The Borrowers (The Borrowers #1)

The Borrowers by Mary Norton


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is the book that not only introduced me to fantasy fiction, it planted the seed for my favorite type of fantasy fiction: where the mundane becomes magical. It's urban fantasy without the grime, if that's possible. It's also a great very-young adult read with a strong willed female protagonist and a tiny bit of historical novel thrown in without the heavy handed lecturing that some young adult authors mistake for narrative. The tiny little Clock family is as is nuclear as can be, but they are supportive and resourceful, and willing to trust an outsider if it means survival. Published 57 years ago, this is still one of the best fantasy books ever written, no matter what age the reader.

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A Fine and Bitter Snow (Kate Shugak, Book 12)

A Fine and Bitter Snow by Dana Stabenow



It's been years since I read any of Stabenow's Kate Shugak books, and I honestly couldn't remember why I had stopped. I love a book with a strong sense of place and Stabenow knows how to transport her readers in the Alaska bush. Something else that she does remarkably well is to bring a first time reader up to speed on characters and past story lines without boring the series reader. I felt like I had never stepped away from Kate, conservation vs. tourism, the rights of indigenous peoples vs. the needs of the larger populations, extended family complications and a darn good murder mystery. It's all in this book, and this time there's the addition of some contemporary politics as well: the conservation party in power in Washington is reaching out its long arm, threatening to get rid of the well liked and too green park ranger that Kate and everyone else has grown comfortable with. Kate's love/sex life gets some more attention as well, being told by several characters what most readers must be thinking: you can't keep two guys on a string forever, do something! The suspects in the murder have interesting back stories, and previous supporting characters get well earned attention.

So, why did I stop reading this series? Somewhere along the line, each of her books hit a "not that there's anything wrong with that, but" point. Perhaps that's how it is in Alaska, the people defend their right to be left alone, to live their lives the way they want, but deep down, you're only allowed to be different to a certain degree. Without giving away too much of a plot twist, I'll only say that the presence of a same sex couple doesn't mean what you think it means. And a "strictly heterosexual dog"? Really??

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Greyfriars Bobby by Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson

Greyfriars Bobby by Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Far more romantic and entertaining than the true story of the little dog that would not leave his master's side, it's no wonder this is the version that people believe. More than a tale of a love that lasted beyond life, this is also a darn good example of a writer writing successfully in dialect. Read it for the "awwww" factor and learn a few knew words of a very beautiful language.

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The Information Officer: A Novel by Mark Mills

The Information Officer: A Novel by Mark Mills


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Too many genres can spoil a good story, and this book comes dangerously close to proving that point. Its strength as a historical novel, set in the much under appreciated Malta during WWII, saves it from being a rather weak mystery/thriller. Mills does a decent job of making his setting a character, putting the reader next to the characters as they go about the business of staying alive while the Germans are trying to remove them from the island, if not the face of the earth. It's good that he's able to do that, because getting inside the character's heads, a necessity for a good mystery or thriller, just isn't possible. They're just too darn flat and worse, they're stereotypes straight from old 1940s/50s Hollywood movies made about WWII. Supporting characters get almost no back story, making them hard to identify, let alone impossible to identify with. Any marginally well read mystery fan will figure out who the killer is long before the main character gives up and turns the case over to a late entry professional.

However, once again, as a book read to discover a new place in a very interesting time period, this book is a fast and not-unpleasant read, and it's a historical that I can say I liked this book enough to have taken something away from it.

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The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The second line of this book is the date the story starts. Sneak a peak at the last chapter, and you'll see that the first line there is the date the story ends. When an author bookends their story in such a way, you know that the passage of time is a very, very important part of the narrative. Nineteen years go by in this case, nineteen years of family dramas that match the massive political and cultural revolution England itself was going through during the same time period. With at least a half dozen major characters and at least a dozen more almost major characters, plus the lord-knows-how-many secondary characters, there's a lot going on in this book, and there was a point, about one third of the way through, when I almost decided it wasn't worth remembering who was who's son, cousin, friend, or lover. But the world that Byatt has so meticulously researched and reconstructed is a hard one to leave, and eventually, by repetition and/or solid writing, everyone becomes sorted out. There are places where the action takes an obvious turn towards the writer showing off her research rather than story progression, and even worse, some incredibly academic chapters that have nothing to do with the narrative and are simply rude interruptions to a good read. The book does slip from literature into romance occasionally, but with over six hundred pages covering nineteen years, there's bound to be some incredible happenings in one or two lives.

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The Child In Time by Ian McEwan

The Child in Time by Ian McEwan


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Two stars stands for "It was okay" on the Goodreads scale, and for Ian McEwan authored fiction, this book really was only okay. He can do so much better. McEwan's strength, characters tormented in one way or another by their past, are out in full force in this book, but with non-linear story telling that nudges up against sci-fi, why bother? The reader knows all the choices before the situations are revealed, and throwing in a well written but unconnected political plot does nothing but weaken the personal arc of the main character. The sense of place was wonderful, as good as any McEwan story set in contemporary London, and that's all that kept me reading when I long stopped caring about the characters and their drawn out for drama's sake troubles.

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Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror

The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror, Version 2.0 by Christopher Moore


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Christopher Moore is the mockery master. His books are genius when he's making fun of the people (small town law officer who has every reason to fear the DEA) and places (tourist town residents that are anything but visitor friendly). Moore proved that he'd hold nothing as sacred in his hilarious book [Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal], so there should be no surprise that when Raziel, the possibly intellectually challenged angel from that book shows up in a small coastal California town a few days before Christmas, things go wrong. A simple directive from God isn't so simple when the local crazy woman goes off her meds, a divorced couple has one argument too many, a short term visitor wants to make long term plans and kids say the darndest things. There are a few more colorful characters with their own subplots, all very entertaining, but with so many people milling about this town, there's not a lot of room for Raziel. Remember him? From the title of the book? He disappears for chunks of the book, and despite the town constable showing passing interest in discovering who he is, he's a fringe character in his own story. Perhaps that is the way of angels. Either way, this is a very funny book when it's looking at what goes on off of Main Street, so-so funny when it's trying to follow its own plot line.

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Lake Overturn by Vestal McIntyre

Lake Overturn: A Novel by Vestal McIntyre


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Vestal McIntyre is a master of character driven fiction. I suspected as much when I read his short story collection, [You Are Not The One:], and this novel goes beyond what he accomplished in that book. The residents of Eula, Idaho are as light as they are dark, they are as happy as they are angry. Not one of them is a caricature, they are flesh and blood and the craziness that lives in all of us. Beyond giving us characters that will make you second, third, and fourth guess your opinions on the people you know in your real life, McIntyre's use of setting makes this a story that will have you looking at your own surroundings with a new eye. This is Southern Gothic without the southern but too modern to be simply gothic, and it is one of the best books I've read this year.

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London Boulevard by Ken Bruen

London Boulevard by Ken Bruen


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A contemporary noir re-telling of Sunset Boulevard with characters that would have been a perfect fit for Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla. The dialog is perfectly sharp, the violence is brutal and over the top, and the setting is perfectly, grimely London. This is derivative fiction in the hands of a very good writer.

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Knowing when it's just not working

I'm abandoning "The Creativity Book" exercise. I'm sure it works very well for some people, but I'm finding the exercises repetitive and in some cases, so obvious that I'm insulted that the author thinks I'm not already using some of the techniques. Perhaps creativity is not my problem. That leaves me with productivity issues. Time to get cracking on those, then.