skip to main |
skip to sidebar
A feel-good and girly book. I'd call it "Advanced Chick-lit", maybe. The story is not always happy, but in most parts extremely humorous and kept me reading well into the night. Julie Buxbaum captures the emotions that we experience during and after a loved one's illness and death extremely well, especially the state of being in denial.
There is also the traditional nice boyfriend, the office lech and the evil office Cruella de Ville who uses the office couch for nefarious purposes. A set of entertaining friends, a distant father and a loving grandfather round off the cast of characters who are characterized very well and help the plot along.
A nice read when you don't want to read anything too heavy. Reminds me a lot of the early writing of Marian Keyes. A fun and entertaining book.
This is the most brilliant first fantasy novel that DAW president Elizabeth Wollheim says she read, and as I have probably read way less fantasy than Elizabeth Wollheim, it stands to reason that it is the most brilliant first fantasy novel I've read too. This is a whopper of a book. It's almost 900 pages long.
Patrick Rothfuss has very few of the problems that plague most writers of fantasy in their first books. I completely lost myself in the book for the first 600 pages or so. One slight problem was that the final quarter of the book seemed overlong. There are minute happenings that add to the overall detail of the book and in the first three quarters they fit right in. The last few hundred pages are occupied with the hero trying to hunt a mysterious 'dragon' and that's where the story got bogged down slightly.
I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the next part of the trilogy this year, and hope that Rothfuss has not lost his touch.
Lalita Tademy's semi-fictionalized history about three generations of women in her mother's family is an absorbing read. For people who've read Alex Hayley's 'Roots' this is a woman-centric and shorter novel of the same genre. The story is set in a Creole community, and the language, the society and the rules are somewhat different from the usual fictional books of slavery in the Southern states.
The story is interesting to me because it's written from a woman's perspective. The female characters are the strong ones; the men play rather marginal roles here, and their characters seem less developed. The setting and the descriptions of Creole life make the reader require little effort to imagine life in the 19th and early 20th centuries in Louisiana.
This books was a selection of Oprah's book club, and should appeal to women readers.
This is actually the eighth book in the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series by Alexander McCall-Smith. The series started with the book by the same name, and none of the books in the series disappoint.
The overview on www.bn.com says: In the life of Mma Ramotswe – a woman duly proud of her fine traditional build – there is rarely a dull moment, and in her newest round of adventures, challenges and intrigues, the same certainly holds true. But one thing above all else is keeping her occupied – her estimable husband, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. He has been hinting for some time now that he intends to do something special for their adopted daughter, Motholeli, and it seems that the time for this good deed has come. Of course, good deed or not, his plan is bound to hit some snags. And that’s when he will undoubtedly consider himself doubly – perhaps even triply – lucky to be married to the ever-resourceful, ever-understanding Precious Ramotswe.
This detective series does not deal with spies, murder, serial killers or mayhem. In fact most of the detection in the whole series is about matters such as who picked the fruit off a client's tree, or why the mechanic of Mr Matekoni's garage is not working to his full potential (he never does).
If ever there was a book to be slowly savored, it it this one or any other books of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series. A beautifully simple series of books.
Why am I reading books about pumpkins? It's nowhere close to October, the only time I'm even remotely interested in a pumpkin for my Jack O' Lantern so what exactly prompted me to read this book I don't really know. Maybe because the cover was so irrepressibly orange. And pumpkins the size of Cinderella's coach would capture anyone's imagination.
Growing the worlds heaviest pumpkin is supposed to be an international sport. Goodness, whoever knew? I didn't until I read Susan Warren's book. The competition is fierce and people resort to many means, some of them vile. Men obsessively care for their pumpkin patches, marriages and relationships suffer and fall and the big weigh-ins approach. This is the stuff of dreams.
A wonderful gift for any gardener, or even for non gardening people who like books that are not your normal run-of-the-mill fiction or biography. Entertaining and - dare I say the word? - sweet.
Thought it might appear if I'm a fan of the fantasy genre, in actuality I'm not. I'm tired of dragons. I'm tired of orcs. I'm tired of elves. I'm tired of authors who have rehashed Tolkien over and over. Nobody can best Tolkien's orcs, elves and dragons, that's my opinion.
I'd seen Lies of Locke Lamora sitting on the shelves for a while. I thought it was another medieval knight in long lost land saga. So I didn't bother picking it up. It took a long stretch of boredom and someone's recommendation to make me pick up the book.
It was a pleasant surprise. Firstly, it's very hard to write a book in which the hero is a villain, well, some sort of a villain, albeit of the Robin Hood type. Scott Lynch does the world building skillfully. The story revolves around a band of thieves and their capers, and their attempt at beating the Gray King, a shadowy figure who is intent on ruling the underworld of Camorr, the setting of this novel.
