Books 2009 (#5 - #15)
Trying to catch up stuff I've read.
Title: Fabulous Things
Author: Kelly Braffet
Page count: 310 pages
5. I quite liked this book, even the squicky bits. It feels very much like a 'light summer reading' book - there's hot sticky bodies, and teenagers, and running about in shorts, and the obligatory mild murder. It's fluff, but fun fluff.
*
Title: Brick Lane
Author: Monica Ali
Page count: 492 pages
6. I liked this book a great deal. It deals with a young Bangladeshi woman who moves to the UK for an arranged marriage, and it's slow and beautiful and painful all the way through. There's something hypnotic for me when reading about immigrant stories; maybe it's my own background, but it's one of the few topics where I start off immensely sympathetic to all concerned. I fell in love with all the characters, even the repulsive ones, and now want to seek out the movie. I finished the book and brought it back from Burkina with me, to give to my mother, because it's the sort of book she'd enjoy as well, probably for much the same reasons.
*
Title: The Historian
Author: Elizabeth Kostova
Page count: 704 pages
7. I thought this book was excellent, I was thoroughly engrossed. A young girl finds a book in her father's library and a mystery starts to unravel. What is the dark, malignant presence that has been following her? What happened to her mother? The narrative has a world tour, through the US and Turkey and Central and Eastern Europe, even - which gave me several moments of glee - through Bulgaria. I loved the research aspects of it, the slow retelling, the story-within-a-story. Very fun and well done. I handed this to my mother as well.
*
Title: White Teeth
Author: Zadie Smith
Page count: 542 pages
8. The problem with this book it is a first book, and I had read one of Smith's later offerings. So going back to White Teeth felt like reading an earlier, less well realised draft. The same sort of scope and themes are there as in 'On Beauty', but the characters strike me as less sympathetic, less engaging, and almost deliberately grotesque. Maybe that displays greater skill, I don't know. But I wasn't interested in their grotesque, pathetic little lives, and nearly gave up on this several times.
*
Title: Twilight
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Page count: 434 pages
9. I read this in more or less one sitting, giggling all the way through. It's very obviously a young teen book, and not a particularly good one at that. Bella loves Edward, Edward is a vampire, oh noes! Other vampires turn up and hunt Bella, Edward's family saves her, their love is perfect but so doomed! Oh noes, etc. It's Buffy lite, with a heroine who is incredibly passive. She may well have strikingly pale skin and auburn hair and everyone may well love her from the moment of meeting her, but she's not a Mary Sue, oh no, because she's endearingly clumsy. Which means Edward has to save her, a lot. I just - gah. The prose is so purple it could glow in the dark. HILARIOUS.
*
Title: New Moon
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Page count: 563 pages
10. I... have nothing more to say on these books. Read this in one sitting as well, Bella's teen friend turns out to be a werewolf, now he and Edward both vie for Bella's hand. Meanwhile a bunch of Italian vampires get involved and... yeah, I lost interest. In my defence, I did not spend a penny on these books, queenspanky offloaded them on me, and I thought I should read them before leaving them behind in Africa to corrupt impressionable young minds.
*
Title: Minority Report
Author: Philip K. Dick
Page count: 290 pages
11. Philip K Dick delivers as usual. This collection of stories had the following:
- Minority Report: a million times better than that awful movie
- Imposter: never fails to scare
- Second Variety: deeply, deeply creepy
- War Game: awesome
- What the Dead Men Say: the weak link - I didn't really understand this one at all, it felt very disjointed
- Oh, to be a Blobel!: funny and sharp
- The Electric Ant: creepy and sad at the same time
- Faith of our Fathers: I don't remember this one at all, really
- We can remember it for you wholesale: hee! I loved 'Total Recall', it was a fun film, and the original story is so much fun as well, I was giggling madly all the way through.
*
Title: Troubling Love
Author: Elena Ferrante
Page count: 139 pages
12. Delia's mother, Amalia, dies, and Delia starts following her footsteps, trying to recreate her last few days of life. This book is rather horrific and distressing. Amalia had an abusive ex-husband, an abusive boyfriend, and her life was horrible and wonderful at the same time. Delia... fades, more each passing day. It's a focused, tightly written novella, crude in description - deliberately so, deliberately base and upsetting - and vast in scope. It's most terrifying in what it doesn't say.
*
Title: Star Trek Academy: Collision Course
Author: William Shatner with Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Page count: 401 pages
13. The problem with this novel is, the story of a young Kirk has already been told excellently in 'Best Destiny'. A young Spock was covered in 'Sarek' and 'Spock's World' and 'Vulcan's Glory'. Hell, the first meeting was done brilliantly in 'Enterprise: the First Adventure' and, by all accounts, in the new movie. So this is just a little... small. Yay and extra points for having Spock and his family live on Earth in the diplomatic compound. Yay for Jim Kirk being brash and focused. Boo hiss for making Sam Kirk into a small-time loser. Sam Kirk was a hero damnit. He was a scientist, and he died heroically when that parasite infected him and his wife. This simply tarnishes the memory.
Moore problematic than that is that the plot is just too limited. Theft from the Academy, and they get a couple of kids on it - isn't there a specialist force that deals with smugglers? Blah. Uninspiring.
*
Title: The Age of Innocence
Author: Edith Wharton
Page count: 299 pages
14. And here's where I fall in love with this, and cry like a small child. Archer's love for Madame Olenska, and the horrible situation they find themselves in, is bad enough - beautiful outfits combined with tragic love stories are guaranteed to make me bawl - but the ending - oh! *sniffle*
*
Title: An Utterly Impartial History of Britain: Or 2000 years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge
Author: John O'Farrell
Page count: 552 pages
15. This is a fan history book, fun and irreverent. A little loose with the facts occasionally, but a fun read.
*
Title: Fabulous Things
Author: Kelly Braffet
Page count: 310 pages
5. I quite liked this book, even the squicky bits. It feels very much like a 'light summer reading' book - there's hot sticky bodies, and teenagers, and running about in shorts, and the obligatory mild murder. It's fluff, but fun fluff.
