books_november2001

29.11.2001

Jenny Offill, "Last Things" - I had a go at this book a couple of months ago and could just not get exited about it. So back it went onto the shelf with the “Unread” haunting my house…. But after reading some more trashy stuff, I was in the mood for something slightly more brain teasing. I read it in about 3 days, essentially a good thing. Not quite sure what to make of it though. The story is told by an eight year old. It’s the story of the relationship with her mother, who is – let’s face it - a very strange cookie. Very hippy, myth, perception out of the ordinary, not bound to convention. And because the child is a child, that is how the world should be. Juxtaposed to that is the father, Mr. Science, all rooted in reason and all things factual. And while the mother goes more and more off the rails and the child increasingly looses contact with reality, he tries to get a connection with her and bind her to the real world. Makes for interesting reading. I found the ending a bit unsatisfying though. There was closure, but it was a bit abrupt, there you go…

23.11.2001

"What I shall want from you are your eyes."

I started “A Closed Book” by Gilbert Adair this morning. Not very thick, only about 250 pages. And I liked it so much, that I pretty much read it in one go, I’m done! God, I like weekends, which book am I gonna read tomorrow? Anyway, in this book the narrator is a blind writer. He wants to write another book – the first one after the accident in which he lost his sight. So he employs someone to write down what he dictates. You’ll have to find the rest out for yourself. The fascinating thing about the book – it is told, as I already mentioned, out of the perspective of a blind man. Hence no descriptions of a visual nature. Almost all of the book is written in direct speech, mainly in dialogues between him and his helper, who not only writes everything down for him, but also describes the world to him. You think that sounds dreadful? No, it’s not, it makes for really interesting, if unusual reading. I could not put it down!

22.11.2001

Finished the horror trash already – 4 rides to and from work and I was done. “The Holmes-Dracula-File” by Fred Saberhagen, oh well! It was fun… Had that on my shelf for ages. Must have bought it when I went through my Anne Rice period. I loved her books – for a while. But the more successful she became, the flatter her books became. From “The Queen of the Damned” it was all downhill. After reading 2 relatively disappointing books from her, I stopped buying the new ones.

21.11.2001

Finished “Ex Libris”. I liked the descriptions of 17th century London, but the story was unsatisfactory and the ending outright silly. There they are, hero and heroine, running through a flooded house that is about to cave in, trying to escape the falling rubble, the flood and the bad guys trying to catch up with them. And all the while they are having this twisted, complicated conversation, were she is explaining to him, why he had to do what he did during the course of the book. Right, totally unbelievable. For that I slaved through 400 pages of pretentious crap. Next time I dump the book, curious about the ending or not!

I am now happily reading some horror trash – Sherlock Holmes and Dracula battling some criminal masterminds. Well, at least nobody is pretending that it is anything but fiction….

17.11.2001

Still reading "Ex-Libris" by Ross King. Slow going. The style it is written in is a bit tedious. It took for ever to get going. Usuallly, after 100 pages of being not very excited, I would have dumped it. But the background story is quite good and it gives me an opportunity to read up on my sketchy knowledge of 17th century England and the onset of the Thirty Years War. The story as such could use a little more tension - a fairly ordinary bookseller gets entangled in the search for a rare book, and lots of sinister characters are trying to find the same book for so far no apparent reason. Very mysterious. I have finally reached part 3 of the book and it seems to be picking up a little bit of speed - now I want to know what it's all about....

Found this new book review site: The Book Haven. Go and have a look, the reviews are quite interessting, although they sometimes give a bit too much away of the storyline for my taste. And they did not really like "Prodigal Summer", which I thought was absolutely superb. But, hey, everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Still an interessting site. Liked the "Worse Book Ever"....Cheese, ey?

And another link: Michael Connelly. Just in case you needed an update on Harry Bosch!

03.11.2001

Staid up till 2am last night to finish Tom Clancy's "The Cardinal Of the Cremlin". Very good, fast paced action right from the beggining. No lengthy boring setting up of conspiracy theories and unnessesary introductions and descriptions of characters, like the Ludlum I read before. Just lots of action. Ok, 95% of the characters I knew from other Clancy novels, so there is familiarity already. He still is the best in this type of thriller.