I am 1% ahead of my pace for the year -- trying to read 100 books this year. Here are June's:
47. Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World's First Computer, Jo Marchand.
Marchand tells the history of the Antikythera device -- a forgotten artifact discovered at the turn of the century by sponge divers. She goes back through the history of the historians trying to solve the case, and it's an interesting look. It's very obvious that she's a magazine writer -- the transitions are jarring, and the language is a bit off, but it was well worth the dollar I paid for it. However, all the math did give me some headaches.
48. Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love, and Death in Renaissance Italy, Sarah Bradford.
Clearly my love for the television series The Borgias led me to this, but it was definitely well worth the read. Very academic. Bradford digs Lucrezia out of the dungheap of history, and like Alison Weir did with Isabelle of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine, helps repair her reputation using good scholarship.
49. Speaking of Weir... Captive Queen: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Alison Weir.
Okay, remember how much I didn't really like Innocent Traitor and The Lady Elizabeth? Forget them. Weir finds her voice in Eleanor. Maybe she's better at writing middle-aged women, because this look at Eleanor's turbulent life with her second husband just worked better. I didn't want it to end.
50. The Greatest Knight, Elizabeth Chadwick.
Heh, I was on a definite Middle Ages kick. This book novelizes the life of William Marshal, the stalwart man who rose from humble origins to the confidence of Queen Eleanor and her sons. This too was a very good read. I finally liked a historical fiction book about a time period that I know well. You should be impressed.
51. Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain, Portia de Rossi.
de Rossi is brutally honest about her struggle with anorexia and bulimia. She writes with humour and grace about subjects that were clearly difficult for her to discuss with anyone -- going about her job and hating herself every single day for who she was pretending to be. I found this book mesmerising. Clearly there are trigger warnings for eating disorders in this book.
52. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
This book I definitely need a re-read, but I liked it! Marquez pretty much leads the magical realism "genre", and I love books with that sort of trope. I see now why Isabel Allende gets compared to him, not only for being a South American writer -- the story of a family through several generations through an entire book. I still think The House of the Spirits is better, but I respect this one.
Right now I am reading the 4th book in the Parasol Protectorate Series, Heartless. This book is by Gail Carriger.
This meme is based on books read so far this year.
favourite book: Hunting Eichmann, Neal Bascomb.
This was un-putdownable -- gripping and intriguing even though we knew the outcome.
most powerful book: Shake Hands with the Devil, Romeo Dallaire.
Oh god, where to begin. This is Dallaire's memoir of the Rwanda genocide in 1994. Simply stunning.
brilliantly funny Esperanza's Box of Saints, Maria Amparo Escandon.
This seemed like a particularly predictable prose, but Esperanza's journey is comedic without being pratfallish and is consistently entertaining.
best ache-y, heart-breaking, tear-jerker read: We'll go with fiction only in this one: Jellicoe Road, Melina Marchetta.
If you haven't read this, you need to do so.
most beautiful story Ash, Malinda Lo.
The love story in this book is simply spellbinding.
delicious rainy day comfort read Better Part of Darkness, Kelly Gay.
This urban fantasy is a quick, fun, entertaining read. Charlie's awesome.
adrenalin-fuelled, unputdownable award: I wasn't going to duplicate, but Hunting Eichmann defintely fits here. I kept putting it down and picking it back up over and over.
the beautiful prose award: The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield.
Oh my gosh, this was deceptively simple and yet well-written.
most atmospheric and vivid setting: A Northern Light, Jennifer Donnelly.
Turn of the century rural New York town. She does my land justice :)
i-so-want-to-go-there award: Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman.
I don't even really like Gaiman all that much and I loved Neverwhere.
most original and imaginative: Body of Work, Christine Montross.
Montross writes of her time in medical school -- the hours spent with her cadaver Eve, and contemplating all that is implied with a cadaver.
best under-appreciated, hidden gem book A Little Bit Wicked, Kristin Chenoweth.
A cute book, a lot of chuckles, and a bit of sweetness and light. Just like I imagine Ms Chenoweth to be like.
i-had-no-idea-i-would-love this-so award: Captive Queen, Alison Weir.
Weir's fiction has always been problematic to me, but her latest effort blew me away. She did well!
most haunting story: Jellicoe Road, Melina Marchetta.
Read it!
outside my comfort zone but gosh how i loved it: Blue Nude, Elizabeth Rosner.
I didn't think I would find the story of an Israeli model and a German painter interesting -- I usually don't like "arty" books. But this was a page-turner.
series that i'm loving: Charlie Madigan series (Kelly Gay). there are only 2 books so far, and I liked both of them a lot. Urban fantasy set in Atlanta, with a single mom cop character.
most memorable voice award Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters.
