you and I think you're all sick of me doing that for now. Fun fact: I'm not going to stop. Consuming Passions starts with the Roman appetite and has some of the best writing about food and eating I have ever read. Some of it is rather beautiful.
By Annie Kapur3 days ago in Geeks
Surprise! "Filled Up" Lemon Cupcakes
There are a few parts to this recipe so make sure you give yourself a bit of time and, make sure you have some baking beads available - they're usually used to blind bake a pie crust but you're going to need them for the cake here. You're also going to need some mini cupcake cases or extra greaseproof paper - this is about to get weird.
By Annie Kapur4 days ago in Feast
The Island of Dr Moreau by HG Wells
Background and Context: You guys probably already know that 'The Island of Dr Moreau' is my favourite HG Wells novel and it has one of the most twisted storylines in Victorian Fiction. It takes the 'mad scientist' trope and turns it into something that blends it with a classic villain from the movies with a cult leader, drunk off his own sense of power. It's a really short book and really easy to read so please, if you haven't read it yet I would recommend getting stuck into it when you have some time. You definitely will not regret it. I've written multiple things about this book in my previous articles, praising it for its incredible themes and its fantastic blend of Sci-Fi and horror. Something that really characterises the era it was written in.
By Annie Kapur4 days ago in Geeks
Book Review: "The Palace"by Gareth Russell (Pt. 5)
This review covers chapter 18 to the end of the book *** Chapter 18 covers the reign of Queen Anne, the final queen of the Stuart household and mostly seems to look at the idea that she could barely marry, she had lots of miscarriages and in the end the only child she had lived to eleven years' old and so, she had no heir. There were many questions of Queen Anne's marriage, from her husband participating in homosexual affairs to the ideas put forward in the film The Favourite in which it is Queen Anne who is homosexual and promiscuous. Whatever it was, I definitely feel sorry for Queen Anne - everything must have hurt by the end of her reign, too many pregnancies and miscarriages meant her health was declining quickly towards the end. It's quite sad.
By Annie Kapur4 days ago in Geeks
Book Review: "The Palace"by Gareth Russell (Pt. 4)
This review covers chapter 13 to chapter 17 *** Chapter 13 is the Queen's Bedchamber and covers the sicknesses of King James' wife - Anne. She is consumed by something after the birth of her last child, bleeding and pain is everywhere. But the doctor's don't actually know what it is: is it gout? is it malnutrition? is it something to do with her female reproductive organs? Who knows. Some diagnosed it as dropsy. But it is said that she still came about in public until she could no longer do so - still doing her public duty through intense amounts of pain and fever. Still decked out in jewels more expensive than entire cities in her country.
By Annie Kapur5 days ago in Geeks
Book Review: "The Palace"by Gareth Russell (Pt. 3)
This review covers chapter 7 to chapter 12 *** We're carrying on with our review of The Palace by Gareth Russell and I cannot lie, I am devouring this book so thoroughly I might just go back and read the whole thing again. Chapters are named after rooms, whispers are carrying gossip from chamber to chamber, ladies in waiting are also ladies of intrigue, there's so much to digest. I love Gareth Russell's writing as well, it makes for such interesting reading as I feel like I could shut my eyes and watch Edward VI participating in jousts and games in a place like Hampton Court, made for entertainment.
By Annie Kapur6 days ago in Geeks
The 'Zero Tolerance' World
It has occurred to me recently that the amount of 'zero tolerance' posters in shops, restaurants and cafes has increased. So what is a 'zero tolerance' poster? It is a poster that states that there is zero tolerance in said establishment of abuse towards members of staff. That the abuse will be treated with police intervention and that there may also be criminal prosecution where necessary. I may not go out and about often but I have noticed a massive increase in these signs basically stating 'please don't beat up our staff' as if someone is going to go in to punch in the head of the Starbucks barista, sees the sign and rethinks his/her stance. I think body cams might be a better deterrent or even allowing the member of staff to retaliate in an appropriate manner. People are less likely to smack the Starbucks barista if they find out that the woman making their coffee has a black belt in some ancient martial arts and is allowed to put their knowledge to good use.
By Annie Kapur7 days ago in Psyche
Alopecia Isn't Just Hair Loss...
I don't know whether I've said this in passing comment before on my reviews, but I'm pretty sure it's somewhere: for the past few years I've suffered with alopecia and it has increased in its charge against the system in the last 18 months for reasons I'm not willing to discuss right now. But in the last 18 months alone I have had seven blood tests, two dermatological scans and most recently, you guessed it, another blood test. So, we all know that alopecia is all about hair loss and as you can imagine, I have lost an awful lot of hair. In my first struggle with alopecia it was clumps of my hair that came out, but more recently it was a more 'drop everything' approach where I would more than often wake up with less and less hair every day until finally - yes, I have no hair. It's all wigs.
By Annie Kapur7 days ago in Journal
