books read: february 2010
11. The Improbably Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, edited by John Joseph Adams.
Like all anthologies, the stories are pretty much hit or miss; thankfully, I found more of the former than the latter. Most of the stories are reprints, but since I've never read any other Sherlock Holmes anthology, that was no big problem for me. Being a Neil Gaiman fan, I've of course read "A Study in Emerald" before, but it's a lot easier to understand the clues when you have more of an understanding of the source material (well, on the Holmes side; my knowledge of Lovecraft stops at knowing Cthulhu's name) than can be gained by pop culture osmosis. I adored, so much, Tanith Lee's "The Human Mystery"; the motive behind the mystery was telegraphed fairly early on, but it was fun watching Holmes decidedly Not Get It.
12. The West End Horror, by Nicholas Meyer.
I enjoyed this book, though I found the ending to be anti-climactic. However, as with the anthology above, I find the inclusion of real life figures wears thin after a while; it makes the world seem so very small. (Unfortunately for me, this is a popular device in Holmesian fiction, so I must persevere.) To Meyer's credit, he does address the issue in the book. Still, the meetings with actual historical figures did bring about genuine laughs, as when Shaw's Pygmalion was mentioned and the footnote read that Henry Higgins was very similar to Holmes and Pickering to Watson -- I'd just rewatched My Fair Lady several weeks ago and found my line of thinking heading that way. (I did find myself glad that Jude Law is not my mental image of Watson, because, though he's only mentioned twice in the book--one of which was in footnotes--Jude Law is Bosie, so the recursion that would have occurred had the first case also been so makes me snicker.)
13. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan
A good, entertaining book, if a bit too predictable.
14. The Castle of Crossed Destinies, by Italo Calvino.
"I always feel the need to alternate one type of writing for another, completely different, to begin writing again as if I had never written before." Calvino writes in the note at the end of this book, and I haven't come across a sentence that describes his writing better and the experience I have when reading his books. Every one is different and I cannot go into any of them with any expectation of what will unfold, only that I will be reading something different. This book is divided into two sections, The Castle of Crossed Destinies and The Tavern of Crossed Destinies, but the underlying concept remains the same for both. Each individual story is told through meaning and inference gained from the illustrations of tarot cards, every story intersecting and creating new stories told by others. It's not a perfect book, by any means, with some stories not quite up to the level of others, but when taken as a whole (as, with the intersection of tarot cards, one must), it's a breathtaking undertaking. My particular favorite is "Three Tales of Madness and Destruction", which weaves the stories of Hamlet, Lady Macbeth, and King Lear together. (I did discover, though, while reading "The Tale of Roland Crazed with Love" and "The Tale of Astolpho on the Moon", that my mind has the strange habit of changing "Roland" to "Orlando." I've never read La Chanson de Roland, only the fanfiction it inspired during the Italian Renaissanance, so Orlando is the name I'm more familiar with. Oh, and speaking of which, see Bradamante's cameo in one of the stories; I facepalmed at not twigging it was her when her periwinkle blue armor was described.) My one complaint? That the illustrations of the tarot cards are so tiny, I wish for a bigger edition of the book with decent sized illustrations so I can follow along with the stories being told without having to squint at the cards, some of which really are quite small when placed side-by-side with another card.
15. Sherlock Holmes in America, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, John L. Lellenberg, and Daniel Stashower.
In all honesty, none of the stories in this anthology particularly stand out in my mind save for two. The first is Daniel Stashower's "The Seven Walnuts", and that was entirely because of his Houdini; Sherlock Holmes doesn't even physically appear in the story! (The up side: I now want to search out Stashower's Houdini books.) The second is Stephen Hockensmith's "Excerpts from an Unpublished Memoir", about Holmes early days in a touring company. The rest? Nothing to write home about.
16. The Seduction of the Crimson Rose, by Lauren Willig.
The Pink Carnation books have been something of a guilty pleasure of mine since I picked up the first one when it was on clearance at Barnes and Noble. I pretty much zoomed through the first three books, then got this one, the fourth book, when it first came out. And then was promptly stalled by boredom. I didn't pick it up again in the two years since. However, with the release of the sixth book in January, I decided to give the series another try and have finally succeeded in finishing The Seduction of the Crimson Rose. With Lord Vaughn as one of the two main characters, you really think that this book would be much more interesting. Unfortunately, it's not. Vaughn and Mary Alsworthy are nowhere near as clever as Willig would have us believe, and considering how much of the book consists of them talking back and forth to one another, it rather falls down quite a bit. And that's even before they reveal they're in love with each other. Luckily, the historical segments of Willig's books are more-or-less self-contained, with only some small callbacks to the previous books, so hopefully the next book will pick up again. (The modern-day segments, on the other hand, are always boring and I wish were shorter or done away with altogether so that we could get back to the historical bits.)
