Archives - September 2005 archives -- index by author -- index by category -- favorite books -- links

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1 September 2005

• Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare: an often intriguing look at Shakespeare's life and works, though I'm a little suspicious of Greenblatt's method of biographical criticism, trying to figure out the facts of Shakespeare's life from what he chose to write - this seems a dubious business at best, though given how little we know about much of the Bard's life, I can see why it's attractive.

Books read: 1

2 September 2005

• Rumer Godden, The Battle of the Villa Fiorita: the story of a divorce and of two children's efforts to win back their mother, who's living in Italy with her lover. I liked Godden's perceptive, sympathetic rendering of the emotions of both children and mother, showing both sides of the story.

Books read: 1

3 September 2005

• Rumer Godden, Coromandel Sea Change: a lovely evocation of Godden's beloved India, though I couldn't stay very interested in the plot.

Books read: 1

5 September 2005

• Anthony Trollope, The Warden: reread of the first book of the Barchester Chronicles, because I just watched the excellent BBC adaptation of this and Barchester Towers. This is a masterpiece in miniature; it's much shorter than the average Victorian novel, but full of Trollope's masterfully drawn, memorable characters. If you've never read Trollope, this is a wonderful place to start.

Books read: 1

6 September 2005

• Catherine Storr, Thursday: a subtle, modern-day Tam Lin retelling, wherein the protagonist's best friend disappears and she searches for him. There's an interesting ambiguity about whether magic and faeries are really involved, whether they're really real, that I liked.

Books read: 1

7 September 2005

• Patricia A. McKillip, Winter Rose: reread, though it's been so long that I barely remember the first time. Winter Rose is a Tam Lin retelling, and I think a particularly good one; also, it's a favorite among McKillip's books. The first person narrator (a device I can't remember McKillip using in any of her other books I've read) gives the book a little more emotional immediacy than usual, and the writing is just as gorgeous and rich as always: the faeries and the faery world are particularly outstanding, with just the otherworldliness I was missing from Janet McNaughton's An Earthly Knight.

Books read: 1

8 September 2005

• Jasper Fforde, The Big Over Easy: the first book in his new Nursery Crime series. I enjoyed the Thursday Next novels very much and had high hopes for this one, but this installment at least doesn't live up to Thursday. It's set in a similarly quirky world where books are reality, but instead of the classic novels Thursday dealt, detectives Jack Spratt and Mary Mary inhabit a nursery rhyme world, where the three little pigs are tried for assaulting the big bad wolf and where Humpty Dumpty's death was a murder. The conceit wears thin quickly, and there's not enough interest in the plot or characters to keep the book going. I might possibly try the next book in the series, but so far, I'd just as soon reread the Thursday Next books instead.
  
  
• Barbara Michaels, Houses of Stone: a reread of one of her later efforts and unfortunately in many ways not one of her better ones. The plot always hooks me quickly, because it has to do with the discovery by an English professor of a long-lost Gothic novel by a 19th-century woman, which is an intrinsically interesting subject for me. However, the plot Michaels constructs around the discovery of the novel simply doesn't live up to her usual standards of suspense, nor does the romantic intrigue. Still, the characters are engaging, and Michaels does a good job with the Gothic novel and its writer, so it's still an entertaining read, worth whiling away a couple of hours with.

Books read: 2

9 September 2005

• Julie Smith, P.I. on a Hot Tin Roof: this is the fourth entry in Smith's mystery series about Talba Wallis, a poet and PI in New Orleans, and it's a good one. Here Talba poses as a maid to infiltrate the household of a crooked judge and becomes emotionally entangled with the judge's family, particularly with his daughter Lucy, a budding teenage poet. The plot was reasonably suspenseful, and the characters were excellently done. It was a little odd and heartrending to be reading a book about New Orleans so soon after Hurricane Katrina, particularly as Smith describes her city in affectionate and perceptive detail.
  
  
• William Shakespeare, The Tempest and Pericles, Prince of Tyre: I reread these because we're going to see them in London and I'd forgotten most of the plot of Pericles since I read it years ago. They were an interesting paired read; both have a deep interest in the father-daughter relationship (as do all of Shakespeare's romance plays, come to think of it).

Books read: 3

10 September 2005

• Kelly Link, Stranger Things Happen: a very quirky collection of fantasy/horror short stories. Some of them worked for me very well - "Travels with the Snow Queen" particularly, a take on the Hans Christian Andersen story - others didn't. I did like Link's use of fairy tales and mythology, and the strong emotional current to every story, even the ones I wasn't as taken with.

