New York, New York

The 25th Hour by David Benioff. So so character study of a convict you're supposed to root for but somehow I couldn't. Great descriptions of New York City, however.

Darkness becomes him

Priest by Ken Bruen is is dark. And then some. Any time you find yourself reading a book where the protagonist, who has just been released from the nuthouse (he went mad because his best friend's daughter (who had Down's Syndrome) crawled through a window and died while he was babysitting her) becomes involved in a case concerning a beheaded pedophiliac priest, ask yourself: is this a Ken Bruen book? If it is, you're in luck. Possibly the darkest entry yet in his line of alcoholic Irish detective Jack Taylor mysteries. I enjoy them immensely for their darkness, and this one is no exception. A cracklin' good read, the usual sparseness that manages to say more with less. And then Bruen outBruens himself with the ending. Too much, too dark, methinks.

The Killing of the Tinkers is another Jack Taylor book up to par with the others. Get to know him.

Once were Cops by Ken Bruen is a fierce swift read told (mostly) from the point of view of a psychotic masquerading as police. Original, engaging, and not as dark as some of his others.

Nothing said about Nothing

Recently read: To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis and found it hilarious.

Tried to read Lincoln's Dreams by same author, but found it a bit boring, not as well written and the female character really annoyed me.

Over the Christmas holiday I finished Passage by Willis and enjoyed it, rather intriguing concept, but probably wouldn't recommend it unless you are fascinated by the topic (near death experiences), or just really love this author. Rambled on for at least 100 pages more than I needed; but I did feel compelled to finish it, so I guess that says something.

Still, highly recommend To Say Nothing of the Dog!

Catching up

Let Me In -John Ajvide Lindqvist
Swedish vampire novel - disturbing, not creepy, just disturbing for certain reasons that should become clear fairly early on. Loved it at first, but the pedophile slant to it really wasn't my cup of tea, and it just got slow and depressing, but maybe, just maybe if you really luvvvv vampires, you will like this; it is well written and unconventional.

The Likeness - Tana French
This book is so fun and such a good, exciting read - reminded me of Donna Tartt's A Secret History combined with a really good undercover cop thriller. Yeah, thriller! Excellent book - deserves a big write up, but I'm behind and tired and considering abandoning this blog thing altogether. Highly recommend this - even if you don't like police procedurals, give this a try.

The Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
Loved this book! It's kind of billed as a Sci-Fi, but if you don't like that sort of thing, please don't pass this book by on that account. Sure it's got time travel, but it's set in almost present day Oxford and there's lots of curmudgeonly professor types who despise Americans and harummph and take their tea (I go wild for this sort of thing). They send a medieaval scholar back to the 1300's to do some research - a super-flu hits the modern day time and what could possibly go wrong? Well researched stuff on medieaval daily life, I just loved it. Quite the page turner - it really helped me put all this bad financial crisis stuff that we're going through right now into perspective.

Bad News Vs. Good Storytelling

When Will There Be Good News - Kate Atkinson
Yeah, yeah. Accurate title, soooo accurate. As in, if you don't like to read about very bad things happening randomly to very good people this book will disturb you. Atkinson's book is filled with tragic things happening to good, normal (normal as any of us are) people; yet I didn't cry once (and I'm a cryer). It's not an Oprah cry-fest kind of book. There's a lot of humor and pop culture and fantastic, lively writing that, despite the sad happenings, moves you forward. So, don't let the subject matter deter you too much. I haven't read the other two novels that are linked to this (I've read Behind the Scenes at the Museum (great!) and Human Croquet (pretty great!) though).

This is a quick, absorbing read and Kate Atkinson has mad intellectual, yet pop-writing skills, of which I am insanely jealous!

Orphan Ideal

The Good Thief - Hannah Tinti -- This was a fairly good read for me - ultimately it was too fairytale, too happy-ending-Dickens. I actually loved it up until two thirds of the way through when I started to realize it was a basically Dickens tale with a plucky orphan (not that there's anything wrong with that) but, that it was going to have a ridiculous happy/bittersweet twist. Tinti is a good writer, but the story itself dragged her writing down for me.

I will say, just googled this title for a cover image, and read a brief thing on her website. This does not at all seem like a first novel - I didn't realize this was a first book and probably would judge it differently if I had done any research at all! I guess I'm of the, just read it and do I like it or hate it variety of reader/reviewer. I do think I should take that into account though!

Everlasting Love

The Gargoyle - Andrew Davidson

Burn victim who used to be a porn star and a drug addict. Tattooed sculptress who may have manic depression and schizophrenia. Are you annoyed yet? I am just reading this description yet, ultimately, it's a good book - a great book if you take into account it's a first book.

