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Books books redux
May. 12th, 2017 09:25 pmMarch. I don't have an overall favourite for this month but Here If You Need Me is probably the one I am most likely to recommend to people.
Gwen Hayes, Romancing the Beat. Basics of story structure for romances with lots of gratuitous 80s music references. Cheerfully useful.
Kate Braestrup, Here If You Need Me. Memoir. I got this as a rec somewhere on Dreamwidth and it is not the sort of book I would have otherwise picked up; the author is a chaplain for the Maine search and rescue service, a combination of job and calling that the author only came to after the sudden death of her state trooper husband. It's a book about grief, family, and God, as well as What Not To Do in the Outdoors, and I really enjoyed it - despite being an atheist I quite like reading about religious faith, although so often anything written post 1920 or so isn't worth it (I flatted with a fundamentalist Christian for a while. Most of her books were appalling, either of the straight out "demons cause schizophrenia and allergies" or the more deceptive "hey, let's ask all these big questions about the universe and coincidentally come up with a very specific set of answers that just happen to fit within a very specific narrow worldview" of her Alpha course text. I did quite like Philip Yancy's What's So Amazing About Grace.)
Martine Bailey, An Appetite for Violets. Historical; Biddy, an undercook at a stately home who has picked out her husband and her future, is caught up in the schemes of nobility, which nvolve lots of travelling and food. This has a really annoying beginning and I only picked it up again the day before it was due back. Biddy's point of view is what carries this; the plot is obvious and the end in particular too melodramatic, but the recipes and the expansion of Biddy's world are very good.
Jeffrey Deaver, The Skin Collector. In the same series as The Bone Collector. Not terribly good. There's a thing I read somewhere that says that a standard plot twist deceives the reader, but a great one deceives the characters, and unfortunately much of Deaver's work has now tipped far too far over into deceiving the readers (The Bone Collector, in contrast, has at least two fabulous twists for the characters that I still think of fondly).
Sherry Thomas, My Beloved Enemy The romance part of The Hidden Blade. Lots of great scenery. I wish the main characters in this had a bit more to do together rather than go through the romance bits, because I like them a lot but sadly the romance bits are the second-least convincing part of this book, right after death/immobilisation via accupressure points. I suspect this is more me than the book. I did like this but not as much as the first.
Jilly Cooper, The Common Years, and Appassionata. Both re-reads. I lent the former to a colleague who is having issues with her rescue dog's behaviour, on the grounds that she could not possibly do worse than Jilly, who is forced to put down not one but two of her dogs after she has done everything possible to stop them killing other people's pets except a) train them b) neuter them c) keep them on the lead. And then I re-read Appassionata, because it's probably my favourite of her novels, and it even makes me think wistfully about listening to classical music.
Gwen Hayes, Romancing the Beat. Basics of story structure for romances with lots of gratuitous 80s music references. Cheerfully useful.
Kate Braestrup, Here If You Need Me. Memoir. I got this as a rec somewhere on Dreamwidth and it is not the sort of book I would have otherwise picked up; the author is a chaplain for the Maine search and rescue service, a combination of job and calling that the author only came to after the sudden death of her state trooper husband. It's a book about grief, family, and God, as well as What Not To Do in the Outdoors, and I really enjoyed it - despite being an atheist I quite like reading about religious faith, although so often anything written post 1920 or so isn't worth it (I flatted with a fundamentalist Christian for a while. Most of her books were appalling, either of the straight out "demons cause schizophrenia and allergies" or the more deceptive "hey, let's ask all these big questions about the universe and coincidentally come up with a very specific set of answers that just happen to fit within a very specific narrow worldview" of her Alpha course text. I did quite like Philip Yancy's What's So Amazing About Grace.)
Martine Bailey, An Appetite for Violets. Historical; Biddy, an undercook at a stately home who has picked out her husband and her future, is caught up in the schemes of nobility, which nvolve lots of travelling and food. This has a really annoying beginning and I only picked it up again the day before it was due back. Biddy's point of view is what carries this; the plot is obvious and the end in particular too melodramatic, but the recipes and the expansion of Biddy's world are very good.
Jeffrey Deaver, The Skin Collector. In the same series as The Bone Collector. Not terribly good. There's a thing I read somewhere that says that a standard plot twist deceives the reader, but a great one deceives the characters, and unfortunately much of Deaver's work has now tipped far too far over into deceiving the readers (The Bone Collector, in contrast, has at least two fabulous twists for the characters that I still think of fondly).
Sherry Thomas, My Beloved Enemy The romance part of The Hidden Blade. Lots of great scenery. I wish the main characters in this had a bit more to do together rather than go through the romance bits, because I like them a lot but sadly the romance bits are the second-least convincing part of this book, right after death/immobilisation via accupressure points. I suspect this is more me than the book. I did like this but not as much as the first.
Jilly Cooper, The Common Years, and Appassionata. Both re-reads. I lent the former to a colleague who is having issues with her rescue dog's behaviour, on the grounds that she could not possibly do worse than Jilly, who is forced to put down not one but two of her dogs after she has done everything possible to stop them killing other people's pets except a) train them b) neuter them c) keep them on the lead. And then I re-read Appassionata, because it's probably my favourite of her novels, and it even makes me think wistfully about listening to classical music.