I didn't want this book to end, which is an extremely rare thing for me to say. So when the sequel Red Seas Under Red Skies came out I read that almost immediately hoping for more of the same. Unfortunately I was disappointed with Lynch's second effort which is less seamlessly put together and feels like a few scenarios hastily cobbled together.
The opening sentence of this novel is "It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea." Philip Reeve writes of far in the future, how, after the sixty-second war townships survive by traveling across barren land and devouring smaller cities in what is known as "Municipal Darwinism". Quite a big change from spaceships shooting lasers at each other in the year 3001 or the other favorite fantasy era, the pseudo-middle ages.This is a rather bloodthirsty tale, though it is recommended as a YA novel. Many grisly deaths take place, there are the usual good guy vs bad guy scenarios and the teenage protagonists who are naturally a boy and a girl. It has a good bit of humorous references which make the book entertaining. The characters are a little cliched. The villain has killed a hero's parents and is out to kill the hero - familiar territory here. In fact he's already tried to kill the hero and scarred her...no, she doesn't wear glasses.
What makes this book an excellent read (it was an ALA best book for Young Adults) is the world building. The book makes the idea that an entire city can pack itself up and travel around on large wheels sound entirely plausible. It also explains the city's inner workings in no small detail.
Enjoyable and entertaining. This is the first in the Hungry City Chronicles series, so I have three more books to read. I hope the rest of the series is as entertaining as the first book.
What is it like to live your life beneath a mountaintop strip mine? Anne Pancake writes of a coal mining family and their four children living through the mining boom and mountaintop strip mining that takes place very close to their home. The water is spoiled, the workers lose their jobs and children grow up under the shadow of the mountain.
Good novels of Appalachia are few and far between. This is one of the good ones. Pancake writes sparingly but strongly of how the collapsing mountain and the collapsing economy contribute to the breakup of a family and through them, the change of a rural community.
The story is told through the voices of Lace and her four children, all of who are affected in different ways. Pancakes writing shows how people love their land, and why they stay on somewhere when there is no reason to remain.
A poignant story, well written and enjoyable. No happy endings here, but a satisfying read.
If the phone rang one morning and a relative said your mother was dying, would you go? I would, but then I have an extraordinarily strong relationship with my mother. Susanna Sonnenberg doesn't go, and in this memoir she explains why she doesn't go to her mother's bedside when her mothe is dying from an automobile accident.
Reading this book I had flashbacks to another memoir that sounded about as gritty (and was later on found to be part fake) - James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. Reading this book makes one wonder if parents such as Sonnenberg's exist - they obviously do, otherwise we wouldn't need foster care.
The memoir gives us a picture of an appalling mother who is maybe bipolar and definitely unstable. It also tells us of the author's attempts to be the best and most normal mother she can be, and that is what makes this book readable for me. The book doesn't give a satisfactory explanation of why the author's mother the person she is, but then that is true of most life situations. It's hard to explain what makes a person who they are.
A not-so-thinly disguised tale of Empress Michiko of Japan. In the book John Burnham Schwartz writes of the fictitious Haruko, the first commoner to marry the heir to the throne of Japan. The details of her life follow exactly what one can read on Wikipedia about the Empress of Japan. She studies at the same school and university, and meets her spouse the future Emperor on a tennis court.
The book is very slow-paced and tries to capture the image of post world war Japan. Schwartz's characters are not very dimensional and though the book tries to capture the life of a princess under the glare of media and a royal household it does not achieve it's goal. The end of the story was completely unrealistic and in my opinion it ruined what little liking I had for the book.
Memoirs of a Geisha it is not.
Ruth Rendell (and her other alias Barbara Vine) has long been a favorite author of mine. She usually writes mystery stories under the name Ruth Rendell, and other novels as Barbara Vine. The one thing common to all her books is that they have a disturbing undertone - at the beginning one is not sure who the characters are or what they will turn out to be.
Joyce Carol Oates has the greatest talent for creating the disturbed, strong and violent man. Ruth Rendell is the mistress of creating the weak villain. Her villains always end up committing crimes by accident or unintentionally, and show other aspects of their characters when trying to cover up those crimes.
This book is about a murderer stalking a London neighborhood. He takes trinkets from his victims which mysteriously turn up in a local antique shop. The odd characters who work in the antique shop and who pass through come under scrutiny, and it is there that Ruth Rendell shows her true skills as an author.
I find Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford series slightly less entertaining than her stand-alone mysteries, but all her books are good reads nonetheless.
Did you know that all famous pirates are named after their beards? Blackbeard, Bluebeard, Flamebeard, Trimbeard, Bushbeard. It's a tradition.
