Marissa's 2014 Reading

2014 started with something of an ending--the last of Sarah Caudwell's wonderful legal whodunnits, The Sibyl in Her Grave. I enjoyed this one a lot--it was a bit more accessible than her second and third books as there was less "legal" and more "whodunnit"...and as always, a great many giggles. It's so very sad that there will only be these four books from her.

About two-thirds of the way through The Secret Rooms: a True Gothic Mystery, a sort of non-fiction whodunnit in which a scholar who has been given access to some untouched-for-decades papers at Belvoir, the ancient home of the Dukes of Rutland in order to research one topic...and finds a gripping mystery about the early 20th c. members of the family. Well written and very readable--I'll report back when I'm done.

The Secret Rooms looks fascinating. I'll be interested to see what you have to say about it.

I'm looking forward to following your reading again this year; our tastes seem to overlap in many areas.

I'll be here as well. Ditto the "tastes" thing!

I know--we keep playing book bullet roulette amongst us! I'm not complaining, mind you...

The end of The Secret Rooms got a little monotonous as the author recounted pages of old letters in her quest to figure out what had happened in the life of the ninth Duke of Rutland to make him systematically destroy any record of certain periods of his life (short answer: extremely selfish parents who more or less destroyed his childhood and young manhood), so I found myself skimming a fair bit...but I still enjoyed it very much--if enjoyed is the right word.

Haven't yet decided what's next...must go poke about in the foothils of Mt. TBR.

Sounds like it might be worth reading.

I'll be lurking along :)

Following your thread with interest.

Starred.

Marissa, do go over and add this link to the master list of personal reading threads that clam has been keeping up to date. I had to actually WORK to find you! (What is this world coming to?)

Of course, I've starred you NOW.

Sorry, Jill...done!

About two-thirds of the way through The Heir Apparent, the latest biography of King Edward VII. I've read several already, but the glowing review in the NY Times made me say oh what the heck, and I bought it.

So far, I'm not terribly impressed. The writing is pedestrian--serviceable, but not elegant. More disappointing is the author's attitude toward almost all of the people in this book--I can't see that she felt any affection for ANY of them. It's not that I think a biographer should slavishly adore her subject(s), but both "Bertie" and just about everyone else comes across as fairly unlikeable and just not very nice. Most disappointing of all is that her research comes across as shoddy and lazy. I know this era of history pretty well and have read extensively in it--including well-researched, respected biographies of many of the figures mentioned here--and this book tends to repeat older interpretations of events that have since been disproved.

Ridley was supposed given access to a trove of material about Edward VII's years as king which reinterprets his role as monarch. I'm not quite there yet (I'm still somewhere in the mid-1890s) so I'll suspend final judgement till then. But so far...meh.

I'm following Marissa, as has been said, similar tastes abide between us. :)

I'll be following along as well, dangerous though that may be. I have a pile of Diana Wynne Jones books (virtual and physical) begging to be read, for which I blame your previous thread. And my wishlist ended up somewhat bulgier.

Happily guilty as charged, sandragon--I hope you'll enjoy them!!

Finished The Heir Apparent, and what I said above stands as my final assessment. Though the chapter in which she points out how several people, including former PMs HH Asquith and Arthur Balfour, did their best to blacken the King's image after his death by supplying false information to his first biographer made interesting reading, overall I found it shallow and think others have done a better job.

I started 1913 but have set it aside for now--for some reason it isn't drawing me in. The narrative style isn't bad, but it isn't scintillating either. I expect I'll return to it and finish it in baby steps--it's constructed as a series of essays about specific cities and locations, so lends itself to episodic reading.

To follow on the WWI streak I seem to be on, I picked up The Assassination of the Archduke, which is a more personal history of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. Based on the introduction, I expect it will be a quick and maybe rather elementary read, but it's not an area I know much about so any knowledge gained is a good thing. :) I also downloaded Bride of the Rat God after seeing it mentioned on a few threads, and will probably be due for some fiction shortly.

Is there an alternate biography of Edward VII that you would recommend? You said you'd read others that you thought were better?

I should have done that to begin with, Jill...I'd recommend Stanley Weintraub's Edward the Caresser which despite the doofy title is excellent (though it ends at his accession) and Christopher Hibbert's Edward VII: the Last Victorian King. Giles St. Aubyn's Edward VII: Prince and King was also good, but I think the Weintraub was the best. I've liked all of his work.

The Assassination of the Archduke is going to be a DNF. Just awful writing, overladen with adjectives to gloss over the fact that there just isn't much documentary evidence to base anything on and what feels like thinly veiled contempt on the part of the authors for their subjects. Bleh. I wish I'd previewed this before buying it, because I probably wouldn't have. Feeling curmudgeonly as a result. Maybe I need to go reread Mr. Penumbra. :)

Just finished a book and was trying to decide what to read. Penumbra it is then! Well, maybe. I'm feeling wishy-washy and can't settle on a book :op

Just finished Bride of the Rat God which I enjoyed very much. I found her writing style a little opaque at first--description doesn't seem to flow well for her--but things settled down and it was great fun. Hambly has obviously made a study of 1920s LA and the early film industry, not to mention of Pekingese...and in common with a review I read on the book's page, I appreciated that the three dogs could be important characters without ever getting cutesy or anthropomorphized as sleuths (not my cup of tea).

On to Bill Bryson's One Summer: America, 1927. I believe it was Meredy who said she rarely gives more than four stars to non-fiction because the writing is not at a five-star level; Bryson may be the exception to this. I'm looking forward to diving into this one.

18: I did, yes; or rather, I said that nonfiction works rarely have the literary quality that places them in my top ranks. But I do manage to find some nonfiction that either achieves or by other merits offsets this usual limitation. Twice I've rated Bill Bryson at four stars.

#18 - I've been eying that one myself. BTW, I don't think I've ever given a Bryson book less than 4 stars. ;o)

The Bryson was the first book I finished reading this year. I commented at post 26 in this thread. It is very good, and I'm pleased to now own a copy.

20: Neither have I. I read two of his books and gave four stars to both.

If you ever to do audio books trying giving anything that he's read himself a go. I read A Walk in the Woods at least 10 years ago, but since then I have listened to him read it twice and it gets funnier each time.

I haven't read that one yet, and it sounds like that would be a good way to do so, Clam.

Work is kind of busy right now and I haven't had the mental space to read for the last few days, but One Summer is very enjoyable so far...though I can see why Hugh might have been slowed down by the baseball references. Babe Ruth lived in my town while he played for the Red Sox, and his house is still a bit of a local landmark. There was a minor drama over a piano, a very drunken party, and the pond across the street from the house that led to a Robert Ballard-ish "Raise the Piano!" adventure here a few years ago. :)

I had to Google "Robert Ballard," but that incident must have been very amusing. Or not, if you owned the pond.

I want to know if the piano survived. Or is it, like the Titanic, still at the bottom of the pond with coral spreading all over it while submarines circle it and shine spotlights.

It was actually funny, clam--but this is a pretty quiet town, so the piano saga livened things up for a while.

Don't know about coral, jill. Duckweed, maybe. :) The piano may or may not have survived. I may need to incorporate this into a story some day. It's very Garrison Keillor-ish:
http://sudbury.patch.com/groups/arts-and-entertainment/p/search-for-babe-ruths-p...

Wow. Just... wow. Talk about devotion.

#24 Thank you, Marissa. Loved the story about the piano! (I hope they find at least enough missing pieces to make restoration credible.)

Not book related, but I'm dancing around the room because I got into a lovely retreat for children's writers this coming weekend (was on the wait list and a cancellation happened) up in Vermont...which means I get to see some good friends I don't see as often as I like and be with writer-people like Jane Yolen (whom I do know) and Gregory Maguire. Wheee!

ETA: Well, I suppose it IS book related...not just in the usual sense.

Happy times, Marissa! Enjoy your weekend retreat.

Nice! Hope you have a great time. We'll be expecting a report when you get home :o)

Enjoy! Stay warm, Marissa. :o)

That's wonderful news! I hope you have a great time.

I hope you have a lovely weekend!

How wonderful! Enjoy :)

Back from Kindling Words, and it was wonderful. My head is exploding, but in a good way. And I even managed to get some work done (mostly because I was too mentally over-stimulated to go to the evening parties. The down-side of being a total introvert.) And I got to see several friends and make some new ones, which was lovely.

In the book department, I finished One Summer: America 1927 and loved it. Bryson is so good at this kind of book--the braiding together of multiple threads, be they cultural, scientific, biographical, or historical, so that they illuminate each other. And he's funny as hell while he does it. Favorite line: "For Warren G. Harding, the summer of 1927 was not a good one, which was perhaps a little surprising since he had been dead for nearly four years by then." Very highly recommended.

Also completed A Trace of Smoke which was a book bullet I caught via majkia's book page. It's an historical mystery set in Berlin as Hitler's rise to power is gaining momentum, and while I found it flawed (the writing was at times clunky and the characterization wooden), I liked it enough to give the second book in the series, A Night of Long Knives a go. The heroine, Hannah Vogel, is a journalist, and while the books are getting a bit 'perils of Pauline'-ish, the atmosphere and historical detail which get explicated as a result of her profession are what saves the books for me.

