cyphomandra

I've tried before to read John Le Carré, and stalled out on a number of them before hitting The Little Drummer Girl, which I loved (brilliant, devastating, brilliant). Then I tried some more and after failing to get past the first 50 pages of A Perfect Spy half a dozen times, I gave up. After seeing the movie Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy I thought it was probably time to think about trying again and, eventually, it became a good idea for other reasons.

( The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. )

( A murder of quality. )

So. I have moved cities (again), and am now in one that is slightly warmer and definitely more tectonically stable. All my books are currently still in boxes, and may be there for a bit while I work out what to do about shelving (behind heat pump and external painting in the list of important big house things, unfortunately). The dog is adapting to his new environment and has completely recovered from the surgery he ended up having the week before we both moved (removal of his anal glands, very glamorous). Hmm. Somehow, this does not automatically lead into a discussion of book reviews.

I am miles behind on these anyway. Here, have an assortment of brief and possibly not all that tactful reviews that will hopefully represent some of my recent reading:

( Suzanne Brockmann, Dark of Night. )

( Erin Dionne, The total tragedy of a girl named Hamlet. )

( Marie Sexton, Blind Space. )

( Lisa Henry, The Island. )

The last two reviews have also appeared on GoodReads, if they look familiar, as I finally gave into badgering (you know who you are) and signed up there. I’m not entirely convinced that the site works for me (I hate rating books, so I don't, and I’m also really lazy about logging them, so it’s also way behind), but if you want to know who I am there, just ask.

11.22.63. I re-read Firestarter when writing my Yuletide story (flimsy connection involving secret government research a la MK ULTRA, and just as well Banana Fish is still boxed or else I would have re-read that as well), and it reminded me of how good King's writing can be. So I picked this up from the library on Sunday and read it that night; by the end of it, I was pacing around, or as much as I could while reading a massive paperback (there are some definite advantages to ebooks, and one of them is the fact that when I get really into a story, I need to move), and I was not going to stop before finishing. It's not his best, but I liked it significantly more than Under the Dome, which was the last new novel of his I read since I stalled out on Lisey's Story, and it's set me off on a King reading kick.

Jake Epping is a divorced English teacher who is friends with the owner of a local deli with startlingly cheap hamburgers. The guy, Al, calls him over one night; when Jake arrives, Al looks far older than when Jake saw him the day before, is dying of lung cancer – and shows him a portal in the back room of the deli (now slated for imminent destruction and replacement by a chain store) that will take him back to 1958. Al has been able to make small changes in the past and return to the present, checking on the changed narrative, but every time he re-enters the portal it resets, and he's back in that first day in 1958 again. And he has just spent four years in the past, trying – and failing, ultimately, due to his health – to save JFK from being assassinated. Jake agrees to take on the job, with the caveat that he wants to prevent a murder first, to prove it can be done – and, conveniently, one of his students has given him the background he needs.

( 11.22.63. )
( Duma Key. )
( It. Re-read. )

Anyway. I have not read Rage, From a Buick 8, Cell, Blockade Billy, Everything's Eventual, or the last sixty pages of Lisey's story (stalled completely, not sure why), but apart from that I am now up-to-date with the King oeuvre. Until The Wind through the Keyhole comes out, at least.