Jane Austen!

Returned P.D. James' Death at Pemberly today. Blah. Shocker, I didn't find a James mystery imaginative or gripping, and while I love me some Austen re-visiting, even Lizzie and Darcy et al. were not enough to win this one for me...
But last night I started the lates "Jane and the..." mystery, so we'll see how that goes.

Catch-up: The Black Tower

The Black Tower
P.D. James

As always, I come away from P.D. James thinking "meh." I just don't know why she is so popular. I got this book last spring (or maybe even the spring before? Of 2010?) on the infamous day when I was super hung over and bought a whole bunch of books from the bargain trolleys outside Harvard Bookstore. I finally got around to reading it a while ago (last month? longer?) because I had nothing else to read and needed a paperback. Didn't really enjoy it, although I vaguely remember it improving (a little) as it went along, but I did apparently flag several pages, so I should go through them... Hmm, apparently all just words I wanted to look up.
New(-ish) words!
Accidie
Pudency
Rebarbative
Grumous
This last one I actually don't know at all, and context wasn't even that helpful; the rest I was familiar with, but didn't really "know."  

ANOTHER month's worth of books

D**m, I am getting bad with this blogging thing...before more time goes by, I should at least list the books I read, I suppose, even if I don't get around to discussing them. The order is going to be all messed up, because while I think the piles around the apartment are in (reverse) chronological order (most recently read on top, oldest on the bottom), I'm not sure about the order of the piles...
N.B. - I just discovered after writing everything else in this post that some of the books were mentioned in the November 9 post, but never discussed. Specifically, The Red Garden, The Sisters Brothers, and Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead. I must have held on to them to discuss them in greater detail, and then forgotten. So, basically, I have completely lost track of what I read, when. But at least I'm making a start now...and can bring a boatload of books back to the library this week!

The Magician's Book: A Sceptic's Adventures in Narnia, Laura Miller  -  interesting at points, but not as good as I was hoping it would be.

The Red Garden  Alice Hoffman  -  amusing enough, I guess, but there was some shady "history" at the outset that kind of turned me off, and it was hard to ever really get invested in the stories (weaving in and out of successive generations in the same town in Western Massachusetts) after that.

Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead  Sara Gran  -  NOT what I thought the book was going to be; I thought for some reason (it had been on the list a long time), that it was about a woman who returned to New Orleans where her deceased aunt (grandmother? something like that) had performed rituals to soothe the restless undead. Instead is was about a woman private investigator who returns to New Orleans (that part was right), where she had formerly had an older, female mentor (that part was kind of right), to solve a case involving a missing, possibly dead, man (which is...I guess a little like soothing the restless dead?) I don't know now if the book I was picturing actually IS a book, and I just got them confused, or if I totally imagined a different, and non-existent, book. In any case, this one was...fine? I actually think maybe I didn't like it that much, but I'm not sure if that's just because I was disappointed it wasn't what I thought it was...

The Sisters Brothers  Patrick DeWitt  -  fun. A "Western," I guess, but also well-written with an interesting main character.


The Vaults  Toby Ball  -  I really rather liked this one. Which was a very pleasant surprise because I had had it on the list for a while, and for some reason I thought it was some sort of trashy mystery-thriller thing, and then I got it and it was a mystery set in an alternate, sort of dystopian, U.S. past, very well conceived and written.

A Secret Alchemy  Emma Darwin  -  dumb. I wanted to like it, but dumb. I didn't even really remember what it was, I had checked it out from the library forever ago, and it had just been sitting on my bookcase, and finally one night I had nothing new to read, and the title sounded fairly light-weight, and I was tired and just wanted to read a bit in bed, so I started it. It's one of those stories where it switches back and forth between ye olde England and modern England and it was the stupid Woodvilles and the Yorks and all that bother. Novelists clearly love the whole drama, and I can see why, there's obviously a lot to play with, it's just never really captured my attention.

All About Lulu  Jonathan Evison  -  great, great, great.

The Black Tower  P.D. James  -  this is one of the books I got off the bargain carts outside Harvard Bookstore over a year ago (yes? will need to check - a long time ago, anyhow), when I was super hung over and looking for some light reading, and I finally got around to reading it; that is, to finishing it. I actually started it a while ago, got a couple of chapters (if that) in, and then gave up because it was boring and I got more interesting books. But I was going to be taking the train to the 'burbs for some reason (Thanksgiving?) and it's a small paperback, unlike most of the big, heavy (library bound) books I had on hand at the time, so I plowed through it. It got better, I supposed, but I found the whole thing rather boring. I've enjoyed James' books featuring the detective Cordelia Gray (I think that's her name - An Unsuitable Job for a Woman? Mom had it years and years ago, and I read it a few times, and then I think I read another one - Cover Her Face? I might just be making up titles now...), but her Adam Dalgliesh character, who I think it the protagonist of her biggest series, has really never done it for me.

The Imperfectionists  Tom Rachman  -  quite good, not that that should be a surprise - I feel like this was widely, and well, reviewed...

