2010/07/28

The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell

The Winter King (The Arthur Books, #1)The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Cornwell's take on the Arthurian legend is both violent and introspective. Of course there are battles: big battles, small skirmishes, fights between two men to settle disputes, fights between entire kingdoms to settle a slight. And Cornwell knows how to write battles so that the individual cost isn't lost in the description of the vast landscapes. But he also knows how to tell the story of what is going on inside the characters heads, why they fight or don't fight, and that there are emotions beyond greed that once turned the course of history. He approaches Arthur as someone who probably was a real man in some context, that all legend has its roots in a truth of some sort, but beyond borrowing a few key players of the legend and a very broad nod at the setting, this is his take on a war lord that was a good, if flawed, man, and the people he surrounded himself with. Cornwell also brings religion into the story more than most re-tellers of this legend, and the way he plays Paganism and the new upstart Christianity against each other is not only educational, it's amusing.

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2010/07/25

Hypothermia: A Thriller by Arnaldur Indriðason

Hypothermia: A Thriller (Reykjavik Thriller)Hypothermia: A Thriller by Arnaldur Indriðason

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A basic procedural made more interesting in that none of the cases being investigated by missing persons detective Erlendur are "on the books" investigations. This is a realistic investigation: it's solved through dogged police work. That doesn't make for a flashy story, but it does make the heavy amount of coincidence believable in the end. The setting was entirely new to me, and I liked reading a book that was written as if I'd be familiar with the place. No heavy cultural or geographic information dumps, it was immersion from the very beginning.

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2010/07/22

The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi's Venice by Laurel Corona

The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi's VeniceThe Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi's Venice by Laurel Corona

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I'm taking away a whole star for using Vivaldi's name in the title when he's only a reoccurring supporting character in the story. The theme of the story, how art can shape lives as much as lives shape art, is shown through the lives of two sisters, orphaned as infants and raised within the very interesting patronage system that made Venice the art center that it once was. As a romance, there's a distinct lack of any kind of passion, but the setting, as a HF, is pretty well done. There's a sense of receptiveness with the descriptive passages, a problem when your entire story takes place in what was a very insular, small town kind of city. I had the feeling that the idea for the story came first and that Corona invented characters to populate it - they weren't nearly as dimensional as the orphanage, casas, and of course, this being Venice, the canals.

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2010/07/18

Dark Arrows Great Stories of Revenge Edited by Alberto Manguel

Dark Arrows Great Stories of RevengeDark Arrows Great Stories of Revenge by Alberto Manguel

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The important thing to keep in mind when reading this collection is that the subtitle is "Great Stories of Revenge", not Stories of Great Revenge. As Manguel points out in his introduction, ...."there are many different types of revenge...", and it soon becomes apparent that what one culture calls revenge, I might call justice. A few of the stories go to the darker extremes, such as Henrik Von Kleist's "The Foundling" (so over the top, you'll think it was written by Alexadre Dumas); and August Derketh's "Miss Epperson" where the crime goes on and on but the retribution is swift. All of the writing is good (even the Faulkner story that I had to force myself to read), and this is a great way to get a taste of the darker side of some of the world's better and lesser known authors.

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The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

The Yiddish Policemen's UnionThe Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Short review: loved the alternate history setting enough to slog through a rambling parody of a mystery. No, I don't think it was meant to be a parody, it simply read like one to me.

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Break by Hannah Moskowitz

BreakBreak by Hannah Moskowitz

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Taking the author's age (16 when this was written), this would be a strong 4 star rating. Also, the first three quarters of the book, regardless of how young the author was, would earn 4 stars. But it's a grown-up, read the whole book world when you publish, so there you have it - 3 stars.

Moskowitz does a beautiful slow reveal of the screwed up life that Jonah has partially been given and partially created for himself. It's a coming of age story, in that unless Jonah learns what he can and can not control, he's not going to make it alive. As this is something that a lot of adults never figure out, there is a real sense of danger of how far things will go, not only with Jonah's personal demons, but also in how he deals with the family and friends that his instincts tell him the truth about but his heart isn't ready to believe.

