When we drove to Canada recently, I realized that there wouldn't be kids in the car (translation: I would not have to listen -- sorry -- GET to listen to endless hours of Laurie Berkner or The (new) Muppets). And I knew it was a long enough drive that it was likely D would want to snooze (translation: I could listen to books on CD, which put him to sleep anyway...).
So I wandered around the audio book section at our library, trying to figure out what would be fun, interesting, new, and accessible via audio. Finally I landed on the second book in the Flavia de Luce mystery series by Alan Bradley, which is The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag. [I only ended up listening to the first 1/3, so had to go to the library to get the actual paper book, to find out what happened!]
For the uninitiated: Flavia de Luce is a 10-11 year old English girl, living in a run-down manor (? castle?) in the countryside of England, with her widower-ed* father and mean older sisters. Flavia is passionate about (and talented with -- which is handy, when you're solving murder mysteries...) chemistry. The novels are set in the 1940-50s (just a bit later than the Maisie Dobbs novels).
This is most definitely a series, so no one would (translation: should) jump into it with the second novel, so I am not going to go into a plot summary. But here are two thoughts:
1) I always thought this was a YA series, and was quite surprised to be sent downstairs to the Mystery section to find the novel. That is not a testament to the quality of the writing -- more to the voice of the narrator / hero.
2) I am interested in reading the third novel in the series, but I also somehow completely forgot about the series between reading the first one (2-3 years ago) and this one. As usual, not sure if this is about me as a reader or the author's gripping ability, but I'm just throwing it out there. To the ~twelve people who glance at this blog.
*WTH is the adjective of "widower"?
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Book #15 - A Lesson In Secrets
Have you read any of the Maisie Dobbs mysteries? It's a series by Jacqueline Winspear, set in post-WWI London. Maisie, the hero, is a WWI vet (she was a war nurse) and a psychologist-cum-private-investigator. A Lesson In Secrets, the eighth in the series, tells of Maisie being hired by the Secret Service to go to a suspect new college in Cambridge, reportedly espousing "peace studies;" the Secret Service worries it's a breeding ground for the Red Menace.
This series of novels is so evocative of the post-War London vibe: the crippled economy, the wounded men, the pervasive anxiety of the shell-shocked nation. However, I find that Winspear's characters are less vivid. I can't quite remember, from novel to novel, which one is Inspector Whats-his-face, and which Detective-Whoosis. And as for the mysteries, they are even more ephemeral. I remember there was one with feathers, but heck if I remember what happened. There was another one where they went picking hops, and I'm sure Maisie investigated something while there, but I haven't the faintest recollection of what she was digging into.
I'm sure this is more a reflection of my slapdash reading (a.k.a., skimming) than Winspear's talent. Nonetheless, I'm not rushing to get the newest Maisie Dobbs book...
This series of novels is so evocative of the post-War London vibe: the crippled economy, the wounded men, the pervasive anxiety of the shell-shocked nation. However, I find that Winspear's characters are less vivid. I can't quite remember, from novel to novel, which one is Inspector Whats-his-face, and which Detective-Whoosis. And as for the mysteries, they are even more ephemeral. I remember there was one with feathers, but heck if I remember what happened. There was another one where they went picking hops, and I'm sure Maisie investigated something while there, but I haven't the faintest recollection of what she was digging into.
I'm sure this is more a reflection of my slapdash reading (a.k.a., skimming) than Winspear's talent. Nonetheless, I'm not rushing to get the newest Maisie Dobbs book...
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Book #14 - Invisible Monsters
It felt like a hurried selection, but that's because I'm a half-assed participant, but my awesome book group nominated Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk as our May novel.
I was a little nervous, because I had tried (and failed) to read Choke by the same author, and found it too...too...too much. Too graphic, too gross, too scary, too horrifying. So I was not excited to try Invisible Monsters.
I think this blog -- and possibly my whole reading life?? -- might be about how it's really awesome to be challenged by other readers to try something I might have otherwise passed by.
Invisible Monsters was great. Weird (but not incomprehensible), scary (but not terrifying), gripping, and relevant (as we all think about who we are, and who we want to be in the world). I am so glad to have read it.
I was a little nervous, because I had tried (and failed) to read Choke by the same author, and found it too...too...too much. Too graphic, too gross, too scary, too horrifying. So I was not excited to try Invisible Monsters.
I think this blog -- and possibly my whole reading life?? -- might be about how it's really awesome to be challenged by other readers to try something I might have otherwise passed by.
Invisible Monsters was great. Weird (but not incomprehensible), scary (but not terrifying), gripping, and relevant (as we all think about who we are, and who we want to be in the world). I am so glad to have read it.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Book #13 - The Lord of the Flies
I don't remember the moment in high school when I decided I was done with the Lord of the Flies. It was well before that character even appeared in the novel, I think. I imagine I debunked when it looked like a bunch of adolescent boys where going to bluster and shove and shout at one another throughout the book. Being an adolescent, crowded already with blustering and shoving adolescents, I felt no compulsion to read the book, so I ditched it EARLY.
But people I know and trust and honor and value have read this book, and reference this book, and it's part of how the western world talks about adolescence in general. So, when my kindle broke and I needed reading material, I returned to the fold, and bought William Golding's Lord of the Flies.
