July Reading
48. The Anatomy of Evil
by Michael Stone
Genre: Non-fiction
Pages: 360
49. The Film Club
by David Gilmore
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 225
50. Revolutionary Road
by Richard Yates
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 463
51. The Right Madness
by James Crumley
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 289
52. The Well and The Mine
by Gin Phillips
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 251
53. Kitty and the Midnight Hour
by Carrie Vaughn
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 259
54. Julie and Romeo
by Jeanne Roy
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 241
55. The King's Nun
by Catherine Monroe
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 267
Spoilers.In The Anatomy of Evil, Michael Stone develops an evilness scale to rank the crimes of various infamous and less infamous killers. I think true crime fans would enjoy it, but there is not a lot of detail about each individual killer or crime. This book was also a TV show on the Discovery Channel (?), and I think I actually liked the show better because it was more in-depth.
The Film Club is a memoir of the time that David Gilmour allowed his teen-aged son to drop out of school, provided that he watch three films a week. I liked this book more than I thought I would. I haven't encountered many parenting books about raising teenagers from the father's point-of-view. It was also refreshing that Gilmour doesn't pretend to have all the answers. However, I did want him to tell his son to man up after the son snivels his way through multiple break-ups. This may be influenced by the fact that several of my guy friends are currently taking the end of their relationships like twelve-year-old girls.
Julie and Romeo is a charming tale about two florists whose families have rival shops who find love with each other late in life, much to the dismay of their families. It would be a good beach read. The King's Nun, about a nun named Amelia who develops a friendship with King Charlemange, is a historical romance, that while not exactly bad, is light on both the history and the romance.
I didn't realize until I was a good ways into The Right Madness that I had skipped a book in Crumley's C.W. Sughrue series. He had acquired a wife and son and new set of friends. It would have been nice if the cover had been clearer about that. The first book, The Last Good Kiss had a certain madcap joy that this novel lacks. This book is a lot more violent with more outlandish twists-and-turns. Still, Sughrue's has a hard-boiled charm that makes the novel worth reading.
I wanted to like Kitty and the Midnight Hour, about a radio DJ and werewolf who starts an advice show for supernatural beings, more than I did. The book was recommended and I even won my copy through a giveaway at calico_reaction I enjoyed Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series a lot more, although that might be an unfair comparison because the television show True Blood filled in a lot of the blanks for me, where characterization was concerned. I did read the Sookie Stackhouse books practically back to back, and I haven't felt that way about the Kitty series. I didn't connect with Kitty the way I did to Sookie. I expected Kitty to be tough but she was passive, and the borderline sadomasochistic relationship that she has with her pack leader was odd. The supporting characters weren't very fleshed out to me, though the story of how Kitty becomes a werewolf was terrifying and well-executed. I did buy the next book in the series, so I am giving Kitty another chance.
Revolutionary Road is a well-written novel, but I'm not sure that I have even disliked two main characters more. April and Frank Wheeler are a model couple in the 1950s with an idealized white picket fence life with two kids. But they find suburbia (and each other) stifling, so April launches a half-baked idea to start over in France. April and Frank bicker and snap at each other through the whole book, making the experience of reading it somewhat like being trapped in the car with your parents while they're fighting. There is something off-putting about two people so self-indulgent that they can't grow up enough to realize that they're nothing special. They don't care about their kids and we never get to see them when they were in love with each other, making it hard to root for them. I'm not sure if Yates wants us to pity or condemn them. I lean towards pity, since the whole thing ends in tragedy. I never saw the movie, but the book does sort of remind me of the television show Mad Men. Perhaps the book, written in 1961, simply hasn't aged well, because life as a dull suburban housewife seems pretty sweet to my jaded modern eyes.
I enjoyed The Well and The Mine, which was about the lives of the Moore family in Alabama during the Great Depression. I haven't read a lot of books set during the 1930s. The novel opens with nine-year-old Tess watching a woman throw a baby into the family's well, but the novel is more portrait than murder mystery. I didn't understand why the chapters from the future were written from Jack's point-of-view, when Tess was more of the main character. My only other peeve is why does every single novel set in the South, from ones taking place in the 1800s to ones taking place today, have to include some sort of racial tension subplot? There is more to the South than racism and cornbread. It didn't add anything to this book and I feel like it is flogging a very dead horse. I'd love to see a racial tension subplot set in the North or West and a Southern novel without one.