#37 by Marissa_Doyle> I agree with you on A Trace of Smoke. but then Hannah is a bit wooden herself. But perhaps you needed to be to survive what she's seeing and not go mad.

I haven't yet read book 2.

Following up on the Hannah Vogel series set in pre-WWII Berlin...I finished A Night of Long Knives, A Game of Lies, and did not finish A City of Broken Glass.

I really, really wanted to like these stories more than I do. The period is fascinating (1930s Berlin) and the plots of the first three books in the series interesting (the fourth was far-fetched and I gave up after one too many bouts of eye-rolling.)
The heroine, Hannah Vogel, is an intriguing, three-dimensional character in the first book, but increasingly becomes a caricature of herself over the rest.

Where this series most fell down for me is that they are almost all plot, with a smattering of description on occasion and almost no attention paid to character development after the first book. Characters are there to move the plot forward: they often act "uncharacteristically" because they're needed to activate a plot point. The only truly interesting character for me was an SS officer who becomes the main character's co-conspirator and lover toward the end of the second and through the third book: there was some depth there...but in the fourth book, that had vanished and he too became a caricature. And the fourth book...ouch. The main character's romance with the (now former) SS officer takes center stage...but the author commits one of the classic errors of romance fiction: having the hero and heroine kept emotionally distant over something that five minutes of conversation would clear up.

Again, I'm sad that these weren't better. I believe a fifth book is in the works, but I don't think I'll bother.

39: ...one of the classic errors of romance fiction: having the hero and heroine kept emotionally distant over something that five minutes of conversation would clear up.

I didn't know that was a cliche of romance novels, but it sure is a staple of any number of opera plots. One little misunderstanding, an overheard word misinterpreted, an unforgiving temperamental outburst, and it's going to take us three acts (of beautiful singing) to straighten it out. You'd think that if the author--librettist, composer, whoever--were going to go to that much trouble, he or she could give us a somewhat more solid pretext for the drama.

It's a cliche of bad romance novels...and yes, opera plots. :) But no beautiful singing (or prose) to make up for it, alas.

It's also a cliche of most romantic comedy flicks I've seen. And Shakespeare comedies as well.

39: but the author commits one of the classic errors of romance fiction: having the hero and heroine kept emotionally distant over something that five minutes of conversation would clear up.
Aaargh! I hate that! Just talk to each other, for crying out loud. I don't only dislike it in romance: in fantasy (and probably also elsewhere, but this is what I mostly read) you sometimes see that the main character is warned not to do something without any explanation at all by a more knowledgeable character. There is always some stupid reason to keep mysteriously silent and of course the main character gets into a situation where he/she does it anyway. Not knowing what the consequences of said action are, they are unable to properly weigh their options and disaster ensues. Which all could have been solved if the more knowledgeable one would not expect people to blindly follow his/her directions and would simply EXPLAIN something now and then. In the case of the trusted teacher, fine, it's a little (but not much) more palatable, but in some cases mr. know-it-all has no connection to the hero at all. Yeah, I'll just accost a stranger on the street and tell him not to do something with the fate of the world hinging on it and then expect everything to be ok. Oh, and blame him when it goes wrong. HATE that! </rant> (Sorry)

No need to be sorry--it's totally rant-worthy. It's why I put the last book in the series down and don't plan to finish it.

I'm re-reading The Beekeeper's Apprentice to clean my palate, and then, onward!

The re-reading of The Beekeeper's Apprentice turned into a re-read of the next three Mary Russell books as well (A Letter of Mary, A Monstrous Regiment of Women, and The Moor), which was lovely, but I needed to read something new after that. That turned out to be The Owl Service, which I deeply loved on some levels and found annoying on others. The story itself--fabulous (in all senses of the word!) but the style at times was too telegraphic, too English. I wish it weren't because I think this story deserves a much wider audience among American readers. I'll definitely be re-reading this one.

I also picked up Garner's Collected Folk Tales which I am enjoying piecemeal, one at a time. Not so enjoyable so far is This House is Haunted by John Boyne. I am irritated by the narrator's doing things because the author/plot decrees it, rather than behaving in character...and the history geek in me is even more annoyed by the apparent lack of attempt to make this story sound even vaguely like it is truly set in the 1850s. Color me curmudgeonly. I'm not very far into it, so we'll see if the creepiness makes up for the glaring errors, poor characterization, and bad copyediting.

I think I was probably about 9 or 10 when I read The Owl Service. I clearly remember reading it in my mother's professor's office while Mum was writing an exam. It made a deep impression on me, leaving me with vivid memories, but I found it rather dark and disturbing. Then I had to read it when I was in university, and I have absolutely no memory of that second reading. Nothing but the cover. All the memories that I have are of the first reading.

I still reread The owl service; the style is rather dated now perhaps but the story is as haunting as ever. Having loved the Weirdstone and its sequel as a child, I was excited to read the related novel that he wrote recently, Boneland, which is totally different in style, complex and allusive but beautiful and powerful.

Once I finish banging my head against This House is Haunted (my write-up will be scathing), I'll probably try those other Garners...though I just downloaded a couple of books that are awfully tempting--Archetype and Annihilation.

I suspected that the style must be dated, Sakerfalcon, esp. re the slangy dialogue. But yes, haunting is the perfect word.

>48 Marissa_Doyle:: I'm really looking forward to Annihilation! (I realise that is an odd sentence taken out of context!)

I'm not a dystopian fan, so it's funny that both of these appealed to me--at least from the descriptions. :) I'm looking forward to them too.

This House is Haunted very nearly became a DNF, but I persisted because I wanted to see if it got any better. It didn't. It wasn't in the least spooky or spine-tingly, especially after the reveals of just what was going on in the house. The writing was mediocre (and the copy-editing, which might have elevated it, execrable); the characters wooden and merely vehicles for the plot. But worst of all was the truly bad world-building. I'm not sure the author did a lick of research into the world of 1867--social attitudes, etiquette, clothing, vocabulary--anything: the setting is pseudo-Victorian, furnished with half-remembered details from second-rate historical novels. The joy of a story like this should be the world-building, the feeling of being anchored in a specific time and place, so that when the supernatural element is introduced it's even more disorienting. There was none of that joy here.

Pausing to read something that's been gathering dust (electrons?) on my Nook for a while--The Autumn Castle, a contemporary/urban fantasy. I'm not blown away yet, but I can be patient. Really. :)

The Autumn Castle turned out to be a DNF. It just wasn't my cup of twee...er, tea.

After a re-read of Deep Secret to clear the mental palate--lordy, Diana Wynne Jones was amazing!--I went on to Archetype.

Archetype was a very good book. I just wish I'd liked it better.

I'm not a huge fan of dystopian novels for various reasons, mostly because I just can't suspend my disbelief sufficiently in that direction. I did not find the dystopian set-up here very believable, so that made it difficult to fall into the story. It starts out very slowly--for about 150 pages I came close to putting it down, but the plot finally woke up and became quite engrossing: just what happened to the main character? Why can't she remember much about her life before a horrific "accident" that occurred 8 months before...and why don't the memories she has jibe with what her husband tells her? Who is the man she keeps dreaming about? And who is the other person inside her head, showing her horrific memories that have nothing to do with her present life...or do they?

A good part of why I didn't like this story as much as I would have liked is that I never really connected with the main character, Emma. I could sympathize with her situation, but not her. Nor did any of the other characters inspire much emotional investment. There were also times when character actions and reactions seemed forced in order to further the plot. So while I'll pick up the concluding story in this planned duology because I'm interested in finding out what happens--the epilogue throws a huge twist into things--I won't be gnawing my fingernails the way I am over the sequels to, say, The Rook or The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic.

On to Annihilation, which looks like it's going to be a good one.

Annihilation was...interesting. In brief, it is what happens to the 12th expedition exploring the mysterious Area X (a cross between the Everglades and a Superfund site saturated with supernatural waste), as told by an unreliable, unnamed narrator. The government agency which administers the Area is as unreliable as the narrator, so going into the book it's impossible to establish a baseline of understanding about what the heck is going on here: who is telling the truth...or what portion of it?

I think I'll have to read the two forthcoming books in the trilogy before really deciding what I think. Definitely heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft, as others have noted...I also felt echoes of A. Merritt as well as Stephen King's The Tommyknockers. The writing style was lushly descriptive and atmospheric--that atmosphere is truly the center of this novel--but also at times somewhat heavy-going.

I'm going to have to think about this one for a while. Anyone else read it?

>53 Marissa_Doyle: Archetype was a very good book. I just wish I'd liked it better.

There's a distinction that I really appreciate. I think too often we fail to distinguish between "I like it" and "it's good," an attitude that many educators seem to encourage in the young, instead of teaching discrimination based on some sort of standard of quality. I can veer away from the slippery slope of trying to define what's "good" and still say that pleasing someone is not the same thing as being excellent.

