Over the last week or so, including on my first-ever trip to San Francisco (whoo!) to visit my BFF (whoo!) I read:
Black Ships - Jo Graham
The Orchid House - Lucinda Riley
The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly
Beautiful Darkness - Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Monday, May 20, 2013
I read books, I swear...
Not that it seems like it; according to this I haven't read any books between May 8 and May 19 - but I have!
It's just that one of them I can't talk about, and then I'm in the middle of a couple of them so no single one gets finished.
But I did finish (and start) In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters. It was pretty good, especially for YA, I think - there were some "magical" elements, but also a lot about WWI and the Spanish Flu, and I thought the author did a nice job of incorporating her research and really setting the scene nicely. The story itself wasn't all that fascinating. An intriguing main character, and then some (not so) mysterious shenanigans.
Basically, she's the daughter of a man arrested for aiding draft dodgers and flees from Portland to her aunt in San Diego, where her childhood best friend / blossoming first love lived before he enlisted. Nobody's heard anything from him, then they hear he's dead, then he starts haunting her (after in a fit of rage at the desperation and hopelessness of life she goes and gets herself electrocuted) and it turns out things are not what they seem. Except...they kind of are. While I appreciated that in the end we didn't get the happy ending I thought was coming, the "twist" at the end wasn't much of one...unless the audience is supposed to spend the whole book yelling at the protagonist, "open your eyes, girlie!!" (I dunno, girlie seems period-appropriate). But I really did like Mary Shelley Black as the heroine - she loves science (and it's believable, not totally anachronistic, and not overly feisty) and does the right thing even when it's hard and/or dangerous.
Could be the start of a series - at least, MSB seemed way too well drawn, but also with hints at future developments, for a one-off. Not that a character in a non-series book couldn't or wouldn't be well-drawn, there's just something about it that feels like the author is setting her up for future escapades.
One major problem, though - the ghost non-sex sex scene was just LUDICROUS. I mean, seriously. So silly. And yet still a million times less stupid / hotter than the random 10-seconds-of-dry-humping orgasm in Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, so that's something.
And they day before I finished a really good - although not as excellent as I had hoped - book, which I can't talk about because it was an advance copy I got my hands on.
It's just that one of them I can't talk about, and then I'm in the middle of a couple of them so no single one gets finished.
But I did finish (and start) In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters. It was pretty good, especially for YA, I think - there were some "magical" elements, but also a lot about WWI and the Spanish Flu, and I thought the author did a nice job of incorporating her research and really setting the scene nicely. The story itself wasn't all that fascinating. An intriguing main character, and then some (not so) mysterious shenanigans.
Basically, she's the daughter of a man arrested for aiding draft dodgers and flees from Portland to her aunt in San Diego, where her childhood best friend / blossoming first love lived before he enlisted. Nobody's heard anything from him, then they hear he's dead, then he starts haunting her (after in a fit of rage at the desperation and hopelessness of life she goes and gets herself electrocuted) and it turns out things are not what they seem. Except...they kind of are. While I appreciated that in the end we didn't get the happy ending I thought was coming, the "twist" at the end wasn't much of one...unless the audience is supposed to spend the whole book yelling at the protagonist, "open your eyes, girlie!!" (I dunno, girlie seems period-appropriate). But I really did like Mary Shelley Black as the heroine - she loves science (and it's believable, not totally anachronistic, and not overly feisty) and does the right thing even when it's hard and/or dangerous.
Could be the start of a series - at least, MSB seemed way too well drawn, but also with hints at future developments, for a one-off. Not that a character in a non-series book couldn't or wouldn't be well-drawn, there's just something about it that feels like the author is setting her up for future escapades.
One major problem, though - the ghost non-sex sex scene was just LUDICROUS. I mean, seriously. So silly. And yet still a million times less stupid / hotter than the random 10-seconds-of-dry-humping orgasm in Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, so that's something.
And they day before I finished a really good - although not as excellent as I had hoped - book, which I can't talk about because it was an advance copy I got my hands on.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Meh
So, Kiana Davenport's Shark Dialogues is one of my favorite books; when I saw another by her on the New Books shelf at the BPL a while ago, I was really excited. But...eh. The Spy Lover has a fascinating premise, potentially really interesting characters, and a hell of a tear-jerker end. But the writing is kind of terrible. I don't know what happened. I would never, in a million years, have pegged this as one of Davenport's if I couldn't see the cover.
More later, gotta run and return it.
More later, gotta run and return it.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Groundwork
After getting into an Ayn Rand-inspired argument at the bar a while ago, I decided I didn't know/remember enough about Rand and her works to win a fight well. So I recently read Jennifer Burns' Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (OUP, 2009). Not sure I agree with the NYT quote on the cover, "groundbreaking," (I need to dig up the review and get the context) but certainly super easy reading and mildly interesting. It's the first Rand biography I've read, obviously, but it didn't feel like there was anything that new here. But probably I just don't know enough about what was already out there. It was also interesting reading something written more or less pre-Tea Party movement (it's not even mentioned); I feel like it might be a much longer, if not very different, book if she wrote or revised it today.
In several cases, throughout the book and especially in describing Rand's legacy, Burns does not give her readers adequate signposts as to time - years and or relative passage of time. In other instances she talks about famous "disciples" (my skepticism, not her words) of Rand's who later had prominent positions. The problem is, if you're not - as I am not - well-acquainted with leading conservatives and/or somewhat recent political history, the names don't automatically indicate the time period. Especially with all the 80s and early 90s stuff, it's too recent for me to have learned much about it in school, as history, but I was too young to really remember it (or to have been paying attention).