Nan has stuck with me even now, months after I finished the book.
completely awesome premise award: The Chess Machine, Robert Lohr.
A midget, a chess-playing machine (shaped like a Turk), murder, mayhem, and 18th century politics.
would make the best movie Definitely the Charlie Madigan series.
want to re-read already: One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
I just finished it, but I definitely want to re-read this. I think it's one of those books that requires re-reads.
Monday, July 04, 2011
Thursday, June 02, 2011
Book reviews - April and May
Okay here are April & May's books/reviews:
and the shadows took him, Daniel Chacon.
A young Hispanic boy lives his childhood as he is moved from California to Oregon while his father struggles to become a respectable middle class man in a very white town. This was really good. The characters popped out - they weren't cliches, and their fights and frustrations felt real. It was a bit predictable in parts, but I couldn't stop turning pages on this one.
A Little Bit Wicked: Life, Love, and Faith in Stages, Kristin Chenoweth
this book turned me into a bit of a stan for her. It reads just like how I think she would speak, despite having a ghostwriter. There's a surprise visit by Mister Writer (aka Aaron Sorkin) in the book. Their romance is really the reason why I picked it up. I lent this out to my coworker Jess who reminds me a lot of her.
Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters.
This is a novel set in Victorian England, following the career of Nan King, a young woman who falls in love with a performer who appears in men's clothing. She follows her off to London, and ends up on an odyssey of love, sex, and politics. I don't think all the foreshadowing was necessary, but I found this a genuinely enjoyable book. It tugged at my heartstrings a little bit.
Working for the Devil, Lilith Saintcrow.
I picked this up for the cover art alone, and tried to read it in March. It didn't grab my attention so I set it aside. Picked it up again a few weeks back and I found it more intriguing. I liked that Danny was a tough chick who kept insisting that she didn't need any help -- she comes to realize that she needs to let others inside at other points. I did see the twist at the end coming, but it didn't make it any less poignant. I will probably continue the series.
Sixty One Nails, Mike Shevdon
Claiming to be "Neverwhere for a new generation," I picked it up. I was not impressed. Sure, it turned pages, but the Gary Stu narrator couldn't be interested in a woman who wasn't stunning looking -- she shapeshifts to match his ideal of beauty. I was more interested in the world building, which was pretty well done. But stick with Neverwhere if you want a really good "wrong side of the tracks" fantasy story.
Bury Me Deep, Megan Abbott
One of my favourite books this year, actually. This is a novel set in Arizona in the 1930s. A small town girl moves with her troubled doctor husband to Arizona. While he leaves her to go practice medicine on miners in Mexico, she ends up with some wild friends and embarks on an affair with a prominent town leader. Somehow it goes awry and she ends up in the middle of a giant mess. Incredibly chilling and frightening.
Naamah's Curse, Jacqueline Carey
I love her worldbuilding, but I can't help to draw parallels to her other big heroine, Phedre. I know, I have to stop, they're not the same person. Moirin is a pretty plucky heroine, but I don't know if I'm a big fan of the follow the man all around the known world in order to be reunited" theme, but I do enjoy how Moirin basically convinces everyone ever to sleep with her by merely existing.
Telex from Cuba, Rachel Kershner
I didn't think I would get along with this at first. I had to look up "telex" and it's a slightly more advanced form of telegraphing, and a prior take on fax machines. They're still in use today, according to Wiki. But this is the story of several American families in Cuba -- working for the fruit companies and the mining companies that were robbing the Cubans blind. It was an interesting look at the women and children of the American execs who are forced to play nice with the other white people on the island because they are isolated. I didn't really care for the French terrorist/Cuban escort section (her name was Rachel K). But overall, I definitely found this book very interesting.
Blue Nude, Elizabeth Rosner
Rosner is from Schenectady NY, which is why I ended up picking this up after I set it down a few times. It's the story of two foreigners - Danzig, an art professor who has lost his interest in painting, and Merav, an Israeli artist's model who was in their Army in her youth. Rosner writes about painting and modelling, but it's about the fallout from World War II, even a few generations removed, for people of Europe and Israel. Very worthwile read.
Jellicoe Road, Melina Marchetta.
GO. Read this book. You will not be disappointed. I can't adequately describe this book without spoilerizing it, so go.