>55 Meredy: Thank you. It's not always an easy distinction to remember--I know I struggle with it--but an important one.

Started The Long Earth, a collaboration between Pterry and Stephen Baxter. I think it'll be a good one, which would be lovely as the last few weeks have not been very satisfying fiction-wise. Lots of flashes of Pratchett humor, but in a more SFnal setting.

>55 Meredy:, >56 Marissa_Doyle:: I agree with you both about there being a difference between a good book and an enjoyable one. I know I've read books where I've sensed the distinction and commented on it. Likewise, there are plenty of books that are a real pleasure to read which one cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, call good! And I also agree that it is not always an easy thing to explain or define. Of course, you know you've struck gold when you find a book that is good and enjoyable. I hope The long earth will be so for you, Marissa.

> 53 & 54 - Aaaannnnddd there goes the TBR!!! I think adding The Rook, The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic, Annihilation and The Long Earth, finally put it over the top. Ah well! It's a nice problem to have :)

>58 sangreal: Mwa ha ha ha ha! My work is done! ;)

The Long Earth continues to engage and delight. I've already downloaded the sequel, The Long War, and will be looking forward to a third book The Long Mars that is releasing this summer.

Good job Marissa!

Finished The Long Earth and am continuing on to the second book, The Long War.

This may be the inverse of my opinion on Archetype}; while I enjoyed it a great deal (because, you know, Terry Pratchett), it has a lot of flaws. The story sometimes gets lost while the main characters are exploring an infinite parade of alternate Earths...and while it's engaging in the extreme, not a great deal of plot-wise forward motion takes place. When suddenly conflict rears its head, it's taken care of in the space of a page or two toward the end of the book, and things just sort of fizzle after that. Maybe we'll learn more about this in the second book, but nada so far.

I'm mostly OK with this, because the scenario this story explores in various ways is so thought-provoking--which to me is what speculative fiction is supposed to be about--that I can forgive a lot. The characters are well-drawn for the most part, and of course the flashes of Pratchetty humor are wonderful and giggle-inducing. The second book is suffering in comparison as far as characters and humor go, and I suspect Pratchett had a lot less to do with it.

And hey, I missed my Thingaversary! Ah well...

Well, you know how this works, don't you? You get to go out and buy a book for every year you've been on the site. And if you miss your Thingaversary, then you get to buy an extra book just to remove the sting.

Happy belated Thingaversary!!

Happy Belated Thingaversary, Marissa.

The thread is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/54628

It's never too late to post. :o)

Cool! I already downloaded The Martian today (book bullet from multiple sources)...so I get three more? ;)

Thanks, clam! I posted. :)

The Long War: While the premise of this series remains fascinating--the discovery of the existence of an infinite number of alternate earths, visitable by "stepping" from one to another...and the resultant colonizations and the effect it has on "Datum Earth"--the execution of this middle book in what I believe will be a trilogy leaves a great deal to be desired. Like the first book, there's not a great deal of plot, and any crises and conflicts get solved easily and within a page or two...but this book lacks Pratchett's touch with character and humor, and as a result is a bit of a plod. I'll read the next book when it comes out just because (again) the setting/premise and its exploration are just so fascinating...but gripping fiction it isn't.

To celebrate my Thingaversary I've also acquired Winter Rose and Deerskin in realbook form (used) and downloaded Still She Wished For Company (current read), The Winter People, The Tale of Halcyon Crane, and Touchstone...which should keep me occupied on vacation next week. Definitely liking Still She Wished For Company so far

Sounds like you had a most satisfactory buying binge in celebrating your Thingaversary! Although I think you're focused on scaring yourself with ghost stories...

I'm a tough scare, so we'll see...I'm still hoping to find something as spine-tingling as The Haunting of Hill House.

>69 Marissa_Doyle: - Not sure that's possible. Make sure you let us know if you do, though!

Still She wished For Company was an odd little gem of a book, a combination of historical novel and fantasy with time-slipping. I was surprised that it was written in the 20s--stylistically it has weathered the years quite well, overall, and was pleasantly eerie. The characters were well drawn, even minor ones, and I especially enjoyed the ambiguity of Lucian, though it would have been nice to have the connection between him and Jan better explicated. Overall, very enjoyable.

I really enjoyed Still she wished for company too; it was beautifully written and I liked the refusal to spell things out for the reader. I too was surprised to see the publication date - Jan's sections felt to me more like the 60s than the 20s (although perhaps that's because I'm too young to remember either!)

The Tale of Halcyon Crane will probably be a DNF--I made it to about page 75 and was uninspired to continue. It just isn't very good--cardboard characters, unbelievable plot aspects (and we haven't even gotten to the supernatural bits yet), mediocre writing. Ah well.

Finished Katherine Kimbriel's Kindred Rites--a not-quite-YA book (the protagonist is 13, but the story feels as though it were written for adults) which was enjoyable if somewhat predictable; I like the American setting and the "Little House on the Prairie meets Harry Potter story line.

Also finished the short novella Ajax Penumbra 1969, a nice little bonus for us Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore fans giving us the story of Mr. Penumbra's youth and first bookish adventure.

Went on to a re-read of one of Eva Ibbotson's not-quite-YA romances, Magic Flutes--her books are smart and funny and detailed and very sweetly romantic. Ibbotson was an Austrian emigree at the start of WWII, and she does a wonderful job bringing Europe between the wars to charming life.

I took a book bullet from Katylit and downloaded The Chaperone...and then, while looking at the Nook Daily Deal (A Taste of Blood Wine--I'm not usually a vampire fan, but this looked decent), I found a recently re-released fantasy by Evangeline Walton, She Walks in Darkness. Very excited--her Mabinogion Tetralogy is on my top ten favorite books of all time. It'll be up next after I finish another Eva Ibbotson re-read, The Morning Gift.

Lots of catching up to do (and reading done whilst on vacation!) but in precis form as life is a little insane right now:

A Taste of Blood Wine Very good...in spite of being about vampires. ;) I'm looking forward to the next book in the series, which comes out soon. It led me on to two more books by Freda Warrington- Elfland and Midsummer Night, which were okay--pretty good contemporary fantasies, well-written, but somewhat over-long. I don't think I'll bother with the concluding book in the trilogy as it's $14.99 for the ebook and I just wasn't captivated enough to shell out that amount of money. Evangeline Walton's She Walks in Darkness was all right--a bit shallow and not up to Walton's masterwork. The Perfume Collector was an impulse buy (another daily deal on Nook) and at first I was worried that it would be more lit-fic than I was in the mood for, but it turned into a very enjoyable read, bouncing between two women's lives in the 1920s and 1950s (with a few stops in between.)

I think that's it for now!

>76 Marissa_Doyle: Can you expand a bit on A taste of blood wine? What was so good about it?

>76 Marissa_Doyle:: I liked Elfland but wished Warrington had focused more on the magic and less on the angsty relationships. I've heard that the sequels are better in that regard, which I hope is true as I have them both sitting on my bookcase! I have to confess that I am unable to resist any book with a cover by Kinuko Craft - her work is truly exquisite. I've got some of Warrington's older novels to try as well - the fantasy trilogy that starts with The amber citadel and a stand-alone portal fantasy, Rainbow gate.

>77 zjakkelien: I don't find vampires particularly attractive--I guess I'm more in the Stephen King camp, that they're monsters, not sparkly and sexy. In A Taste of Blood Wine the vampire hero is attractive, but it isn't because he's a vampire...and many of the other vampire characters ARE monstrous. The heroine doesn't do any "redeeming"-- she chooses to become a vampire not only for love of the hero, but because there is a darkness in her personality/soul. I also enjoyed the setting--just after WWI--and the writing style, which was elegant and well-paced.

>78 Sakerfalcon: Yes, I struggled to get through Elfland and ended up doing a lot of skimming. Midsummer Night was much better in that respect, though I found it a little odd that the main POV character turned out to be not very important or relevant to the overall story. She also wrote a story about Richard III which sounded intriguing and that I might try to hunt down on Abebooks.

>79 Marissa_Doyle: Hmm, you make it sound interesting... I think I'll put it on my wishlist. Thanks, Marissa_Doyle!

Just finished another vampire book which I found via A Taste of Blood WIne...Anno Dracula by Kim Newman was a hugely fun mash-up/alternate history of Victorian England that begins from the question "what if Van Helsing and his cohorts in Stoker's Dracula were real...and had failed in their mission to destroy Dracula and foil his plan to take over England with a race of undead?" In this book, it's 1888 and Dracula has married the widowed Queen Victoria and turned her into a vampire...and hordes of new vampires are everywhere, thoroughly churning up society and politics. The mash-up aspects come in with characters borrowed from...well, just about everywhere, from literature (Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Hyde, Dr. Moreau, plus dozens of lesser known vampire fiction figures) and history (people from Oscar Wilde to John Merrick, the Elephant Man to James Whistler make an appearance.) Oh yes...and Jack the Ripper, here a stalker of vampire prostitutes. Often funny and always exuberant--I had great fun with it, enough to download the second book in the series, The Bloody Red Baron.

