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4 November 2006

• Lemony Snicket, all 13 books of A Series of Unfortunate Events (rereads of all but the final book): fun to read these all together, though they do get a little repetitive, and I'm still bothered by the plot slowness in the middle of the series. I like the moral ambiguity that develops near the end -- are the Baudelaires really heroic? -- but I found the last book (The End) anticlimactic and wanted more resolution. I didn't necessarily expect answers to everything, but an awful lot was left up in the air. I'll be interested to see how Liam likes these when he's older.

Books read: 13

5 November 2006

• Gail Carson Levine, Fairest: a potentially interesting reworking of "Snow White", but a disappointment; for me, nothing she's written has lived up to Ella Enchanted. Though I liked the worldbuilding here, the creation of a society built around music and song, I didn't care for the trenchant, almost choppy writing style and thought most of the characters were underdeveloped.

Books read: 1

6 November 2006

• Georgette Heyer, Powder and Patch: an early effort, and not a very good one: stilted writing and dialogue, lacking in humor. I wasn't convinced by the transformation of the hero from "country bumpkin" to genteel fop, and I disliked the whiny heroine. Here's a representative passage: "Her hand half flew towards him and fell again. Couldn't he understand that she wanted him to beat down her resistance? Did he care no more than that? If only he would deny everything and master her!"
  
  I had to reread Sylvester right afterward to take the taste of tedium out of my mouth. Thank goodness it was as good as I remembered it.

Books read: 1

8 November 2006

• Julie Kenner, The Manolo Matrix: second in a trilogy that started with The Givenchy Code, in which an online game of clue-solving and assassination becomes real. The fashion stuff still doesn't interest me much, but the setup is engaging and the plot nicely paced. Also, since the clues in this one had mostly to do with Broadway trivia, I was actually able to work some of them out myself, which pleased me (but also annoyed me when the heroine and hero had a hard time with clues I thought were really obvious). Kenner's still library only, but I'll keep reading.

Books read: 1

9 November 2006

• Susan Herrmann Loomis, On Rue Tatin: Living and Cooking in a French Town: The recipes and bits about cooking were the best; the memoir bits, not so much. The prose is repetitive (she "loves" something on almost every page, sometimes in multiple sentences), and the frequent fussing about money was boring (and not totally believable, either, given that the author and her husband are constantly doing things like flying their babysitter (read: nanny) over from the U.S. to take care of their son for the summer, or keeping their house in Maine while buying a house in Normandy. Many of the recipes did sound lovely, though, and the food writing is nicely done, so perhaps I'll check out Loomis's cookbooks.

Books read: 1

15 November 2006

• Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After: swashbuckling, fast-paced fun with great characters. Accurate history and dates are nothing to write home about, but who reads Dumas for accurate history? Really, I often liked how cleverly he inserted his characters into actual events, particularly in the second book, when they try to rescue Charles I from Cromwell. I'm only sorry that there wasn't more Lady de Winter, because she's a fabulous villain. A favorite quote: "I unwell? Do you take me for a weak woman? When I am insulted, I do not feel unwell -- I avenge myself!"

Books read: 2

18 November 2006

• John Dunning, The Sign of the Book, The Bookwoman's Last Fling: not up to the level of the first three, unfortunately. In the former, the book-related part of the plot seemed tacked on to the rest simply in order to have a book-related part, and the characterization was largely not as deep as in previous books (though there were a couple of exceptions to this). In the latter, the revelation of the criminal's identity came practically out of nowhere and again, didn't seem to have a lot to do with the rest of the book. As a Dick Francis junkie, I did like the racetrack parts, though, and most of the booklore (what there was of it) had to do with children's books, which I was particularly intrigued by. Still, I wonder if Dunning is running out of steam in thinking up book-related plots.

Books read: 2

20 November 2006

• Amy Ephron, One Sunday Morning: an elegantly told tale of Jazz Age New York society, which begins as a group of ladies see an unmarried girl emerging from a hotel with a man who's engaged to someone else. There is much movement of POV as the characters slowly figure out what has happened and how it affects them all. It's short, but not slight; the brief chapters are beautifully developed and characterized. I'll have to check out her other books.

Books read: 1

21 November 2006

• Connie Willis, Lincoln's Dreams: Jeff Johnston, a researcher who assists a Civil War historical novelist, is looking into the matter of the nightmares Lincoln had before his assassination, when he meets Annie, a young woman who is herself having disturbing dreams about the Civil War. As Annie's dreams become more intense, Jeff and Annie travel through the South looking for answers. This was very different from To Say Nothing of the Dog: short, lovely, and bittersweet. I particularly loved the final reveal about Jeff's role.

Books read: 1

23 November 2006

• Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: I was worried that I'd miss something in John Scalzi's The Android's Dream if I hadn't read Dick first. It turned out that I wouldn't have, but I'm quite glad I read it, regardless. I think now I'd like to read The Man in the High Castle.

Books read: 1

24 November 2006

• John Scalzi, The Android's Dream: an entertaining screwball romp, though I wished for more (and stronger) female characters.

Books read: 1

26 November 2006

• Honore de Balzac, Cousin Bette: This tale of family passions and intrigue, set in Paris in the 1830s and 1840s, was the first Balzac I've read, and I liked it quite a lot. I found that I enjoyed his sardonic cynicism greatly, even though I disagree with many of his opinions (not myself being quite so cynical as he was, perhaps). To give you a flavor of his writing, here's one of the chapter titles, which are often wry: "Chapter 24. In which chance, which often brings about true romances, makes things go so well that they cannot continue like that for long."

Books read: 1

27 November 2006

• Susanna Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adieu: Though I liked the range of periods and styles and the inclusion of more women (particularly in the first story), I think I wanted something...I d'know...deeper? after Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Don't get me wrong, the stories are charming, and I enjoyed reading them, but I was never very involved. Really, this just made me want to reread JSaMN, which I guess isn't a bad thing (if only I weren't up to my eyeballs in all things French at the moment).

Books read: 1

30 November 2006

• Elizabeth von Arnim, Love, The Pastor's Wife: Both of these were considerably more serious in tone than the other books of hers I've read. In Love, an older woman falls in love with a younger man and must deal with the reactions of her family and friends and of society in general. I didn't care for the inconclusive ending, and there was a plot development in the second half I found unconvincing (having to do with the aging of the heroine), but overall, I was pleased with the pointed social commentary laced with von Arnim's usual wit.
  
  The Pastor's Wife is about a young woman who rebels against her strict family, goes on holiday to Switzerland, and ends up marrying a German clergyman. The social commentary here is even more pointed, as von Arnim traces Ingeborg's journey from one dominating male (her father) to another (her husband) and yet another (a painter with whom she becomes friends), and we see the paltriness of the choices she's allowed by her world.

Books read: 2

Also read this month:

• Nicola Beauman, A Very Great Profession: The Woman's Novel 1914-1939
• Steven Brust, The Phoenix Guards, Five Hundred Years After, The Paths of the Dead, The Lord of Castle Black, Sethra Lavode (rereads)
• Kathryn Harrison, St. Therese of Lisieux
• Georgette Heyer, Sylvester (reread)
• Nina Kiriki Hoffman, The Thread That Binds the Bones (reread)
• Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame of Paris
• Desmond Seward, The Hundred Years War
• Sarah Turnbull, Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris
• Edmund White, The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris

Total books read this month: 42
Total books read this year: 414

Last updated 12 March 2007. All text and photographs © George Mitchell and Margaret Johnston, unless otherwise noted Comments, questions, suggestions to margaret@lonelymountain.net.