August Books
Sep. 10th, 2010 01:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slemslempikeAugust Books
Greg Gutfield - In the Land of Pork Scratchings
Talbot Baines Reed - Adventures of a Three Guinea Watch
Stephenie Meyer - Eclipse
Lee Child - The Enemy
Elaine di Rollo - A Proper Education for Girls
Fanny Burney - Fanny Burney's Diary
Andrea Levy - Small Island
Lee Child - One Shot
I think I foisted In the Land of Pork Scratchings onto![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cellador. It was really bad. A book about the UK (or actually, mostly about London, like most books "about the UK") from the perspective of an American man who moved over and was an editor of a men's magazine. Dull, all the usual "anti-political-correctness" shit.
Adventures of a Three Guinea Watch was much better. Not as nicely rollicking as the usual Talbot Baines Reed fare, but then there's only so much rollick you can fit in when your narrator is a watch and consequently spends almost all his time in a pocket.
I got Eclipse fromslightlyfoxed. Unfortunately I no longer have anyone else to blame for my reading as I have just ordered the fourth book from the library. I still blame yiskah though. Eclipse was just as much crack as the others, if not more. Dear god, huddling for warmth in a tent in the snow, Jacob pretending to kill himself, A WEREWOLF IMPRINTING ON A TODDLER. I am informed that New Moon is even "better". I was also discussing them with someone from my (late - sob) pub quiz team. I said that I really thought that the messages in the books were damaging how passive Bella is and how it feeds into abuse-tolerating messages (other people's opinions that I have gladly taken on board to prevent having to do work myself, mostly, but no less heartfelt), and she said that she thought that Bella was a spoilt little madam who wanted it all both ways. Apaprently it was the fourth book that really got her thinking this,
so I am greatly looking forward to it.
Jack Reacher is still awesome. I liked seeing him back in the army, and I would really really REALLY like a novel which is about him doing his training year. Please.
It took me a little while to get into A Proper Education for Girls, at first it seemed a bit like a novel written to try and get in on an interest in Victoriana rather than a story, but I was soon engrossed. I am not usually a fan of books told in separate sections for different people, but it worked really well with one twin and home and the other in India. I was very pleased with the come-uppance to the young man whose name I have forgotten but who was a cad. And the elderly women were wonderful.
Fanny Burney is great! I especially loved the description of the Queen's ladies, all starving having not had breakfast and been on their feet all day, forming rows so that they could hide from view while half of them scoffed from a table behind. I really enjoyed all of the diary (I read selected extracts) and should really make an effort to read Evelina.
Small Island was something I bought long ago as emergency train reading and then didn't need. It was worth the wait though, nice to see how everyone came together, and I liked that Hortense and Queenie didn't find out about the connection of Michael. It would have been too neat.
Greg Gutfield - In the Land of Pork Scratchings
Talbot Baines Reed - Adventures of a Three Guinea Watch
Stephenie Meyer - Eclipse
Lee Child - The Enemy
Elaine di Rollo - A Proper Education for Girls
Fanny Burney - Fanny Burney's Diary
Andrea Levy - Small Island
Lee Child - One Shot
I think I foisted In the Land of Pork Scratchings onto
cellador. It was really bad. A book about the UK (or actually, mostly about London, like most books "about the UK") from the perspective of an American man who moved over and was an editor of a men's magazine. Dull, all the usual "anti-political-correctness" shit.Adventures of a Three Guinea Watch was much better. Not as nicely rollicking as the usual Talbot Baines Reed fare, but then there's only so much rollick you can fit in when your narrator is a watch and consequently spends almost all his time in a pocket.
I got Eclipse from
slightlyfoxed. Unfortunately I no longer have anyone else to blame for my reading as I have just ordered the fourth book from the library. I still blame yiskah though. Eclipse was just as much crack as the others, if not more. Dear god, huddling for warmth in a tent in the snow, Jacob pretending to kill himself, A WEREWOLF IMPRINTING ON A TODDLER. I am informed that New Moon is even "better". I was also discussing them with someone from my (late - sob) pub quiz team. I said that I really thought that the messages in the books were damaging how passive Bella is and how it feeds into abuse-tolerating messages (other people's opinions that I have gladly taken on board to prevent having to do work myself, mostly, but no less heartfelt), and she said that she thought that Bella was a spoilt little madam who wanted it all both ways. Apaprently it was the fourth book that really got her thinking this,so I am greatly looking forward to it.
Jack Reacher is still awesome. I liked seeing him back in the army, and I would really really REALLY like a novel which is about him doing his training year. Please.
It took me a little while to get into A Proper Education for Girls, at first it seemed a bit like a novel written to try and get in on an interest in Victoriana rather than a story, but I was soon engrossed. I am not usually a fan of books told in separate sections for different people, but it worked really well with one twin and home and the other in India. I was very pleased with the come-uppance to the young man whose name I have forgotten but who was a cad. And the elderly women were wonderful.
Fanny Burney is great! I especially loved the description of the Queen's ladies, all starving having not had breakfast and been on their feet all day, forming rows so that they could hide from view while half of them scoffed from a table behind. I really enjoyed all of the diary (I read selected extracts) and should really make an effort to read Evelina.
Small Island was something I bought long ago as emergency train reading and then didn't need. It was worth the wait though, nice to see how everyone came together, and I liked that Hortense and Queenie didn't find out about the connection of Michael. It would have been too neat.
