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August 19
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Nicole
added a question to the never-ending book quiz.
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Nicole
took the never-ending book quiz.
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August 14
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Nicole
added:
Going Postal: A Discworld Novel (Mass Market Paperback)
by Terry Pratchett
bookshelves:
currently-listening
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Nicole
gave
to:
Highgate Rise (Mass Market Paperback)
by Anne Perry
bookshelves:
19thcentury
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in August, 2008
Nicole said:
"Part Victorian Jerry Springer show, part clue-less mystery, but unfortunately, rarely believable, if I hadn't enjoyed this book's sequel, (and didn't have two more with me in English language book exile) I might be giving up on Anne Perry right about...more
Part Victorian Jerry Springer show, part clue-less mystery, but unfortunately, rarely believable, if I hadn't enjoyed this book's sequel, (and didn't have two more with me in English language book exile) I might be giving up on Anne Perry right about now. When I read a Victorian novel, I want the people in the book to act Victorian, dammit. Instead, if it wasn't members of conservative and respected Victorian families airing their dirty laundry out in front of complete strangers, it was very recently widowed and ostensibly bereaved men flirting with the detective's wife. Coupled with a murder that was solved because the author told us it was, well, to say it didn't quite meet my expectations is a bit of an understatement. I like when Perry focuses on her Bow Street detective. I feel she has a good handle on him. When we spend most of the book with his wife and her gaggle of silly women (Is your husband working on a case we can meddle in? I'm soooo bored.), though, I feel I've left the time period and a sense of the gravity of the occasion behind....less
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Nicole
marked as to-read:
The Enchantress of Florence (Hardcover)
by Salman Rushdie
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Nicole
added a quote:
"Not quotes, Authors I want to read:
Andrew Sean Grear
Tobias Wolff
Keith Gessen
Richard Price
George Saunders
Oliver Sacks
Peter Carey"
— x
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July 29
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Nicole
gave
to:
The Cloud of Unknowing (Otto Penzler Book)
by Thomas H. Cook
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in August, 2007
Nicole said:
"It's not that this book was bad, exactly, but I just didn't think that it accomplished what it was trying to do. Another book delving into perception versus reality, this time with latent paranoid schizophrenia thrown in, all with the intent (so I f...more
It's not that this book was bad, exactly, but I just didn't think that it accomplished what it was trying to do. Another book delving into perception versus reality, this time with latent paranoid schizophrenia thrown in, all with the intent (so I felt) of drawing the reader into the cloud of unknowing as if they were experienceing it rather than just reading about it. I don't know if it was the format or the length, but it just didn't happen for me. Instead, I felt like we just had the classic case of an unreliable narrator who is somewhere between announcing and trying to hide that fact. By the time I got to the twist at this end, I thought "so this is it?" Not that I had been expecting the twist all along, but that I hadn't expected this book to need one if it had in fact created for me feelings of doubt and unreality instead of just describing them for me in unsatisfying snippets and quotes. I probably would have liked it better had it been straight up detective novel; a little more The Usual Suspects and a little less Fight Club....less
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Nicole
gave
to:
Passion: A Novel of the Romantic Poets (Hardcover)
by Jude Morgan
bookshelves:
19thcentury
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in August, 2007
Nicole said:
"What to say about this one? On the surface, Passion is a well-researched (as far as I know) historical fiction novel about Byron, Shelley, Keats, and the English women who notably loved them. On a deeper level, it is an exploration of the na...more
What to say about this one? On the surface, Passion is a well-researched (as far as I know) historical fiction novel about Byron, Shelley, Keats, and the English women who notably loved them. On a deeper level, it is an exploration of the nature love and passion in their creative and destructive roles. I don't know if the emotions of the women are an accurate reflection of what their historical selves felt, but it almost doesn't matter. What the author really gives the reader, through the predominantly unorthodox, defiance of social rules relationships, is the material to meditate on the nature of passion and love and what they can and cannot do for people's lives. If I could, I would correct the author's pension for characters addressing the reader as if they are talking to an imaginary friend or confessor. Other than that, I was completely sold on the book and its ability to elicit both sympathy and frustration for all the tangled relationships....less
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Nicole
gave
to:
A Death in Vienna (Hardcover)
by Frank Tallis
bookshelves:
19thcentury
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in July, 2006
Nicole said:
"Not to be confused with A Death in Vienna by Dan Silva, which I have also read, and probably enjoyed to the same amount.
There were great things about this book. One, I could almost taste the coffee and Viennese pastries while the characte...more
Not to be confused with A Death in Vienna by Dan Silva, which I have also read, and probably enjoyed to the same amount.
There were great things about this book. One, I could almost taste the coffee and Viennese pastries while the characters were hanging about in coffee shops. Made me absolutely long for a trip to Vienna in any time period. Unfortunately, that's where the greatness stopped and the mediocrity set in. The "detective" is a psychologist and an early devotee of Freud, using his amazing psychoanalytical skills for good in a way that puts even Sherlock Holmes' amazing deductional skills to shame. Never trust a man (or enjoy the book he's in) when he puzzles out all the major details of the case that his real detective friend is working on during 15 minutes of their weekly piano/voice practice with nary a word of conversation exchanged between the two of them....less
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Nicole
gave
to:
The Third Secret (Audio CD)
by Steve Berry
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in August, 2007
Nicole said:
"Yikes. Forbidden romances with priests, Catholic end-times (but not really), megalomania, divine righteousness, and the war between reform and tradition all crash pell-mell into each other in this wannabe political thriller (with an all-priest cast)...more
Yikes. Forbidden romances with priests, Catholic end-times (but not really), megalomania, divine righteousness, and the war between reform and tradition all crash pell-mell into each other in this wannabe political thriller (with an all-priest cast) that can't quite shake the conspiracy craze started by The DaVinci Code. At first, it was kind of trite. Formerly errant priest struggles with his unconquerable passion for a (rather annoying) hard-nosed, independent journalist while doing his best to serve his friend, the pope. Meanwhile, not just one but two megalomaniacs face off: The charismatic priest, proponent of clerical marriage but mostly a fraud, against the man who becomes pope later, a man with an amazing dual personality, on one hand taking the preservation of his Church so seriously he'll do absolutely anything for it, and on the other being so shallow and power-hungry that he plans on becoming the best-dressed pope in history, that he might just be insane. The third secret: a heavy-handed message from Mary about the Church's backward ways that seemed more hilarious than relieving to me despite the true sense of it (I blame a bad story and bad writing for its failure to impress.) In the end, we are left with a pissing contest over which mere mortal really knows the divine will of god before our hero runs off to be with his love in the wilds of Romania. Given the cast to choose from, I couldn't help but enjoy the bad pope, mostly out of sheer perversity since the author was obviously so deadbent on making him the pawn of satan....less
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So add some books already!
