Reading
I have managed to read somethings, really I have.
Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman was picked up in London before we headed home. I thoroughly enjoyed this action/adventure romp through modern day London with one of the oddest protagonists I've run into in awhile, and through 1940s London after an upper class twit of an eugenicist and the tiny, vicious fighter he's obsessed with, all having somewhat to do with an unusual beetle. It really does make sense, I promise, and is a great romp with some wonderful, tightly written paragraphs that made my heart burn with envy. It causes me a physical pain right -- there-- that Beauman is younger than my son and has produced such a fine debut. That's the sort of thing I'll just have to get used to.
The Bodleian Murders and Other Oxford Stories is a slender anthology I picked up at The Bodleian. It's a collection of short stories by local Oxford writers. All are good fun and a fast read. What I enjoyed most about these was its (to me) unique flavor. All the stories have a view of British country life that we don't often see in the highly packaged books that are sold in US bookstores. This gave the collection a freshness I really enjoyed. The stories included tales of lost and found romance, several murders, and old mysteries solved.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs had a quirk that completely entranced me in what was otherwise a somewhat ordinary YA playing off a number of familiar tropes. It uses old photographs -- the sort you might find in any antique store lying in boxes and available for ten for a buck, as illustrations to tell its story of lost children with unusual powers, a family secret, and the boy who must decide which of two worlds he belongs to. It has some wonderful moments and a great use of old photographs, and photos made to look like old photos. I thought that was brilliant and delightful. This is set up to be a series. I found that the second half became predictable after a strong start.
The Astounding, the Amazing, the Unknown by Paul Malmont. I simply can't quite like this, which breaks my heart since I adored Malmont's debut: The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril. Like his first book, the Astounding purports to be a fictionalization of a true event. Which may be it's problem because it just hasn't kept my interest. And it should. Tesla! Secret tunnels! Nazis! Maybe it's because it's so full of early SF writers: Heinlein, Asimov, Hubbard, deCamp and their personal problems and bitching at one another. Or maybe it's because on the home front, it just doesn't feel that perilous here when people were facing terrible events in other locations. I don't know. It makes me sad that I don't like it more, but there it is.
Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman was picked up in London before we headed home. I thoroughly enjoyed this action/adventure romp through modern day London with one of the oddest protagonists I've run into in awhile, and through 1940s London after an upper class twit of an eugenicist and the tiny, vicious fighter he's obsessed with, all having somewhat to do with an unusual beetle. It really does make sense, I promise, and is a great romp with some wonderful, tightly written paragraphs that made my heart burn with envy. It causes me a physical pain right -- there-- that Beauman is younger than my son and has produced such a fine debut. That's the sort of thing I'll just have to get used to.
The Bodleian Murders and Other Oxford Stories is a slender anthology I picked up at The Bodleian. It's a collection of short stories by local Oxford writers. All are good fun and a fast read. What I enjoyed most about these was its (to me) unique flavor. All the stories have a view of British country life that we don't often see in the highly packaged books that are sold in US bookstores. This gave the collection a freshness I really enjoyed. The stories included tales of lost and found romance, several murders, and old mysteries solved.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs had a quirk that completely entranced me in what was otherwise a somewhat ordinary YA playing off a number of familiar tropes. It uses old photographs -- the sort you might find in any antique store lying in boxes and available for ten for a buck, as illustrations to tell its story of lost children with unusual powers, a family secret, and the boy who must decide which of two worlds he belongs to. It has some wonderful moments and a great use of old photographs, and photos made to look like old photos. I thought that was brilliant and delightful. This is set up to be a series. I found that the second half became predictable after a strong start.
The Astounding, the Amazing, the Unknown by Paul Malmont. I simply can't quite like this, which breaks my heart since I adored Malmont's debut: The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril. Like his first book, the Astounding purports to be a fictionalization of a true event. Which may be it's problem because it just hasn't kept my interest. And it should. Tesla! Secret tunnels! Nazis! Maybe it's because it's so full of early SF writers: Heinlein, Asimov, Hubbard, deCamp and their personal problems and bitching at one another. Or maybe it's because on the home front, it just doesn't feel that perilous here when people were facing terrible events in other locations. I don't know. It makes me sad that I don't like it more, but there it is.