Wow, i have a lot of catching up to do.
So, finally posting about the books that I've read. You may or may not remember that I was loosely participating in the 50 book/year challenge. Well, I've cleared it- up to 60 63, currently. I've posted the quick reviews that I haven't posted thus far, also left most of the rereads out- leaving, oh, thirty-some books?
The Once and Future King- T.H. White. It's amazing how much of this I missed, having only read the first book. I love lancelot, dearly. I think this is one of the very few mallory-adaptations whose characters I actually approve of... I want to read more of it.
Portrait of an Unknown Woman- Vanora Bennett. I liked pieces of this book, very much; mostly the short scenes that dealt with the paintings, which was the reason that I picked up the book in the first place. (Actually, I unwittingly picked up an advance reader's copy and didn't realise til several weeks later, when the book was on the laydown carts.) It was... alright, mostly uninspiring; it starts well enough, if without subtlety, but by the second half of the book, only one of the characters is recognisable & sympathized with, and it was the one you barely noticed in the first half.
Everything is Illuminated- Jonathan Safran Foer. Amazing. I've heard nothing but wonderful things about this book, and I have to agree. The creativity is incredible, the technique innovative, to say the least. It starts as a running bizarre comedy, and sweeps you so deeply into it that the transition to tragedy is barely noticed. This is one of those books that I don't want to bother describing, I just want to put the book in people's hands and ask them about it later. And the movie is equally wonderful, although i think it has to be watched after reading it. It's faithful to the spirit of the book, but leaves out half of the story, and so there are too many jarring misconceptions that could happen by watching the film first...
City of Falling Angels- John Berendt. More scattered then Midnight in the Garden of Good and evil. The characters are not quite as strong, or perhaps not as familiar? Even though I could predict where it was going, having read his last one, it was much more tangental and therefore took a long time to get there. Decent read, still like his style, but not my favorite. And I want a job where I can pick up and move to Venice for a few years be paid to write about it.
The Assassin King- Elizabeth Hayden. I absolutely loved her first trilogy (Rhapsody especially; prophecy & destiny just follow behind.) The rest of the books so far haven't lived up to her usual standards- Elegy for the Lost Star & Requiem for the Sun, I think. But this one finally picks up where she left off in the first trilogy. It's finally back to character development, it's fast-paced, everything we know and love. Usually I won't but so much stock in the familiar, but here, it is definitely a good thing. It makes me have hope for the next in the series, although I do wonder how long she will continue to write it...?
American Gods- Neil Gaiman-. I like it much better on the second rereading. I still stand by my original statement, that i like his ideas more than his actual writing style, but I think that following his blog has gotten me accustomed to it & it didn't seem so strange this time through. As is usual with his stories, though, I almost wish he would drop the normal main characters and focus on the bizarre sub-characters instead...
Peter and the Shadowtheives. I've been on a total YA kick recently, and I have no idea why. I think it was rereading Harry Potter in the fall and it's all gone downhill since then. As for this book, it's actually a sequel, and I never read the first, but that doesn't seem to be important with kids' books. It wasn't awe-inspiring, but was comfortable, and portrayed the characters in a way that I felt but never seemed to see anywhere, and was mildly amusing, so it worked for me.
After Dark- Murakami. This is the first I've read of Murakami. Very interesting, I think. Wandering plot lines, and a bizarre mix of the surreal, the mundane, and the unresolved, but overall I liked it. His metaphors are strong (makes me wish I could read it untranslated) & constant, and I liked how it felt more like rambling character vignettes then a typical novel. It reminding me of how I want to write Bourbon St., though, even though it wasn't as location-specific.
Anne of Windy Poplars- L.M. Montgomery-. The one in the series that I usually skip, but I couldn't remember what happened in it, therefore was bound and determined to get through it one way or the other. I do still like it- it seems a bit more repetitive, maybe even more pretentious then the others, but I'm glad I read it anyway, and now on to the rest of the series!
Little Women- Louisa May Alcott-...can you tell I'm on a YA kick? I'd forgotten how much I love this book. Or, rather, I forgot why exactly I love it; reread it for the first time in probably seven or eight years, and it is even more fantastic than I realised then. Now I have to go buy the hardback trilogy, dangit.
The Misadventures of Benjamin Bartholomew Piff- Jason Lethcoe. Fantastic. Simply conceived, simply written, but imaginative & silly & fun in all the ways I would have loved as a child.