Books read: 1

11 September 2005

• Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree: I knew I would like this book as soon as I read the first paragraph, which I will quote for your delectation:
  
  "So this is supposed to be about the how, and when, and why, and what of reading -- about the way that, when reading is going well, one book leads to another and to another, a paper trail of theme and meaning; and how, when it's going badly, when books don't stick or take, when your mood and the mood of the book are fighting like cats, you'd rather do anything but attempt the next paragraph, or reread the last one for the tenth time."
  
  That's exactly how I feel - sometimes one book leads right into another and I get a lovely flow of books going; sometimes I just can't find one that I want to read. The Polysyllabic Spree is a collection of Hornby's book columns from The Believer (of which I'd now like to pick up an issue, to see if the rest of it is as good). He starts each column with a list of the books he's bought and the books he's read that month, just to show that he, like the rest of us, buys a lot more books than he could possibly read. In fact, his ground rule #1 for the column is that nobody is allowed to write in to tell him that he spends too much money on books he will never read: "I know that already. I certainly intend to read all of them, more or less. My intentions are good."
  
  Hornby's discussions of the books he reads are direct, informal, and very sharp. My only issue is that apparently the magazine doesn't allow negative reviews, and thus anything Hornby dislikes, he can't refer to by title. I'm not necessarily looking for negative reviews, per se, but it would be nice to know exactly which books he didn't like. Oh, well -- reading about the books he did like was extremely entertaining, and I only wish the book were longer.
  
  
• Dahlov Ipcar, The Queen of Spells: another Tam Lin retelling. Like An Earthly Knight, this is a fairly straight retelling; it's set in 19th-century America, and the heroine is a farmer's daughter named Janet, who falls in love with the mysterious Tom Linn and must then rescue him from the queen of faerie. Ipcar follows the plot of the ballad so closely that there are really no surprises for most of the book. In fact, I was just becoming rather bored at its lack of innovation when, two-thirds of the way through, the rescue begins -- and that's where it gets interesting. Janet enters a nightmare world of forest, river, and circus -- yes, circus, where Janet ends up after pulling Tom off his horse. It sounds odd, but it works surprisingly well, at least for me, and it was frankly a lot more interesting than the rather dull retelling given in the beginning of the book. If the whole book had been as original as the end, I'd call this a very good Tam Lin retelling; as it is, one must bear with the standard beginning for the sake of the intriguing ending.

Books read: 2

24 September 2005

• Jennifer Crusie, Bet Me: reread. I haven't much to add to add to my initial impressions, except that this stood up very well on rereading and made excellent airplane reading.
  
  
• Gervase Phinn, The Other Side of the Dale: this and its several sequels are by a school inspector in Yorkshire and are widely heralded as resembling James Herriot's books (about a vet in Yorkshire). The local flavor is certainly similar, and this was a quick and enjoyable read, but I didn't find Phinn's writing as good as Herriot's (the characterization was nowhere near as good) and probably won't bother to track down and read the rest of his books.
  
  
• William Shakespeare, As You Like It: reread of probably my favorite Shakespeare (and the first I ever read), after seeing a good production in London with Helen McCrory as Rosalind. McCrory was wonderful, though the production missed a lot of the lyricism in the play.
  
  
• Minette Walters, The Ice House: what am I missing? Walters is much heralded everywhere as a superb mystery writer, like Ruth Rendell, yet I was underwhelmed by this tale of three women living together and haunted by the years-ago disappearance of the husband of one. The plot was interesting and twisty enough, and a few of the characters eventually engaged me, but I didn't think the writing style was at all effective, and I didn't feel much suspense. I may try another one, because her books have often been recommended to me, but I was disappointed here.
  
  
• Rosamond Lehmann, Invitation to the Waltz: a snapshot of a teenage girl getting ready for and going to her first dance. Nothing momentous happens, but it's not meant to; it's just a beautifully written, sympathetically perceived portrait of its heroine, Olivia, and a short span in her life. There's apparently a sequel, The Weather in the Streets, which I must hunt down.
  
  
• Monica Dickens, Mariana: I'd previously only read One Pair of Hands, Dickens's very funny 1939 book about how she went from being a debutante to trying her hand at domestic service. Mariana is fiction, though with a strong element of autobiography. It begins with a wife finding out that her husband may have been lost at sea during WWII and then settles into an extended flashback, following Mary through her childhood and early adult years. It's evocative and engaging, and I wish that more of Dickens's work were in print.
  
  
• E.M. Delafield, Consequences: Delafield is best known these days for the very funny Provincial Lady series. Consequences is quite different in tone, much more somber, yet it also deals with women's constricted lives and how they deal with them. It's not a cheerful read, as Alex, the heroine, goes through much suffering, but a thoughtful and perceptive one. (And I should put in a word here for Persephone Books, who reprinted this, Mariana, and lots of other wonderful books, forgotten classics by 20th-century writers, in beautiful editions.)
  
