So, to kill some time, and kill the pile of books by my bed, here's what I've been plowing through (no pun intended) recently:
Emma Brown
by Clare Boylan, based on an unfinished (20 pages, I think?) manuscript by Charlotte Bronte {how do I do accents in this thing?}. Entertaining, but nothing super special. It was a little hard to really sink into the story because it seemed so anachronistic - I'm using that word wrong, but I can't think of a better way to say it at the moment; basically, there are a lot of references to sex, prostitution, child exploitation, etc. They're handled well, and more or less subtly, but they're still more present than they would have been if the book were really written in Bronte's time. Boylan's handle on the language - words, structure - is nice, though. I had read this before (it's one of the ones I took from home to try and sell), but I didn't remember it at all, so it was like reading it for the first time, so that was good! Forget now exactly when I read it (this time), but I think it was the day before and day of New Year's Eve, and maybe after. Definitely read What Remains of Heaven
, the 5th (?) Sebastian St. Cyr mystery by C. S. Harris on the second of January. Was out until 10 a.m. on the first, then came home and pretty much passed out for the rest of the day, so I can't remember if I started the book on the first or not. But I definitely read it when I was recuperating on the second, and it was perfect for that! The new heroine is really growing on me; I like her, and the hero with her, SO much better than the last one. I think I might be all caught up with the series now, which is actually making me kind of sad; considering at first I would only read the books if I could get them from the library or used & cheap, and if I were really bored, that's saying something. AH - the next is due out March 1, 2011, apparently. Good to know.Next came yet another Tracy Chevalier book (I have GOT to be caught up on these by now - but d*mn, that woman is prolific!) - this one, The Lady and the Unicorn
, like Girl with a Pearl Earring
, is inspired by a piece of art, in this case the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. I really liked this book - totally different from the last Chevalier I read (I picked it up at the same time, because I liked the cover [the tapestries], but had no idea what it was about, although I kind of guessed from the title), about the fossil hunter, but it was engaging and interesting. It made me want to go learn more about the time and skills, as well as the people, described in the book, which is always a good thing. The chapters switching back and forth between several different character points of view could have been distracting, or interrupt the flow of the narrative, but it didn't. One issue I did have, though, and it's one I have with a lot of books set in the Middle Ages (late 1400s is the Middle Ages, right?): I hate when the liturgical season is used instead of normal dates. I mean, maybe I should just learn it, to be a more generally well-educated and -read person or something, but while Easter is a useful reference point for me, or Lent, "Septuagesima" means nothing to me...A couple hundred years later a band of misfit, enraging and endearing players were wandering Italy and France in Francine Prose' The Glorious Ones
. A quick, easy read with familiar nods to lots of classics, Dante most prominently, I had fun with it, but it didn't make much of an impression. I think I am just not really a short story kind of person, and I thought the links between these stories/chapters were too tenuous for my tastes, but there is no denying Prose does a masterful job with the writing here. The voices were distinct and evocative, and she suggests a vital setting without painting it in too much detail.