Left Bank- Kate Muir. Sadly, it took me awhile before I even remembered what this book was, and then I wished that I hadn’t remembered. Read out of boredom, it was miserable and mildly grating; mocked itself constantly and wasn’t even good at that.
The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath-. Eerie. Convincing. And surprisingly normal.
The Scroll of Seduction- Gioconda Belli. every bit as awful as it sounds. Bizarre eroticism including hints of incest, role-playing, and few redeeming qualities. Another when I was at the bargain store and desperately needed anything to read.
The Correspondences of Griffin & Sabine- Nick Bantock. I read the entire series, and they are amazing. I really wish that the second trilogy didn’t end the way that it did, reducing it to more of a sequel to the first, more than letting it stand on its own strength, which it very well could have done. But incredible nonetheless.
Sleeping Beauty- Anita Sharp- I want to like things ballet related, I really do, but it really just seems like fangirling george balanchine, and that’s just weird. Especially since he was rather a jerk. The whole thing comes off as stereotypical fantasy, without even the resigned realism to ground it.
Margot Fonteyn- About four hundred pages too long. Interesting, but she still wasn’t one of the greatest dancers ever, and the biographer freely admits it, and then goes back to his fanboy ways. Still interesting, if a dedicated read.
The Space Between Us - Thrity Umrigar. Why is women’s literature all the same? I got about ½ way through and thought I knew where it was going, and was bored; got ¾ of the way through, knew I knew where it was going, and was bored. By the time I got to the end, the whole thing was kind of absurd.
Widdershins- Charles de Lint. Finally! Yay! It also held a higher suspension of disbelief than his most recent, I believe, much more engrossing. I still can’t decide if the ending is the way it should be or written because he thought it should be that way- but either way, it fulfills expectations. A nice warm book. :)
Speak- Laurie Halse Anderson-.completely unlikely for me to read YA fiction about school, no less, but this was really well done. Not the kind of thing I necessarily want to read- I’m done with those days, thank you very much- but very well done.
His Dark Materials- Phillip Pullman-. Interesting. Everyone was talking about it at work, so I figured I had to know what it was about. The first one-interesting concepts, a little bit on the dull side. I really enjoyed the beginning of the second, The Subtle Knife, although the religion bits got really weird by the end of it? In comparison, in the third, The Amber Spyglass, the religion wasn’t nearly as weird as I expected it to be, and the story took over again. Worth the read. I don’t really believe in it as the post-HP series that we have been selling it as, but there you have it.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - Jonathon Safran Foer. It’s hard to compare it to the other one. Fantastic, as well, but of an entirely different cloth. Also, inspiring- the way he handled current events, and also the constant flow of characters, without distracting from the timelessness.
The Blood of Flowers- Anita Amirrezvani- It had characters, and it almost had a plot, and that alone puts it above most of today’s sponsored literature. But at the same time, I can honestly say I don’t remember ever enjoying this book.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- JK Rowling. I’m going to assume everyone’s read this by now? Nonetheless, I’ll be vague. I wasn’t thrilled by the first half, but that might have been because I was excited & wanted to finish it in a hurry & didn’t want to putz. As much as I might not like it, it was probably an accurate setting for it. The ending? Well, the whole climax really? Everything I hoped it would be. And Snape? I retain a whole-hearted I-told-you-so. Yay.
The Dark Jewels Trilogy- Anne Bishop- It was a weird thing to get into- I guess because it seemed so deliberately provocative in a completely frivolous sort of way? Once it settled in, though, it was lovely. The characters made me giggle endlessly. I also wanted to hug daemon the entire time.
Neverwhere- Neil Gaiman - I read American Gods, enjoyed it, but kind of wondered what the reason was for his popularity- I read this one, and understand why. I’m still not particularly sure about American gods, but this one rather caught my fancy. It has its flaws, but I found it engaging despite them.
Handmaid’s Tale- Margaret Atwood - Read it to see what it was about, really, after hearing her bandied about so much. Well done; interesting statements within it; I liked how the flashbacks were handled (although it made for a slightly jarring read for the occasional ten minutes at seven in the morning when I got to pick the book up on breaks.)
Little Country- Charles de Lint- It stayed completely away from his old formula. Very interesting. More urban than his others, less romantic? Somehow, I only now realize the shard of horror that tends to creep into his books. Interesting development.