A Northern Light, Jennifer Donnelly
You guys, a book was set in my home region! No, I'm serious! This one is simply amazing and made me cry. Set at the turn of the century, a young girl has dreams of going to college and learns a new word of a day to keep her mind limber. But life in the North Woods isn't always that simple and she has to decide between her ambitions and her family.
Best quote:
"Why did little towns in Herkimer County never get a mention in anyone's book? Why was it always other places and other lives that mattered?"
This made me nearly cry. I've always felt this way, and it's part of why I bought this book -- it's set near my home, and I can feel the story -- I can smell it, I can taste it, I can feel the heartbreak, and I know that even though it's set 100 years ago, it's still the same.
and the shadows took him, Daniel Chacon.
A young Hispanic boy lives his childhood as he is moved from California to Oregon while his father struggles to become a respectable middle class man in a very white town. This was really good. The characters popped out - they weren't cliches, and their fights and frustrations felt real. It was a bit predictable in parts, but I couldn't stop turning pages on this one.
A Little Bit Wicked: Life, Love, and Faith in Stages, Kristin Chenoweth
this book turned me into a bit of a stan for her. It reads just like how I think she would speak, despite having a ghostwriter. There's a surprise visit by Mister Writer (aka Aaron Sorkin) in the book. Their romance is really the reason why I picked it up. I lent this out to my coworker Jess who reminds me a lot of her.
Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters.
This is a novel set in Victorian England, following the career of Nan King, a young woman who falls in love with a performer who appears in men's clothing. She follows her off to London, and ends up on an odyssey of love, sex, and politics. I don't think all the foreshadowing was necessary, but I found this a genuinely enjoyable book. It tugged at my heartstrings a little bit.
Working for the Devil, Lilith Saintcrow.
I picked this up for the cover art alone, and tried to read it in March. It didn't grab my attention so I set it aside. Picked it up again a few weeks back and I found it more intriguing. I liked that Danny was a tough chick who kept insisting that she didn't need any help -- she comes to realize that she needs to let others inside at other points. I did see the twist at the end coming, but it didn't make it any less poignant. I will probably continue the series.
Sixty One Nails, Mike Shevdon
Claiming to be "Neverwhere for a new generation," I picked it up. I was not impressed. Sure, it turned pages, but the Gary Stu narrator couldn't be interested in a woman who wasn't stunning looking -- she shapeshifts to match his ideal of beauty. I was more interested in the world building, which was pretty well done. But stick with Neverwhere if you want a really good "wrong side of the tracks" fantasy story.
Bury Me Deep, Megan Abbott
One of my favourite books this year, actually. This is a novel set in Arizona in the 1930s. A small town girl moves with her troubled doctor husband to Arizona. While he leaves her to go practice medicine on miners in Mexico, she ends up with some wild friends and embarks on an affair with a prominent town leader. Somehow it goes awry and she ends up in the middle of a giant mess. Incredibly chilling and frightening.
Naamah's Curse, Jacqueline Carey
I love her worldbuilding, but I can't help to draw parallels to her other big heroine, Phedre. I know, I have to stop, they're not the same person. Moirin is a pretty plucky heroine, but I don't know if I'm a big fan of the follow the man all around the known world in order to be reunited" theme, but I do enjoy how Moirin basically convinces everyone ever to sleep with her by merely existing.
Telex from Cuba, Rachel Kershner
I didn't think I would get along with this at first. I had to look up "telex" and it's a slightly more advanced form of telegraphing, and a prior take on fax machines. They're still in use today, according to Wiki. But this is the story of several American families in Cuba -- working for the fruit companies and the mining companies that were robbing the Cubans blind. It was an interesting look at the women and children of the American execs who are forced to play nice with the other white people on the island because they are isolated. I didn't really care for the French terrorist/Cuban escort section (her name was Rachel K). But overall, I definitely found this book very interesting.
Blue Nude, Elizabeth Rosner
Rosner is from Schenectady NY, which is why I ended up picking this up after I set it down a few times. It's the story of two foreigners - Danzig, an art professor who has lost his interest in painting, and Merav, an Israeli artist's model who was in their Army in her youth. Rosner writes about painting and modelling, but it's about the fallout from World War II, even a few generations removed, for people of Europe and Israel. Very worthwile read.
Jellicoe Road, Melina Marchetta.
GO. Read this book. You will not be disappointed. I can't adequately describe this book without spoilerizing it, so go.
A Northern Light, Jennifer Donnelly
You guys, a book was set in my home region! No, I'm serious! This one is simply amazing and made me cry. Set at the turn of the century, a young girl has dreams of going to college and learns a new word of a day to keep her mind limber. But life in the North Woods isn't always that simple and she has to decide between her ambitions and her family.