The Bloody Red Baron was less fun--more gruesome horror novel than what I usually care for. But included with it was a burlesque of a country house murder which was great fun (I even found an obscure reference to Edward Gorey in it, which delighted me) and more in the style of Anno Dracula, so I am persisting with the series...now onto Dracula Cha Cha Cha, which takes place in 1959 and has (so far) brought in a vampiric James Bond, Russian spies and the Cold War, the Addamses, and rock n roll. Fluffy, if gore-tinged, fun.

Hmm. Totals so far this year, ~one-third of the way through:

New books completed: 27
Re-reads: 8
DNFs: 4 :(

I've had only one DNF so far this year. Hope you don't get stuck with any more of them!

I hope so too!

Finished Dracula Cha Cha Cha and went on to the latest in the series, Johnny Alucard. Kim Newman is totally in love with popular culture and movies, and uses that love to good effect in these books...but what I think I like the most about them (and particularly about Johnny Alucard) is that they're also very cleverly imagined alternate histories: what would happen to society if vampires were a real and (semi-)accepted part of the world?

Went on to a couple of re-reads, just because I needed a little bit of comfort reading: A Company of Swans, another delightful Eva Ibbotson; The Rook (again!) and now onto an old favorite, A Scholar of Magics by Caroline Stevermer.

>83 Marissa_Doyle: Very impressive totals. You shouldn't feel bad at all about the DNFs. Better to leave them than to force yourself to complete them, right? Unless there was some other reason to set them aside, and in that case you can go back to them.

Two more comfort re-reads, Mairelon the Magician and Magician's Ward which are always enormous fun, and then onto a Diana Wynne Jones I hadn't read yet--The Homeward Bounders. I enjoyed this one very much, plot-wise and character-wise, especially Prometheus, who has always been close to my heart. It's another of her perfectly-appropriate-for-eleven-year-olds-but-very-enjoyable-for-adults books--she doesn't pull her punches, and adults may be more appreciative of the literary and folklore references worked into the storyline.

And speaking of DWJ, The Islands of Chaldea is out! Reading that will be a bittersweet experience for sure, and I think I might save it for a bit and instead succumb to jillmwo's recent book bullet, Conundrums for the Long Weekend. I was just talking about Lord Peter this past weekend at dinner with friends, and hope I can pass the book bullet on to them. ;)

I enjoy The homeward bounders more when reading it as an adult than I did as a child. I get more of the references and appreciate the rather downbeat ending in a way that I didn't then.

Conundrums for the Long Weekend alas didn't impress me as being particularly insightful, but this mostly likely may be a case of "it's not you, it's me." I'm sufficiently conversant with the social and cultural history of the era (I've read Graves's The Long Weekend, from which they borrowed their title, among several others) that I just didn't find anything new here. I think the book also suffered from English Professor syndrome: as a professional fiction writer, I was amused and exasperated when the authors solemnly speculated about Sayers's use of chronology in chapter 3; as Diana Wynne Jones so pithily discusses in her Reflections: on the Magic of Writing, sometimes writers just make stuff up because it seems like a good idea at the time, and trying to assign significance to everything in a story is a tad ludicrous.

But what I think dragged my opinion down the most is that the writing is so clunky; there are too many repetitious passages, infelicitous word choices, and stilted constructions that it was a chore rather than a pleasure to read. However, I think I would like to find a bio of DLS to read; the picture the authors paint of her is not entirely a pleasant one, and now I'm curious.

I've read the first book of DLS's letters, which go to 1936, and found them quite interesting. I have the second book, but haven't read it yet. I also have an unread biography on my shelf.

I know what you mean about people trying to assign significance to everything. I'm a member of an online group for one of my favourite mid-century authors, and many of the members really are fanatic about analyzing every little detail, and explaining away any contradictions or continuity errors. It can be fun to watch the speculation, but sometimes I want to tell them to just relax and enjoy the story.

I also recommend DLS's letters, both volumes.

>89 Marissa_Doyle: I don't know if you noticed the publisher on that title, but it's a university press and the title was primarily aimed at an academic market. If it had not been written in a ponderous tone, people might not have taken it seriously. I speak only half in jest with that, but there's a certain validity to it. It was still accessible to the layperson (so the university press might look forward to a broader reach in terms of sales), but as an academic work where the expectation is that sales lie chiefly with research libraries more concerned with quality of content rather than with quality of prose, it is kind of the way it is. (Forgive that horrible sentence, but I haven't yet had my second cup of coffee.)

>90 SylviaC: Sylvia, what is the title of the bio you have? I think there are a couple of them.
>91 MrsLee: And I will check out her letters. Thank you!

>92 jillmwo: In a way, though, isn't it ironic that a book published by a university press for an audience whose professional interest is the great works of the English language should be so awkwardly written? There's just something wrong with that. ;) Why shouldn't "academic" titles be beautifully written as well as well-researched and with a high quality of content? (Okay, that's mostly tongue-in-cheek, but I think it's an interesting question.)

And in case anyone's interested in the history aspect of this, as well as Robert Graves and Alan Hodge's The Long Weekend, I also recommend Children of the Sun: a Narrative of "Decadence" in England after 1918, Bright Young People: the Lost Generation of London's Jazz Age, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy, and for sheer entertainment and a slightly different "lens" though which to look at the era, The Sisters: the Saga of the Mitford Family.

>93 Marissa_Doyle: It's Dorothy L. Sayers: A Careless Rage for Life by David Coomes. The authors of Conundrums say in an endnote that they think Coomes makes too much of the influence of Sayers' religious outlook on the Wimsey stories. Not having read it yet, I can't say how good it is.

I have The Sisters waiting to be read. I bought it after reading The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters, which I was my first encounter with the Mitfords.

Just completed The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. The story hinges on some not-widely know historical facts about the Austens, according to the author, but which are facts and which the author's imagination is unfortunately never made clear. The story is told through the eyes of Anne Sharp, governess to Jane Austen's older brother Edward's children, who falls in love with Jane (unrequitedly) and witnesses behavior on the part of other family members that causes her to conclude (eventually) that Jane's untimely death is the result of poison. Again, I'm irritated at not knowing what is fact and what imagination; the behavior of some of the characters was just a little too much at times (especially one of Jane's brothers in particular, who seems to make a habit of cuckolding his brothers and fathering children on his sisters-in-law (yes, plural). There were enough glitches in research on daily life in early 19th century England to get under my skin, things that probably wouldn't bother other people but annoyed me. And yet the writing was very good, so...the jury's out on this one.

I thought Longbourn--Pride and Prejudice from a below-stairs viewpoint--would be a good follow-up and it is: a third of the way through and I am enjoying it hugely.

>95 Marissa_Doyle: Oh! Too bad. It sounded good at first, but... Might pass on that one, then.

I don't know if you have seen this article on the scientific considerations surrounding Austen's death? From the December 2011 issue of Scientific American: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jane-austen-arsenic/

I remember thinking about getting The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen when it was initially published, but can't recall for sure why I rejected the idea. No doubt some cranky moodiness. Having read what's behind your spoiler tag and based on your reasonably irritated review, my initial gut decision was correct. I too would have been irritated by the book.

>97 jillmwo: But they never retested it, did they? I've been doing some Googling, and there are no further reports.

I just finished Longbourn and will be interested to see your thoughts on it. I enjoyed it but not as much as I had expected to. It did seem well-researched though, in the details of life below stairs, and I liked seeing the Bennetts through the eyes of their servants.

>97 jillmwo: Hmmph. If the author thought that Austen had been unintentionally poisoned, then I'm even more irritated by the plot she wove. There was a pretty funny post in the comment trail of the Scientific American article in which someone talks about his theory that Jane's cousin Eliza de Feuillade actually wrote her books, and that after her death in 1813 it became "necessary" to have Jane removed.

>99 Sakerfalcon: I think I liked Longbourn better than you did, though it was definitely not without faults. I liked the fact that it was written in three volumes, like most novels of the era...but appreciate that Baker did not try to ape Austen's writing style. I think Volume 1 did drag on a bit--there was a lot of scene-setting and description which, while striking, did slow down the story. In contrast, Volume 3, which has little description, seems rushed in contrast.

Despite the very uneven pacing, though, I thought the characterization was excellent and liked the slightly different spin she put on several of Austen's characters without changing them in any material way. I was also impressed by the research into details of daily life she seems to have done. I liked it well enough to recommend to a friend who is one of the founders of the Pemberley.com site and generally has a severe allergy to Jane Austen continuations.

On next to The Chaperone which has been languishing on my Nook for some months.

The Chaperone somehow just didn't work for me, except perhaps on the most superficial level of a vaguely interesting evocation of early 1920s society and mores. The entire story seemed sepia-toned--there was little color or vividness about it, and I honestly didn't much care about the protagonist, Cora...and actively hoped Louise would get hit by a bus or be poisoned by bad bathtub gin. The story more or less fizzled; the last quarter of the book felt pointless. The writing was good, but overall I was left profoundly untouched and uninterested. It's not a "bad" book...just a deeply "meh" one.

On to a bit of what looks like pleasant fluff--Mrs. Queen Takes the Train.

