currently reading? (an effort to pimp it out)
Recently read:
Desert Heat, J. A. Jance
Force of Nature, Stephen Solomita
Currently open:
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Graham
In the stack:
(fiction)
Hard Truth, Nevada Barr
The Birth of Venus, Sarah Dunant
Dead to Rights, J. A. Jance
Roller Skates, Ruth Sawyer
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
(non-fiction)
Pecked to Death by Ducks, Tim Cahill
The Ape & the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections of a Primatologist, Frans de Waal
Notes on some of the above:
I jumped over Wind in the Willows to read some titles that are a little grittier. I just haven't been in the mood for sweet.
Force of Nature is the 2nd book in a series, and said series is written by the father of a friend of mine. I didn't enjoy the first title in the series (A Twist of the Knife). This distressed me, because there are reasonable odds that I will meet the author at some point. It suffered from, well, a number of things I consider flaws, though they might not bother other people, and I finished it largely out of a sense of duty. However, since Twist was the author's first book, and authors do grow & change, I thought it worth continuing on. I'm glad I did. In Force of Nature, many of the things that bothered me were repaired or minimized. I found the characters more appealing, the ethical issues of interest to me, and the pacing more engrossing. With one book on each side of the scale, at this point I'm curious to read some of his other books, whether from the same series or his stand-alones, and see which way it tips.
Desert Heat is the 1st book in J. A. Jance's series about Joanna Brady. Unfortunately, I've already read the 2nd & 3rd books in that series, so I knew that Something Awful happens in the first book. It made for odd reading, and took away some of the enjoyment I might otherwise have felt. I don't know how much that's part of it, but I can tell you that if I'd started the series with the first book, I'm not sure I'd have continued on to read the following ones. Maybe it worked out for the best, because I'm currently anticipating reading Dead to Rights to find out what happens to the intrepid heroine.
being_angyl lent me The Ape & the Sushi Master. It's a largish tome, but looks interesting, & I like knowing that when I'm done I'll be able to discuss it someone. A discussion the other day about favorite books led to Jed lending me Roller Skates, a children's book. Tim Cahill writes what are travel stories, but, as the best travel stories do, includes fascinating bits of anthropology, geography, & sociology. And I'm somewhat leery of Hard Truth, the latest in Nevada Barr's (mostly) wonderful mystery series, as in the previous book she took her protagonist to some very dark places, places it's not clear to me someone can easily recover from, so I'm hoping she gets her character some sort of counseling.
I want to note that I'm posting this here pretty much to lure people over to stackofbooks, which is where I'm posting my book reviews these days. If you're someone who reads me because you want to hear about books, c'mon over & join us!
x-posted to stackofbooks
Desert Heat, J. A. Jance
Force of Nature, Stephen Solomita
Currently open:
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Graham
In the stack:
(fiction)
Hard Truth, Nevada Barr
The Birth of Venus, Sarah Dunant
Dead to Rights, J. A. Jance
Roller Skates, Ruth Sawyer
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
(non-fiction)
Pecked to Death by Ducks, Tim Cahill
The Ape & the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections of a Primatologist, Frans de Waal
Notes on some of the above:
I jumped over Wind in the Willows to read some titles that are a little grittier. I just haven't been in the mood for sweet.
Force of Nature is the 2nd book in a series, and said series is written by the father of a friend of mine. I didn't enjoy the first title in the series (A Twist of the Knife). This distressed me, because there are reasonable odds that I will meet the author at some point. It suffered from, well, a number of things I consider flaws, though they might not bother other people, and I finished it largely out of a sense of duty. However, since Twist was the author's first book, and authors do grow & change, I thought it worth continuing on. I'm glad I did. In Force of Nature, many of the things that bothered me were repaired or minimized. I found the characters more appealing, the ethical issues of interest to me, and the pacing more engrossing. With one book on each side of the scale, at this point I'm curious to read some of his other books, whether from the same series or his stand-alones, and see which way it tips.
Desert Heat is the 1st book in J. A. Jance's series about Joanna Brady. Unfortunately, I've already read the 2nd & 3rd books in that series, so I knew that Something Awful happens in the first book. It made for odd reading, and took away some of the enjoyment I might otherwise have felt. I don't know how much that's part of it, but I can tell you that if I'd started the series with the first book, I'm not sure I'd have continued on to read the following ones. Maybe it worked out for the best, because I'm currently anticipating reading Dead to Rights to find out what happens to the intrepid heroine.
being_angyl lent me The Ape & the Sushi Master. It's a largish tome, but looks interesting, & I like knowing that when I'm done I'll be able to discuss it someone. A discussion the other day about favorite books led to Jed lending me Roller Skates, a children's book. Tim Cahill writes what are travel stories, but, as the best travel stories do, includes fascinating bits of anthropology, geography, & sociology. And I'm somewhat leery of Hard Truth, the latest in Nevada Barr's (mostly) wonderful mystery series, as in the previous book she took her protagonist to some very dark places, places it's not clear to me someone can easily recover from, so I'm hoping she gets her character some sort of counseling.
I want to note that I'm posting this here pretty much to lure people over to stackofbooks, which is where I'm posting my book reviews these days. If you're someone who reads me because you want to hear about books, c'mon over & join us!
x-posted to stackofbooks