Best quote:
"Why did little towns in Herkimer County never get a mention in anyone's book? Why was it always other places and other lives that mattered?"
This made me nearly cry. I've always felt this way, and it's part of why I bought this book -- it's set near my home, and I can feel the story -- I can smell it, I can taste it, I can feel the heartbreak, and I know that even though it's set 100 years ago, it's still the same.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Exhuming the 1970s American Foreign Policy
I've spent many a September 11 reminiscing about the heavy handed US policies of the 1970s. When I was in university, I worked on researching the coup d'etat in Chile which happened to take place on 11 September 1973. I find the parallels and the meaning behind both days to be something worth examining.
It is telling though, how little American media and Americans nowadays at a whole know or care about Latin American affairs if they don't directly affect our supply of oil or kill our kids, or emigrate illegally (see Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico). This wasn't always so. See in the 1970s, the idea of having a dictatorship that was BFFs with our goverment was far more palatable than a legally elected socialist regime. So the US got into helping fund coups and pretty much endorsing crimes against humanity in parts of Latin America.
Salvador Allende was a physician who championed socialist ethos. His election was fraught with controversy but was won fair and square. The US tried to intervene secretly even before he was inaugurated, and his three years in the office were completely undermined by boycotts and other nasty tricks the CIA used to try to force his hand.
Allende didnt' back down, and on 11 September 1973, the military revolted. Led by Agustin Pinochet (for whom there is, presumably, a nice spot in hell somewhere), they stormed the Presidential Palace (La Moneda) and in the ensuing firefight, Allende was killed. The official story was that he committed suicide, but many who knew him doubted he would have done so.
In January, the Chilean government announced that it had exhumed Allende's body to put to rest whether he killed himself or he was assassinated. (Even if he killed himself, he was still assassinated, clearly.)
I found this article earlier today only in Spanish, and it's telling that the first English link Google came up with for me was from a non-American source. (And the only reason I have the Spanish-language articles is because I added a section on Google News for Chilean news services.)
As I went looking for an article in English for this post, I found also that Nathaniel Davis, the ambassador to Chile in the 1970s, recently died. He was famous for saying that the US wasn't really involved in the coup and the machinations to bring down Allende, but de-classified documents released by the CIA at the beginning of the decade showed otherwise. As the ambassador, Davis may not have known what they were up to, but he was responsible for the safety of Charles Horman, the journalist who went missing in Chile and was one of the desaparacidos - thousands of disappeared people who were ultimately murdered by Pinochet and his regime.
I am curious to see what the results are of this autopsy. If it was a murder, instead of a suicide, does it make that much difference to the people of Chile who were murdered by the thousands after his death? I'd like to think it would bring renewed war criminal charges against people like Henry Kissenger, but I won't hold my breath.
It is telling though, how little American media and Americans nowadays at a whole know or care about Latin American affairs if they don't directly affect our supply of oil or kill our kids, or emigrate illegally (see Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico). This wasn't always so. See in the 1970s, the idea of having a dictatorship that was BFFs with our goverment was far more palatable than a legally elected socialist regime. So the US got into helping fund coups and pretty much endorsing crimes against humanity in parts of Latin America.
Salvador Allende was a physician who championed socialist ethos. His election was fraught with controversy but was won fair and square. The US tried to intervene secretly even before he was inaugurated, and his three years in the office were completely undermined by boycotts and other nasty tricks the CIA used to try to force his hand.
Allende didnt' back down, and on 11 September 1973, the military revolted. Led by Agustin Pinochet (for whom there is, presumably, a nice spot in hell somewhere), they stormed the Presidential Palace (La Moneda) and in the ensuing firefight, Allende was killed. The official story was that he committed suicide, but many who knew him doubted he would have done so.
In January, the Chilean government announced that it had exhumed Allende's body to put to rest whether he killed himself or he was assassinated. (Even if he killed himself, he was still assassinated, clearly.)
I found this article earlier today only in Spanish, and it's telling that the first English link Google came up with for me was from a non-American source. (And the only reason I have the Spanish-language articles is because I added a section on Google News for Chilean news services.)
As I went looking for an article in English for this post, I found also that Nathaniel Davis, the ambassador to Chile in the 1970s, recently died. He was famous for saying that the US wasn't really involved in the coup and the machinations to bring down Allende, but de-classified documents released by the CIA at the beginning of the decade showed otherwise. As the ambassador, Davis may not have known what they were up to, but he was responsible for the safety of Charles Horman, the journalist who went missing in Chile and was one of the desaparacidos - thousands of disappeared people who were ultimately murdered by Pinochet and his regime.
