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Reading Wednesday, two months later
Jun. 29th, 2017 10:07 pmApril.
Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs. This does have a terribly slow beginning (as commented on by any number of other reviews) and it was not helped at all by the fact that I read it waiting for a Bruce Springsteen concert to start and was slightly distracted. The rest of it is much better, and I do love the central idea (and I am always fond of cities in fiction) but somehow it didn't quite hit the spot for me. I do not love Sigrud as much (or, really, at all) as I'm supposed to. I do like Shara. I will read the next one, but I don't feel the need to race out.
Frances Murray, Ponies on the Heather. Girl moves to small Scottish town, goes riding. Not very exciting and all characters rather colourless.
Kate Braestrup, Marriage and Other Acts of Charity. Feels like a transition book - casting round for trying to find something to address after the success of her first, and also (it deals with the author's first and second marriages) not quite clear on how much of her family to include and exclude. There is a very funny bit about the second partner's name that I do not have the time to type up right now (she said unhelpfully). The first one is much better.
Kate Braestrup, Anchors and Flares. Much better - about raising children and letting them go, and more sure of itself. I am a bit ambivalent about the ending. It's perfect for the story, it happened - and yet using it as the punchline, rather than (as with her first book) the set-up makes it feel a little too convenient.
Catherine Harris, If Wishes Were Horses. Better horse book. Insecure girl with disabled single father acquires traumatised pony from spoilt acquaintance, trains it with help of English peer fallen on hard times who has taken rooms with them (and who does not marry the father! She hooks up with the vet, which was refreshing).
Agatha Christie, Murder at the Vicarage
Agatha Christie, The Moving Finger
Agatha Christie, A Murder is Announced
When I was small and obsessed with Agatha Christie (age 7-10ish), Hercule Poirot was my favourite. I did not see the point of Miss Marple. She was fluffy and she twittered, and she was not exciting at all.
It took me some time to get over this, and perhaps the only good thing about it is that it means that I've failed to read quite a few of of her books. Some years back I tried to read them all chronologically, but bogged down in all the 30s international conspiracy with terrible stereotypes ones. There are only 12 Marple novels (and some shorts) and I am now wallowing happily in them, and I like her a lot more. It's also fascinating to read them in series - there are bit parts who show up over and over (the vicar's wife, Griselda, and her son, who goes from toddler to working adult, for example), and there's also the passing of time itself. I will say more about these in next month (when I also read The Body in the Library, which is technically second). Briefly; Murder at the Vicarage does a nice double-bluff that threw me completely, The Moving Finger has a injured war veteran hero narrator and has a poison-pen letter writer and a rather unnerving romantic denouement, and I worked most of the mystery out; A Murder is Announced has a great set-up, clues all over the place, and the bodies stacking up whenever you try and suspect someone, and I had put a couple of tiny pieces together but completely failed to grasp what was really going on.
Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs. This does have a terribly slow beginning (as commented on by any number of other reviews) and it was not helped at all by the fact that I read it waiting for a Bruce Springsteen concert to start and was slightly distracted. The rest of it is much better, and I do love the central idea (and I am always fond of cities in fiction) but somehow it didn't quite hit the spot for me. I do not love Sigrud as much (or, really, at all) as I'm supposed to. I do like Shara. I will read the next one, but I don't feel the need to race out.
Frances Murray, Ponies on the Heather. Girl moves to small Scottish town, goes riding. Not very exciting and all characters rather colourless.
Kate Braestrup, Marriage and Other Acts of Charity. Feels like a transition book - casting round for trying to find something to address after the success of her first, and also (it deals with the author's first and second marriages) not quite clear on how much of her family to include and exclude. There is a very funny bit about the second partner's name that I do not have the time to type up right now (she said unhelpfully). The first one is much better.
Kate Braestrup, Anchors and Flares. Much better - about raising children and letting them go, and more sure of itself. I am a bit ambivalent about the ending. It's perfect for the story, it happened - and yet using it as the punchline, rather than (as with her first book) the set-up makes it feel a little too convenient.
Catherine Harris, If Wishes Were Horses. Better horse book. Insecure girl with disabled single father acquires traumatised pony from spoilt acquaintance, trains it with help of English peer fallen on hard times who has taken rooms with them (and who does not marry the father! She hooks up with the vet, which was refreshing).
Agatha Christie, Murder at the Vicarage
Agatha Christie, The Moving Finger
Agatha Christie, A Murder is Announced
When I was small and obsessed with Agatha Christie (age 7-10ish), Hercule Poirot was my favourite. I did not see the point of Miss Marple. She was fluffy and she twittered, and she was not exciting at all.
It took me some time to get over this, and perhaps the only good thing about it is that it means that I've failed to read quite a few of of her books. Some years back I tried to read them all chronologically, but bogged down in all the 30s international conspiracy with terrible stereotypes ones. There are only 12 Marple novels (and some shorts) and I am now wallowing happily in them, and I like her a lot more. It's also fascinating to read them in series - there are bit parts who show up over and over (the vicar's wife, Griselda, and her son, who goes from toddler to working adult, for example), and there's also the passing of time itself. I will say more about these in next month (when I also read The Body in the Library, which is technically second). Briefly; Murder at the Vicarage does a nice double-bluff that threw me completely, The Moving Finger has a injured war veteran hero narrator and has a poison-pen letter writer and a rather unnerving romantic denouement, and I worked most of the mystery out; A Murder is Announced has a great set-up, clues all over the place, and the bodies stacking up whenever you try and suspect someone, and I had put a couple of tiny pieces together but completely failed to grasp what was really going on.