*
Title: Brick Lane
Author: Monica Ali
Page count: 492 pages
6. I liked this book a great deal. It deals with a young Bangladeshi woman who moves to the UK for an arranged marriage, and it's slow and beautiful and painful all the way through. There's something hypnotic for me when reading about immigrant stories; maybe it's my own background, but it's one of the few topics where I start off immensely sympathetic to all concerned. I fell in love with all the characters, even the repulsive ones, and now want to seek out the movie. I finished the book and brought it back from Burkina with me, to give to my mother, because it's the sort of book she'd enjoy as well, probably for much the same reasons.
*
Title: The Historian
Author: Elizabeth Kostova
Page count: 704 pages
7. I thought this book was excellent, I was thoroughly engrossed. A young girl finds a book in her father's library and a mystery starts to unravel. What is the dark, malignant presence that has been following her? What happened to her mother? The narrative has a world tour, through the US and Turkey and Central and Eastern Europe, even - which gave me several moments of glee - through Bulgaria. I loved the research aspects of it, the slow retelling, the story-within-a-story. Very fun and well done. I handed this to my mother as well.
*
Title: White Teeth
Author: Zadie Smith
Page count: 542 pages
8. The problem with this book it is a first book, and I had read one of Smith's later offerings. So going back to White Teeth felt like reading an earlier, less well realised draft. The same sort of scope and themes are there as in 'On Beauty', but the characters strike me as less sympathetic, less engaging, and almost deliberately grotesque. Maybe that displays greater skill, I don't know. But I wasn't interested in their grotesque, pathetic little lives, and nearly gave up on this several times.
*
Title: Twilight
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Page count: 434 pages
9. I read this in more or less one sitting, giggling all the way through. It's very obviously a young teen book, and not a particularly good one at that. Bella loves Edward, Edward is a vampire, oh noes! Other vampires turn up and hunt Bella, Edward's family saves her, their love is perfect but so doomed! Oh noes, etc. It's Buffy lite, with a heroine who is incredibly passive. She may well have strikingly pale skin and auburn hair and everyone may well love her from the moment of meeting her, but she's not a Mary Sue, oh no, because she's endearingly clumsy. Which means Edward has to save her, a lot. I just - gah. The prose is so purple it could glow in the dark. HILARIOUS.
*
Title: New Moon
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Page count: 563 pages
10. I... have nothing more to say on these books. Read this in one sitting as well, Bella's teen friend turns out to be a werewolf, now he and Edward both vie for Bella's hand. Meanwhile a bunch of Italian vampires get involved and... yeah, I lost interest. In my defence, I did not spend a penny on these books, queenspanky offloaded them on me, and I thought I should read them before leaving them behind in Africa to corrupt impressionable young minds.
*
Title: Minority Report
Author: Philip K. Dick
Page count: 290 pages
11. Philip K Dick delivers as usual. This collection of stories had the following:
- Minority Report: a million times better than that awful movie
- Imposter: never fails to scare
- Second Variety: deeply, deeply creepy
- War Game: awesome
- What the Dead Men Say: the weak link - I didn't really understand this one at all, it felt very disjointed
- Oh, to be a Blobel!: funny and sharp
- The Electric Ant: creepy and sad at the same time
- Faith of our Fathers: I don't remember this one at all, really
- We can remember it for you wholesale: hee! I loved 'Total Recall', it was a fun film, and the original story is so much fun as well, I was giggling madly all the way through.
*
Title: Troubling Love
Author: Elena Ferrante
Page count: 139 pages
12. Delia's mother, Amalia, dies, and Delia starts following her footsteps, trying to recreate her last few days of life. This book is rather horrific and distressing. Amalia had an abusive ex-husband, an abusive boyfriend, and her life was horrible and wonderful at the same time. Delia... fades, more each passing day. It's a focused, tightly written novella, crude in description - deliberately so, deliberately base and upsetting - and vast in scope. It's most terrifying in what it doesn't say.
*
Title: Star Trek Academy: Collision Course
Author: William Shatner with Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Page count: 401 pages
13. The problem with this novel is, the story of a young Kirk has already been told excellently in 'Best Destiny'. A young Spock was covered in 'Sarek' and 'Spock's World' and 'Vulcan's Glory'. Hell, the first meeting was done brilliantly in 'Enterprise: the First Adventure' and, by all accounts, in the new movie. So this is just a little... small. Yay and extra points for having Spock and his family live on Earth in the diplomatic compound. Yay for Jim Kirk being brash and focused. Boo hiss for making Sam Kirk into a small-time loser. Sam Kirk was a hero damnit. He was a scientist, and he died heroically when that parasite infected him and his wife. This simply tarnishes the memory.
Moore problematic than that is that the plot is just too limited. Theft from the Academy, and they get a couple of kids on it - isn't there a specialist force that deals with smugglers? Blah. Uninspiring.
*
Title: The Age of Innocence
Author: Edith Wharton
Page count: 299 pages
14. And here's where I fall in love with this, and cry like a small child. Archer's love for Madame Olenska, and the horrible situation they find themselves in, is bad enough - beautiful outfits combined with tragic love stories are guaranteed to make me bawl - but the ending - oh! *sniffle*
*
Title: An Utterly Impartial History of Britain: Or 2000 years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge
Author: John O'Farrell
Page count: 552 pages
15. This is a fan history book, fun and irreverent. A little loose with the facts occasionally, but a fun read.
*