Mrs. Queen Takes the Train
The Queen has been feeling down, without quite understanding why; she's always done her duty as she was raised to, but these days it just doesn't seem to be enough. A fortuitous set of circumstances enables her to sneak out of Buckinghma Palace and hop a train to Scotland, where she hopes a visit to the now-decommissioned royal yacht Britannia might cheer her up. A motley crew of royal servants give chase, wanting to protect their mistress from both the paparazzi and MI5, and along the way sort some of their own problems out a bit. This was a perfectly charming read, without ever crossing over into sentimentality, and left me smiling. Another book to add to my "comfort reads" list.

That reminds me a bit of The uncommon reader. Have you read that one?

No, but I've seen comparisons made and may need to read it.

I loved it. It's quite charming, about the British queen discovering books. Her enthusiasm, manner and observations are what attracted me. Unfortunately, I'm not so much into literature, which probably made me miss some of the references. Still liked it though.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Uncommon Reader. Marissa. I would recommend it. We watch the Queen become a deep reader, which has consequences for her life.

Now that I think of it, The Uncommon Reader was mentioned a couple of times in the story!

Reading Full Rip 9.0, which is a rather sensationalistic title for what is so far a well-written book about the threat posed by the Cascadia subduction zone to the Pacific northwest. And downloaded Authority, the followup to Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation (thanks to imyril!)

Crazy few weeks with kids graduating/coming home from college for the summer and our "adopting" my son's girlfriend after her whack-job father refused to let her come home after graduation.

But I finished Full Rip 9.0, which would seem to me to be required reading for anyone living in Washington State, Oregon, northern California, or Vancouver. Although it slogs a little at times, it's an intelligently level-headed look at the history and future of the various seismic risks in that part of the country. If I didn't live on the other side of the country, I'd be worried and looking into what I could do to protect my home.

On to a re-read (after a few decades) of Paul Scott's The Raj Quartet, a masterful examination through fiction of the last days of British rule in India, the legacy left behind by them, and the tragic early days independence and of the partition between mostly Hindu India and Moslem Pakistan. I'm very happy to report that the Suck Fairy hasn't gotten its filthy paws on this one: it remains as moving and elegant as it was almost thirty years ago. So far I'm through the first two books, The Jewel in the Crown and The Day of the Scorpion, told in very different styles: the former reminds me (as I said in Majkia's discussion thread) of the structure of a circular labyrinth, with the central story being told through different people's points of view until, at the heart of the labyrinth, one of the central figures of the plot tells her own story. The Day of the Scorpion is much more straightforward, but it is setting up for a similar effect in the third book of the quartet, (The Towers of Silence, which I'm partway through), which also circles back to the central story in book one as well as to book two. I'm in awe of how Scott structured this quartet, its sheer sculptural beauty, in addition to his mastery of the subject. Just wonderful.

>108 Marissa_Doyle: Thanks to your mention, I've just added The Raj Quartet to my library list. I watched the series as it came out week by week in its first run on the old Masterpiece Theatre. Many of the scenes and characters are still very vivid in my mind even after decades. For some reason I've never read it, but I think it's time I did.

I'm another avid fan of The Raj Quartet. Both the Masterpiece series and of the books, although the structure of the books is very different from the series.

>109 Meredy: I don't think you'll be disappointed. As Jean says, the books and Masterpiece series are structured differently, but I think the series still manages to do justice to the story. I also watched the series when it first came out (I was in college, so it wasn't easy to do) and recently got it on sale in DVD form and will be re-watching it over the summer, which ought to be an equally interesting exercise. I hope the Suck Fairy has kept its distance from the series as well. :)

Hmm...Full Rip 9.0 looks interesting.

>111 Marissa_Doyle: Whenever I see the principals--for instance, Geraldine James, Judy Parfitt, Art Malik, Tim Pigott-Smith, and even very venerable Peggy Ashcroft--in some other role, I always flash first on the parts I saw them play in that series. I would expect the series to hold up well, being set in another time and place (the history hasn't changed) and being so well written, acted, and produced. Do let us know.

>112 SylviaC: It was, Sylvia. I appreciated that it never crossed into sensationalistic, disaster-movie-scenario land, but stayed firmly about the science and was honest about the possible effects on the region.

>113 Meredy: Yes, me too. In particular I've never been able to see Tim Pigott-Smith in anything without flashing back to his portrayal of Merrick--he did an amazing job.

Finished The Towers of Silence, well into A Division of the Spoils, and still mesmerized by this series. Though I think I liked the two bracketing books, The Jewel in the Crown and A Division of the Spoils best (especially because of Guy Perron in A Division of the Spoils, who may be the best character in the quartet), the whole is just an exquisite litereary accomplishment. I was thinking about another quartet I read a very long time ago, Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, and wondering if it has held up over the years the way The Raj Quartet has. I kind of suspect it might not have. Thank you, majkia, for starting the group read and reminding me it was past time to revisit it.

And in (semi) unrelated news, my next book (and first adult novel) is coming out this month from Entangled Publishing. They're getting an Early Reviewers account set up (a bit problematic because their final PDFs aren't always ready in the timeframe LT requires), but in the meanwhile have okayed me to do a Member Giveaway for a very limited number of review copies in exchange for reviews. So if you think you might be interested in a sneak peek at my contemporary fantasy/romance, By Jove, and are willing to review it, there are 8 PDFs up for grabs in the Member Giveaway section.

And where is the member giveaway section? I get lost easily...

Oops...here. Unfortunately I couldn't see a way to do a direct link so you'll have to scroll down to it (the request by date is June 16): http://www.librarything.com/er_list.php?sort=quantity&program=giveaway&c...

I was already to jump in until I saw the 'willing to review it' bit. LOL The heart is willing but I just can't seem to get them done in a timely fashion any more. Oh well...

No problemo, clam...totally understand. Thank you for wanting to.

Finished up The Raj Quartet with A Division of the Spoils and am taking a deep breath. Just wow. I'm so glad I reread this.

And as follow-up, I went and bought something from my wishlist: Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire, to get a bit more history on the topic the last days of the Raj in India.

>120 Marissa_Doyle: You've inspired me to get my hands on book one of the quartet. :o)

Yay!! I hope you'll like it, clam.

Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire is proving to be slow-going, but I plan on finishing it. In between times I'm also working on Svante Paabo's Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes which is also a little heavy, but alternating the two is working.

And for a mini-vacation from both I giggled and snorted and was very annoying about reading bits aloud to my husband of Lady Addle Remembers. Oh my goodness, what a little gem of a parody of the slew of late Victorian/Edwardian memoirs that were published in the 1930s--brilliantly maintained throughout.

Marissa, you've sent me off after the Raj Quartet too. I'm well into The Jewel in the Crown. Characters' names are jumping out at me from having seen the series long ago when it was first broadcast on Masterpiece Theatre. Many key players are mentioned casually at first. I doubt I'd be noticing quite so many references to certain people if I didn't know they'd be important later.

My city library doesn't have all four books. It seems silly to have to buy just one or two of the volumes, but worse to buy the whole thing and then give it away. An omnibus edition of this would be a wrist-breaker at bedtime.

>123 Meredy:, I have an omnibus edition in hardcover, and it's about three and an half inches thick and printed on something the thickness of rice paper in about 8 point type. I ended up downloading ebooks, which I'm fine with as these are keepers, even in electronic form. Time for a call to interlibrary loan?

>124 Marissa_Doyle: This is the sort of thing that almost pushes me over the edge into ebookland.

>124 Marissa_Doyle: That, and the fact that I found Penelope's English Experiences which are getting a lot of love here in the Dragon, for free on Barnes and Noble for the Nook. ;)

>126 Marissa_Doyle: Free for the Kindle, too. Snagged it.
>122 Marissa_Doyle: I'm sure I will, though I can't get to Jewel for a bit. (But I love that it's waiting for me. )

Finished both Indian Summer and Neanderthal Man, bouncing back and forth between which worked out well. Both were occasionally a bit heavy going for different reasons, so the alternating read plan made them both more readable. Indian Summer had a very strange feel to it--again, a fair bit of scorn for many of the figures (especially Lord Mountbatten, who seems to have been a charming dimwit), but extraordinarily detailed retelling of almost day-to-day events around Indian independence and the bith of Pakistan. Neanderthal Man at times got very technical in its discussion of how genome research is conducted, but the topic was fascinating enough--the fact that most people of European and Asian background have Neanderthal genes in their makeup.

I snuck in Penelope's English Experiences which was free on the Nook--a nice diversion--and read part of then skimmed to finish Rose of Ruby Street which was a daily deal on the Nook. I'm not sure what it is about some British fiction I've run across, but this is the second book of what I suppose would be called "women's fiction" written by a British author that is just...a slog. Lots of pointless, repetitive dialogue and narrative that doesn't really forward the story line...and nothing about the prose to elevate it into "it may be slow-going, but it's beautifully written" territory. Hence the skim finish. I'm glad I only paid a buck for this one.

