I guess, on a blog that reviews books, this is not too terribly surprising; but considering the fact that I have been telling everyone (and I mean everyone: friends, family, random strangers, etc. ) that I used to read but "now I watch TV instead," it's a little strange to sit down and tally out the books I've finished and realize, gee, I have managed to go through a number of them. Here are the ones I can remember for the year so far :
Discovered on My Shelf:
- Old Fashioned Girl, by Louisa Alcott - Always a delight. And really helpful too, as Alcott is one of those blessed authors more intent on edifying her readers more than entertaining them.
- Mary Poppins - I finally finished it! A vain Mary Poppins was fun to read of, but all in all I found the book un-magical compared to Disney. I didn't like the cynicism and lack of a morale, but the worst part was that nobody broke out into song.
- The Juniper Tree - I've been working on this one for awhile too. It's a small, beautifully bound collection of Grimms fairytales, but the contents were so, so out there. The stories ranged from happy endings to tragic, from magical to mostly mundane, from well articulated to barely readable. The worst suffered from such bad wording that I wasn't sure in the end who the princess had married. My favorite Story? The man who knew no fear.
Bought (from the black-market bookstore):
- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, Judith Martin - Maybe not the whole 711 pages, but certainly most of them.
- I Try to Behave Myself, Peg Bracken - Probably more practical than the above in terms of spirit rather than law, and equally useful for purposes of anthropological study. Can you imagine having your most used telephone numbers on cards to "load" into your telephone?
- The I Hate to Cook Book, also Peg Bracken - Finally. This includes the Appendix, which was previously my only connection to Bracken and her delicious wit. More tidbits from a bygone era.
- The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul, Douglas Adams - Both good and bad, as one might expect. Some perfectly hilarious moments and wonderful ideas, poured into one of those plots that builds and builds and builds until the conductor can't take it any more and steps out to have a beer. Or maybe a soda, if he's Thor.
Borrowed:
- Tales from the White Hart, Arthur Clark - Another one of those books where I mention the author's name and everyone goes "Oh, him. One of the fathers of science fiction." Why don't you just give me a list? Anyway, this books is composed of short stories presented as tall tales told in a particular bar by a particular person. As such, even the ones touching on ghastly have a hint of the comic about them, and some of them are down right funny. Having said that, there is one story which the author advises delicate people (i.e. ladies) to skip. Just embrace your inner prude and skip it. Apart from that, I would wholeheartedly recommend this volume and wouldn't mind reading it again myself.
- The Third Son, Julie Wu - An actual fiction book, located half in Taiwan – during and after the Japanese occupation – and half in the States. The guy's wife drove me nuts, but aside from that I appreciated the little bit of history I gleaned from reading it.
- The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley - I thought I had gotten the plot for this story the first time, then I read it again and realized it was a romance novel. Oh well, no wonder I liked it. It's a lot like Chalice, if you've read that one, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
- A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan - So much potential. Such an awful ending. I really wanted to like this book, but it suffered from Too Much Plot. Also, no matter how she protested, the main character came off as a little heartless and shallow. The beginning was pretty good though.
- Lots of books that I got half way into and then returned, most of them out of disgust, but there was also Beverly Gordon's Textiles, a really cool anthropological picture book, but lacking in plot and characters.
- The Second Storm Lord book, by Brandon Sanderson - This book. It's hard to review, so I'm not going to. I liked it, but it bothered me that it wasn't as tightly crafted as the first book. In some places this worked to its advantage - I did a lot of laughing and I really enjoyed myself - but it took away from the Grand and Consequential impression which long, drawn out series should nurture in order to bully readers into finishing them. Also, if that girl and what's his name get together and leave the other dude to turn all evil, I will come and find you, Sanderson.
- Marble Arches, a collection of short stories by Connie Willis. I loved Willis after reading To Say Nothing of the Dog, despite having never read Three Men in a Boat. She likes romantic comedies and science fiction and "actual" literature, and I suppose if you put all those things in a blender you might get something like her out of it. She's weird, and she peppers her works with references to classics which I've never read, but I still like her. And, no, I didn't read every story in this book.
I also read the latter half of Modestt's Scholar series. I started during Christmas, but the reading bleed into the new year, partially helped by the fact that my dad had the books on his iPad so I couldn't just take them home with me (or transfer them to my kindle, for that matter). I like this series, possibly better than the first imager portfolio. I did skip the first two books (accidentally - see, further drawbacks to reading on an e-reader, chapter 5, footnote 3) but the story didn't suffer from that. Also, Modestt actually made a female character I cared about, which might very well be a first.
That's the count for early June. I also read an Agatha Christie, but I think I'll save it for a separate post.