Monday, September 30, 2013

September Reading

September's reading was quite enjoyable even if not particularly difficult.  Lots of my favorite mystery writers had newish books that I discovered were out and that's what I mostly read.  Genre fiction?  Comfort fiction?  Commercial fiction?   Whatever.  Totally enjoyable. 

  1.  A Question of Honor by Charles Todd.   The mother/son writing duo called Charles Todd has two series that occupy the same universe.  I prefer the series about Inspector Rutledge over the series about Bess Crawford.  This is a Bess Crawford novel and so far I think it's the best in that series.  I'm not sure exactly why I liked it better, but maybe because it seemed clear that Todd is moving WWI toward its conclusion as soon as possible, possibly since it is difficult to have his main character investigate mysteries amidst her duties as a battlefield nurse. 
  2.  How the Light Gets In  by Louise Penny.  Another book in her Inspector Gamache series, we return to the little village of Three Pines, south of Montreal.  Gamache is asked to investigate why a friend of one of the residents did not turn up as expected.  Penny has moved away from simple mysteries into the psychology of her characters which makes it much more interesting. 
  3. The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde.   This is the second in Fforde's YA series featuring orphan Jennifer Strange.   Not quite as good as the first novel but still fun. 
  4. Island of Bones and Circle of Shadows by Imogen Robertson.   I realized that not only was there a newish Crowther and Westerman novel but I had missed the last one.   This series is set in the years during and after the American War for Independence.   I really like the relationship between Mrs. Westerman and Mr. Crowther and am glad that so far it has remained a working partnership and not a romance.  Highly recommended
  5. Shadow of the Crown by Patricia Bracewell.  I was interested in reading about Emma of Normandy.  She featured as a major, but offstage, character in Dorothy Dunnet's King Hereafter.   I was slightly disappointed to find that this novel tended toward the historical romance than historical fiction.  I haven't read historical romance in quite a while and this was a good one - I just am not that interested in forcing historical facts to fit the romance genre.  But I enjoyed it despite that disappointment.  Recommended with some reservations. 
  6. The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to his White Mother by James McBride.  An unusual memoir by a man about his mother.  Recommended. 
In October I plan on starting my "50th anniversary of World War I" reading.   A number of historians are beginning to release books, beginning with Catastrophe: 1914 by Max Hastings.  And I'm looking forward to the end of the month, when Margaret MacMillan's new book will be released in the USA. 

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

August Reading

August was a great month for reading.  At the beginning of the month I was on vacation and had lots of time to read.  Then through the rest of the month I had a pile of good books that I wanted to get through - and there wasn't much on TV to distract me.   I probably should have blogged separately about some of the books but ... I didn't.  Here is the list:

  1. The Dinner by Herman Koch.  Two (Dutch) brothers and their wives have dinner together in a restaurant and talk about what to do about their sons, who have committed a terrible act.    This reminded me of a cross between Louis Malle's film My Dinner with Andre and Yasmina Reza's play God of Carnage.  I truly enjoyed this novel and the way that Koch played with my perceptions of the characters.  Highly Recommended.
  2. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan.   I am a huge Ian McEwan fan, although I know that others aren't.  It can't possibly be a spoiler to say that he, as usual, has a twist at the ending of this novel that is fairly meta and many people may not like it.  I did.  Prior to reading this novel I had taken to saying that I miss the Cold War.  It's an odd  thing to say, I know.  But I was born in 1960 and by the time I was in school the Cuban Missile Crisis was over and the world pretty much knew that if we blew ourselves up it would be by accident.  We had no "duck and cover" drills.  But we did have lots of government funding for literature and dance and art and "the arts" so that we could show those Damn Commies that capitalistic societies could have high culture too.  Some of that funding was up font and some of it was under behind the scenes through the CIA budget.  Now that we've won, no one wants to fund anything.  In this novel, at the end of the Cold War, British intelligence is funding writers.  Sigh.  Recommended.
  3. Solar by Ian McEwan.   A global warming themed novel where the "work for hire" doctrine of intellectual property ends up being a plot point (ok, my non-lawyer readers won't appreciate that, but I did).  Parts of it were very funny, in part because the main character is somewhat atrocious.  Not as good as Sweet Tooth.  Recommended
  4. The Mourning Hours by Paula Treick DeBoard.  A woman returns to Wisconsin for her father's funeral many years after her brother was accused of killing his girl friend.  Lots of flashbacks.  Somewhat predictable.   I can totally see this being made into a movie.  There isn't a lot of "there" there, but it kept me reading.  Good Beach Reading.
  5. The Bell Jar by Silvia Plath.   I'm not sure how I made it this far in life without ever reading this novel.  I'm glad I read it.  Her portrayal of a young woman's descent into deep depression is searing while at the same time having many humorous moments - life is ludicrous sometimes.  Recommended.
  6. The Flame Throwers by Rachel Kushner.   A young woman artist who also rides motorcycles is involved with an older Italian artist from a wealthy family.  I thought this was a powerful novel and I was particularly intrigued by how the main character was an independent interesting thinker who seldom said anything interesting out loud.  I think this is often true of young women, and the question is whether they ever reach a point where they become comfortable enough in their own skin that they can truly be themselves.   I like how Kushner captured the 1970's.  The world changed for women in the 1960's but it didn't change for every woman overnight.  Between this novel and Meg Wollitzer's The Interestings, this has been a summer of remembering the 1970's for me.  Highly Recommended.
  7. Murder Below Mount Parnasse by Cara Black.   There was a new Amy LeDuc novel this year and no one told me?  Amy's adventures continue as she gets involved in trying to recover a stolen painting.  I really like this series.   As usual, mysteries are the genre writing that I escape to when I can't read anything else.  I recommend this one but you should really start with the first in the series. 
  8. Blood and Beauty by Sarah Dunant.   Last month I read Malice of Fortune, a mystery that featured Niccolo Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci.  But the other main characters were Rodrigo Borgia and his son Cesar.  I wasn't sure I wanted to read another Borgia book so soon, but I generally enjoy Sarah Dunant and, hey, I was on a reading roll.  She didn't disappoint.  Her Borgias are much better fleshed out.  I always like how Dunant makes me feel that I'm really in whatever time period she is describing.  My only complaint (which seems to happen with every Dunant novel for me) is that she spends a little too much time "telling" me things about the characters and plot rather than showing me.  But Recommended.  And there will be a sequel.
  9. The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman.  I had a somewhat contentious relationship with this novel.  On the one hand, I spent most of the novel thinking "YES!  That's exactly how a large number of men think about women!"  On the other hand, I kept thinking "Is this REALLY how men  think about women, or if this is just how intelligent women like me and Waldman think men think about women?"  I'd like to hear a group of men discuss this novel.  If you are a single woman thinking about dating, be warned that this may make you give up.  Highly Recommended.
  10. Crocodile on the Sand Bank by Elizabeth Peters. When Barbara Mertz, who wrote some of her novels under the name Elizabeth Peters, died recently, I realized that I had never read any of her mysteries.  I decided to start with the first in the Amelia Peabody series.  I've always loved ancient Egypt and, when I was younger, wanted to be an archaelogist.   I was somewhat disappointed, I found the novel rough going.  Too little archaeology in this first one - which was a shame because they were at Amarna!  I'm reading the second one in the hope that now that the characters are established, things will move a little faster.   Meh
That's it for August.  I've made a big dent in my "to be read" pile.  And I'm back to having less time to read than I would like.  

