Review: A Novel Bookstore

A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cossé

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I almost stopped reading this after the first 20 - 30 pages. The mystery set up was clunky, or maybe it was one of those things that doesn't translate well, However, once that part is over and the book turns to the central theme, the love of good books and all that it inspires, I couldn't put it down.



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Review: The Writing Book: A Workbook for Fiction Writers

The Writing Book: A Workbook for Fiction Writers by Kate Grenville

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The writing advice isn't anything that not available in a lot of other books, but Grenville does go a step further by including examples of what she's talking about. Good examples, too, not only of what she's teaching but for reading in general. That could be counterproductive, in that you'll want to read the entire book she's pulled the example from, and that's just another excuse to not be writing, isn't it?



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Review: The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Brilliant characterizations that will stick with you for a long time. O'Brien's writing style works very well for the audiobook format, he (or his alter ego narrator) is a natural story teller. There is not a bad story in this book, although some are definitely darker than the others, but the two that really stood out in my mind were "The Things They Carried" and "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong". If you've read Matterhorn and liked it, you'll like these short stories just as much.



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Review: Caleb's Crossing

Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


If I'd had anything else to read/listen to, I would have not finished this book. Yes, I think it's that dull. A well worn plot of a young woman living in what she feels to be a restrictive culture meeting a young man who is daring to break out of his own culture goes exactly as it always does. This book really isn't even that much about Caleb so much as Bethia, the young woman who meets him and follows his path to "enlightenment". The audio version isn't helped by a narrator who sounds like she's reading to children who might misunderstand a word if it isn't enunciated clearly and with very little emotion. Also, a narrator with only one masculine inflection and one female inflection should NOT be reading a book with this many characters.



The one plus from this is that Brooks knows her 17th century Colonial American grammar and vocabulary, and the Wampanoag tribe details are interesting.



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Review: Let the Right One in

Let the Right One in by John Ajvide Lindqvist

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


It's been a long time since I read a book that was truly scary. The fact that I read this one after having seen both versions of the movies based on it, and it was still scary says a lot about Lindqvist's horror writing skills. He understands the most basic rule of horror - it's not what you see, it's what you don't see that is the most frightening. His slow reveal of Elli's "idiosyncrasies", along with the very real life horrors that Oskar endures every time he leaves his home play off of each other perfectly. Evil comes in many forms, and Lindqvist mixes them all together for a fantastic book.



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Review: Child of God

Child of God by Cormac McCarthy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Brilliantly dark. I don't know how McCarthy gets to the part of himself where a story like this lays waiting, but I'm very glad he gets there. (And very glad for the people who live around him that he's able to get back from that place.)



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Review: Final Arguments

Final Arguments by Clifford Irving

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Decent courtroom mystery, with better use of supporting characters than most. The Florida setting was interesting, especially with the details offered about their legal system and their use of capital punishment at the time the book was written.



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Review: In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Four stars because this book went a long way towards answering my "How was it possible?" question about Hitler's rise to power. Larson really sticks to his source material in this book, so much so that it's not the story of Ambassador Dodd's family as it is the story of Dodd and his daughter. They left diaries, journals and letters about their stay in Berlin in the early 30's, while the wife and son apparently left very little paper trail. Certainly they witnessed as much, maybe more, of the personal and public side of the Nazi party, but in this story they're ghosts of the family, mentioned only when they move through the very documentative Dodd and Martha. But that's a small quibble, along with the weirdly casual chapter titles that don't always match the chapter contents.



Larson balances a critical "who knew what when" with personable account of people who didn't have the benefit of hindsight. Dodd and his daughter, like most guests in a new and exciting situation, wanted to like their hosts. They wanted to believe that people in general will do the right thing, that people in general are good. When their personal experiences, time after time, proved that wasn't the case, one claims to have joined the opposition and the other left the constraints of public office to speak to a wider audience. Whether their end actions had any effect isn't the point of the book, but what they saw (and did, especially in the case of Martha) provides a quick, easy to read view of life in Berlin when Hitler was laying his foundation for what was to come.



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Review: 2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America

2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America by Albert Brooks

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


So many good plot devices, wasted on such weak characters! "Near future" science-fiction is a risky setting for any writer because so much of that future has arrived between the first draft and publication. It's likely to appeal to a wider audience, however, more like mainstream fiction because it's easy to imagine a world only 20 or 30 years into the future, and Brooks got lucky with only a few events happening in the real world that change how the reader sees his story. The central theme, "be careful what you wish for" in the guise of curing cancer, it very intriguing. The earthquake that flattens Los Angeles is written purely from the POV a native, in that the rest of the country almost ceases to exist once that happens. It's when you get to the characters, whether it be back story, arc, or even simply the dialog that the book becomes flat and boring. Flawed characters are interesting only if there flaws are interesting - Brooks' character are so run of the mill in their motivations that you knew everything about them as soon as they were introduced, in no small part because Brooks tells you everything about them. They don't grow, they don't change in ways that you couldn't predict long before it happens, they're warm bodies to fill out empty spaces between some decent exposition.



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Review: The Sparrow

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Absolutely brilliant first contact science fiction! Russell's background as an anthropologist brings history into the future when small group of human beings travel to meet some newly discovered neighbors. Funded and partially manned by the Jesuits, the story draws on what has happened in the past when one type of civilization attempted to learn without changing another - it never works out well for both groups. Told in a beginning vs the end meets in the middle manner, the story may seem to drag at the beginning, but every bit of back story is needed to reach what turns out to be an ending that doesn't seem like science fiction at all.



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