17. The Temptation of the Night Jasmine, by Lauren Willig.
I both like and don't like this book. I really loved Charlotte and was glad at the reappearance of Henrietta and Miles, who I always enjoy reading and who enlivened the rather lackluster parts of the espionage plot of the book. On the other hand, there's Robert. Who is nowhere near the top of my favorite Pink Carnation heroes list. I thought he was a very one-note character, with some half-hearted attempts made at fleshing him out that never quite succeeded. As a result, I found myself wishing he and Charlotte wouldn't get together. Rather counter-productive, that. I was also disappointed at the absolute non-appearance of the Pink Carnation herself. Jane's my favorite character in the series, so I always look forward to her appearances. Alas, it was not to be. And I'm usually bored by the Eloise-centric parts of the books, but this time I also found her plotline exasperating. It was cutely stupid in Northanger Abbey because it's Catherine and she's, well, Catherine, but Eloise is definitely no Catherine so take out the "cutely" in that statement.
18. The Betrayal of the Blood Lily, by Lauren Willig.
Another Pink Carnation book that I have conflicting feelings on. Immediately upon reading the blurb for this book, I knew that it would hit one of my dnw buttons: adultery. I read on regardless, though, because I've already gone this far in the series and I am nothing if not persistent, and, yeah, I do have to say that I would have liked it a lot more if it weren't for that. Penelope and Alex were both likable characters, though the espionage part seemed more tacked on than anything. After three books that didn't match how much I liked the first three, I seriously considered dropping the series; however, finding that the next book has Turnip Fitzhugh as its hero has convinced me to give the Pink Carnation series just one more chance...
19. Jeeves and the Tie That Binds, by PG Wodehouse.
(UK title: Much Obliged, Jeeves) The end. Just. The end! <3 I don't think this book counts as one of the best Jeeves books, but it definitely has the best ending.
20. The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova.
It took me a good hundred pages before I really got into this book, but once I did, I found it difficult to put down. (Note to self: an interesting book + the Olympics = not a good mix.) In the end, though, I found it to be an uneven novel, engrossing in the mid-portions, but falling flat in the end. Kostova spends so much time building things up that the pay-off, when it comes, feels like a let down.
Currently Reading: The Serpent and the Rose, by Kathleen Bryan, Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman, by EW Hornung, The Game is Afoot: Parodies, Pastiches and Ponderings of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Marvin Kaye.
Like all anthologies, the stories are pretty much hit or miss; thankfully, I found more of the former than the latter. Most of the stories are reprints, but since I've never read any other Sherlock Holmes anthology, that was no big problem for me. Being a Neil Gaiman fan, I've of course read "A Study in Emerald" before, but it's a lot easier to understand the clues when you have more of an understanding of the source material (well, on the Holmes side; my knowledge of Lovecraft stops at knowing Cthulhu's name) than can be gained by pop culture osmosis. I adored, so much, Tanith Lee's "The Human Mystery"; the motive behind the mystery was telegraphed fairly early on, but it was fun watching Holmes decidedly Not Get It.
12. The West End Horror, by Nicholas Meyer.
I enjoyed this book, though I found the ending to be anti-climactic. However, as with the anthology above, I find the inclusion of real life figures wears thin after a while; it makes the world seem so very small. (Unfortunately for me, this is a popular device in Holmesian fiction, so I must persevere.) To Meyer's credit, he does address the issue in the book. Still, the meetings with actual historical figures did bring about genuine laughs, as when Shaw's Pygmalion was mentioned and the footnote read that Henry Higgins was very similar to Holmes and Pickering to Watson -- I'd just rewatched My Fair Lady several weeks ago and found my line of thinking heading that way. (I did find myself glad that Jude Law is not my mental image of Watson, because, though he's only mentioned twice in the book--one of which was in footnotes--Jude Law is Bosie, so the recursion that would have occurred had the first case also been so makes me snicker.)
13. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan
A good, entertaining book, if a bit too predictable.