The everlasting true love who dies on you and yet, you remain singlemindedly true to them till you take your last breath on earth, but really not, till you wind up in hell obsessed with your loss, was annoying. And no, I am NOT giving anything away - but this was a theme of the book told in Scheherazade-like stories. Despite my impatience in the middle section of the book - it was a good read.

I loved all the medieval stuff, loved the current day stuff, loved the scenes from Dante - found it very well done - very quick read that I would recommend despite the long stretches in the middle.

No sister of mine

The Sister - Poppy Adams


Quick, quick read. Disturbing first novel that made me feel just fine for having one child. Also a novel to make you wonder just how much you lie to yourself and how much others are lying to you. Did my parents tell me I was special and I fell for it, hook, line and sinker?! Do my friends tell me I'm a dead ringer for Halle Barry and I fall for it? Idiot!! Obviously, this novel goes deeper than this, but I did find myself identifying with the narrator a little bit and being highly disturbed by this. (Although, see Real World, below for a more disturbing book that parts of me, sickly, related to)

The Sister did remind me a lot of A.S. Byatt's Angel's and Insects (talk about disturbing) and, having read recently Jane Smiley's Prodigal Summer,- I was fascinated by the basic study of moths. Moths have always creeped me out a bit (some of them don't even have mouths! Mouths Liz Lemon!!).

I'd recommend it - although I kept feeling like I'd read it before while I was reading it, don't know if that makes it derivative, but it sure feels like that!

The only thing magic here is how it got published.

The Magic Cottage - James Herbert DNF

Gimme a break here James. Just kept getting angrier and angrier as I read it due to its lacks. Lacks of scares, spooks, and storyline. Returned it to the library hoping its magic would make it invisible to potential checker-outers. This cottage just plain sucks. Er... stinks.

Let's hope this isn't the real world

Real World - Natsuo Kirino

Disturbing Disturbing. Teenage killer - strange lack of remorse, unsettling group dynamics within a group of teenage girls in contemporary Japan. I found it to be distasteful, yet I had to read it to the end. The images I got from this about teenage life in Japan today were disturbing as well....I'd recommend, but it's a bitter little cup of tea.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wrobleski

Beautiful detailed writing about dogs - I thought he wrote better about the dogs than the people. This first part of this book was awesome, then some things happen and, for me, it kind of derailed. I know it's the "novel of the summer" right now, but it wasn't a hit for me. Parts of it were incredible, but I didn't care for much of the middle and the end. I know it's based on Hamlet, and maybe that was my ultimate problem. I will say, it's very hard to believe this was a first novel - impressive.

Melancholy reflections past mid-life

Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo

Beautifully written - very moving. This is a wonderful long book to sink yourself into - it's melancholy and reflective. It felt like it was written about a different age than this one. Just a treat to read.

Palace Council

Palace Council - Stephen L. Carter
I loved it! Highly recommend, just don't read it as if it's a classic mystery - it's not and I think you'll be disappointed. Thought Aurelia is one of the most interesting female characters I've come across in a long time.

Want to play catch-up?

Okay, just a list here, pretty far behind and I'm starting to think that this blog thing just isn't for me.

The Ghosts of Sleath - James Herbert - not so great actually - this will be the absolute last book by Herbert I read. Felt pretty annoyed with myself for even bothering to finish this one. There were some great creepy classic ghosty details in here, and even some amusing things with the local pub, but I kept waiting for something to happen, waiting and waiting and waiting. It wasn't scary to me at all, just mildly interesting enough to keep me turning pages....still, last Herbert.



The Woods are Dark - Richard Laymon. Classic Laymon. I absolutely loved it! I absolutely can't remember a thing about it! But, I absolutely loved it!




Winter and Night - S. J. Rosen DNF Tried, seems like it was well written, just don't care that much about the high school football angle and not a big police procedural person.



One Grave Too Many - Beverly Connor. Loved it! Diane Fallon this time and I think I am starting to see a difference (subtle) between Diane and Lindsey (Connor's other almost identical heroine). This book was exciting, interesting - smart heroine.





Winter Study - Nevada Barr DNF Threw this down in disgust about 15-20 pages away from the ending. I didn't even stick around to find out who did it. Just mad at myself for wasting my time with it. Very poorly written and the plot felt forced. I love Nevada Barr, but this book reminds me of her other disaster of a book Liberty Falling.

A Romance?

Okay. I'm thinking it went something like this.
Publisher: "We love this book."

Author: (nervous, but excited) "Thank you."

Publisher: (leaning forward in chair and enunciating as if to a child) "It's not a mystery."

Author: (confused) "It's not?"

Publisher: (proud) "It's a Romance." (leans back in chair and stares expectantly at author)

Author: "Huh?"