On to Alan Furst's Dark Star--I've had my eye on him for a bit thanks to majkia's thread, and I think I'm going to enjoy him. Also downloaded the new Peter Wimsey by Jill Paton Walsh, The Late Scholar, but I'm saving that for a long flight this weekend.

Totally hooked now on Alan Furst--Dark Star was excellent! A noir-ish historical thriller with intelligent writing and excellently drawn characters, set in the chaotic years leading up to WWII...what's not to like? I will definitely be reading more of him.

But first I'm reading Jill Paton Walsh's new Peter Wimsey continuation, The Late Scholar. I'm not liking this one as much as a couple of her previous forays as it feels thin, somehow. I'll say more when I'm done.

And in non-reading news (sort of) I'm delighted to report that my first non-YA book is out today--By Jove is a contemporary fantasy romance that I had huge fun writing, and I'm just so happy to have it out in the wild, so to speak.

Congratulations, Marissa! What a thrill that must be. I'm delighted for you and hope it does very well.

Congratulations! Very exciting! I hope it does well.

Congrats, Marissa! :o) So excited for you!

Not sure if you know how to do it, but you should add your info here: http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/User:GreenDragon

(If not I can do it for you.)

Congratulations! That's very exciting. Sorry I've been away and didn't get to request a review copy in time.

PS Another vote for Uncommon Reader, which I found a lot of fun.

Thank you, everyone! It's been an exciting couple of days. I'll go do that, clam.

Finished The Late Scholar and remain unimpressed, which is too bad. But this one was definitely not up to the quality of some of her earlier work, especially the ones which were based on Sayers's notes likes Thrones, Dominations and A Presumption of Death. The characters were flat, and the whodunnit aspects not terribly twisty. Based on this, I'm not sure I'll continue with the series if she writes more.

On to Ghost Wave, which is about surfing in some, ah, rather non-traditional places (like near a submerged island 100 miles off the coast of Mexico where the waves are enormous.) I have never surfed in my life, but I'm really enjoying the mix here of history, geography, wave physics, and some mighty colorful characters. It was a daily deal on the Nook, and I'm glad I picked it up.

Congratulations on the newest book!

Thank you, Sylvia!

I finished Ghost Wave, the second half of which focused on the personalities in big-wave surfing and the expeditions out to Cortes Bank, and found it fascinating. The author almost never descends into gee-whiz hero worship; he knows all these guys after covering surfing for the New York Times, and wrote an intelligent and balanced look at their lives. All in all, quite enjoyable.

Not sure where to venture next...either The Martian or Authority, probably...but I also found a copy of the further writings of Lady Addle (of Lady Addle Remembers, including the more complete memoirs of Mipsie and Lady Addle at Home...

>136 Marissa_Doyle: I've recently ordered The Martian. Not every popular LT title is a hit with me, but so many are that I typically can't resist trying the ones that are highly praised. I'll be watching for your comments.

Yesterday I counted up the titles I've read this year that I chose as a result of LT recommendations, and they accounted for about 3/4 of them.

The Martian just showed up for me on Overdrive, after several months of waiting. Of course, my interlibrary loan books also arrived, so I'll be scrambling to read everything before they have to be returned.

I found Lady Addle entertaining enough as a novelty, but wasn't inclined to pursue any sequels.

>137 Meredy: I find that the vast majority of books I read or buy by unfamiliar authors can be traced directly back to LibraryThing.

>137 Meredy:, >138 SylviaC: Yes! Most of the new-to-me authors and books I've read are the result of being hit by book bullets here. It's such fun! And then I get to spread the joy with my book reading family...my son is now a rabid Sanderson fan, because of LT.

Lady Addle is probably a good example of a bathroom book--easily picked up and put down, able to be enjoyed in 2-3 page bursts. I'm just captivated by the author's ability to sustain the humor so very well in the first book--we'll see about the others.

I'm part-way through Authority (page 100 of 267) and hoping it gets better. Perhaps it's my mood, but the cryptic quality of it all is more annoying than intriguing. I've been trying to analyze why, and guess that it's because this book is lacking anyone or anything to really "buy into" as a reader. In part one, Annihilation, you're almost immediately plunged into the strange world of Area X along with the unnamed narrator; that lack of a name was a distancing device that made it hard to connect to the story, but the "what next?!" quality of the story helped reel you in. In this book, however, not much is happening, and while I'm feeling vaguely sorry for the narrator (we know his name, but he prefers to be know as "Control" (another distancing, and this time somewhat off-putting, device), I'm just not feeling very invested in the story; for every snippet of information we learn, it feels like six more mysteries/questions are introduced. And I'm wondering why I should care...

Part of my bad mood over this book is probably due to a plot device that always raises my ire: the pointless cliffhanger. In the narrator's new office (he's new at his job of supervising the secret government installation that guards/studies a mysterious tract of land known as Area X) is a locked door that he has been told leads nowhere and is a vestige of an earlier remodeling. I quote:

Fortifying himself with a sip of bitter coffee, Control went over to the door. It took a few minutes to clear the books and other detritus from in front of it.

Right. Last mystery about to be revealed. He hesitated for a moment, irritated by the thought that all of these little peculiarities would have to be reported to the Voice.

He opened the door.

He stared for several minutes.

After a while, he closed it again.

That's where the chapter ends. (cue facepalm)

When done correctly, ending a chapter on a cliff-hanger can be a wonderfully delirious, exciting thing to do. This one lands with a dull thud. Yes, I'm going to finish the book. But it's going to have to dig itself out of a rather large hole, as far as I'm concerned.

In happier news, the sequel to The Rook is now up for preorder on Amazon!! It's called Stiletto, and it will be out in February 2015.

>139 Marissa_Doyle: Hope you don't mind me adding this here, but with regard to Stiletto I couldn't resist sneaking over to Amazon to have a look at prices and such (I think I'm going to have to wait a while and cross my fingers and stamp my feet and wish for the library to get it) but it did say that for Kindle it comes out this November which may tempt some further.

That would be terrific! I saw that it's coming out in November in markets outside the US--I checked Amazon.co.uk and saw the November release date--but didn't even see a Kindle listing for it in Amazon.com. Of course, there's always the Book Depository or Blackwell's...hmm...

>141 Marissa_Doyle: Book Depository is just showing the February release but it's not available to pre-order yet only for notification when it's available

>139 Marissa_Doyle: Re clumsy chapter cliffhangers, I know just what you mean. (And how many times worse when they occur at the end of a book--or movie--as a calculated hook for a sequel!)

I've heard so many speakers at writers' events laud and encourage the knack of ending a chapter in such a way that the reader wants to go on. Well, of course you want the reader to go on. But chapters are also supposed to be logical divisions of some sort, aren't they?--not exhibitions of authorial poverty.

The manipulative tricks that some authors play with readers make me very unlikely to choose another book by the same hand. I may just ditch the one I 'm reading if it makes me feel that way. These days--haha--it's easy to find a synopsis with spoilers so you can learn in two minutes how the story turned out, and go invest that saved reading time in something else.

Thanks for the news on the sequel to Rook. I did enjoy that book, despite some conspicuous flaws. Oddly, one aspect that a lot of readers like to chuckle about--namely, how oblivious Myfanwy's colleagues seem to be to her transformation--didn't strike me as one at all. It was, I thought, a question deliberately raised by the author and then satisfactorily explained in the end.

Reading has been a bit sporadic of late, but finished two books in trilogies, including Authority, which I grumbled about in a previous post. My opinion did not change. I was left less eager to read the final volume than I was after Annihilation; I found the plot line contrived and was just completely unable to buy into the story due to the ultimately uninteresting, unsympathetic characters and the coincidences and WTFery of several plot elements. It'll be hit or miss whether I bother with the last book.

Then I went on to finish the last book in the Long Earth trilogy by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, Long Mars. No hints of Pratchett at all in this one, and it suffered from all the flaws I noted in the first two books (especially the second.) Stuff happens. Huge portions of the book end up seeming more or less pointless (especially the exploration of the Long Marses), characters are more or less abandoned, what seems like plot set-ups are never resolved, the few conflicts in the story are solved within a paragraph or fizzle into nothing. It struck me that these books read more like a history book than like novels-- because while real life does have messy, loose, hanging ends, narrative fiction usually does not, especially genre fiction. On the whole, I'm very disappointed by this series and don't recommend it even though it explored some interesting territory.

Not sure what's up next...hmm... (peruses Nook and physical TBR pile...)

I didn't like Authority as much as Annihilation either, although I enjoyed it more than you did from the sound of it. It did leave me eager to finish the trilogy though, especially as it seems likely that we will hear more from the Biologist again.

>145 Sakerfalcon: Yes, but is she really the Biologist? ;)

Wanting something completely different, I galloped through L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle, which was just what I needed, I think. Though it suffers from Huge Romantic Misunderstanding Syndrome, its HRMS could have been worse...I just enjoyed the humor and descriptions, and feel much less out of sorts. As a sort of followup I'm going to embark on something from my Nook's electronic TBR pile, Barbara Hambly's Stranger at the Wedding.