I am curious to see what the results are of this autopsy. If it was a murder, instead of a suicide, does it make that much difference to the people of Chile who were murdered by the thousands after his death? I'd like to think it would bring renewed war criminal charges against people like Henry Kissenger, but I won't hold my breath.
Monday, May 16, 2011
what in the wide wide world of sports is this
It was a bit of a weird day at work, not gonna lie. I opened up the gates and the usual mall-walkers filed in for their routine touch everything and not buy a damned thing spiel (my favourite is seeing how many of them ignore me or just answer my "Hi How are you," with a "just looking" growl). Then two minutes later a lady walks in with a return.
Then as I process that return, a line forms behind her with four other people, all wanting returns.
My boss came back from the bank then and panicked a bit. Then I had the lady who paid for a 135 order with two 100 bills and all the change that I had just gotten was wiped completely out.
Things settled down after that though and we recovered nicely monetarily wise, which was a+++.
My boss went in search of stickers for our board, and I was talking to the other associate, when I heard someone knock over our sign and mumble something. So I walked up to the front of the store and saw one guy standing while two other dudes were on the ground on top of this guy telling him to get on the ground while they cuffed him. It apparently took two tries and the guy lost his hat, money, and shoe in the melee.
The presumably plainclothes cops (because they weren't wearing uniforms) then asked the fellow who was standing to open his jacket and checked to see if he'd stolen anything too. I'm guessing, but uncertain that the cuffed buddy was caught stealing sneakers from Champs, and they caught up with him after a brief chase and a collision with my sign.
Bizarro.
Then as I process that return, a line forms behind her with four other people, all wanting returns.
My boss came back from the bank then and panicked a bit. Then I had the lady who paid for a 135 order with two 100 bills and all the change that I had just gotten was wiped completely out.
Things settled down after that though and we recovered nicely monetarily wise, which was a+++.
My boss went in search of stickers for our board, and I was talking to the other associate, when I heard someone knock over our sign and mumble something. So I walked up to the front of the store and saw one guy standing while two other dudes were on the ground on top of this guy telling him to get on the ground while they cuffed him. It apparently took two tries and the guy lost his hat, money, and shoe in the melee.
The presumably plainclothes cops (because they weren't wearing uniforms) then asked the fellow who was standing to open his jacket and checked to see if he'd stolen anything too. I'm guessing, but uncertain that the cuffed buddy was caught stealing sneakers from Champs, and they caught up with him after a brief chase and a collision with my sign.
Bizarro.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Books of March
Hello friends, it's that time again where I tell you what I read and how I liked it. March was a good month for me because I powered through 8 books AND took a day off from reading. I'm ahead by 3 books on my pace of 100 for the year, so I'm super stoked.
First up was Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, Romeo Dallaire.
This was a difficult book. Coming on the heels of Hunting Eichmann, it was a bitter pill to swallow. The initiatives put in place to keep another Holocaust from happening were completely neglected in Rwanda, because the timing was bad. Dallaire was the chief of the UN Mission there, and he reports the red tape, the inhumane and nearly indescribable torment and sheer scale of awfulness that humans can do to each other. Simply chilling and a very, very important book. It made me rage at my own government -- the US, France, The UK, and Belgium take their share of blame from Dallaire's book -- it was, as I said, a difficult book. I think everyone should read it, but keep in mind it is a very difficult story to get through.
So after that I had a hard time deciding what to read next, and since the show was starting a week from the day I finished SHWT, I decided on A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin (who is on Livejournal, but I don't know his username. It's probably something like his name or some such.) Anyway, I only got my feet wet in fantasy by reading a Renaissance-inspired world (the Kushiel series) and GoT is set in a medieval-esque world, so that helped me get into it a little bit. And when informed me that the book was vaguely based on The Wars of the Roses, it snapped into place a little bit more for me and helped my enjoyment of the first book. There is however, trigger warnings for incest (which helpfully discovered for me beforehand). I have yet to watch the show but I think I will, and read the next book at the very least.
The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield, has long been at the top of my To Read list. And I found it on a bargain rack at Borders so I picked it up. SO GLAD I DID. It opened with a heroine researching into a life of someone else, much like that horrid Pink Carnation book, so I side-eyed it but continued on anyway. I was rewarded with a book about memory, love, loss, and a mystery that wraps itself up into a nice, tidy ending. It was a little too convenient, but very enjoyable nonetheless. I kept turning pages and alternately not wanting the book to end.