Well, that's what I imagined happened. I never would have picked this up if I'd seen the Romance symbol on the jacket of this book. (like my last post, I have no idea where I got this recommendation. I really thought it was off the Beverly Connor Website, but, if it ever was there, it's gone now. Maybe it was a Rogue Beverly Connor website.) So, point being, don't let the Romance marketing put you off. Sure, there's some heaving bosoms, but it's not the point of the book and it's a shame that it's pigeon-holed this way.

Nods as good as a wink......

A few weeks ago I read Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear; I thought I got this book recommendation off Beverly Connor's website (Summer of Connor, why not, right?), but I can't find it on her site now...so, could have been Woman off the Street Recommendation. (hearing a lot about The Omnivore's Dilemma from various, unconnected people; things like that make me want to wait and read the book 20 years from now when everyone's forgotten about it, stupid, huh?)

So: Maisie Dobbs: I loved it at first - it started out both funny and serious. I do like the title character, but it got a little bogged down for me in the flashback (this was one of those books where I kept waiting for the return to the present and I kept waiting and I kept waiting). When Winspear did return back to the novel's present time (Post WWI, England); it just wasn't as good as it seemed in the beginning. I wanted more humor, more drama!

Even though I recommended this book to Husband and to my mother, I probably wouldn't recommend this to anyone else. It just wasn't one thing or the other very successfully - not a successful Historical Fiction or Mystery or Drama/Romance....for me, that is.

Summer of Connor

I know, cheesy, huh? Just wanted to add One Grave Too Many and Dead Past to my Summer of Connor list. I may be a bit Connored out for the time being - I kind of slogged through Dead Past, but I do believe it was due to me reading wayyy too many of those books in a row. Can't be healthy!

I love Beverly Connor and Lindsay and her twin, Diane

I think it all started with this book - it's been the summer (not really summer yet, but it feels like it) of Beverly Connor. I've just been steam rolling through her books - last summer was the summer of Richard Laymon. Nobody quite like Dick Laymon - I wish I could erase my memory of his books (like the episode of Red Dwarf where Holly erases his memory so he can go back and read all of Agatha Christie for the first time); that Laymon summer was spectacular. Connor is not quite as spectacular as Laymon (prob. a good thing); but I do enjoy her writing and she's a hell of a lot less embarrassing to recommend to someone.

One thing I find kind of amusing about Connor is that she has two different series going, and they both basically star the same heroine. Wouldn't you think if you had two different series they'd be about two very different people? Or, even if they weren't that different from each other personality-wise, maybe you'd change the sex, and have a male and a female star in your series? These women (Lindsay and Diane) are basically the same person except for the boyfriend. Did her publisher force her to come up with another series? Did she think; I know! I'll write about a female forensic anthropologist who solves crimes and is tall, with long dark hair and has a boyfriend that loves her but is not around a lot (convenient, no?)

Some are better than others, but I've enjoyed them all, here are the one's I've read and would recommend so far - can't wait to finish reading them, just check Connor's website and she has a few more Diane Fallon mysteries I haven't wrapped by grubby paws on yet! http://beverlyconnor.net/default.htm

Dead Hunt (Latest and very good! Female serial killer! Whoo hoo!)
Dressed to Die
Questionable Remains
A Rumor of Bones
Airtight Case

Oh, and did I also mention that both of these lovely ladies love to go caving?

The quarterback's got a gun! ...for an arm

Winter and Night - S. J. Rozan
Brilliant and mysterious expose on a football obsessed New Jersey town and an inherent high school violence.
4 stars. June 2008

Nights at the Museum

Dead Hunt - Beverly Connor
Fast paced action and lots of fun and twists as the Museum Detective Extraordinaire (MDE) Diane Fallon tracks a (female!) serial killer.
Three stars. June 2008

Just run baby

The Perfect Mile - Neal Bascomb
The perfect book about runners who ran for posterity. And joy.
4 stars. June 2008

Run run run. And please be quiet.

Tell No One - Harlan Coben
A wife long thought dead reappears, and a race from the cops begins.
2 1/2 stars. June 2008

Thank God he's a country boy

Down River - John Hart
A son comes home to face the family he's tried to forget, but can't.
3 stars. June 2008

Long Day's Journey Into the The Olive Garden

Stewart O’Nan, champion of the proletariat, has created a vivid, moving portrait of one man’s struggle to stay relevant as he faces the loss of an identity he has created for himself, in his new book, Last Night at the Lobster. More a study in character than a plot driven narrative, the story centers on Manny DeLeon, the manager of a Red Lobster restaurant that is being closed by corporate due to sluggish sales. Manny is being reassigned as an assistant manager at a nearby Olive Garden and must deal with this demotion while struggling with his affection for his former lover, the waitress Jacquie, and his seeming lack of affection for his pregnant girlfriend Deena, who remains faceless throughout the story, but whose presence hangs over Manny like the snow piling up in his parking lot.
This slim yet meaningful book takes place during one bleak and drab winter day in which the snow builds in intensity as the characters peel away from the store. The Red Lobster, shadowed by the local mall, in its imminent closing, is the slip sliding of hope fading away, like the lottery tickets Manny buys for his workers as one final token of appreciation. O’Nan has captured the essence of his characters, painting with blunt, muted colors; people drifting through life fleetingly. O’Nan has managed, in a scant 160 pages, to create an evocative and meaningful world, moody and poignant, and in the end we wish for a better world for them all.
3 1/2 stars. May 2008