by Michael Stone
Genre: Non-fiction
Pages: 360
49. The Film Club
by David Gilmore
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 225
50. Revolutionary Road
by Richard Yates
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 463
51. The Right Madness
by James Crumley
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 289
52. The Well and The Mine
by Gin Phillips
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 251
53. Kitty and the Midnight Hour
by Carrie Vaughn
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 259
54. Julie and Romeo
by Jeanne Roy
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 241
55. The King's Nun
by Catherine Monroe
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 267
Spoilers.In The Anatomy of Evil, Michael Stone develops an evilness scale to rank the crimes of various infamous and less infamous killers. I think true crime fans would enjoy it, but there is not a lot of detail about each individual killer or crime. This book was also a TV show on the Discovery Channel (?), and I think I actually liked the show better because it was more in-depth.
The Film Club is a memoir of the time that David Gilmour allowed his teen-aged son to drop out of school, provided that he watch three films a week. I liked this book more than I thought I would. I haven't encountered many parenting books about raising teenagers from the father's point-of-view. It was also refreshing that Gilmour doesn't pretend to have all the answers. However, I did want him to tell his son to man up after the son snivels his way through multiple break-ups. This may be influenced by the fact that several of my guy friends are currently taking the end of their relationships like twelve-year-old girls.
Julie and Romeo is a charming tale about two florists whose families have rival shops who find love with each other late in life, much to the dismay of their families. It would be a good beach read. The King's Nun, about a nun named Amelia who develops a friendship with King Charlemange, is a historical romance, that while not exactly bad, is light on both the history and the romance.
I didn't realize until I was a good ways into The Right Madness that I had skipped a book in Crumley's C.W. Sughrue series. He had acquired a wife and son and new set of friends. It would have been nice if the cover had been clearer about that. The first book, The Last Good Kiss had a certain madcap joy that this novel lacks. This book is a lot more violent with more outlandish twists-and-turns. Still, Sughrue's has a hard-boiled charm that makes the novel worth reading.
I wanted to like Kitty and the Midnight Hour, about a radio DJ and werewolf who starts an advice show for supernatural beings, more than I did. The book was recommended and I even won my copy through a giveaway at calico_reaction I enjoyed Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series a lot more, although that might be an unfair comparison because the television show True Blood filled in a lot of the blanks for me, where characterization was concerned. I did read the Sookie Stackhouse books practically back to back, and I haven't felt that way about the Kitty series. I didn't connect with Kitty the way I did to Sookie. I expected Kitty to be tough but she was passive, and the borderline sadomasochistic relationship that she has with her pack leader was odd. The supporting characters weren't very fleshed out to me, though the story of how Kitty becomes a werewolf was terrifying and well-executed. I did buy the next book in the series, so I am giving Kitty another chance.
Revolutionary Road is a well-written novel, but I'm not sure that I have even disliked two main characters more. April and Frank Wheeler are a model couple in the 1950s with an idealized white picket fence life with two kids. But they find suburbia (and each other) stifling, so April launches a half-baked idea to start over in France. April and Frank bicker and snap at each other through the whole book, making the experience of reading it somewhat like being trapped in the car with your parents while they're fighting. There is something off-putting about two people so self-indulgent that they can't grow up enough to realize that they're nothing special. They don't care about their kids and we never get to see them when they were in love with each other, making it hard to root for them. I'm not sure if Yates wants us to pity or condemn them. I lean towards pity, since the whole thing ends in tragedy. I never saw the movie, but the book does sort of remind me of the television show Mad Men. Perhaps the book, written in 1961, simply hasn't aged well, because life as a dull suburban housewife seems pretty sweet to my jaded modern eyes.
I enjoyed The Well and The Mine, which was about the lives of the Moore family in Alabama during the Great Depression. I haven't read a lot of books set during the 1930s. The novel opens with nine-year-old Tess watching a woman throw a baby into the family's well, but the novel is more portrait than murder mystery. I didn't understand why the chapters from the future were written from Jack's point-of-view, when Tess was more of the main character. My only other peeve is why does every single novel set in the South, from ones taking place in the 1800s to ones taking place today, have to include some sort of racial tension subplot? There is more to the South than racism and cornbread. It didn't add anything to this book and I feel like it is flogging a very dead horse. I'd love to see a racial tension subplot set in the North or West and a Southern novel without one.