The Fiery Cross- Diana Gabaldon- the series still tends to be one of my fluff reads- the characters amuse me. But this one gets completely bogged down in details and, while interesting things happen, is more one of those books where you’re just waiting for it to end. I understand the space of time she’s trying to cover, but I almost wonder if it wouldn’t be better done with fewer words and longer pauses in between.
Windflower- Nick Bantock- First full-length novel I’ve read. Sucks you in with the realism and then makes you remember that it’s not all you see. :) I have to re-read it, if only to take the time to study the paintings at the bottom of each page.
Cat’s Cradle- Kurt Vonnegut- I read it to see what all the fuss was about. I’m still not sure. Maybe it was a bad first one to choose? Sometimes he was rather witty. Other times he tried to be ironic and ended up bland instead. It didn’t seem like he was trying pretentiously to be profound or anything, but it also seemed like there should have been more meaning than there was. Ah, but I have no patience for the great satirists.
The Far Pavilions- M.M. Kaye- I really wish I would have read this whenever I was younger. It’s exactly the kind of thing I would have idealized- epic, grand, flowing descriptions, heroism, melodrama, realism. I found it harder to disappear into it now, but that might be a statement on my mindset rather than the book itself. I must say, though, it’s a heck of a book that can be 700 pages in (out of a thousand,) know at least part of the ending, and still be suspenseful enough that you can’t put it down.
The Saga of the Renunciates- Marion Zimmer Bradley. Of the Darkover series. I tend to read all those books really far apart, so I can’t compare them, but I really must say that I like her world-building. I don’t tend to like her beginnings, but there’s something comfortably familiar about them once you get settled in.
The Reincarnationist- M.J. Rose I’m really not much of a mystery/thriller reader. I tried them out in highschool and just couldn’t seem to get into it; usually too formulaic, especially with the twist endings. Still, though, interesting concept, interesting execution, even if it was predictable and somewhat shallower than it had to be. I was looking for easy entertainment, and it fit the bill.
The Time Traveler’s Wife- Audrey Niffenegger- I devoured this book, and now I want to reread it. I can see how people can easily not like it; takes a certain kind of patience to read. The entire thing is composed of glimpses, comical and warm and grave. It doesn’t look away from the harsher realities, keeps the “idealism” the whole way through, and leaves some to the imagination. Satisfying. (chels, try this one, if you haven’t already.)
The Once and Future King- T.H. White. It's amazing how much of this I missed, having only read the first book. I love lancelot, dearly. I think this is one of the very few mallory-adaptations whose characters I actually approve of... I want to read more of it.
Portrait of an Unknown Woman- Vanora Bennett. I liked pieces of this book, very much; mostly the short scenes that dealt with the paintings, which was the reason that I picked up the book in the first place. (Actually, I unwittingly picked up an advance reader's copy and didn't realise til several weeks later, when the book was on the laydown carts.) It was... alright, mostly uninspiring; it starts well enough, if without subtlety, but by the second half of the book, only one of the characters is recognisable & sympathized with, and it was the one you barely noticed in the first half.
Everything is Illuminated- Jonathan Safran Foer. Amazing. I've heard nothing but wonderful things about this book, and I have to agree. The creativity is incredible, the technique innovative, to say the least. It starts as a running bizarre comedy, and sweeps you so deeply into it that the transition to tragedy is barely noticed. This is one of those books that I don't want to bother describing, I just want to put the book in people's hands and ask them about it later. And the movie is equally wonderful, although i think it has to be watched after reading it. It's faithful to the spirit of the book, but leaves out half of the story, and so there are too many jarring misconceptions that could happen by watching the film first...
City of Falling Angels- John Berendt. More scattered then Midnight in the Garden of Good and evil. The characters are not quite as strong, or perhaps not as familiar? Even though I could predict where it was going, having read his last one, it was much more tangental and therefore took a long time to get there. Decent read, still like his style, but not my favorite. And I want a job where I can pick up and move to Venice for a few years be paid to write about it.
The Assassin King- Elizabeth Hayden. I absolutely loved her first trilogy (Rhapsody especially; prophecy & destiny just follow behind.) The rest of the books so far haven't lived up to her usual standards- Elegy for the Lost Star & Requiem for the Sun, I think. But this one finally picks up where she left off in the first trilogy. It's finally back to character development, it's fast-paced, everything we know and love. Usually I won't but so much stock in the familiar, but here, it is definitely a good thing. It makes me have hope for the next in the series, although I do wonder how long she will continue to write it...?