The story changes speed, unfortunately, when it starts to build for a climax rather than an ending. Yes, it makes sense that someone who's been doing horrible self destructive things would do something even more self destructive when pushed to his limits, but Jonah's never shown the least bit of impetuosity in his actions. He always put the needs of others first - that's how he got to where he ended up. If there was something that caused that sudden major personality change, I missed it.

But up until the change up of the finish, this was a very good book.

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2010/07/11

Bysantium by Stephen R. Lawhead

Byzantium (Harper Fiction)Byzantium by Stephen R. Lawhead

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


3 1/2 stars, actually.

Three distinct 9th Century settings - an Abbey in Ireland, a Viking settlement in Scandanavia, and the cities and deserts surrounding Busantium, now known as Istanbul - make for a LOT of interesting historical fun and facts. The reader goes on a journey of discovery with Aiden, a young monk who starts out as part of pilgrimage to deliver a gift to the Emperor Basil. Along the way he's captured, the rest of the monks are presumed dead, he becomes a slave and is traded and loaned out as many times as an epic requires, and runs into enough intrigue to keep his classically educated intellect alive and kicking. The book is a fun read, in a swashbuckling/religious politics mash up sort of way. I'm not sure the plot needed to be quite so, well, byzantine, but with the title what it is, I can't say I wasn't warned.

The one thing that kept me from really liking the book was the portrayal of the Barbarians. Were they really so Hagar the Horrible? I understand cultural differences, but at times they verged on comic relief. Barbarians yes, buffoons probably not.

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Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived In That House by Meghan Daum

Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That HouseLife Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House by Meghan Daum

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Daum writes about her escapades as a home shopper and home buyer and why that hardly ever leads to her being a home owner. The premise is interesting - why do so many of us think that if we lived in the right abode, the rest of our life would fall into place? How do the influences of where our parents chose to live (and not live), along with all those perfect happy families from TVLand shape what where we think we will thrive? Unfortunately, Daum never goes much deeper than "I discovered I was I shopper, not a buyer" to explain why she moves dozens of times in less than ten years. She's a funny writer, but don't look to this book for anything beyond a few smiles.

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City of Thieves by David Bennioff, Audiobook narrated by Ron Perlman

City of ThievesCity of Thieves by David Benioff

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A coming of age historical fiction set during the siege of Leningrad (late 1941). Lev, the young man (who we know lives through his ordeal because the story is framed as him telling the story as an oral history to his grandson), is arrested by the Russian NKVD for looting, but instead of being executed, he's teamed up with diserter Kolya to achieve what would seem to be impossible at that point in time: find one dozen eggs to be used for the Colonel's daughter's wedding cake. During their quest, they meet, work with and against the best and worst of a city trying to survive. Kolya is the eternal optimist, perhaps a too perfect of match for Lev's naive feeling of eternal doom. When a pretty young sharpshooter is introduced to the story, the focus of the story takes an unfortunate (but great for a Benioff screenplay) turn from survival to falling in love, but in the end, every thing's pretty much what you'd been expecting. There are no surprise twists, just a good, basic war time story.

As a narrator, Ron Perlman is an actor. What that means is that when he's doing dialog, it's an engrossing story. When he's reading actual narrative, his voice is flat and dull. That makes the beginning of the book very hard to get through, and it's what makes this a three star rather than a four star book.

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2010/07/08

Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life

Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful LifeSavor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life by Thich Nhat Hanh

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A good book for those looking to learn how the Buddhist practice of living in this moment can be used to improve and possibly reduce bad eating habits. Some principals of Buddhism are introduced when they can be applied towards living a more healthy physical life, and very simple meditations are given to use to help one get through the smooth and the rough parts of the day. On the nutritional side, there's nothing new or ground breaking, but what is there is very well explained, especially when discussing how what we eat effects us on a chemical level.

If you've read any of Thich Nhat Hanh's writings before, you'll know that the man can see a positive way out of any problem. That's not quite the middle path of Buddhism, but it's certainly easier to grasp than the "life is suffering" truth. It's not that he sugar coats how hard it is to learn new habits and break the code, it's that he has faith that everyone can, and that belief is contagious, even on the written page.

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