>146 Marissa_Doyle: I'm not sure I mind either way. I still found her quite intriguing, and perhaps a little more like I'd have liked the wife (argh whose name escapes me) in Solaris to be - angry and seizing agency in spite of not being sure herself whether she's real. I suspect the final installment may get terribly existential though. Or maybe that'll just be me ;)

>146 Marissa_Doyle: Well, that is something I also want to find out ;-)

>147 Marissa_Doyle: I adore The blue castle, it is one of my favourite books by Montgomery. A lesser author would have left out the humour and made it too purple and angsty.

>148 imyril: Agreed, I'm still intrigued.

Time to play catch-up after a busy week or so.

Stranger at the Wedding was great fun. Hambly is one of the best fantasy authors I've come across for depicting evil, and this story was no exception. I really liked Kyra, prickles and all, and the fact that there were real obstacles to her relationship with Spens, with nary a Huge Romantic Misunderstanding in sight.

I started Troubled Waters and set it down after about 40 pages because I just couldn't get into it--none of the characters rang particularly true to me or excited any sympathy/interest. So I dove into Written in Red...what a contrast! I just loved this alternate reality/urban fantasy-ish story, dark at times but overall possessed of a delightful playfulness (that never descended into cuteness) that was so refreshing. I've downloaded the second book in the series, Murder of Crows, and am looking forward to another good read.

>150 Marissa_Doyle: Yes, Written in red is nice, isn't it?

Very nice!

I finished Murder of Crows, which I didn't like as much as Written in Red, probably because it was more about external plot and less about character. But I'll still get the next book when it comes out--because there will totally have to be a next book to resolve larger issues in both the world and in the Lakeside Courtyard, and specifically between Meg and Simon.

Not sure what I'll read next...

I adored Written in red when I read it a few months ago, and I'm already getting the urge to reread it! (I'm waiting for Murder of crows to come out in paperback before I get it). Glad you are enjoying the series too. Thanks to Morphy for the recommendation!

>153 Sakerfalcon: Thank you, Morphy, from me too! I take book bullets and buy books but don't read them immediately, and then can't remember who made the wonderful suggestion.

I've picked up a bit of non-fiction for a palate cleanser--Tambora, about the 1815 volcanic explosion in Indonesia that wrought havoc on climate world-wide (including New England's Year without a Summer in 1816) as well as on people and societies.

>154 Marissa_Doyle: Book bullet! Tambora sounds like a must-read.

144> I read Long Earth when it first came out, but I've never felt the need to pick up the sequels. There were only a few moments that had Pratchett's charm (the Buddist AI being the main one for me), and I didn't see those being enough reason to pick up a sequel.

150> I really liked Written in Red also. Meg's so sweet! I've seen reviews complaining about her, but I found her wholly compelling.

>155 hfglen: Success! :) I'm finding it good so far.

>156 pwaites: Yes, Meg is sort of an anti-kickass heroine...and yet she still manages to get things done in her own way. I also really liked her sweetness--and totally don't get why it would be complaint-worthy. It's part and parcel of not only who she is, but WHAT she is.

I'm bouncing back and forth between Tambora and Discount Armageddon, which is a weird juxtaposition of reading material but I love the synergy between the titles. :) I totally understand now about the mice.

>157 Marissa_Doyle: totally... failing... to... avoid... book bullet!

I have such a weakness for books about volcanoes.

And it does sound like Tambora is a perfect companion for Krakatoa, after all...

>158 imyril: I wish I could say it's as well written as Krakatoa, but it isn't--not by a long shot. But the topic itself is sufficiently interesting to make it worth plowing through the inelegant and often repetitive prose.

>159 Marissa_Doyle: I'll admit that might be a dealbreaker for me, although there seem to be a number of books about Tambora and the year without a summer, so you might have just set a very twisty and indirect Wanted-style book bullet off in my direction rather than a clean hit :)

>160 imyril: imyril, I may have to look up a few of those myself, so I guess I'm taking my own book bullet as well!

But this is something I complained about in a previous book I read this year, Conundrums for the Long Weekend--namely, why do many books published by academic presses have to be so poorly written? Clunky, inelegant prose, inexact word choice, bludgeon-a-point-to-death repetition--is it really necessary? Writers like Simon Winchester and Oliver Sacks can write impeccably researched books in clear, readable English. Maybe academic presses need to keep prose editors on staff to help their authors actually put out books that people might enjoy reading... -end rant-

>161 Marissa_Doyle: Good point. I've often wondered whether some snobs (often to be found being paid in academic presses, editing academic journals or refereeing for them) don't perhaps regard klutzy, indigestible prose as being somehow higher-brow-than-thou, and so in some twisted way a Good Thing. Weren't the celebrated Fog Index and its congeners designed to detect and punish that kind of bad writing?
/end rant

And if they do still think it a Good Thing, they're totally missing the boat on maybe selling some of their books to a somewhat broader audience and actually making some money ...

Perhaps we need an updated Fog Index--something more along the lines of the Darwin Awards to really make the point. :)

>161 Marissa_Doyle: That's exactly the work I used to do as a freelancer. I edited books for publishers whose authors were subject-matter experts but not necessarily writers. Sometimes I was hired by authors who wanted their work edited before it went to the publisher. I also edited academic papers for journals and symposia. At the time, publishers were exacting taskmasters who frowned on any lapse of grammar, mechanics, or style and who valued clear, succinct prose.

That all changed around the time that the concept of "capturing keystrokes" (using the writer's electronic files rather than sending things through a typesetting process) came along--even before the Internet turned the world of traditional book publishing upside down.

Your skills are sorely missed, Meredy!

Oops. Life got busy.

I enjoyed Discount Armageddon and the second book in the InCryptids series, Midnight Blue-Light Special, a great deal, though they're not without flaws. Fun and fluffy and creative and not as dark and gritty as much urban fantasy, and I enjoyed the fact that the female protagonist had lots of female friends (and not-so-friends whom she learned to get along with). I turned to the third book in the series, Half-off Ragnarok, and bogged down somewhere around page fifty; the main character is the brother of the main character in the first two books, but his voice is much too close to hers and just doesn't feel very male to me...plus it appears that his eventual love interest will require rescuing, and that's a turn off. I may go back to it sometime, and I would love it if McGuire writes a book or two in the series from the POV of the little sister, who sounds like sixteen flavors of crazy and would be terrific fun to read about.

I discovered Just One Damned Thing After Another on Athabasca's thread, and just finished it. My reaction is mixed; it's amusing, but it could have been so much better. It's sort of a poor man's To Say Nothing of the Dog--both feature time-traveling historians. While JODTAA is pretty funny at times and has a few great lines, I think it's too quickly paced--lots of action is thrown in with very little character development (most of the characters are pretty two-dimensional), description is spotty at best, there's not a whiff of science, a lot of inconsistencies around the time travel aspects of the plot, and the main character can be very irritating at times... and really, was it strictly necessary to throw in the fantasy element with "Kleio" Partridge and "Sibyl" de Winter? Reeeeally? So I liked it rather than loved it, and while I'm going to read the second one, I can't promise I'll go on.

With regard to standards of writing and editing: I just unearthed some extensive notes I made in 1982 for a futuristic novel that never materialized. Some of my predictions surprised me. One of them was the death of the book--not because of e-books, which I never imagined (desktop computers were a fresh new innovation at the time), but because of illiteracy.

At least people are still reading.

I think the smartphone may actually contribute to reading--I know a lot of people who read on their phones just because they're always within reach, and it's so easy to load both Amazon's and Barnes & Noble's reading apps onto them, and then happily one-click your way into buying.

167> And if nothing else, people are reading social media updates.

>167 Meredy: And coincidentally, I'm doing the same thing--thinking about a story I want to set ~300 years from now, on Mars.

I also predicted a religious-spiritual backlash against technology and science-based progress. And I thought (in 1982) that in great part that progress would end up getting used mostly for entertainment.

>171 Meredy: Maybe you should go into the prediction business.

I always find it interesting to see how people's earlier predictions have turned out. It would be particularly interesting to assess the accuracy of one's own predictions. Kind of like a reverse time capsule.

>166 Marissa_Doyle: Seanan Mcguire wrote a short story about Antimony Price for the anthology Glitter & mayhem. I really enjoyed the collection, and desperately want a whole novel from Antimony's pov. She is a great character.

>173 Sakerfalcon:: There's also an Antimony story in Games Creatures Play and a third one up for free on McGuire's website. There's also a whole bunch about the great-grandparents of the current generation, and a few about other characters of the current generation (Sarah and Arty, Istas and Ryan, Verity and Dominic). ^_^

Thank you Lohengrin! Unfortunately Games creatures play is not yet released here in the UK, but I've added it to my wish list. Love the premise of the collection! And I'll check out McGuire's website.

I'll have to go track those down--thanks!!

After a lovely, leisurely re-read of one of my all-time favorite books, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (pure genius) I read the third installment in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, Acceptance. While it was somewhat better than book two, I was still left profoundly unimpressed. The best part of the book was probably his evocation of the natural life of a north Florida coastal zone--the flora and fauna. The story itself...meh. Few questions answered, more questions introduced...overall, a disappointment.