It's rare to find a humorous fantasy. There's always Terry Prachett, but teens might find it hard to get all the references in his books. John David Anderson writes a very funny story in Standard Hero Behavior - after all, everyone knows what a Standard Hero should behave like.
The story is the usual fantasy; a young boy sets out to find some heroes to defend his town, and also tries to find his father who has disappeared. Along with his friend Cowel and a horse named Steed (what better name for a horse after all?) Mason Quayle sets off on his quest. The going isn't easy. They encounter marauding pixies and other creatures who test their mettle. The motto is the uplifting "Anyone Can Be A Hero" but the way the story gets to that point is very entertaining and not preachy in the least.
Don't drink anything when you are reading this book: I laughed so hard I spilled tea on it...
What does a family do when the mother commits suicide? Charlotte Bacon explores the lives of the bereaved - the father, the son and the daughter of the Kind family. When the father decides to leave New York and move to Wyoming - his childhood home - we see how his action affects the rest of the family and how each individual deals with grief and acceptance.
The landscape and the family are both described in spare and poignant detail. This is one book in which teenagers are portrayed extremely honestly, and their characters are not overblown in any way. The life and ethics of the grandmother who tries to provide a stable family for her widowed son and his children is lovingly described, as are the horses and the land she lives on.
A thoughtful and gently-written book.
When Joyce Carol Oates writes about men being violent, she makes me very uncomfortable. I feel uncomfortable because of how she writes; she makes me feel I am there in the book witnessing the violence with her and it makes me uneasy. I've never had that happen with any other author, and I take it to be a sign of Oates' wonderful talent.
The gravedigger follows the path of a emigre to the US just befor the first world war, and how her former nationality affects her path in life. The author shows how people are forced to make decisions, and how those decisions affect them for many, many years.
Sometimes Oates tends to be overly wordy; but this is not one of those times. All in all an excellent book, one of her best.
Edgar award winning writer Minette Walters has written a slightly boring novel in this one. The themes involved are not boring in the least - murder most foul, incest and intrigue are all here, but somehow don't mesh together as well as they might have. As in many murder mysteries, it turns out that the person most likely to have committed the crime is an all-round good guy, and the bad guy is someone who might as well have been labeled 'person in the background'.
I like reading Minette Walters, and this book was no exception. It's just that I felt there was something missing that would have made me give it a very high recommendation. As always, Walters' characterization is excellent. Her characters are never wholly bad or good, and therefore quite real.
There are some books you read and put aside thinking "Why did I bother?" Unfortunately Henning Mankell's book "Kennedy's Brain" is such a book - at least to me. I read Henning Mankell; I like his Inspector Wallander mysteries.
To me, this book only asks the somewhat philosophical question about whether anyone cares how the people of African nations live or die. There is a murder mystery, but no-one knows who committed a murder or whether there was even a murder.
Some descriptions of Mozambique where part of the novel is set are very vivid, but that's about the only thing I have to say in praise of this book. I just don't like the story, especially how it leaves the reader hanging at the end.
Is there a part 2? Otherwise can someone please explain the ending of this book to me?
I think I said in an earlier post that I tend to avoid the "King' section of any bookstore or library shelf. I have never been a fan of horror, and things that go bump in the night scare me. In spite of all my misgivings (reading scary story=insomnia) I read a few pages of Duma Key while standing in line at the checkout counter of the local library. Before I knew it 15 minutes had passed and the old lady standing behind me looked about ready to commit violence with her cane because I was holding up the queue.
Stephen King writing about people who suffer is in my opinion some of the best Stephen King, not the writings that make me have insomnia. The story is about a construction worker involved in an accident which cause his arm to be amputated and also brain injury. His marriage collapses and he rents a beach house on Duma Key in an attempt to recuperate. The story then moves into the realms of 'King', but remains absorbing and very human. It reminds me very much of 'The Shining'. (Confession: some books of King make the insomnia worthwhile)
Not the run-of-the-mill story I expected. Stephen King wrote this one with wit and grace.
I owe a debt to Gayle. She introduced me to three authors that I hadn't read before. Richard Russo is one of the authors she recommended. His book "Empire Falls" won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2002. Can I make a complete jackass of myself and say that the book truly deserves the award?
The book moves along very slowly. I like slow-moving stories. They let me start and stop where I please, and grab a cup of tea along the way. The characters are well-developed. The town with it's dying textile mill reminds me strongly of where I live - another town that is shutting down quietly with it's businesses. The characters seem just like the people I meet around these parts with the same attitudes and the same ambitions.
A wonderful book. I'm sorry I waited so long to read it.
