June Books
Jul. 15th, 2012 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slemslempikePlaying with the Grown Ups - Sophie Dahl
A Snowball in Hell - Christopher Brookmyre
Sweet Valley Confidential - Francine Pascal
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
Earth, Air, Fire and Custard - Tom Holt
The Elephanta Suite - Paul Theroux
The Crow Road - Iain Banks
The House at Riverton - Kate Morton
Balthasar's Odyssey - Amin Maalouf
The Corrections - Ian Rankin
Deira Joins the Chalet School - Caroline German
Country of the Blind - Christopher Brookmyre
Sister Anne Resigns - Josephine Elder
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance - Lois McMaster Bujold
I picked up Playing with the Grown Ups because when I flicked through it in the charity shop I alighted on a page where the main character sits down to watch JUMP! Street. This turned out to be the only mention of it, but the rest of the plot was engaging enough that I was not too disppointed.
A Snowball in Hell. I really enjoyed the first book with Angelique De Xavier, and wanted to read more about her and her criminal mastermind nemesis boyfriend. This was also enjoyable, but the ending really pissed me off. Angelique De Xavier giving up the police, fine, she was getting sick of them. To go and be her boyfriend's assistant - well, I guess that for them to be able to stay together on the ship she needed to do a similar job, and he is undoubtedly the magician, and I guess you could read it as a partnership, but at the end of it it's a yay happy ending because she's pregnant! It was just such a "I don't know what to do with a woman... here you go." Which is probably unfair, but appears to be something I mind about.
I knew that Sweet Valley Confidential was going to be disappointing, and I'm glad I did, because otherwise I would indeed have been disappointed, whereas this way I was just unimpressed. It is not Sweet Valley at all! She's trying to do a "grown up" version, which NO-ONE wanted - where were the outfits, the scheming, the mistaking twins for one another, the implausible number of amenities that Sweet Valley has? Dull. Jess read it after me and noted the immense amount of beige that people wore or decorated with.
Me Talk Pretty One Day was very very funny. I particularly liked the story of the Easter bunny/bell, and the various bits of trying to talk French to people.
I used to read a lot of Tom Holt books, and liked them even though I don't know enough of the myths and legends, or fantasy books in general, to get everything about it. Earth, Air, Fire and Custard seems to have been a sequel to another book, but that didn't seem to matter so much. Custard is the manufactured 5th element of the world, and the company controls them. There are two women in the book who turn out actually to be swords, and their destiny is to stand nearby when men fight with the swords.
I had taken 12 books with me on holiday, and was already running low by the second day. When Jess didn't get into the country I spent more time than I had budgeted for reading, and so I almost ran out entirely. The hostel I was staying at said it had a book swap library, but it only had one book in English, which was The Elephanta Suite. Which was terrible. It's all about white Americans going to India for the first time and being Changed... but not always for the better! They get more than they bargained for! The Indian characters are shadily drawn with no depth, and often portrayed as two faced or underhand. There are three stories, and in the last one a gap year student teaches English idiom in a call centre, but finds that this makes them less polite, rude even, when they're "becoming more American" and that story ends with one of her newly rude students getting entirely about his station and raping her. Highly unrecommended.
Luckily I met up with Jess before I ran out completely, and borrowed The Crow Road from her. I liked this very much indeed, though in retrospect the bit where there is communication through a woman using her vagina to squeeze a penis in morse code was downright bizarre.
The House at Riverton is about a woman who used to be a servant in a grand house in the 1930s (ish, can't remember the exact time period), and who Knows A Secret. It's framed with her in the modern day, Knowing her Secret and dealing with Mitfordish interest in the family of the house, about whom a film is being made. It was not great, and not very original.
In Balthasar's Odyssey it's 1666, and a Levantine merchant is trying to find a secret book that will reveal the 100th name of Allah. He has the book but it slips through his hands, and he sets off to try and get it back, going on sea voyages, being beaten up, trapped in a basement under the guise of protection, lying about being married, rescuing a woman, someone trying to make him marry someone else, and losing almost all his money. It was excellent.
