Time for my book report. Read two books last week. One I consider something of a discovery. The other, while it was fun, ended up being too much of a tease.
The first book, A Nameless Witch by A. Lee Martinez, is notable for many things. To start with, the 5th sentence on page 56 is "The troll walked away." I know this because my sister's Facebook profile said it was National Book Week and that we should all post the 5th sentence on page 56 of whatever book was nearest to us. (In case you're confused, my sister lives in Australia. National book week in the US isn't till April.) Anyway, it's just a great sentence. It's a short story in and of itself. The whole book is filled with moments like that. It's warm and lighthearted and doesn't take itself too seriously.
It's also pretty romantic, without being sweet about it. I had to wonder whether A. Lee is a man or a woman. The book jacket refers to "him" and "he", but the touch is female. I had a similar feeling reading the first Cal & Niko book, Nightlife by Rob Thurman. I assumed "Rob" was male, but as I read the book I thought that, for a guy, he had a pretty feminine approach to relationships. Then I checked out Rob's blog and learned she picked a masculine-sounding pen name because her books are so dark and she didn't think she'd be taken seriously if she used her own name. I don't mean to be gender-centric; clearly men can write romance and women can be dark. The feel of Nameless Witch just made me wonder what the author's gender really was. I went to A. Lee's blog, but other than the fact that it had so much going on it overwhelmed the capabilities of the computer system at the University of Washington Medical Center (in the middle of the night when very few other people were on it) I didn't learn much. He blogs a lot. Some day I'll try again from a different computer.
I have a second book by A. Lee, Monster, and can't wait to read it. He reminds me a little of Neil Gaimon, who I'm still in love with. Or at least I'm in love with his language. Will probably post on Monster when I get it read.
The second book I read was India Black: A Madam of Espionage Mystery by Carol K. Carr. The basic premise of this book is that India is a Madame, running a whorehouse in late 19th century London. A client dies during a assignation, and India gets pulled into this spy vs spy game between England and Russia. I thought the mystery itself was clever, though it felt like it ended, then ended again, then dragged on a bit and ended again. The thing that bugged me about this book was that, while they talk a lot about whores and bints and the men who love them, there is virtually NO sex in this book. It made me think of the girl in highschool who told me, "Those who talk about it don't do it."
It also bothered me that, since the book is written from the perspective of the madame, she spends a lot of time complaining about the girls she has working for her. They eat too much and don't charge their favorites enough, they steal from the johns and they disappear without warning. The author creates a realistic view of the underclass, but doesn't treat the girls in India's house the same way. They come off as kind of an underdressed sorority, similar to the Bunny Ranch on the HBO series. In both cases the girls are just happy happy happy to be there spreading their legs for whoever will pay them. Both cases feel exploitive. I've never been a prostitute, but I'm guessing that the process of becoming one is fairly complex. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing one does on a lark. I see the truth in the way the character India treated the girls who worked for her, but I guess I'm enough a child of the '70's women's movement to be bothered by the exploitation of characters who were created just to tease.
This book is clearly set up to be the start of a series. India's romantic interest warmed up all the way from frozen turd to barely-scoopable icecream, which suggests that it's going to take at least three more books to get past the teasing stage. If they fall into my lap I might read them, but it's unlikely I'll go out looking for them.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
What Alice Knew
I didn't get much reading done last week. There's quite a TBR stack by my bed, but life got in the way. I borrowed a copy of "Bullet", an Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novel by Laurel K. Hamilton, from the SPL. It's the 19th book in the series and I've read them all. The language is awkward at times (did you really want to use the word "mostly" three times in that paragraph?) but after 19 books, I'm pretty invested in the ongoing adventures of Anita and her harem (man-harem? marem?). There was LKHs usual mix of porn and gore, although this book had a better balance than some, and I liked the fact that Asher, Damien, Truth and Wicked all got some screen time, and that Richard seemed to have found a clue. Not everyone has enough time in their lives to waste on these books, but if you've read enough of them that the names I mentioned sound familiar, this is one of the better in the series. Don't start with it, though.
On Thursdays the kids have choir practice at St James Cathedral. I pick Ruby up from school at 3pm and we drive up to Capital Hill to pick Matti up at 3:30. There's an hour before choir, and the last few weeks we've been spending the time at the Elliot Bay Bookstore on 10th and Pine St. We hit the cafe have 20 minutes or so to cruise the shelves before it's time to head over to the cathedral. Two weeks ago, I saw a book that looked interesting. I put a hold request in at the SPL and they were kind enough to get me a copy.
