May’s Read Books June 3, 2007
I haven’t been all that good a blogger lately. I blame it on the fact I now have a real backyard all to myself! With real gardens! And I can plant things in it! And it needs to be weeded! A lot, in fact! But! Plants and flowers! Wow! [1] Most evenings, I come home after work, acknowledge the existence of the cat, get changed into my grubby gardening clothes, and spend an hour or so out there. When I come inside, I eat, and then collapse on the nearest flat surface until it’s time to haul myself upstairs and collapse onto the flat surface that is my bed. Long story wrapped up - the blog has fallen to the wayside for the moment, along with other leisure activities like “housekeeping” [2] and “laundry” [3]. Also, I haven’t had a whole weekend to myself in weeks, and it’s going to be weeks until I do [4].
Reading this over again, I thought it sounds like I might be creatively and mentally drained by now; oddly, the opposite is true. I have three or four simultaneous knitting projects on the needles at the moment, including two pair of socks [6], a scarf and two baby projects. Then there’s the whole garden thing - already I’m making notes on what’s working and what isn’t for next year [7]. I also did some home decorating-type things - I set up what I like to call my “outer sanctum” in my porch for those (eventual) Saturday mornings to sit and drink coffee and read, or evenings to drink gin and tonics and read.
Finally, May was the month where I almost as many books in five weeks as I had all year so far.
~ Jeffery Moore, The Memory Artist (8)
A heartbreaking book about synthanesia and Alzheimer’s. It’s told from different perspectives, as if reading a journal compiled by the doctor who is studying the mother (Alzheimer’s) and the son (synthanesia); the doctor is a pompous ass, and the five protagonists as his lab rats, who succeed anyways.
~ Sarah Waters, Fingersmith (7)
At the first surprise plot twist, I had the strongest feeling of deja vu - I’d either read this book before, or I’d read a similar one in the past few years, before I started keeping track of what I read (this is year three). Very Victorian, very gothic, and pretty good.
~ Alexander McCall Smith, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (8)
Okay, okay - I finally succumbed to the pressure of just about everyone, and was pleased to find I actually liked this one. Plain, simple, few distractions.
~ Tanya Huff, Smoke and Mirrors (7.5) and Smoke and Ashes (7.5)
A few years ago at a convention where I got to meet her and sign a book of hers I’d just bought [8]. She’s a lovely person, funny as hell, and I would read the phone book if she wrote it. These two are a continuation of the Henry Fitzroy/Blood series (so far there are three in this series.)
~ Stephanie Meyers, Twilight (7)
For a while, I was on a vampire tear. I thought the protagonist was naive and kind of dense, and the whole thing was repetitive [9]; still, I was disappointed when I finished this book.
~ Sam Enthoven, The Black Tattoo (3)
If you read this book, you won’t need ever read any classic British sci-fi/fantasy books because this one does a great job of borrowing bits and pieces from all of them.
~ Tanya Huff, Long Hot Summoning (6)
The last in the Keeper Chronicles, and the one that drags on at the end.
~ Fiona Patton, The Golden Sword (6)
Didn’t care much for the protagonist, but it was one of those fantasy books you don’t need to have read the three previous books in the series to know what’s going on.
~ Anthony Bidulka, Amuse Bouche (6.5)
Given that the title hints at a possible foodie angle, I was disappointed that it wasn’t about crime in the kitchen world. It was a fairly solid book once I got past that, a bit predictable, yet well-paced.
[1] And, with that, I officially use up my quota of exclamation marks for the month.
[2] Lordy, you should see the cat hair everywhere… on the other hand, maybe not…
[3] My flimsy excuse for this is I like to hang it on the clothes line instead of using the drier, so there has to be enough daylight left for me to do it.
[4] A single day here and there, but nothing so decadent as two! whole! days! [5]
[5] Aaaand now I start on next month’s quota of exclamation marks.
[6] Normally, I’m lucky if I can focus on one at a time.
[7] i.e. working: snapdragons as a border, the begonias; not working: planting the impatience too early, the bleeding hearts in their current spot - move them to the front next spring because now they’re almost completely hidden by The Hosta That Ate My Garden and The Iris That’s Helping It.
[8] It was also the same convention where I got to stand in line for four hours to get Neil Gaiman to autograph a couple of books for me. It was the best four hours ever, and I still swoon when I hear him do readings.
[9] “I love you!” “I love you too, but you should be scared of me! Grrr!” “I know! But I still love you!” “I love you too, but…” etc.
When we move into our place, I’ll gladly accept any gardening advice. Nothing too fancy–I just need the yard to look like adults live there, cause without some guidance we’ll be “that house that use to look nice before the new people moved in.”
Until I realized that the “3″ was your rating I was curious about the Sam Enthoven book. Borrowing from classic British Sci-Fi/Fantasy books could be pulled off- sort of a collage vibe. Guess he tried to simply pass it off as his own rather than paying homage?
Well, in the author bio it states he works in a bookstore in the children’s section, so it felt like he pulled together bits and pieces from the books that sold well, and put it in one place. It’s not that he was trying to pass it off as his own - it felt unintentional - but that I’d read something and think, “Lord of the Rings!” or “that had a Harry Potter feel to it” or even “Douglas Adams did that so much better in HHGttG.”