The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Many years ago, I took a reluctant trip to Gettysburg National Park. It was a reluctant trip because I didn't consider myself a Civil War buff and I could think of a lot better ways to spend a day than reading a bunch of historical markers and staring at statues of men who made questionable decisions. I was a fool. By the time I had finished making a tour of the battle, using one of the audio guides you can buy in the gift shop, I was emotionally exhausted. "Seeing" the battle through the words of the people who had been there, walking some of the same paths they had taken....I'd never felt anything quite like that. This book had the same affect.

The Killer Angels puts a very human face on a singularly remarkable event in US military history. Shaara uses his source material to make a great read with true character arcs, a living and breathing setting, and most importantly, something that leaves the reader with as many questions as answers.

View all my reviews >>

The Gypsy's Curse by Harry Crews

The Gypsy's Curse by Harry Crews


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Dark, twisted, funny, imperfect ending.... everything I like in a story! This book is a perfect example of the southern-gothic sub genre, southern-grotesque. Not only is no one perfect in the world of this book, no one has a flaw too small to be examined and exploited by the other characters. Most of them, however, for all their imperfections, show a surprising amount of heart when you look beyond the surface, and that's what this book is about - going beyond appearances.

View all my reviews >>

Mania by Craig Larson

Mania by Craig Larsen


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Disclosure: I received this book for free through the Goodreads First Reads Program.

Read in the context of this being Larsen's first published work, this is pretty good book. It's a little disjointed, perhaps a little over populated with characters (mostly noticible when they conveniently disappear, as in the case of the girlfriend who's forgotten for the sake of a whirlwind trip out of town by the protagonist), and it definitely takes too long to get to anything that resembles a clue, both for the reader and the accused. However, the motive for the crime is wonderfully contemporary, the Seattle setting made my desire to see that damp but lovely piece of the US all the stronger, and Nick, the under achieving younger brother is well written with a surprising amount of depth for someone with seems intent on floating through life.

I look forward to seeing what Larson can do in the future, perhaps with a slightly tighter mystery.

View all my reviews >>

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A mystery set in an asylum for the criminally insane during the days of shock therapy, lobotomies, and pharmaceutical LSD makes for plenty of disturbing supporting characters. A hurricane takes a classic horror setting and makes it more dangerous for the US Marshals sent to investigate an inmate/patient who's gone missing. This is a LOT of background to tell a story in front of, but Lehane does a good job of making the plot every bit as complex as his location - maybe too good of a job. The story twists, and twists, and twists some more, but that's because there's really not a lot of room for forward movement before everything becomes clear. This is a very good gothic read, but the mystery is a little weak.

View all my reviews >>

Rootabaga Stories by Carl Sandburg

Rootabaga Stories by Carl Sandburg


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a set of stories that belongs on every "read aloud" shelf, right next to all the Dr. Suess books and the Brothers Grimm and all those Little Golden Book collections. Sandburg's prose begs to be heard - reading it to yourself is loses the rhythm and alliteration and all those other poetry tricks that he was a master of. Sandberg wrote these for his children, wanting them to have fairy tales that related to their very American upbringing, and these stories do ring with commerce and expansion and industrialism, but in a way that makes them admirable traits, not something to apologize for.

The two book set I read was beautifully illustrated by Michael Hague, a perfect match of author to artist.

View all my reviews >>

The Bird Room by Chris Killen

The Bird Room by Chris Killen


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
(Discosure: I received this book for free through the Goodreads First Reads Program)

What started out as a really good dark humor story devolved into a much less complex, although definetly darker, observational narrative. Killen has written some deeply flawed characters, and as much as I love flawed characters, that's not enough to make up for a plot that ends about 2/3 of the way through the book for one of the main characters and goes absolutely nowhere for the rest of the characters. This might have made a great short story, but stretching it out to novella length brings on a lot of repetition of the character's actions and inner dialogs. Perhaps that was the point, that these people have no depth beyond what we're given, but then I have to wonder why in the beginning of the story there's so much originality in how they perceived themselves and each other. That was before the story turned into a "there's no 'there' there.

What we're given as a setting (London, or some other very large British city) shows that Killen can be economical and descriptive at the same time. My favorite line from the whole book, in fact, is more about where the story takes place rather than who it's about: A character is lamenting that she has to go to a certain store because at the other, more preferable ones, she might run into people she doesn't want to see. Despite the fact that she lives in one of the most populous, conjested cities of the world, she wishes she could live "...somewhere more anonymous,like the rainforest or the sky". Killen's characters are people who couldn't lose themselves anywhere.

View all my reviews >>

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
As a historical, this is an interesting book. As fiction, it's an entertainingread but could have used an editor that would have prevented the author's research from interupting the story. By that, I mean, there are passages of the book meant to provide setting but read like something lifted directly from a "Daily Life In Victorian England" article. We're not reading what the character was a part of, but instead we get what the character observes, as if they too were removed by 100 years or so. Honestly, would a young woman comment on the fact that her mother had survived her child bearing years? Perhaps the ver precocious Alice of this book would - she shows remarkable observational skills when the story needs it, and then she loses them when they would require the author to take a position on what happened between the Liddel family and the man that would become known as Lewis Caroll. That is perhaps my greatest criticism of this book: If you're going to write real person fiction, have some conviction of plot! Decide what happened and tell that story. If the known facts can't don't fit your story, well, it is/ fiction. But don't dangle a question in front of your readers to keep their attention and then refuse to answer it.



View all my reviews >>

Nighrs In Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks

Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Over the years, I've had so many people recommend Nicholas Sparks books to me that I finally had to give it a go. If this book is any indication of what his others are like, I think I'll just keep waiting for the movies. That's what this book read like - a novelization of a screenplay. There's nothing that is demonstrated through dialog or actions - there's no depth. It's a fluffy, predictable tear jerker with the message that you need to live today because you don't know what tomorrow brings. Good message, but when the consequences are the same for everyone, where's the risk of ignoring them? This is extremely light reading, too light for me.

View all my reviews >>

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Bulgakov's Satan is a trickster, rather than an angel with an axe to grind, and that alone makes this a very refreshing read. Add to that the speed at which plot threads appear, twist, weave, and then sometimes disappear altogether make this a book that challenges you to stay caught up with it, and you have something quite unlike any other book I've ever read. My only criticism, and this is the difference between 4 and 5 stars in this book, is that the middle third of the book reads a little like a collection of short stories, or maybe a serial bound together - it's episodic compared to the smooth flow of the beginning and end of the book. It's a small flaw, but in a book that's as much about pacing as it is about character, it stood out.

View all my reviews >>

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (Audiobook read by Virginia Leishman)

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This story must be judged by the standards of the time it was written. There wasn't a lot of competition for the reader's time, that is, if a person had the time and ability to read (or access to someone who could read to them, because illiteracy or poor eyesight were a factor even for the upper classes in Defoe's time), they didn't have shelves and shelves of fiction to choose from. Long meandering stories were the 17th/18th century's version of today's television series. In that context, Moll Flanders in a damn good story. It's a woman facing every kind of obstacle a female of that era could encounter, some of her own making, some brought on by society. She starts her life over more than once, not always in a better position than the life she left behind. The first person narrative is truer to form than a lot of more current, more well regarded books, and despite the archaic vocabulary, quite funny and easy to understand.

I listened to this book rather than read it for two reasons: 1) I knew I'd never finish it if I read it; 2) Defoe would have written this knowing it was likely to be read aloud, and so I thought it would be a more authentic experience. Virginia Leishman has a lovely voice that fit the story perfectly.

View all my reviews >>