  
• Sue Townsend, Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction: I don't know how she does it, but Townsend has kept Adrian Mole fresh, funny, and touching all these years, since The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4. Here Adrian is in his thirties, with two sons, one in the army, one in Africa with his mother; his relationship with the son in the army is particularly well-done, as Glenn goes to Iraq and Adrian, previously a supporter of the war, becomes uncertain of his feelings about it. As usual, Adrian gets into more messes than he can handle, romantically and financially, and many of the old cast of characters appear: Pandora, Nigel, Adrian's parents, even Barry Kent. If you've read and enjoyed the previous books, run right out and get this one (it will be out in the States in December).

Books read: 8

25 September 2005

• Susan Glaspell's Fidelity (another lovely Persephone Books reprint) is a forgotten classic, an early 20th-century novel about a Midwest woman who defies the rules of society to run away with her lover. The structure is intricate yet easily followed, beginning as Ruth comes home to be with her sick father and then using flashbacks to show how events unfolded in the past. Though her sympathies (and thus the reader's) are clearly with Ruth, Glaspell is careful to show every side of the story, how Ruth's decision affected her family and friends as well as herself; there are no easy answers here.

Books read: 1

26 September 2005

• Barchester Towers is the second of Anthony Trollope's Barchester novels, following closely on the heels of The Warden. Here Trollope introduces two of his most memorable characters: Mrs. Proudie, the domineering wife of the new bishop of Barchester, and Mr. Slope, his oily chaplain. Their arrival in Barchester with the bishop sets off a chain of power struggles, between the Proudie faction and the faction of Archdeacon Grantly (the son of the old bishop), and finally between Mrs. Proudie and Mr. Slope. As always, I love Trollope's sly humor and his incredibly real characters. If you've never read Trollope before, this would be an excellent place to start.

Books read: 1

27 September 2005

• When I read Victoria Hanley's young adult fantasy, The Seer and the Sword, back in March, I concluded that it had good characters, but not enough worldbuilding. Oddly, Hanley's second book, The Healer's Keep, suffers from the opposite problem. It's set in the same world and follows the adventure of four teenagers who are fighting the mysterious Shadow King, who is trying to take over the Healer's Keep (where two of the teens are studying magic) and then the world. Though the world (particularly the Keep) is well thought-out, none of the characters really came to life for me, perhaps because so much story was stuffed into one book that characterization was sketchy and the action was over-hurried. Again, Hanley's ideas have potential, but at least for me, she hasn't quite hit her stride yet.

Books read: 1

28 September 2005

• Clare B. Dunkle's By These Ten Bones is not part of her Hollow Kingdom series, which I've been enjoying, but a standalone. Maddy's village is visited by a mysterious woodcarver and his companion and then threatened by a series of strange and violent events. Dunkle creates a creepy atmosphere, but I was never very convinced by the characters, particularly by Maddy's intense devotion to the woodcarver, and thus I never got very involved in the story.
  
  
• I've long enjoyed Pam Houston's work since reading her excellent short story collection, Cowboys Are My Weakness, for the first time years ago, so I was pleased to see that she'd written a novel, Sight Hound. I knew that it was about the relationship between a woman, Rae, and her dog Dante, but I was a little leery when I started reading it and found that sections of it are told from the dog's point-of-view - that's something that can so easily be handled poorly. I should have trusted Houston more, though, as she does a stellar job creating a convincing voice for Dante, as well as for the myriad of other characters who tell the story from their own perspectives, from Rae herself, to her lover Howard, her housekeeper Darlene, her other friends, and even her other dog, Rose. Houston treads the fine line between sentiment and soppiness with humor and warmth; I thoroughly enjoyed Sight Hound.

Books read: 2

30 September 2005

• When Diane Duane's new Young Wizards book, Wizards at War, came out, I decided to treat myself and reread the previous three books in the series: The Wizard's Dilemma, A Wizard Alone, and Wizard's Holiday (which I commented on briefly when I first read it in December 2003). I was glad that I had, because Wizards at War follows very directly on from Wizard's Holiday and brings in characters and threads from all of the books, back to So You Want to Be a Wizard. When Nita and Kit return from their holiday, they find Nita's house still full of alien wizards, and they also find out wizardry is failing and the universe itself is threatened. The cameos from previous books could be on the self-indulgent side, but Duane handles them deftly enough to avoid that, and the story wraps up plot threads satisfyingly (save for one, which I imagine she'll investigate further in the next book).

Books read: 4

Total books read this month: 31
Total books read this year: 309

Last updated 29 November 2005. All text and photographs © George Mitchell and Margaret Johnston, unless otherwise noted Comments, questions, suggestions to margaret@lonelymountain.net.