Cricket is just alright by me

Joseph O’Neill’s latest book Netherland, though set in New York in the aftermath of 9/11, is not really a book about 9/11. The tragedy does, however, serve its purpose well as a background character, the senselessness and meaninglessness of its atrocity a muted dullness hovering in the atmosphere, permeating its way straight through to the hero’s soul. The hero, in this case, is Hans van der Broek, an English citizen born Dutch, who finds himself living amongst the eccentric occupants of a Chelsea hotel as his apartment, the one he shared with his wife Rachel and young son Jake, lies dormant amidst the post 9/11 apocalyptic landscape. Rachel, sensing a disconnectedness to the city and to Hans himself, has taken Jake back to live with her parents in England, while Hans attempts to find meaning and purpose in his life, drifting through his uneasy days in a meloncholic state of ennui. He finds this purpose in the form of the sport of cricket, a game he had played as a child and rediscovers being played by immigrants in parks all over the city. O’Neill’s depictions of the game are artful masterpieces. It is in these scenes where the novel really takes off, thanks in no small part to the presence of Chuck Ramkissoon, a lifelong cricket devotee from Trinidad who aspires to build a massive stadium in Brooklyn, where the entire country will become enamored of the game he so loves. It is in the game of cricket where Hans rediscovers himself, and readers are better off for the journey.

3 stars. May 2008

Football ain't all fun and games

Hell to Pay - George Pelecanos
Heartbreaking and harrowing account of a youth football team and a drug kingpin.
3 1/2 stars. May 2008

Serial Killers are fun!

13 Steps Down - Ruth Rendell
A wannabe serial killer who's just too lazy.
3 stars. May 2008

All murders can't be bad, can they?

One Good Turn... Kate Atkinson

Funny account of a hit and run during the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh. Huge cast of characters.
3 1/2 stars. May 2008

The Lower East Side slides...

Lush Life - Richard Price
Bitter cops, a redball murder, and the city comes alive at 4 AM.
4 Stars. May 2008

An Irishman who drinks?

The Guards - Ken Bruen
A whirlwind tale of an alcoholic Irish ex-cop (Guard). Steeped in rage and sadness.
3 1/2 stars. May 2008

Alcatraz has nothing on this place...

Shutter Island - Dennis Lehane
A twisting and turning mystery in a mental institution on an island with a hurricane raging.
4 Stars. May 2008

Things Fall Apart

Just finished Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion - a collection of essays mostly from the mid to late 1960's... It struck me again and again how prescient it was for what's going on today, and what happened to her later in life. It is a little dated in places, but her comments about Vegas, Sacramento, the generation of "Flower" Children who lost their way, some strange, sad tales that run now 24-7 on CNN, loving NYC and turning from it at the same time - they all felt valid and contemporary.

Didion's got a clear, unsentimental voice that really appeals to me. I admire her writer's view of herself - she doesn't flatter herself - she's out there, doing this journalism that is sometimes a clipped stream of consciousness. She is a carefully reflective writer (which I'm a sucker for) and I particularly like one of her last essays about her time in NYC before she met her husband. It is melancholic, and wishful, but there's a coldness to her reflection that you don't read or hear very much anymore. I want to say it's old school masculine, but the feminist in me, thinks that must not be true.

Her introduction to the essays in this book also won me over - where is writing's place today? Where are the thoughts? The energy? I know this is old fogeyish and I'm not that old, but I wonder with her - have television, video games unplugged our brains for good? Alcohol, drugs, mindless entertainment - have the vast majority of us checked out, unintentionally, like the end of the Flower Generation before us?

laura

looking for green

Just finished Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver - not a new book, I know, but I've just got this jonesing for Springtime....still kind of cool here with your random unwelcome snowstorm thrown in, and there are just enough warm days to give you that little thrill that things will turn green again. I tried to read this a couple of years ago and didn't care for it - seemed to obviously aimed at the "mature" female reader. Maybe I've become a mature female reader; because the language of the book really turned me on this time. Women attempting to farm, women alone in the forest watching coyotes, women running orchards, raising children, women who think they're doing this alone, but are not.

I'm not much into reviewing books, and definitely don't want to just do plot summaries. I think to keep myself happy and interested in this blog, I'll just jot down random thoughts about the book. I think I really just intend this as a way to mark down what I've read and keep myself going on as a reader.

Laura