The book was "What Alice Knew" by Paula Marantz Cohen. The subtitle is "A Most Curious Tale of Henry James & Jack the Ripper". A murder mystery, it's main conceit is that the writer Henry James and his siblings Alice and William are in London at the time of the Ripper murders, and get involved in trying solve the case. William is a professor at Harvard and an expert in the new field of psychology who is asked by Scotland Yard to come to London to look into the murders. Alice is a "professional invalid", which was the way this very intelligent and well-off woman avoided the whole marriage and family drudgery. William has access to the police evidence, and Henry has access to the broader London social scene. Alice stays in bed reviewing what they find and coming up with theories.
This is one of those books where the exploration of ideas trumps almost everything else. The narrative comments on the importance of art, the way the English class system compared with American democracy, the growing understanding of the working of the human mind and the appropriate way to treat mental illness, and the place of women in society, even as it tells the story of the James's investigations. That said, the plot is well-constructed and logical. It wasn't a brain-burning page-turner, but it got the job done. The real interest for me was in being taken to such a different place and time. The book read like a 19th century novel, seamlessly integrating consistently elegant language and ideas to create a completely self-contained world.
The author is a professor of English in Philadelphia, which set up an interesting compare-and-contrast with the last big book I read, "A Discovery of Witches" because the author of that book is a professor of history. "What Alice Knew" was very different in tone and subject matter, but was similarly impressive in the scope of knowledge its author possesses. While it didn't make me as passionately excited as Witches did, it's still a very good book.
On Thursdays the kids have choir practice at St James Cathedral. I pick Ruby up from school at 3pm and we drive up to Capital Hill to pick Matti up at 3:30. There's an hour before choir, and the last few weeks we've been spending the time at the Elliot Bay Bookstore on 10th and Pine St. We hit the cafe have 20 minutes or so to cruise the shelves before it's time to head over to the cathedral. Two weeks ago, I saw a book that looked interesting. I put a hold request in at the SPL and they were kind enough to get me a copy.
The book was "What Alice Knew" by Paula Marantz Cohen. The subtitle is "A Most Curious Tale of Henry James & Jack the Ripper". A murder mystery, it's main conceit is that the writer Henry James and his siblings Alice and William are in London at the time of the Ripper murders, and get involved in trying solve the case. William is a professor at Harvard and an expert in the new field of psychology who is asked by Scotland Yard to come to London to look into the murders. Alice is a "professional invalid", which was the way this very intelligent and well-off woman avoided the whole marriage and family drudgery. William has access to the police evidence, and Henry has access to the broader London social scene. Alice stays in bed reviewing what they find and coming up with theories.
This is one of those books where the exploration of ideas trumps almost everything else. The narrative comments on the importance of art, the way the English class system compared with American democracy, the growing understanding of the working of the human mind and the appropriate way to treat mental illness, and the place of women in society, even as it tells the story of the James's investigations. That said, the plot is well-constructed and logical. It wasn't a brain-burning page-turner, but it got the job done. The real interest for me was in being taken to such a different place and time. The book read like a 19th century novel, seamlessly integrating consistently elegant language and ideas to create a completely self-contained world.
The author is a professor of English in Philadelphia, which set up an interesting compare-and-contrast with the last big book I read, "A Discovery of Witches" because the author of that book is a professor of history. "What Alice Knew" was very different in tone and subject matter, but was similarly impressive in the scope of knowledge its author possesses. While it didn't make me as passionately excited as Witches did, it's still a very good book.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
A Discovery of Witches
I read a lot. My good friends know that they can ask me for a recommendation any time, and I'll always have a couple of suggestions for books I've read that I think they'll like. It's hard for me to commit to anything as structured as a book club (see "about me" on the sidebar to the right) , so I thought I'd try a blog format. I will post semi-regular book reviews that I hope will inspire you to read, to make comments on my reviews, and also to make suggestions for other books I might like. Cheers!
Amy
Last week was a big week in the world of Amy's Books. I read a little vampire romance, "Zen and the Art of Vampires" by Katie MacAlister and it's sequel, "Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang". They were both a lot of fun, though more like one book in two covers than two separate books. I would totally recommend them if you need something light but well-written and entertaining.
I also started the book "C" by Tom McCarthy. It's going to take me a while to read this, because at times I feel like I'm drowning in words and have to stop. I'm about 1/3 of the way through and just renewed it from the library so I can give it some space. Then over the weekend I read "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaimon. I love his prose, his use of language. I want to have sex with it and have its babies. But that's another story. If you haven't read any of his work, I would strongly recommend this one or "Neverwhere" (aimed at young readers), or, for grown-ups, "American Gods".
The big event of the week was reading "A Discovery of Witches" by Deborah Harkness. I read a review of this book in Entertainment Magazine in February and really wanted to love it. Really. But did I end up loving it? I read all 579 pages in one day, so that tells you it's compelling. Ok, I also had a slow night at work which gave me more time to read that I might otherwise have had, but it was still a page-turner.