THE Award Winner...and stuff

Howard Jacobson won the 2010 Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question just about when I was finishing it - and I think it was the right call, at least based on the four (four and a couple chapters of a fifth, out of six) short-listed books I read.  Of course, I just loved Room, and I don't know that I had as visceral a reaction to The Finkler Question, but over all I think the latter was a better book (and C and Parrot and Olivier were both great, but not in the same class, in my not-all-that-humble-opinion; and this jury of one is still out on The Long Song).  Jacobson deftly combined humor (both subtle and very, very broad) and melancholy, and "threw in" - deliberately, with nuance and gravitas - politics and the continuing, if often overlooked these days, prejudice against Jews.  It's possible I was more attuned to some of the deeper, darker, icier currents because while I was in D.C. the week/end previous I had had a couple talks with E. about present day prejudices, and violence, against Jews around the world and here in the U.S., but I think Jacobson's writing would have had the same impact regardless.  And it's a credit to his writing that you can think so hard about something so serious and a page later - or even later in the page - be snorting over a character's incomprehensible, but hilarious, obliviousness.  The book is also quite British, but certainly lots of the situations are universal.  All in all, well done, judging panel!
Interesting talk with Jacobson in the New York Times following the win; a much better review than I could give, in the same journal.

Housekeeping: my new plan is to only read "scary" books between now (well, last Friday) and Halloween.  So I finished Phil Rickman's Lamp of the Wicked over the weekend (or was it last week?  I was sick most of last week, thank you plane-ride, so that helped, too): the usual.  I am fond of the characters, the plot is pretty predictable.  But when you're waiting for the CVS-brand Nyquil to kick in, that's a pretty solid combination.  And while it wasn't exactly "scary" it was all about things that go bump in the night, and so forth.
I'm making a sort of exception to the scary books marathon for Tana French's Faithful Place.  Faithful readers of this blog (which I'm pretty sure number zero, but I can't resist the faithful/faithful) will know that I just adore French's books, so when I picked it up from the circulation desk on Friday I would have had a hard time not starting it, in any case, and in this case I have ten days to read it, so I figure it's got dead bodies (okay, one so far, but there might be more), and rats, so that is scary.  Kinda. 
I've dropped P.D. James' The Black Tower: it was hardly gripping me Sunday (although, to be fair, I was drunk/sick and on a plane), but then I finished C, and then read The Finkler Question, and by then it had been almost a week and I had already forgotten all the character's names, so I figure I can just start from scratch some time in the future.  In any case, sure as hell not reading James instead of French!

More award winners and stuff

Sick today, so a little mentall foggy on what I've read recently...
Read another of the Booker books, C by Tom McCarthy; I really liked it, but hard to cartegorize for sure,
or even really to discuss.  I got a little lost with the radio stuff early on - maybe I just wasn't bright enough to understand it, but there was a decent section of book (maybe the second fifth?) that was prettty boggy going.  I got back into it once the scene shifted to the Bavaria, and enjoyed it from there on.  The C theme was a little over-worked, but okay.  Again, the early chapters were a little annoyingly verbose, but by the second half I was in love with the way McCarthy was writing, particularly the descriptions.






I read the latest Stephanie Barron mystery featuring Jane Austen, Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron, while I was on the way to and in D.C. for the Fall Meeting.  Of course, I enjoyed it - Barron has a great character in Jane Austen, Lady-Detective, and I remain impressed by how believeable the books are, but I was not as in love with this installment as I have been with others.  Barron seemed to be straining a bit to maintain the historical "voice" - I mean, seriously, how many times in one book can you use the word "goosecap"??  I get it, contemporary flavor.  But let it go, too...  I don't know.  I still liked it, definitely, but there was this nagging, tiny voice in the back of my head telling me that things could have been better, at least, even if they weren't bad.  Having Jane go head-to-head with her fellow author, Byron, was super fun, though, and it was interesting having this book be set after the anonymous author of Pride and Prejudice is getting famous.  Sad, though, that the Gentleman Rogue was a significant, albeit dead, presence in this story, and I miss him so much!!!

Currently plowing my way through The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson: another one of the Booker contestants, which I have to finish in 24 hours so I can get it back, because someone else requested it.
I started The Lamp of the Wicked, Phil Rickman, longer ago than I can remember, and started The Black Tower, P.D. James, when I was in D.C., but I was too drunk (that includes on the plane home) to really focus on it...which is funny, because it was one of the ones I picked up for less than a song at the Harvard Bookstore one day when I was too drunk/hungover to deal with life...