In several cases, throughout the book and especially in describing Rand's legacy, Burns does not give her readers adequate signposts as to time - years and or relative passage of time. In other instances she talks about famous "disciples" (my skepticism, not her words) of Rand's who later had prominent positions. The problem is, if you're not - as I am not - well-acquainted with leading conservatives and/or somewhat recent political history, the names don't automatically indicate the time period. Especially with all the 80s and early 90s stuff, it's too recent for me to have learned much about it in school, as history, but I was too young to really remember it (or to have been paying attention).
Friday, April 19, 2013
I love Boston!!!
Monday, the 2013 Boston Marathon, started out so wonderfully. It was a gorgeous day, and I was celebrating the amazing achievements of a lot of incredible athletes, professional and amateur, with a group of dear friends by the finish line. After everything went bad, I was still impressed, even in all the chaos, with how wonderfully people responded. But I've been shaken, and haven't read that much. And now I am glued to the TV, huddled up in the living room with my roommates, watching the manhunt unfold for the second of the two suspects. Basically, I don't have much to say.
I tried reading really light books, hoping for some escape. One was The House of Velvet and Glass by Katherine Howe, which was set in Boston (and on the Harvard campus) in 1915. It was fine, nothing special. Young woman has visions and/or dreams, there are flashbacks (in the book) to the sinking of the Titanic and China a generation before that; then it gets to the Lusitania, and I was pretty much checked out. Too many things exploding.
Next came Enchanting Lily by Anjali Banerjee which is about a cat that brings happiness to people's lives in a charming little island town in the Pacific Northwest. TOTAL fluff, but I had been saving it for a day when I really just needed to shut my brain off. Didn't really work.
I tried reading really light books, hoping for some escape. One was The House of Velvet and Glass by Katherine Howe, which was set in Boston (and on the Harvard campus) in 1915. It was fine, nothing special. Young woman has visions and/or dreams, there are flashbacks (in the book) to the sinking of the Titanic and China a generation before that; then it gets to the Lusitania, and I was pretty much checked out. Too many things exploding.
Next came Enchanting Lily by Anjali Banerjee which is about a cat that brings happiness to people's lives in a charming little island town in the Pacific Northwest. TOTAL fluff, but I had been saving it for a day when I really just needed to shut my brain off. Didn't really work.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Pretty good, and grew on me!
So, this is the thing, I think, about a GOOD book club - it makes you appreciate the book even more than you would have just reading it. For example, I read All This Talk of Love, by Christopher Castellani for the most recent Grub Street book club. I liked the story, and the writing, and over all was feeling positive about the book, although I wouldn't have said I really loved it, or that I thought it was a masterful literary work. I'm not sure about the latter, still, and probably it's not, but I also think it's a much better book, from a writing & "construction" standpoint, than I at first gave it credit for being. And that's because of the discussion we had at Grub Street. When I read it, I read it fast, needing to read it over a couple of days to finish it in time. I wasn't necessarily thinking about the nuances. But I've always found that I figure out the most, for myself, while talking - and, yes, sometimes arguing - with other people about a topic. This was no exception; hearing what other people thought, even if I disagreed with them, let me to consider new issues and questions that I hadn't in my initial read-through.
It was also interesting to find out more about the book's context; I read it as a stand-alone, but it's actually the third book in a trilogy, so hearing about how the author balanced those aspects as he wrote, and revised, was interesting. I really do enjoy these Grub Street book clubs; it's just great to be able to talk abut the book as a work of art (the tenses, the set-up and structure, etc.) and not just as a story. And getting to hear from the authors themselves, at the end of the session, is great.
Right, so, the book... Basically, it's about an Italian-American family (parents who emigrated in the mid-20th century, their first-generation kids, and, to a much lesser extent, the second-gen grandkids) in Delaware (Delaware? Or PA?), all haunted, in one way or the other, by the suicide of the oldest son decades ago, when he was a teenager. The mother is getting older, and the daughter wants to organize a family trip back to the old country; mom objects, and disaffected son supports her.
It's a spot-on protrayal of Italian-American families, in many ways (not surprisingly, since it's the background the author comes from), but it's even better just at showing FAMILIES. How they can be messed up and wonderful, and hateful and loving, and confused and confident, all at the same time. The author also did a great job of having characters who are both unappealing and understandable, or who do horrid things but aren't horrid people. So, basically, like real people.
Yeah - the more I think about it, the more I like it.
It was also interesting to find out more about the book's context; I read it as a stand-alone, but it's actually the third book in a trilogy, so hearing about how the author balanced those aspects as he wrote, and revised, was interesting. I really do enjoy these Grub Street book clubs; it's just great to be able to talk abut the book as a work of art (the tenses, the set-up and structure, etc.) and not just as a story. And getting to hear from the authors themselves, at the end of the session, is great.
Right, so, the book... Basically, it's about an Italian-American family (parents who emigrated in the mid-20th century, their first-generation kids, and, to a much lesser extent, the second-gen grandkids) in Delaware (Delaware? Or PA?), all haunted, in one way or the other, by the suicide of the oldest son decades ago, when he was a teenager. The mother is getting older, and the daughter wants to organize a family trip back to the old country; mom objects, and disaffected son supports her.
It's a spot-on protrayal of Italian-American families, in many ways (not surprisingly, since it's the background the author comes from), but it's even better just at showing FAMILIES. How they can be messed up and wonderful, and hateful and loving, and confused and confident, all at the same time. The author also did a great job of having characters who are both unappealing and understandable, or who do horrid things but aren't horrid people. So, basically, like real people.
Yeah - the more I think about it, the more I like it.
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