On the same trip that I picked up that book, I also got Three Days to Dead, by Kelly Meding. The blurb on the back cover embedded itself in my brain -- a bounty hunter wakes up in the body of another woman on an autopsy table and has three days to solve her murder. It was a good concept, but it was slow and boring in its execution. If the author had twisted the tale in different directions, or hadn't made the supposed love interest into a boring, wooden character who would risk everything ever for the Mary Sue I mean main character, it would have worked. There are more books in the series, but I won't be continuing it, tyvm.
Then I got out one of my dollar books to kill an evening: Podkayne of Mars, by Robert Heinlein. NB: I had known of Heinlein, and only that he was one of the Sci-Fi Gods (authors that people revere for leading the heyday of SF works) but never had read anything of his.
Nor will I again -- this sexist piece of garbage was about a I think 16 year old girl, but the "saviour" of the book was her eleven year old brother who of course was better at everything than her. I just wanted to punch this book in the face several times.
I decided Finding Nouf (by Zoe Ferraris) would be a good palate cleanser. This is a murder mystery set in Saudi Arabia -- one of the wealthiest men in the country's daughter is found murdered in the desert, pregnant at 16 and unmarried. A friend of the family and a female medical examiner take on the case of trying to find out who killed her, working within the confines of their society's laws and regulations. It's an interesting look at a place I don't read a lot about, and while I didn't love it, I think I'd read the rest of the series too.
Next up was Amalia's Tale: A Poor Peasant, an Ambitious Attorney, and a Fight for Justice, by David Kertzer. This is a case study of a woman from rural Italy who worked as a wet nurse for a foundling home. When she contracted syphilis, she did what was an unexpected thing at the time -- she contacted a lawyer, who just happened to be looking for a case to make his name. He sues the foundling home on her behalf, and finds out that this was a common practice and many women had been given syphilis from infants who were too young to show signs of the disease before being "farmed out" to these mothers. It's a good look at a time period and a place that normally go unnoticed by historians.
Finally, I read The Other Queen, by Phillipa Gregory. I had been wanting to read this for a while and nearly bought it off the bargain rack but when I was cleaning I found I already had purchased it at Christmastime. Whoops. Anyway, this was Gregory's interpretation of Mary, Queen of Scots and her imprisonment in England after she fled there for sanctuary from Scotland. Gregory used the same tri-partite structure that she did in The Boleyn Inheritance but here it just falls flat and turns repetitive -- she has the three characters replay nearly every scene from their POV and it's so boring. The chapters are a page to a page and a half at some points, and it's just frustrating. Not worth the read.
I haven't started a new book yet. Back in January I started a collection of short stories mostly set in Nova Scotia by Alistair Macleod, and tonight I read four more of them, but I haven't picked up a new tome yet. We'll see how it goes though.
First up was Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, Romeo Dallaire.
This was a difficult book. Coming on the heels of Hunting Eichmann, it was a bitter pill to swallow. The initiatives put in place to keep another Holocaust from happening were completely neglected in Rwanda, because the timing was bad. Dallaire was the chief of the UN Mission there, and he reports the red tape, the inhumane and nearly indescribable torment and sheer scale of awfulness that humans can do to each other. Simply chilling and a very, very important book. It made me rage at my own government -- the US, France, The UK, and Belgium take their share of blame from Dallaire's book -- it was, as I said, a difficult book. I think everyone should read it, but keep in mind it is a very difficult story to get through.
So after that I had a hard time deciding what to read next, and since the show was starting a week from the day I finished SHWT, I decided on A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin (who is on Livejournal, but I don't know his username. It's probably something like his name or some such.) Anyway, I only got my feet wet in fantasy by reading a Renaissance-inspired world (the Kushiel series) and GoT is set in a medieval-esque world, so that helped me get into it a little bit. And when
The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield, has long been at the top of my To Read list. And I found it on a bargain rack at Borders so I picked it up. SO GLAD I DID. It opened with a heroine researching into a life of someone else, much like that horrid Pink Carnation book, so I side-eyed it but continued on anyway. I was rewarded with a book about memory, love, loss, and a mystery that wraps itself up into a nice, tidy ending. It was a little too convenient, but very enjoyable nonetheless. I kept turning pages and alternately not wanting the book to end.
On the same trip that I picked up that book, I also got Three Days to Dead, by Kelly Meding. The blurb on the back cover embedded itself in my brain -- a bounty hunter wakes up in the body of another woman on an autopsy table and has three days to solve her murder. It was a good concept, but it was slow and boring in its execution. If the author had twisted the tale in different directions, or hadn't made the supposed love interest into a boring, wooden character who would risk everything ever for the Mary Sue I mean main character, it would have worked. There are more books in the series, but I won't be continuing it, tyvm.
