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Recently Finished

DIVAS by the RIVER
I loved the atmosphere of this maiden novel by Juno Ross. Many years ago, I was in New Orleans for a few days, and in the evening I walked the streets of this wonderful city. I would pop in various clubs for a jazz set and a scotch, then move on to the next club for an encore till the wee hours of the morning. Now, thanks to Juno Ross, I know what goes on behind the scenes. I honestly didn’t think I was going to like this novel, until about 100 pages into it. The novel seemed to have way too many characters, which in my mind is a huge error. The reader doesn’t want to remember 30 plus people and what they do for a living. Most successful writers keep the named characters down to three to a maximum of ten ( see Cormac McCarthy novels, especially The Road ). However, Juno managed to pull it off. I was able to remember who was who. Surprisingly, I didn’t have that nonplussed look, I was mindful that Stu was on guitar, and Hans on the bass ( both minor named characters ). So congratulations to a new author, Juno Ross. Juno is just one of the many nascent authors that I have read this year who could be the bellwethers of future literature. 5 OUT OF 5 STARS. ricksreviews.blogspot.com :cool:
 
Two short ones:

William Beckford, Vathek (1786)
Fun, if slight, over the top gothic pastiche of Doctor Faustus as filtered through every orientalist cliche you can imagine. Of course it's blazingly racist, but then again, so's Lovecraft and that's not the only connection between the two - ol' HP must have worn out the last few pages of his copy. Plus it's interesting to read a Western novel that complains that muslim rulers aren't religious enough... :star3:

Marianne Fredriksson, The Book of Eve (1980)
Another modern Swedish classic I've meant to read for years and... holy shit (you'll get that later) it's good. A retelling of Eve's story in Genesis - her oldest son has just murdered her other son, and she runs away trying to find some answer for it, find an I Am to balance her husband's Thou Shalt, try to figure out what to do with all this rage and grief and guilt she's supposed to carry silently and why she can't remember anything from before she met Adam. It gradually becomes clear that this isn't a faithful adaptation of the Bible; there are other people there, some who have also started developing language - it's not a story about giving names to things, it's a story about giving them meaning. Come to think of it, this is essentially Auel's Earth's Children done right, and all in just 211 pages. :star5:
 
the GOLIATH STONE:
It’s 2051 and a ‘dinosaur killer’ asteroid is heading for earth. Is this the same asteroid that the Watchstar people sent a rocket with nanotechnology into outer space to meet twenty-five years ago? The craft’s mission was to bring the asteroid into earth’s orbit for mining purposes. But when the nanobots reached the asteroid, they were never heard from again. Welcome to the world of puzzlement and wonder. By that I mean it’s a world of: nanorobotics ( bots ) killing, or curing people; politics too muddled to understand ( at least for me ); indian tribes that are now the athletic and intellectual elite of the world; and people who could change their appearance and health by the type and amount of bots put into their system. I’ve read many of Larry Niven’s books, and this is the first time that I didn’t understand every concept. Is it his writing partner, Matthew Joseph Harrington’s fault? By the way, why do all these sci-fi writers take on partners? This book gave me a dose of author Vernor Vinge’s addling thoughts. I did like the book, but didn’t like having to refer to Wikipedia for scientific lucidity. Also as usual, Niven gets away with having way too many named characters by having a ‘cast and crew’ list in front of the novel. How about 51 notable personage, including the three main bot entities. ricksreviews.blogspot.com 4 out of 5 stars :eatpop
 
Re-read Voltaire's Candide. Still one of the most viciously funny satires ever written, and it's kind of sad that it keeps refusing to become irrelevant even after 254 years - if anything, the last few decades' praising of "positive thinking" as a cure for everything has made it more relevant. :star5:
 
Marcus Brotherton - A Company of Heroes :star4:

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this collection of reminiscences about many members of the legendary Easy Company which was portrayed in "Band of Brothers". In his previous book, "We Who Are Alive and Remain", Brotherton assembled interviews with surviving vets and added an appendix containing the memories of some deceased company members' relatives. Later, he got in touch with the families of other men whose recollections of their fathers, husbands, uncles or cousins make a very touching and interesting read for anyone interested in the Band of Brothers. I particularly liked finding out what became of all the men after the war had ended - some had successful careers and a happy family life, while many others drowned their traumatic memories in too much booze and had a hard time getting back on track.
 
Hedwig said:
Marcus Brotherton - A Company of Heroes :star4:

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this collection of reminiscences about many members of the legendary Easy Company which was portrayed in "Band of Brothers". In his previous book, "We Who Are Alive and Remain", Brotherton assembled interviews with surviving vets and added an appendix containing the memories of some deceased company members' relatives. Later, he got in touch with the families of other men whose recollections of their fathers, husbands, uncles or cousins make a very touching and interesting read for anyone interested in the Band of Brothers. I particularly liked finding out what became of all the men after the war had ended - some had successful careers and a happy family life, while many others drowned their traumatic memories in too much booze and had a hard time getting back on track.
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I'll have to check that one out sometime; I love Band of Brothers (the book and the miniseries both).
 
