Book reports, and a reprieve
Not having much luck with my reading selections. After gathering some suggestions for historical fiction from my recent post, I picked up the two most immediately available from my library.
So far I have set aside The Grenadillo Box by Janet Gleeson, because I find the first-person narrator largely unsympathetic, and his narrative voice an exasperating, tediously circumlocuitous and unevenly written excuse for the author to display expertise on period furniture. I got as far as the body and didn't care whodunnit, or whether the guy would get the girl in the end. gervase_fen, can you tell me if it improves?
Next I turned to The Sword and the Scimitar by David Ball. This is better written and I am interested in the characters so far. But it's a huge heavy trade paperback (on which ladyofastolat has the final word, and unsuitable for lugging around. The faux-historical infodumps by Darius of Wherever are tedious interruptions to the story and it sounds like the author is finding his research hard to digest. But I'll probably finish this one under my own steam anyway.
As I didn't want to shlep a huge book to Oxford and back, I grabbed a fantasy novel from the library which sounded interesting in the Gardners catalogue, Mirren's Gift by Fiona MacIntosh. In the first eight chapters (160-odd pages) there were maybe three or four chapters trying to get out, and those chapters were mediocre. The characterization was straight out of the Tough Guide to Fantasyland, but with fewer dimensions. It was so badly written it was hard not to throw it out the window. It desperately needed editing. I rarely decide to return a book unfinished - usually I set them aside and forget about them for a month or two first. Not so this one.
In Oxford, Sir Artegall recommended The Historian by Elisabeth Kostova. I recalled someone recommending it ages ago, when it was still at the preview copy stage (i.e. probably Gervase Fen), and flicking through it made me want to read it. Why buy it when I work in a library? I thought as I passed Waterstone's on my way to Gloucester Green. Because sodding Gayton Library's sodding reading group are doing that title this month and every single copy is reserved for the next three weeks, I answered myself this morning.
On the plus side, however, I had my best day at work yet. I actually achieved something: I moved all the cards in the local historybcard catalogue to fill the five empty drawers as well as the previously occupied nineteen. And then, at 4:30, just at the start of my afternoon tea break, after which I was looking at another three hours of boredom, the High Heid Yin came in and announced the library would be shutting at 5pm because the water company's roadwords had managed to cut off the water supply to the entire Civic Centre site, so we all got to go home, and we won't have to work back the hours. And there was much rejoicing!
So far I have set aside The Grenadillo Box by Janet Gleeson, because I find the first-person narrator largely unsympathetic, and his narrative voice an exasperating, tediously circumlocuitous and unevenly written excuse for the author to display expertise on period furniture. I got as far as the body and didn't care whodunnit, or whether the guy would get the girl in the end. gervase_fen, can you tell me if it improves?
Next I turned to The Sword and the Scimitar by David Ball. This is better written and I am interested in the characters so far. But it's a huge heavy trade paperback (on which ladyofastolat has the final word, and unsuitable for lugging around. The faux-historical infodumps by Darius of Wherever are tedious interruptions to the story and it sounds like the author is finding his research hard to digest. But I'll probably finish this one under my own steam anyway.
As I didn't want to shlep a huge book to Oxford and back, I grabbed a fantasy novel from the library which sounded interesting in the Gardners catalogue, Mirren's Gift by Fiona MacIntosh. In the first eight chapters (160-odd pages) there were maybe three or four chapters trying to get out, and those chapters were mediocre. The characterization was straight out of the Tough Guide to Fantasyland, but with fewer dimensions. It was so badly written it was hard not to throw it out the window. It desperately needed editing. I rarely decide to return a book unfinished - usually I set them aside and forget about them for a month or two first. Not so this one.
In Oxford, Sir Artegall recommended The Historian by Elisabeth Kostova. I recalled someone recommending it ages ago, when it was still at the preview copy stage (i.e. probably Gervase Fen), and flicking through it made me want to read it. Why buy it when I work in a library? I thought as I passed Waterstone's on my way to Gloucester Green. Because sodding Gayton Library's sodding reading group are doing that title this month and every single copy is reserved for the next three weeks, I answered myself this morning.
On the plus side, however, I had my best day at work yet. I actually achieved something: I moved all the cards in the local historybcard catalogue to fill the five empty drawers as well as the previously occupied nineteen. And then, at 4:30, just at the start of my afternoon tea break, after which I was looking at another three hours of boredom, the High Heid Yin came in and announced the library would be shutting at 5pm because the water company's roadwords had managed to cut off the water supply to the entire Civic Centre site, so we all got to go home, and we won't have to work back the hours. And there was much rejoicing!