However, Octavia E. Butler's Kindred was anything but disappointing. Gripping, well-researched story, told with deceptive ease, about a modern African-American woman from LA who keeps getting bounced back against her will to early 19th century Maryland whenever an ancestor of hers--a white, slave-owning male-- is in danger of his life. Explores issues of race, love, betrayal, and personal ethics. Highly recommended.

On now to the new Ben Macintyre, A Spy Among Friends, about Kim Philby and the Cambridge spy ring in Britain. I haven't read a bad book by him yet, and am expecting the usual amazing ride.

>177 Marissa_Doyle: Kindred has been on my wishlist for a while, but I haven't gotten around to acquiring or reading it yet. Good to hear that you liked it! So far I've enjoyed most of Butler's work that I've read.

I somehow got distracted from the Macintyre, but intend to return...instead, for purely research purposes I gobbled down a handful of Georgette Heyers (Frederica, The Grand Sophy, Black Sheep, Lady of Quality), which provided a pleasant interlude...and then buckled down to reading a book bullet taken from Sakerfalcon.

The Gate of Ivory was great fun--not perfect, but a terrific read with a splendid heroine in Theodora and some interesting world building. I'm happily slurping up the second book in the series, Two Bit Heroes, which promises to be as much fun, and waiting for the arrival of the third. My only gripe is that I've become dreadfully spoiled by my Nook--trying to read a 25-year-old mass market paperback is an annoying experience. Talk about first world problems... :)

Also picked up a Regency romance (it was a bargain on my Nook), The Girl with the Persian Shawl, which is a DNF after twenty pages. There's a fine line between a heroine being spirited and a heroine being a shrew, and though the story was supposedly about her character growth, I disliked her enough to not want to follow it.

Gotta love that research!

Things got busy again...

After another short stint of Georgette Heyer re-reads Venetia, Arabella, The Quiet Gentleman I gave Rhys Bowen a try with Her Royal Spyness and A Royal Pain. I was mildly amused by the first, but by the second the amusement had worn thin and it was a DNF. I don't think I'll pursue this series--it just failed to engage, and I kept being knocked out of the story by a sprinkling of anachronisms that contributed to my not engaging. Ah, well.

However, I'm completely engaged by The Goblin Emperor, despite having to stop occasionally to remember who is who as the naming system is confusing at times. Amazing world-building, political and palace intrigue galore, a very likeable main character who is showing growth, and an interesting story-line.

>181 Marissa_Doyle: "and I kept being knocked out of the story by a sprinkling of anachronisms that contributed to my not engaging. "

That is where sometimes ignorance is bliss! I have a couple of other friends who have books ruined for them like that as well, but for me, unless it is glaring, I rarely catch it and so it doesn't bother. Of course, the misuse of words will be a killer of a book for me and I've had that happen a couple of times.

Oh dear. I have been remiss lately!

Recently read, in brief:
The Goblin Emperor--very much enjoyed, hoping for a follow-up
The Women Who Wrote the War--excellent non-fiction about women journalists reporting on the ground on WWII
A Natural History of Ghosts: 500 Years of Searching for Proof--exactly what the title said. So-so though the history was interesting.
The Midnight Queen Historical fantasy. Made it half-way through and lost interest, as it was just too predictable, despite some fresh world-building. I might go back to it. Maybe.
American Monsters: A History of Monster Lore, Legends, and Sightings in America Read for research purposes...and while it was kind of fun, the writing was amateurish...and do people really believe this stuff?
D.A. A Connie Willis novella reread--a fun bit of fluff.
The Convenient Marriage A Georgette Heyer re-read after many years--not her best, but a few good characters.
Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle Another GH re-read...now here's one of her best!
Ghosts of the SouthCoast A Halloween read, for fun--hauntings in the part of Massachusetts in which I grew up.

>183 Marissa_Doyle: Can't find that last title here or on Amazon. Do you have a link? Just curious about it.

Funny--it showed up in my library and as a touchstone this time: Ghosts of the SouthCoast

Ok, that worked. And that's weird. I never heard or saw any part of the state referred to as in that one word with internal cap: SouthCoast. Do people actually say that now, like it's one word? I grew up on the South Shore, and it was definitely two words.

I think it's an affectation that's come up in the last several years, thanks, I expect, to the New Bedford Standard-Times trying to be hip and and give Bristol County a trendy name, and maybe making it one word is supposed to help to differentiate it from the South Shore. It was certainly not in use while I was growing up in Dartmouth in the 60s and 70s, either as one word or two. Of course, now I live in Metrowest (W occasionally capitalized...)

Catching up:

The Toll-gate- Georgette Heyer reread

The Talisman Ring- Amazingly, a Heyer I had somehow not read yet. Very funny in places, but two of the characters (Ludovic and Eustacie) were at times too annoying. They were supposed to be, but still...

Fever Season- About the 1878 yellow fever outbreak in Memphis, TN. Interesting, especially as an examination of race relations in the city and how they changed, in most ways for the worse...but the account of the outbreak itself was somehow lacking compared to other accounts of other outbreaks (The Great Influenza comes to mind).

And I've discovered a wee gem (74 pages) that I downloaded on my Nook because it was on sale for $1.99...Stiff Upper Lip by Lawrence Durrell. I read the rather bleak and (in retrospect) pretentious Alexandria Quartet decades ago...and this is its antithesis. A series of vignettes about a British diplomatic mission, mostly with a food connection, and I've been giggling out loud as I read. I had no idea the man had a sense of humor, much less was capable of a priceless harangue including lines like "'Surely you know that to feed a Naval Attache garlic is like stoking a coke furnace with dead rats.'" Great fun!

Isaac's Storm A reread; excellent account of the 1900 Galveston hurricane and the hubris of the embryonic Weather Bureau.

The Secret Rescue Well-documented account of the rescue of a flying medical mission that went down in Albania in late 1943, but ultimately a little dull--more a story of endurance than of danger, and lacking the strong story-telling spark that authors like Ben Macintyre bring to their (similar) subjects.

I have Isaac's Storm, but haven't read it yet. Good to know I have something to look forward to!

I loved it. I wish it had pictures, but that's just me. It was well written.

>190 MrsLee: You have something to look forward to--it's a good one.

More reading in brief:
The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough A re-read, good as a social history of the times (late 1880s) as well as for telling the story of the flood.

A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer--a re-read after having only read it once years ago. I liked it better this time, I think.

Superstorm: An account of Hurricane Sandy--mostly well-written apart from the pacing, which seemed to echo the storm's--slow and a bit meandering at first, then rushed at the end (and failing to tie up several ends introduced earlier in the story.) I lived far enough east of the storm to have suffered little effect from it (though others around me lost power for some days), so it was interesting from a personal standpoint.

Catching up again...

Lives in Ruins by Marilyn Johnson--loved this. It's basically about what archaeologists do...but not the Indiana Jones variety of archaeologist. I started out as a PhD candidate in archaeology before running out of money and patience, and this book covers the field very well, without exaggeration or misinterpretation, and profiles some truly interesting people. Johnson's style reminded me a little of Mary Roach's, but with a lot less authorial intrusion--she's wry and witty, without being too "hey, look at me!" which kind of ruins Roach's books for me. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in just what it is archaeologists do.

The Miracle of Dunkirk by Walter Lord, who also wrote A Night to Remember. Excellent account of the astounding evacuation of the BEF from France, with lots of first person accounts seamlessly woven in. This was the first book by him I've read--I'll definitely read more.

A couple of Georgette Heyer re-reads--Regency Buck, which was her first and is somewhat marred by her trying to cram too many of the luscious bits of research she'd uncovered...and I just didn't care for the hero. But I followed it up with An Infamous Army, her retelling of the days before, during, and after the Battle of Waterloo. I remember reading that this book was actually used as a text at Sandhurst, because her description of the battle was simply one of the best ever written. Then on to The Foundling, which, curiously enough, I tried to read once before and lost interest about 60 pages in...and the same thing happened this time. I really have to finish this one some day.

I've been meaning to do it for a while, so I finally started Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan books, and I'm hooked...at least, I'm hooked on Cordelia after finishing Shards of Honor and Barrayar. I hope Miles himself will be as appealing--only a chapter or two into The Warrior's Apprentice--but he'll have to go a long way to equal his mother's stunt with that shopping bag. :)

>193 Marissa_Doyle: sounds Lives in Ruins needs to go on my wish list :)

I've got Cordelia and Miles on there notionally. Maybe next year I'll finally put that notion into practice!

I've always liked The Foundling a lot, was indifferent to Regency Buck, and enjoyed An Infamous Army, but have no desire to reread it.

Lots more science fiction/space opera Vorkosigan to close out the year: Ethan of Athos, Cetaganda, Borders of Infinity, and The Vor Game. I'm having a lot of fun with this series, though my son warns me that the next few books in the series are a lot darker in tone. Hmm.

So--books read for 2014:

New reads: 74
Re-reads: 34
DNFs: 11

And will be starting a thread for 2015 tomorrow. :)