Category: Bookshelf

Independent Miss

I discovered BookBub a few weeks ago, and have been picking up free (or occasionally cheap) copies of books that look interesting–trying to keep to a number I might actually read.  A few have been disappointing, but this one, by Becca St. John was a fun, well-written read.

The woman in this historical love-story feels a bit too modern to me (one of my pet peeves with historicals), but the medical/scientific side of things was both plausible and interesting, and the problems that arise from them make for unique, believable conflict, a rare combination in romance.  As someone who tends to skip over the smutty bits of romances, I also appreciated the relatively clean love scenes in this book.

On the whole, I found this a delightful way to spend a lazy afternoon, and I think I might be willing to pay something for my next book by this author.

Career of Evil

This is the third Cormoran Strike novel, a deliciously complicated psychological mystery by Robert Galbraith (otherwise known as J.K. Rowling).  I first picked up the Galbraith novels because I love Rowling’s work, but I keep reading them because they’re wonderful.

I love Cormoran Strike, Robin Ellacott, and the way the relationship between them sparks with chemistry and confusion, even more than if they were romantically involved.  I love the complexity of the other characters and the richness of the world.  I love the insight the work gives into the everyday struggles of living in modern London.

I also like the mystery itself.  There’s plenty of suspense and enough red herrings to keep me guessing until fairly late in the story.  Altogether, an excellent book of its type.  Galbraith has become one of my favorite mystery authors, one of the very few whose works I keep around on my shelves for re-reading.

Secret Kingdom–Glitter Beach

This is book six in a chapter book series K loves.  After reading it, I sort of get the attraction.  Like cotton candy, it’s mostly fluff, but very sweet.  Neither the characters nor the plot are very deep, but it’s certainly no worse than the Nancy Drew mysteries I chain-read in elementary school.  It may be a bit better.  At least it manages to tell an interesting story in a very constraining format, and for that I applaud it.

Now I’m off to find books with a bit more substance that K might like even better. I wouldn’t stop my girl from eating cotton candy, but I wouldn’t let her try to subsist on it either.

 

Antler Dust and Buried by the Roan

These two are the first couple of novels in the Allison Coil mystery series by Mark Stevens (who I got to work with for a while this past summer while helping out a bit with the Rocky Mountain Writer podcast he does for RMFW–well worth listening to if one writes at all, by the way.)

These were thoroughly enjoyable, with interesting puzzles, well-drawn characters and quick-paced action.  What I liked best, though, was the setting–the Rocky Mountains seemed as beautiful in this book as they look from my backyard on a clear day.  I also loved the strong friendship that develops between Allison and Trudy, a woman she meets in the course of her first investigation.  I don’t often find strong female friendships in novels that aren’t labeled “Women’s Fiction,” and it’s nice to find one here.

I’ll read more Allison Coil mysteries–I just have to wait until my book budget recovers from Christmas.

 

The Golf Omnibus

This was a fun several-afternoon read.  (As it was a short story collection, rather than a novel, I was able to read it in several sittings rather than one long go.)  Not as good as I recall Jeeves being, this was, nonetheless, witty, deprecating entertainment.  The idea that golf might somehow be lowbrow made me laugh, and the utterly ridiculous antics of the occasional non-Anglos made me cringe (except for the Russian author–he was side-splittingly hilarious).  Still, this was, as I say, fun.

If I thought golf itself was likely to be half as enjoyable as these stories about it, I might consider taking up the sport.

Then again, why ruin a good walk?

Moods

I wanted to love Moods since the work was obviously so important to Louisa May Alcott.  And I liked it.  It was a beautifully written, moody book, thought-provoking and entertaining by turns.

I didn’t thrill to it the way I thrilled to some of Alcott’s others, though.  It didn’t involve me as deeply as Little Women or An Old Fashioned Girl.  It didn’t have the light, fun luminescence of Eight Cousins or Rose in Bloom.  Instead of searing itself on my mind, becoming part of my soul, this book was fun for the moment, and then faded into the mass of stories that forms the main fog of my literary history.  Is this because I read it as an adult rather than a teenager? Because its ending is less than perfectly happy? Because it is, after all, a less stellar work? It’s hard to say.