American Gods- Neil Gaiman-. I like it much better on the second rereading. I still stand by my original statement, that i like his ideas more than his actual writing style, but I think that following his blog has gotten me accustomed to it & it didn't seem so strange this time through. As is usual with his stories, though, I almost wish he would drop the normal main characters and focus on the bizarre sub-characters instead...
Peter and the Shadowtheives. I've been on a total YA kick recently, and I have no idea why. I think it was rereading Harry Potter in the fall and it's all gone downhill since then. As for this book, it's actually a sequel, and I never read the first, but that doesn't seem to be important with kids' books. It wasn't awe-inspiring, but was comfortable, and portrayed the characters in a way that I felt but never seemed to see anywhere, and was mildly amusing, so it worked for me.
After Dark- Murakami. This is the first I've read of Murakami. Very interesting, I think. Wandering plot lines, and a bizarre mix of the surreal, the mundane, and the unresolved, but overall I liked it. His metaphors are strong (makes me wish I could read it untranslated) & constant, and I liked how it felt more like rambling character vignettes then a typical novel. It reminding me of how I want to write Bourbon St., though, even though it wasn't as location-specific.
Anne of Windy Poplars- L.M. Montgomery-. The one in the series that I usually skip, but I couldn't remember what happened in it, therefore was bound and determined to get through it one way or the other. I do still like it- it seems a bit more repetitive, maybe even more pretentious then the others, but I'm glad I read it anyway, and now on to the rest of the series!
Little Women- Louisa May Alcott-...can you tell I'm on a YA kick? I'd forgotten how much I love this book. Or, rather, I forgot why exactly I love it; reread it for the first time in probably seven or eight years, and it is even more fantastic than I realised then. Now I have to go buy the hardback trilogy, dangit.
The Misadventures of Benjamin Bartholomew Piff- Jason Lethcoe. Fantastic. Simply conceived, simply written, but imaginative & silly & fun in all the ways I would have loved as a child.
Left Bank- Kate Muir. Sadly, it took me awhile before I even remembered what this book was, and then I wished that I hadn’t remembered. Read out of boredom, it was miserable and mildly grating; mocked itself constantly and wasn’t even good at that.
The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath-. Eerie. Convincing. And surprisingly normal.
The Scroll of Seduction- Gioconda Belli. every bit as awful as it sounds. Bizarre eroticism including hints of incest, role-playing, and few redeeming qualities. Another when I was at the bargain store and desperately needed anything to read.
The Correspondences of Griffin & Sabine- Nick Bantock. I read the entire series, and they are amazing. I really wish that the second trilogy didn’t end the way that it did, reducing it to more of a sequel to the first, more than letting it stand on its own strength, which it very well could have done. But incredible nonetheless.
Sleeping Beauty- Anita Sharp- I want to like things ballet related, I really do, but it really just seems like fangirling george balanchine, and that’s just weird. Especially since he was rather a jerk. The whole thing comes off as stereotypical fantasy, without even the resigned realism to ground it.
Margot Fonteyn- About four hundred pages too long. Interesting, but she still wasn’t one of the greatest dancers ever, and the biographer freely admits it, and then goes back to his fanboy ways. Still interesting, if a dedicated read.
The Space Between Us - Thrity Umrigar. Why is women’s literature all the same? I got about ½ way through and thought I knew where it was going, and was bored; got ¾ of the way through, knew I knew where it was going, and was bored. By the time I got to the end, the whole thing was kind of absurd.
Widdershins- Charles de Lint. Finally! Yay! It also held a higher suspension of disbelief than his most recent, I believe, much more engrossing. I still can’t decide if the ending is the way it should be or written because he thought it should be that way- but either way, it fulfills expectations. A nice warm book. :)
Speak- Laurie Halse Anderson-.completely unlikely for me to read YA fiction about school, no less, but this was really well done. Not the kind of thing I necessarily want to read- I’m done with those days, thank you very much- but very well done.