I decided that I should use my proximity to The Old Children's Bookshelf to get the Chalet fill-ins before they started being £20+ on ebay. I missed out on Two Chalet Girls in India, though I have read it. Deira Joins the Chalet School was good, and I really liked the explanatory section on how she'd written Deira given the lack of clues, and the political situation in Ireland in the 20s/30s.
I liked reading The Corrections mostly because it's set in Edinburgh. The murder happens right across the road from me! The missing developer's penthouse is right by where I work! I have not read any Rebus books, and enjoyed this one a lot. I liked the friendship between the main guy and the not-a-paedophile guy (I never remember names).
The Country of the Blind is Jack Parlabane again. I liked the lawyer woman, and the huge plan at the end.
Sister Anne Resigns is one of the Greyladies reprints of girlsownish adult books. Anne joins a nursing programme, but the book mostly focuses on her career afterwards, how she gets passed over for promotion because of her attitude (and how attitude and comportment are often more important than ability), moving to run a ward of her own, and the romantic and personal relationships alongside.
I had been looking forward to the Ivan book, mostly because I had got a little sick of Miles and wanted to read things that were not about him. I enjoyed it, but found afterwards that it was unsatisfying. I would have liked much more about Tej and what she felt about Ivan - it just fell into place without that, really. I didn't notice any of this at the time, but when I read legionseagle's review I agreed with lots of it, and the comments.
A Snowball in Hell - Christopher Brookmyre
Sweet Valley Confidential - Francine Pascal
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
Earth, Air, Fire and Custard - Tom Holt
The Elephanta Suite - Paul Theroux
The Crow Road - Iain Banks
The House at Riverton - Kate Morton
Balthasar's Odyssey - Amin Maalouf
The Corrections - Ian Rankin
Deira Joins the Chalet School - Caroline German
Country of the Blind - Christopher Brookmyre
Sister Anne Resigns - Josephine Elder
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance - Lois McMaster Bujold
I picked up Playing with the Grown Ups because when I flicked through it in the charity shop I alighted on a page where the main character sits down to watch JUMP! Street. This turned out to be the only mention of it, but the rest of the plot was engaging enough that I was not too disppointed.
A Snowball in Hell. I really enjoyed the first book with Angelique De Xavier, and wanted to read more about her and her criminal mastermind nemesis boyfriend. This was also enjoyable, but the ending really pissed me off. Angelique De Xavier giving up the police, fine, she was getting sick of them. To go and be her boyfriend's assistant - well, I guess that for them to be able to stay together on the ship she needed to do a similar job, and he is undoubtedly the magician, and I guess you could read it as a partnership, but at the end of it it's a yay happy ending because she's pregnant! It was just such a "I don't know what to do with a woman... here you go." Which is probably unfair, but appears to be something I mind about.
I knew that Sweet Valley Confidential was going to be disappointing, and I'm glad I did, because otherwise I would indeed have been disappointed, whereas this way I was just unimpressed. It is not Sweet Valley at all! She's trying to do a "grown up" version, which NO-ONE wanted - where were the outfits, the scheming, the mistaking twins for one another, the implausible number of amenities that Sweet Valley has? Dull. Jess read it after me and noted the immense amount of beige that people wore or decorated with.
Me Talk Pretty One Day was very very funny. I particularly liked the story of the Easter bunny/bell, and the various bits of trying to talk French to people.
I used to read a lot of Tom Holt books, and liked them even though I don't know enough of the myths and legends, or fantasy books in general, to get everything about it. Earth, Air, Fire and Custard seems to have been a sequel to another book, but that didn't seem to matter so much. Custard is the manufactured 5th element of the world, and the company controls them. There are two women in the book who turn out actually to be swords, and their destiny is to stand nearby when men fight with the swords.