Then I got out one of my dollar books to kill an evening: Podkayne of Mars, by Robert Heinlein. NB: I had known of Heinlein, and only that he was one of the Sci-Fi Gods (authors that people revere for leading the heyday of SF works) but never had read anything of his.
Nor will I again -- this sexist piece of garbage was about a I think 16 year old girl, but the "saviour" of the book was her eleven year old brother who of course was better at everything than her. I just wanted to punch this book in the face several times.
I decided Finding Nouf (by Zoe Ferraris) would be a good palate cleanser. This is a murder mystery set in Saudi Arabia -- one of the wealthiest men in the country's daughter is found murdered in the desert, pregnant at 16 and unmarried. A friend of the family and a female medical examiner take on the case of trying to find out who killed her, working within the confines of their society's laws and regulations. It's an interesting look at a place I don't read a lot about, and while I didn't love it, I think I'd read the rest of the series too.
Next up was Amalia's Tale: A Poor Peasant, an Ambitious Attorney, and a Fight for Justice, by David Kertzer. This is a case study of a woman from rural Italy who worked as a wet nurse for a foundling home. When she contracted syphilis, she did what was an unexpected thing at the time -- she contacted a lawyer, who just happened to be looking for a case to make his name. He sues the foundling home on her behalf, and finds out that this was a common practice and many women had been given syphilis from infants who were too young to show signs of the disease before being "farmed out" to these mothers. It's a good look at a time period and a place that normally go unnoticed by historians.
Finally, I read The Other Queen, by Phillipa Gregory. I had been wanting to read this for a while and nearly bought it off the bargain rack but when I was cleaning I found I already had purchased it at Christmastime. Whoops. Anyway, this was Gregory's interpretation of Mary, Queen of Scots and her imprisonment in England after she fled there for sanctuary from Scotland. Gregory used the same tri-partite structure that she did in The Boleyn Inheritance but here it just falls flat and turns repetitive -- she has the three characters replay nearly every scene from their POV and it's so boring. The chapters are a page to a page and a half at some points, and it's just frustrating. Not worth the read.
I haven't started a new book yet. Back in January I started a collection of short stories mostly set in Nova Scotia by Alistair Macleod, and tonight I read four more of them, but I haven't picked up a new tome yet. We'll see how it goes though.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
You must be this tall to ride the internet.
Apparently everyone who interacts with me on the internet expects me to be shorter. It confounds me. I'm a tall-ish lady -- aided by ridic long legs and a 5'7.5" frame who wears heeled shoes all the time. Is it because I'm above average height for a woman? I met a few people at a Times Union Bloggers meeting and one gentleman said he expected me to be shorter, because my username was ALLCAPSDOOM. Compensating for height with caps? I dunno.
He's not the first -- I know that Phil is always confounded at my height whenever we see each other IRL. I'm a tall-ish lady, people.
Strangest thing just happened: I was typing up this entry and the lamp went out. I flicked on the humidifier because it was closer and the light went back on. It was very strange. I sorted it out though -- the lamp wasn't plugged in as tightly as it should be, and I also had Netty plugged into that outlet. So as I move the netbook about I was flicking the light off and on. However it doesn't explain why the light blew in my ceiling fan earlier and now the fan won't even run on that. Weird. I think it's just busted, but I won't worry about it today -- I gotta clean my room out before I let anyone in to look at it.
He's not the first -- I know that Phil is always confounded at my height whenever we see each other IRL. I'm a tall-ish lady, people.
Strangest thing just happened: I was typing up this entry and the lamp went out. I flicked on the humidifier because it was closer and the light went back on. It was very strange. I sorted it out though -- the lamp wasn't plugged in as tightly as it should be, and I also had Netty plugged into that outlet. So as I move the netbook about I was flicking the light off and on. However it doesn't explain why the light blew in my ceiling fan earlier and now the fan won't even run on that. Weird. I think it's just busted, but I won't worry about it today -- I gotta clean my room out before I let anyone in to look at it.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Books!
I only read three books this month, which pales to the 11 I read last month. To be fair, one of them was 750 pages and took all my time up. I spent the rest of the month working on mailing out books too, although I have had rubbish luck with my copy of Suite Francaise. I listed it before and forgot to mail it so the request expired. So I relisted it when I did my book cataloging and someone snatched it up.