Then it's a must, ChaosTheory! Have you read any of the other BoB-related books?

I finished two books at the weekend:

Rohinton Mistry - Tales from Firozsha Baag :star3: - :star4:

A collection of short stories interconnected by the apartment complex of Firozsha Baag in Bombay, where all the protagonists live (or used to live). As these things go, I liked some of the stories a lot more than others, but Mistry's storytelling talent shows throughout the book. I thought the first three bits were a little slow, but what I really loved was the story of a widow enduring the social visits after her husband's death, wishing it were all over and she were left to mourn him in her very own fashion, unrestrained by tradition, and the last chapter told from the POV of a young man from Firozsha Baag who has emigrated to Toronto and is finding it rather hard to settle in, while a visit to Bombay shows him clearly that he is no longer really at home there either.

Anthony Horowitz - The House of Silk :star4: - :star5:

Really loved this new Sherlock Holmes adventure. I haven't read any of the original SH books yet, but I imagine Horowitz did a good job of capturing their tone and atmosphere in this mystery about an arts dealer who feels threatened by a ghost from his past and the terrible death of a young boy. The perfect read for a lazy summer day if you love a bit of classy detective work in Victorian London.
 
The Stranger - Albert Camus
Interesting story. Hard to give it a star rating. Still sort of processing what it meant...
 
Some of the best stories are that way, you don't know what to think of it for a while.
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Very true. I definitely enjoyed it, I didn't know what it was about going into it and for a while I found Mersault's detachment extremely humorous. Actually laughed out loud in several places. Then it went somewhere else and it took me a moment to adjust.
All in all, a pretty brilliant literary work. I think I will read The Plague next... Maybe.
 
BORN ON A MOUNTAINTOP:
“Kilt him a b’ar when he was only three.” Grab your coonskin cap, powder horn, toy musket,rubber tipped arrows and get ready...Davy’s back! It’s Davy Crockett, the legend that will not go away. I was ten years old when Walt Disney decided to promote “Frontierland” at Disneyland by hiring Fess Parker to portray Davy Crockett for five episodes between December 1954 and February 1955. Well, Bob Thompson has written a book reminiscent of “On the Road with Charles Kuralt”, except the author is stalking only one person... the famous Davy Crockett. Mr. Thompson retraces Davy’s life throughout Tennessee, Alabama, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and finally San Antonio, Texas, where he meets his demise at the age of 49. This is a wonderful book, but still leaves the reader with the thought... what made Davy famous to begin with? So many of Davy’s accomplishments are agreed upon, or rejected as myth by so many historians and eye witness accounts that the reader doesn’t know what to believe. Does it matter? I don’t think so, since little proof exist about many of the exploits of the late 1700’s and 1800’s frontiersmen. Did Daniel Boone and Kit Carson ( see Blood and Thunder ) really do all the things the pulp novels and almanacs say they did? It is known that many of the stories were made up for monetary purposes only, and as the years went on, a copious amount of them were accepted as pure lore. 5 OUT OF 5 STARS ricksreviews.blogspot.com :)
 
World War Z by Max Brooks.
My first and only zombie book.
Thoroughly absorbing, although zombies are still not my genre.
:star5:

Please see the World War Z thread for complete reviews and discussions.
 
Polly Parrot said:
Jane Austen, Lady Susan
Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice
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I'm on the tail end of Pride and Prejudice. A victim of prejudice myself, as I didn't think I'd enjoy the book. Goodness knows the recent rash of classics I've read have not be very interesting to me, but nothing has prepped me for the fantastic story that P&P was.

Funny and humane, lovely characters. Fabulous.
 
Nevil Shute - In the Wet :star4:

During the rainy season, an aging priest visits a dying old man in a shack in the Outback, trying to ease his final hours, but he finds he cannot do much more than sit by the bedside and listen to the old man's drugged mumblings.

On a second level, the book tells the story of a young pilot who gets the command of one of the Queen's personal aeroplanes in a much changed Britain - the Socialists have been ruling since the end of WW2, and while Commonwealth states like Australia and Canada are thriving, England is all but ruined economically and socially, and tension mounts among the people.

I love the simple beauty of Shute's slightly old-fashioned language and the way he always manages to surprise with some original plot twist. Good that there's still a lot of Shute to discover.
 
I have only read three of his so far, In the Wet, A Town Like Alice, and Requiem for a Wren. I'm planning to get all of them by and by.
 
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