I had taken 12 books with me on holiday, and was already running low by the second day. When Jess didn't get into the country I spent more time than I had budgeted for reading, and so I almost ran out entirely. The hostel I was staying at said it had a book swap library, but it only had one book in English, which was The Elephanta Suite. Which was terrible. It's all about white Americans going to India for the first time and being Changed... but not always for the better! They get more than they bargained for! The Indian characters are shadily drawn with no depth, and often portrayed as two faced or underhand. There are three stories, and in the last one a gap year student teaches English idiom in a call centre, but finds that this makes them less polite, rude even, when they're "becoming more American" and that story ends with one of her newly rude students getting entirely about his station and raping her. Highly unrecommended.
Luckily I met up with Jess before I ran out completely, and borrowed The Crow Road from her. I liked this very much indeed, though in retrospect the bit where there is communication through a woman using her vagina to squeeze a penis in morse code was downright bizarre.
The House at Riverton is about a woman who used to be a servant in a grand house in the 1930s (ish, can't remember the exact time period), and who Knows A Secret. It's framed with her in the modern day, Knowing her Secret and dealing with Mitfordish interest in the family of the house, about whom a film is being made. It was not great, and not very original.
In Balthasar's Odyssey it's 1666, and a Levantine merchant is trying to find a secret book that will reveal the 100th name of Allah. He has the book but it slips through his hands, and he sets off to try and get it back, going on sea voyages, being beaten up, trapped in a basement under the guise of protection, lying about being married, rescuing a woman, someone trying to make him marry someone else, and losing almost all his money. It was excellent.
I decided that I should use my proximity to The Old Children's Bookshelf to get the Chalet fill-ins before they started being £20+ on ebay. I missed out on Two Chalet Girls in India, though I have read it. Deira Joins the Chalet School was good, and I really liked the explanatory section on how she'd written Deira given the lack of clues, and the political situation in Ireland in the 20s/30s.
I liked reading The Corrections mostly because it's set in Edinburgh. The murder happens right across the road from me! The missing developer's penthouse is right by where I work! I have not read any Rebus books, and enjoyed this one a lot. I liked the friendship between the main guy and the not-a-paedophile guy (I never remember names).
The Country of the Blind is Jack Parlabane again. I liked the lawyer woman, and the huge plan at the end.
Sister Anne Resigns is one of the Greyladies reprints of girlsownish adult books. Anne joins a nursing programme, but the book mostly focuses on her career afterwards, how she gets passed over for promotion because of her attitude (and how attitude and comportment are often more important than ability), moving to run a ward of her own, and the romantic and personal relationships alongside.
I had been looking forward to the Ivan book, mostly because I had got a little sick of Miles and wanted to read things that were not about him. I enjoyed it, but found afterwards that it was unsatisfying. I would have liked much more about Tej and what she felt about Ivan - it just fell into place without that, really. I didn't notice any of this at the time, but when I read legionseagle's review I agreed with lots of it, and the comments.
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no subject
Date: 2012-07-15 10:40 am (UTC)I think I would have liked the book better if it wasn't for the final section and the fate of ImpSec, which just felt off to me - weird and underwritten and jokey and generally not giving enough weight to there being an actual human disaster going on right under these silly privileged people's noses.
I'm glad to hear that Deira is good: I've been avoiding it because I thought it might be annoyingly simplistic about Irish issues, but on your recommendation I think I'll give it a go.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-15 09:25 pm (UTC)Deira wasn't massively insightful or anything, and actually it doesn't really come up that much, but she'd clearly thought about it properly, and it's a cohesive character that EBD might well have written.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-15 11:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-15 01:40 pm (UTC)http://www.baenebooks.com/p-1678-captain-vorpatrils-alliance-earc.aspx
First 6 chapters as a free sample:
http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/A9781451638455/A9781451638455.htm?blurb
:-)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-15 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 01:37 pm (UTC)!!!
no subject
Date: 2012-07-17 05:33 pm (UTC)