Today I got a message in my inbox stating that she got the envelope that it was in, but no book. I know that I sealed it up properly, because I was doing five other packages at the time and sealed them after writing the contents on the outsides of the envelopes. So I emailed GoodReads to ask what they can do for us. I hate to lose books, and I hope we get this resolved amicably. I've shipped almost 40 other books and this is my first incident, so I guess that's good.
So onto the books I read:
Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley, Alison Weir.
So many of you know that I'm in love with anything Ms Weir writes, correct? This is the 750 page monstrosity that she explains right up front requires that much pagination because you have to take in the scope of the conspiracy and all the players involved, and you need all the backstory. And she's not wrong. The problem is that Mary herself isn't as compelling a figure as Elizabeth or Isabella or Eleanor, and after 400 pages of Mary making the wrong decisions at the worst possible times you kind of get tired of her. Weir tries gamely to make her interesting, but I was quite happy to get to the end of this one. This is definitely a requirement if you want to read all of Weir's books, but don't make this your starting point by any means.
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, Lauren Willig.
Oh my lord. This was miserable. I wanted to punch everyone and everything in it. It read like a sitcom set in the turn of the 18th century, but stocked with modern characters wearing fancy dresses. The cartoonish proposal scene was beyond criminal, and the entire "present day" scenario made me want to puke. Self-insert characters never fare well. And apparently there's a whole freaking series of these books. Hell to the no.
Playing with the Enemy: A Baseball Prodigy, a World War, and the Long Journey Home, Gary W. Moore.
This is the story of Gene Moore, a phenom prospect signed by the Dodgers just prior to World War II. He played baseball for the Navy during the war and ended his career in a meaningless game against German POWs he had taught to play. His son writes the book and right away it turned me a bit off to find out that Gary Moore's job was as a motivational speaker. The dialogue in the book would fit into any self-help book, and it's slightly exaggerated. But as you ease into the book, it becomes more and more interesting, and You find the story far easier to swallow. I'll admit it, this book brought me near to tears a couple of times.
The subject matter is close to my own researches -- my senior thesis for my BA was on baseball during WWII. I wish this book had been out then.
Currently reading local author Jedediah Berry's "The Manual of Detection." (If you consider he was born in the Hudson Valley somewhere and currently lives in Northampton MA, then yes he is local.)
Today I got a message in my inbox stating that she got the envelope that it was in, but no book. I know that I sealed it up properly, because I was doing five other packages at the time and sealed them after writing the contents on the outsides of the envelopes. So I emailed GoodReads to ask what they can do for us. I hate to lose books, and I hope we get this resolved amicably. I've shipped almost 40 other books and this is my first incident, so I guess that's good.
So onto the books I read:
Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley, Alison Weir.
So many of you know that I'm in love with anything Ms Weir writes, correct? This is the 750 page monstrosity that she explains right up front requires that much pagination because you have to take in the scope of the conspiracy and all the players involved, and you need all the backstory. And she's not wrong. The problem is that Mary herself isn't as compelling a figure as Elizabeth or Isabella or Eleanor, and after 400 pages of Mary making the wrong decisions at the worst possible times you kind of get tired of her. Weir tries gamely to make her interesting, but I was quite happy to get to the end of this one. This is definitely a requirement if you want to read all of Weir's books, but don't make this your starting point by any means.
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, Lauren Willig.
Oh my lord. This was miserable. I wanted to punch everyone and everything in it. It read like a sitcom set in the turn of the 18th century, but stocked with modern characters wearing fancy dresses. The cartoonish proposal scene was beyond criminal, and the entire "present day" scenario made me want to puke. Self-insert characters never fare well. And apparently there's a whole freaking series of these books. Hell to the no.
Playing with the Enemy: A Baseball Prodigy, a World War, and the Long Journey Home, Gary W. Moore.
This is the story of Gene Moore, a phenom prospect signed by the Dodgers just prior to World War II. He played baseball for the Navy during the war and ended his career in a meaningless game against German POWs he had taught to play. His son writes the book and right away it turned me a bit off to find out that Gary Moore's job was as a motivational speaker. The dialogue in the book would fit into any self-help book, and it's slightly exaggerated. But as you ease into the book, it becomes more and more interesting, and You find the story far easier to swallow. I'll admit it, this book brought me near to tears a couple of times.
The subject matter is close to my own researches -- my senior thesis for my BA was on baseball during WWII. I wish this book had been out then.
Currently reading local author Jedediah Berry's "The Manual of Detection." (If you consider he was born in the Hudson Valley somewhere and currently lives in Northampton MA, then yes he is local.)
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