The first half was a fabulous mash-up of A.S. Byatt's "Possession" and "Twilight". (Say what you want about the "Twilight" series, you can't deny that those books addictive reads.) It left me in awe of the author's knowledge of history, poetry, literature, and, well, life. The two main characters, Diana Bishop, a witch, and Matthew Clairmont, a vampire, are crisp and contemporary and very well drawn. I loved Diana's intellectual discipline and physical strength, and thought the way the author developed Matthew's internal conflict over his growing attachment to Diana was well done. Every vampire has internal conflicts, but Ms. Harkness made Matthew feel fresh and interesting.
I hung in there through the middle section where Matthew takes Diana to his family home in France, but then things went sideways for the last 200 pages or so. Despite the use of a first-person narrator in Diana, I felt like the personality traits I liked so well got lost in the shuffle of new characters and plot twists. It felt like Diana spent a lot of the time injured and helpless, with Matthew operating at various levels of protection and rescue, which got annoying. More importantly (and this veers into spoiler territory so watch out) she gave Diana a magical power near the end of the book that ends up saving her, which felt a little convenient. I could see the logic of it, but I didn't like it. Also, NONE of the major conflicts were resolved by the end of the book. There MUST be a sequel, although there's no mention of it in the author's notes or on her blog. It's one thing to read a vampire romance in 2 hours and figure out you need to get the next one to really know the whole story, but a 600 page novel? That ends with a complete cliffhanger? Seriously?
That said, the characters were compelling, as were her descriptions of wine and food. She made a book that's a total sensory experience, and it's worth reading just for that. Ms Harkness is incredibly knowledgeable and it was a pleasure to read something that felt so contemporary even as it was solidly grounded in history. I look forward to reading the sequel that she's probably working on RIGHT NOW. Did I love it? Not as much as I wanted to, but it's still a very good read.
Amy
Last week was a big week in the world of Amy's Books. I read a little vampire romance, "Zen and the Art of Vampires" by Katie MacAlister and it's sequel, "Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang". They were both a lot of fun, though more like one book in two covers than two separate books. I would totally recommend them if you need something light but well-written and entertaining.
I also started the book "C" by Tom McCarthy. It's going to take me a while to read this, because at times I feel like I'm drowning in words and have to stop. I'm about 1/3 of the way through and just renewed it from the library so I can give it some space. Then over the weekend I read "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaimon. I love his prose, his use of language. I want to have sex with it and have its babies. But that's another story. If you haven't read any of his work, I would strongly recommend this one or "Neverwhere" (aimed at young readers), or, for grown-ups, "American Gods".
The big event of the week was reading "A Discovery of Witches" by Deborah Harkness. I read a review of this book in Entertainment Magazine in February and really wanted to love it. Really. But did I end up loving it? I read all 579 pages in one day, so that tells you it's compelling. Ok, I also had a slow night at work which gave me more time to read that I might otherwise have had, but it was still a page-turner.
The first half was a fabulous mash-up of A.S. Byatt's "Possession" and "Twilight". (Say what you want about the "Twilight" series, you can't deny that those books addictive reads.) It left me in awe of the author's knowledge of history, poetry, literature, and, well, life. The two main characters, Diana Bishop, a witch, and Matthew Clairmont, a vampire, are crisp and contemporary and very well drawn. I loved Diana's intellectual discipline and physical strength, and thought the way the author developed Matthew's internal conflict over his growing attachment to Diana was well done. Every vampire has internal conflicts, but Ms. Harkness made Matthew feel fresh and interesting.
I hung in there through the middle section where Matthew takes Diana to his family home in France, but then things went sideways for the last 200 pages or so. Despite the use of a first-person narrator in Diana, I felt like the personality traits I liked so well got lost in the shuffle of new characters and plot twists. It felt like Diana spent a lot of the time injured and helpless, with Matthew operating at various levels of protection and rescue, which got annoying. More importantly (and this veers into spoiler territory so watch out) she gave Diana a magical power near the end of the book that ends up saving her, which felt a little convenient. I could see the logic of it, but I didn't like it. Also, NONE of the major conflicts were resolved by the end of the book. There MUST be a sequel, although there's no mention of it in the author's notes or on her blog. It's one thing to read a vampire romance in 2 hours and figure out you need to get the next one to really know the whole story, but a 600 page novel? That ends with a complete cliffhanger? Seriously?
That said, the characters were compelling, as were her descriptions of wine and food. She made a book that's a total sensory experience, and it's worth reading just for that. Ms Harkness is incredibly knowledgeable and it was a pleasure to read something that felt so contemporary even as it was solidly grounded in history. I look forward to reading the sequel that she's probably working on RIGHT NOW. Did I love it? Not as much as I wanted to, but it's still a very good read.
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