Its’ possible, though, that this book is less of a masterpiece than Alcott believed and hoped it to be.  There’s a lesson in that, I think.  Like Alcott, I’d be well advised to finish the work of my heart–but also to keep after the stuff that resonates more with other people.  It’s hard to judge which of one’s own works might be truly the best.

Goal, Motivation & Conflict and The Elements of Style

Lots of writing friends have recommended Goal, Motivation & Conflict, and I’ve finally read it.  I think it has some great content.  It would have made an excellent brochure or conference workshop.  It could have been an enlightening series of blog posts.  As a book, it’s a bit fluffy.  Don’t get me wrong–I love examples and charts as much as the next person.  Not being exceptionally stupid, however, I can usually make do with one or two, rather than six or eight.  Why say in one-hundred-forty-four pages what you could say as well or better in thirty?

On the other hand, the advice, when pared down to its essence, is excellent.  Characters should reach for goals, they should have reasons for doing so, and their achievement of those goals shouldn’t be rose-strewn.  All of that was worth being reminded of, so I’m not sorry I read the book.

I’m not sorry I read The Elements of Style either.  This writer’s reference has also been recommended by writing friends, and I picked it up at an RMFW conference a few years back.  Though sometimes strident, this pithy book illustrates hundreds of ways to make language clear and concise. It does so with wit and verve. A few of the guidelines show their age (my version was printed in 1962), but most are timeless. This book I’m keeping.

The Floating Admiral

I love Dorothy Sayers.  I’m fond of G.K. Chesterton and Agatha Christie.  This game (they were wise not to call it a story), unfortunately, mixed up their talents (and those of several authors I’m less familiar with) in a way that did justice to none of them.

The puzzle they set for each other hared off in so many directions, it was impossible for even the great fiction writers represented here to stick to a recognizable narrative arc.  Neither did the characters always seem to be the same people from segment to segment.

On the other hand, it was interesting to see what these various authors made of each others’ puzzles, and I was impressed enough with the ending Anthony Berkeley came up with that I’m going to see if I can hunt down more of his work.  For me, finding a new author I like makes it worth the read.

The Poisonwood Bible

Lush with Barbara Kinsolver’s typical detail, this story transported me to a time and place I knew little about.  The characters have distinct, interesting voices, and though I could see the train-wreck of a culture clash coming from the very first page, I read on, pulled inexorably toward the disaster, and then through it to the interesting things the surviving characters made of their lives afterward.  I came away wanting to know more about the history of the Congo and maybe all of Africa.

As always when I read something like this, I found myself wondering what other important twentieth century events and movements my high school “World History” managed to completely skip.

I did find it difficult to believe a Southern Baptist preacher would be as immersed in the Apocrypha as the Reverend Price was, and that made me wonder about how accurately other cultures might be portrayed in the book.  But perhaps Kingsolver took more trouble to research the various African groups than the American cultures she wasn’t fully part of.

This issue, however, is trifling, and on the whole, The Poisonwood Bible was well worth reading.  Not, perhaps, good enough to make it onto my keeper shelf (for books I frequently reread), but close.

The Hundred Foot Journey

This was beautifully written with rich, make-me-hungry descriptions. The characters are well-rounded and well-drawn, and the relationships between them are complex.

I found myself enjoying the Mumbai chapters more than the ones in Europe, I think because in addition to the lush setting, the family had such a vibrancy.  This got lost in the London section (quite understandably–the whole family was reeling from loss), and I think it never fully returned.  Neither Lumiere nor Paris has the wealth of place or of people that Mumbai does though Lumiere is beautiful, and full of interesting characters.

I also regret that the food turns entirely French once Hassan gets to France.  Perhaps this is because I infinitely prefer Indian food to French food (and though I prefer a somewhat calm, quiet dining atmosphere, I know plenty of people, especially Asians, who feel more at home in a boisterous party atmosphere).

I enjoy Hassan’s success, but I find myself wondering why it is that he must leave his culture behind–at least professionally–to achieve it.