Monday, August 5, 2013

Summer Reading - June and July

I know that I seem to have dropped off the face of the earth. The bad news is that I haven't found time to blog but the good news is that I have found time to read this summer. I didn't blog about my June reading so I'm going to combine June and July. A number of books I read I thought were somewhat mediocre so I'm not going to say much about them.

1.  Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. I had this novel for a while but couldn't bring myself to read it because it was about a guy who had been in Iraq. I just wasn't in the mood for war But I ended up loving this. Billy Lynn is one of a group of soldiers caught in a firefight in Iraq that ends up being caught on video and making "heroes' of them. They are brought home for a quick "hero" tour and that includes attending and being part of the half-time show on the Thanksgiving Day Dallas Cowboys football game. Billy tries to make sense of why everyone wants a piece of him during this long day. Fountain captures just the right tone for this novel. Highly Recommended.

2.  Three mysteries by Eliot Pattinson:  Bone Rattler, Eye of the Raven and Original Death  I was attracted to this series because it is set in upstate New York during the French and Indian War.  Not many books (much less mysteries) are set during that time period.  In general I liked these books and I will read the next one when it comes out.  But I was sometimes irritated by how the Iroquois were always noble in these stories.  I also found the plot of the third book ludicrous - I realize that Brits in the 1700's were tremendously anti-Catholic and so a character expounding about a plot by the Jesuits in the Vatican to defeat the British wasn't completely outside the bounds of possibility.  But [spoiler] - it is ludicrous that the author decided to make it the real plot and not just the delusion of a character.  Recommended with reservations.

3.  A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin.    All I can say is that Martin needs an editor who will stand up to him.  This is one of those series where I am enjoying the TV show more than the books.   Meh

4.  The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde.  This is the first book in a young adult series by Fforde.  I decided to read it while I waited for the sequel to Shades of Grey to (finally) come out (will it EVER come out)?   I have actually gotten tired of Fforde's Thursday Next series so it was nice to read one of his books and really enjoy it.  I will read more.  Recommended.

5.  Murphy's Law by Rhys Bowen.  This is the first in a series of mysteries set in early 20th century New York.  The main character is an Irish immigrant and this book spends some time in Ireland, England and on shipboard as she makes her way to America.  Once here she encounters Tammany Hall and many of the immigrants that populated New York at the time.  I feel like this has some possibilities as a mystery series even though I wasn't particularly interested in the plot of this particular book.  Rhys Bowen does a pretty good job of creating the historical world in which the story is set and that makes up for the weak plot.  Somewhat recommended.

6.  Bride of New France by Suzanne DesRochers.   This author turned an academic paper into a novel.  It would have been more interesting as an academic paper.  Meh.

7.  Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.   This is the first novel I've read by Neil Gaiman and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was funny.  I'm not sure why I didn't expect that, but I didn't.  Recommended

8.  Malice of Fortune by Michael Ennis.  Machiavelli as detective and Leonardo da Vinci as the forensic expert - sounded great in theory.  In practice it was booooring.  Meh

9.  The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rasmussan.   I nice little book where old ladies remember when they were young and how they ended up how they ended up.  I can't really recommend it but there was nothing particularly wrong with it.  Meh.

That's it so far for the summer, but my August reading stack of books is looking pretty good.  I've finished a couple so far but I'll blog about them at the end of the month.


September Reading

 I've been involved in a BlueSky reading group of a novel that has taken up a lot of time this month (and is not yet finished).  I haven...