14. The Castle of Crossed Destinies, by Italo Calvino.
"I always feel the need to alternate one type of writing for another, completely different, to begin writing again as if I had never written before." Calvino writes in the note at the end of this book, and I haven't come across a sentence that describes his writing better and the experience I have when reading his books. Every one is different and I cannot go into any of them with any expectation of what will unfold, only that I will be reading something different. This book is divided into two sections, The Castle of Crossed Destinies and The Tavern of Crossed Destinies, but the underlying concept remains the same for both. Each individual story is told through meaning and inference gained from the illustrations of tarot cards, every story intersecting and creating new stories told by others. It's not a perfect book, by any means, with some stories not quite up to the level of others, but when taken as a whole (as, with the intersection of tarot cards, one must), it's a breathtaking undertaking. My particular favorite is "Three Tales of Madness and Destruction", which weaves the stories of Hamlet, Lady Macbeth, and King Lear together. (I did discover, though, while reading "The Tale of Roland Crazed with Love" and "The Tale of Astolpho on the Moon", that my mind has the strange habit of changing "Roland" to "Orlando." I've never read La Chanson de Roland, only the fanfiction it inspired during the Italian Renaissanance, so Orlando is the name I'm more familiar with. Oh, and speaking of which, see Bradamante's cameo in one of the stories; I facepalmed at not twigging it was her when her periwinkle blue armor was described.) My one complaint? That the illustrations of the tarot cards are so tiny, I wish for a bigger edition of the book with decent sized illustrations so I can follow along with the stories being told without having to squint at the cards, some of which really are quite small when placed side-by-side with another card.
15. Sherlock Holmes in America, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, John L. Lellenberg, and Daniel Stashower.
In all honesty, none of the stories in this anthology particularly stand out in my mind save for two. The first is Daniel Stashower's "The Seven Walnuts", and that was entirely because of his Houdini; Sherlock Holmes doesn't even physically appear in the story! (The up side: I now want to search out Stashower's Houdini books.) The second is Stephen Hockensmith's "Excerpts from an Unpublished Memoir", about Holmes early days in a touring company. The rest? Nothing to write home about.
16. The Seduction of the Crimson Rose, by Lauren Willig.
The Pink Carnation books have been something of a guilty pleasure of mine since I picked up the first one when it was on clearance at Barnes and Noble. I pretty much zoomed through the first three books, then got this one, the fourth book, when it first came out. And then was promptly stalled by boredom. I didn't pick it up again in the two years since. However, with the release of the sixth book in January, I decided to give the series another try and have finally succeeded in finishing The Seduction of the Crimson Rose. With Lord Vaughn as one of the two main characters, you really think that this book would be much more interesting. Unfortunately, it's not. Vaughn and Mary Alsworthy are nowhere near as clever as Willig would have us believe, and considering how much of the book consists of them talking back and forth to one another, it rather falls down quite a bit. And that's even before they reveal they're in love with each other. Luckily, the historical segments of Willig's books are more-or-less self-contained, with only some small callbacks to the previous books, so hopefully the next book will pick up again. (The modern-day segments, on the other hand, are always boring and I wish were shorter or done away with altogether so that we could get back to the historical bits.)
17. The Temptation of the Night Jasmine, by Lauren Willig.
I both like and don't like this book. I really loved Charlotte and was glad at the reappearance of Henrietta and Miles, who I always enjoy reading and who enlivened the rather lackluster parts of the espionage plot of the book. On the other hand, there's Robert. Who is nowhere near the top of my favorite Pink Carnation heroes list. I thought he was a very one-note character, with some half-hearted attempts made at fleshing him out that never quite succeeded. As a result, I found myself wishing he and Charlotte wouldn't get together. Rather counter-productive, that. I was also disappointed at the absolute non-appearance of the Pink Carnation herself. Jane's my favorite character in the series, so I always look forward to her appearances. Alas, it was not to be. And I'm usually bored by the Eloise-centric parts of the books, but this time I also found her plotline exasperating. It was cutely stupid in Northanger Abbey because it's Catherine and she's, well, Catherine, but Eloise is definitely no Catherine so take out the "cutely" in that statement.
18. The Betrayal of the Blood Lily, by Lauren Willig.
Another Pink Carnation book that I have conflicting feelings on. Immediately upon reading the blurb for this book, I knew that it would hit one of my dnw buttons: adultery. I read on regardless, though, because I've already gone this far in the series and I am nothing if not persistent, and, yeah, I do have to say that I would have liked it a lot more if it weren't for that. Penelope and Alex were both likable characters, though the espionage part seemed more tacked on than anything. After three books that didn't match how much I liked the first three, I seriously considered dropping the series; however, finding that the next book has Turnip Fitzhugh as its hero has convinced me to give the Pink Carnation series just one more chance...
19. Jeeves and the Tie That Binds, by PG Wodehouse.
(UK title: Much Obliged, Jeeves) The end. Just. The end! <3 I don't think this book counts as one of the best Jeeves books, but it definitely has the best ending.
20. The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova.
It took me a good hundred pages before I really got into this book, but once I did, I found it difficult to put down. (Note to self: an interesting book + the Olympics = not a good mix.) In the end, though, I found it to be an uneven novel, engrossing in the mid-portions, but falling flat in the end. Kostova spends so much time building things up that the pay-off, when it comes, feels like a let down.
Currently Reading: The Serpent and the Rose, by Kathleen Bryan, Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman, by EW Hornung, The Game is Afoot: Parodies, Pastiches and Ponderings of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Marvin Kaye.