Correction

Said on Wednesday that I had "tried" to read the third Sebastian St. Cyr mystery, but it turns out I actually did, in fact, read Why Mermaids Sing, by C.S. Harris, from cover to cover.  I was totally confused for a second because it was on my "read, now I need to find somewhere for them to live" shelf, instead of my "waiting to read" or my "started, moved on to something else, will come back to it" shelves, but then I flipped to a random page in the middle, and realized I not only knew the story, but knew how it ended.  So, clearly not the most life-changing of books, but I do think I enjoyed reading it in a desultory, casual way.  And I will almost certainly read whatever the next book is in the series, at some point.  Although not because I am dying to figure out what is going on with the main character's personal life, the amazing tribulations, twists, and turns of which have actually been disappointingly predictable.  And when unintentional incest and maybe dead / maybe not dead people  are predictable, and it's not a soap opera, that's pretty sad.  But now I am thinking I am totally going to spend some time this weekend watching General Hospital, instead of doing my essays, homework, or taxes, yay!  Of course, I also have a gajillion books apparently waiting for me to be picked up from Widener and the BPL, plus the random ones I've been picking up recently, so I should really focus on my fun reading, at the very minimum - someone's recalled Wench, from me & it's due 4/1 now, so that at least has to be read!  Don't even remember what it's about, but the title still makes me giggle, so I am looking forward to it.  Should be finishing up the P.D. James I got the other day, Innocent Blood, some time this evening, given that I have some extra time on the bus getting to and from my electrolysis appointment.  Not looking forward to that, but am just going to try and lay back and think of England...er, hairless armpits.  As If An Enemy's Country is also waiting for me to pick it up, but I think that I will be in too much pain to focus on that, so James it is...and then Wench!  Hehehe.  Yep, makes me laugh every time - God help me if it ends up being some super serious book.

Ohhhhh, St. Patrick's Day...

Well.  Been a while since I wrote about my books...life got a little crazy on St. Patrick's Day and is just settling down.  Good, bad, and awkward, but I think we're back to normal, and I am back to compulsively reading & buying books I can't afford. 
Due to the two-day hangover following St. Pat's, and the two smaller ones since, I didn't read as much as normal the last week, so not too much to report.  Finished The Rose Grower by Michelle de Kretser a while ago (maybe last Friday?  MAYBE Thurs., but I think I just came home from work and passed out, after trying not to die all day), and really enjoyed it.  It's about a family (and associated friends, etc.) during the French Revolution, and I really ended up liking it.  The political upheaval was always very present, but not overwhelmingly so, and the characters were nicely drawn.  It was interesting because it's written from the point of view of several characters, and the chapters switch in between with no real headings, so you need to read a bit to figure out who is talking, which is like in that book I started the week before (?), La Salle, but whereas it was annoying in the Vernon, I thought De Kretser used the device in a way that just made me read more carefully, and be more engaged with the story.  I'm not doing a very good job describing it, but I liked it, and would definitely recommend it as a story; as far as the history part of it being historical fiction, I don't know enough about the period to really know if it's any good or not, but it felt right.  It wasn't incredibly exciting or anything, almost Austen-ish in its quiet - but compelling - narrative flow, but I was pulled into it, and sad when it was over.  This is apparently the author's first novel, but I would definitely read more by her.
Also read The Nature of Monsters by Clare Clark, who wrote The Great Stink, which I raved about in this blog last month.  At first I didn't like Monsters as much, but I ended up being completely absorbed.  This one is set in early 18th century London, and centers around the tension between old traditional beliefs and emerging medical "science" - sort of.  Good NYT review has a better summary than I can give, or feel like writing, but I would say the important thing for me was that she has, once again, characters that are written so believeably they manage to feel totally familiar, despite being in a completely foreign setting, and she makes London come alive in all it's grimy foulness - and moments of crystalline beauty that are all the more special for their rarity.  I wonder if she is planning on just writing a series of books of London at different, stinking time periods...?  Neither one of these was really a good hangover book, though - you had to focus - so I didn't read much else.  Tried to read another one of those Sebastian St. Cyr books by C.S. Harris on Sat., but couldn't make my eyes focus (three girls, one 6 month old German Shepherd, 12 bottles of wine and a 70 degree days spent on Boston Common = me walking home, calling D to tell him his gf is fat, calling R to b*tch that Hsin Hsin wouldn't pick up - at midnight! - and then trying, and failing, to read).  I feel like I started to read a couple books this week/end, but gave up, but now I can't think of them.  Stumbled through the Harvard Bookstore yesterday in a total fugue state searching for something to "read me through the hangover" (as I apparently thought it was fine to explain to the checkout girl) and ended up with a used copy of Innocent Blood by P.D. James.  Enjoying it so far, I guess, but a little thrown by the fact I have already come across two references to "slant-eyed" Asian people - not sure if this was ironic or something, or just the author.  Have never really been able to get into James, so I don't know why that was what I went with.  Honestly, I think I was just wandering through the store's basement and suddenly realized I needed sugar and food, and grabbed whatever I had looked at last.  Did something similar on Sunday: met T for coffee and a rundown of my latest antics and poor choices (if you read this, T, thanks for always listening and never judging!), and we - of course - ended up wandering back and forth through Barnes and Noble, where I started a huge list of books in my phone, and then justified buying a paperback Shutter Island because "I had a really rough couple of days, and I need an escape."  Of course now I've gotten another book since, will be grabbing three from deposit today, and am only on page 5.  Oh, well - the one thing I can guarantee is I will get to it!  And I really think I need a non-drinking weekend, so a couple days of curling up with a good book would be idea.  Esp. because I think today I need to tell Flava-flav that I can't see him any more, so I will need to keep myself occupied so I don't break down and holler at him.