His Dark Materials- Phillip Pullman-. Interesting. Everyone was talking about it at work, so I figured I had to know what it was about. The first one-interesting concepts, a little bit on the dull side. I really enjoyed the beginning of the second, The Subtle Knife, although the religion bits got really weird by the end of it? In comparison, in the third, The Amber Spyglass, the religion wasn’t nearly as weird as I expected it to be, and the story took over again. Worth the read. I don’t really believe in it as the post-HP series that we have been selling it as, but there you have it.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - Jonathon Safran Foer. It’s hard to compare it to the other one. Fantastic, as well, but of an entirely different cloth. Also, inspiring- the way he handled current events, and also the constant flow of characters, without distracting from the timelessness.
The Blood of Flowers- Anita Amirrezvani- It had characters, and it almost had a plot, and that alone puts it above most of today’s sponsored literature. But at the same time, I can honestly say I don’t remember ever enjoying this book.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- JK Rowling. I’m going to assume everyone’s read this by now? Nonetheless, I’ll be vague. I wasn’t thrilled by the first half, but that might have been because I was excited & wanted to finish it in a hurry & didn’t want to putz. As much as I might not like it, it was probably an accurate setting for it. The ending? Well, the whole climax really? Everything I hoped it would be. And Snape? I retain a whole-hearted I-told-you-so. Yay.
The Dark Jewels Trilogy- Anne Bishop- It was a weird thing to get into- I guess because it seemed so deliberately provocative in a completely frivolous sort of way? Once it settled in, though, it was lovely. The characters made me giggle endlessly. I also wanted to hug daemon the entire time.
Neverwhere- Neil Gaiman - I read American Gods, enjoyed it, but kind of wondered what the reason was for his popularity- I read this one, and understand why. I’m still not particularly sure about American gods, but this one rather caught my fancy. It has its flaws, but I found it engaging despite them.
Handmaid’s Tale- Margaret Atwood - Read it to see what it was about, really, after hearing her bandied about so much. Well done; interesting statements within it; I liked how the flashbacks were handled (although it made for a slightly jarring read for the occasional ten minutes at seven in the morning when I got to pick the book up on breaks.)
Little Country- Charles de Lint- It stayed completely away from his old formula. Very interesting. More urban than his others, less romantic? Somehow, I only now realize the shard of horror that tends to creep into his books. Interesting development.
The Fiery Cross- Diana Gabaldon- the series still tends to be one of my fluff reads- the characters amuse me. But this one gets completely bogged down in details and, while interesting things happen, is more one of those books where you’re just waiting for it to end. I understand the space of time she’s trying to cover, but I almost wonder if it wouldn’t be better done with fewer words and longer pauses in between.
Windflower- Nick Bantock- First full-length novel I’ve read. Sucks you in with the realism and then makes you remember that it’s not all you see. :) I have to re-read it, if only to take the time to study the paintings at the bottom of each page.
Cat’s Cradle- Kurt Vonnegut- I read it to see what all the fuss was about. I’m still not sure. Maybe it was a bad first one to choose? Sometimes he was rather witty. Other times he tried to be ironic and ended up bland instead. It didn’t seem like he was trying pretentiously to be profound or anything, but it also seemed like there should have been more meaning than there was. Ah, but I have no patience for the great satirists.
The Far Pavilions- M.M. Kaye- I really wish I would have read this whenever I was younger. It’s exactly the kind of thing I would have idealized- epic, grand, flowing descriptions, heroism, melodrama, realism. I found it harder to disappear into it now, but that might be a statement on my mindset rather than the book itself. I must say, though, it’s a heck of a book that can be 700 pages in (out of a thousand,) know at least part of the ending, and still be suspenseful enough that you can’t put it down.
The Saga of the Renunciates- Marion Zimmer Bradley. Of the Darkover series. I tend to read all those books really far apart, so I can’t compare them, but I really must say that I like her world-building. I don’t tend to like her beginnings, but there’s something comfortably familiar about them once you get settled in.
The Reincarnationist- M.J. Rose I’m really not much of a mystery/thriller reader. I tried them out in highschool and just couldn’t seem to get into it; usually too formulaic, especially with the twist endings. Still, though, interesting concept, interesting execution, even if it was predictable and somewhat shallower than it had to be. I was looking for easy entertainment, and it fit the bill.
The Time Traveler’s Wife- Audrey Niffenegger- I devoured this book, and now I want to reread it. I can see how people can easily not like it; takes a certain kind of patience to read. The entire thing is composed of glimpses, comical and warm and grave. It doesn’t look away from the harsher realities, keeps the “idealism” the whole way through, and leaves some to the imagination. Satisfying. (chels, try this one, if you haven’t already.)