I expected / hoped to be able to discard it again so quickly, as I had when I was a teenager. None such luck. It's dense and interesting prose, and you can't loll about in it. Then I was hoping that it would suck - be too obvious or violent or give me another exit. None such. Instead I fell in. Trying, with the power of the author's descriptions and my broad-strokes imagination to see it go down, and to imagine how it could work, and assuming it wouldn't. I was totally gripped throughout. I kept thinking, "OH, man, if I was THAT GUY, I'd....
" and then there'd be some vague, unsatisfactory proposal from my scrubbed blank mind for what Henry or Hank or Samneric should do.
Brutal. Beautiful. So glad to have read it. Would love to discuss it with anyone.
But people I know and trust and honor and value have read this book, and reference this book, and it's part of how the western world talks about adolescence in general. So, when my kindle broke and I needed reading material, I returned to the fold, and bought William Golding's Lord of the Flies.
I expected / hoped to be able to discard it again so quickly, as I had when I was a teenager. None such luck. It's dense and interesting prose, and you can't loll about in it. Then I was hoping that it would suck - be too obvious or violent or give me another exit. None such. Instead I fell in. Trying, with the power of the author's descriptions and my broad-strokes imagination to see it go down, and to imagine how it could work, and assuming it wouldn't. I was totally gripped throughout. I kept thinking, "OH, man, if I was THAT GUY, I'd....
" and then there'd be some vague, unsatisfactory proposal from my scrubbed blank mind for what Henry or Hank or Samneric should do.
Brutal. Beautiful. So glad to have read it. Would love to discuss it with anyone.
Book #12 - With Malice Toward Some
Here's how awesome reading is: Recently, I read a new completely hilarious collection of essays by Laurie Notaro, which led me (given that it is 2012) to see where she might be on Facebook. And it turns out that she's not just on Facebook, she also makes book recommendations (on both FB and Good Reads). And lucky me, I found one of her recommendations: in particular, With Malice Toward Some by Margaret Halsey!
Margaret Halsey, in 1938, wrote her impressions of being an American in England and Scandinavia (and a brief stint in Paris) with humor, biting anecdotes, and cleverisms I wish I'd thought of myself. They're collected in the now out-of-print book With Malice Toward Some [which some readers are sourcing from rare booksellers.]
Me, I went OLD SCHOOL. I went to the LIBRARY. There was a copy of the book in the Widener Stacks (not even in cold storage -- in the STACKS!). I checked it out. The last time it was checked out was 1997. The time before that was 1978.
I am pretty sure that I have now assembled enough data points for some undergraduate feminist scholar to pull a Kate Chopin and get a hella glory day for Margaret Halsey coming up. Am I right? Can I get a "hell yeah"??
Read the book. It doesn't disappoint.
Margaret Halsey, in 1938, wrote her impressions of being an American in England and Scandinavia (and a brief stint in Paris) with humor, biting anecdotes, and cleverisms I wish I'd thought of myself. They're collected in the now out-of-print book With Malice Toward Some [which some readers are sourcing from rare booksellers.]
Me, I went OLD SCHOOL. I went to the LIBRARY. There was a copy of the book in the Widener Stacks (not even in cold storage -- in the STACKS!). I checked it out. The last time it was checked out was 1997. The time before that was 1978.
I am pretty sure that I have now assembled enough data points for some undergraduate feminist scholar to pull a Kate Chopin and get a hella glory day for Margaret Halsey coming up. Am I right? Can I get a "hell yeah"??
Read the book. It doesn't disappoint.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Book #11 - If You Were Here
It's not my husband's fault. I sent him off into Barnes & Noble to choose a novel for me. I said, "Get me something light & fun. You know, from those nice book displays they always have in the middle of the aisles! Get a paperback that will be easy reading!"
He did as he was told: he found a light paperback from the display table. It's not his fault that the book he chose, If You Were Here by Jen Lancaster, is the stupidest, most vapid and irritating thing I've read in...oh...ever.
(Damn you, forty book challenge! Any other year I would have stopped after chapter one, but nooooo...I have to read forty books! I don't have time to waste on stopping something once I've started!)
The premise of the novel is...why am I even going into this? I hated the book. I don't think you should read it. If you want to read it after reading this review, you can go look at the synopsis on Amazon. Or you can have my copy! For free!
Book #10 - The People of the Book
My aunt and uncle, who are famous (in our family, at least) for having impeccable taste in books, gave me The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. It's the (imagined) story of the (real) "Sarajevo Haggadah" -- an illuminated manuscript from the mid-1300s that tells the Passover story -- the book's journey across Europe, and its improbable survival through the Holocaust, the war in Sarajevo, the Spanish Inquisition, and so on.
I loved the book, the characters, the narrative. I love books about books. I love books about people who love books. I love reading about Jewry through history. I've read several other of Brooks' books (Year of Wonders - about the plague; March - the story of the dad from Little Women, and his war experience). Always, I'm a little wary of the premise of her novels, thinking maybe the book is going to be a little cute or a little forced, and instead, she always delights. Smart, interesting, gripping books.
I loved the book, the characters, the narrative. I love books about books. I love books about people who love books. I love reading about Jewry through history. I've read several other of Brooks' books (Year of Wonders - about the plague; March - the story of the dad from Little Women, and his war experience). Always, I'm a little wary of the premise of her novels, thinking maybe the book is going to be a little cute or a little forced, and instead, she always delights. Smart, interesting, gripping books.
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