Posts Tagged 'cannonball read 4'

Books! Dude needs a new fairy godmother stat #cbr4

Published November 22, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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I’m not going to finish my full Cannonball Run, but I think I’ve done pretty well for the first time. I’ve read 38 books this year, which is the highest number I’ve read since I was like 12. I’ve only done 23 reviews so far, but I will try to push out some over the break, maybe. Next year I might be more strategic in the types of books I read. I tend toward the long and dense. More YA might need to be in my future.

My parents introduced me to the Dresden Novels by Jim Butcher about a year ago. I was looking for easy and fun novels to read during the summer vacation. They had just finished reading the entire series together (AW! Yes, it is sickly sweet, but the family that reads together!)  and thought I would enjoy it. So, I’ve been making my way through the novels since then. I definitely wouldn’t be able to read these one after another like the rents. They are, let’s say, too similar in style from one to the next for me to read them all in a row. I would seriously get bored. However, if you are looking for a quick and fun fantasy series these fit the bill nicely.

The Summer Knight is the fourth in the series. To give you a bit of background, Dresden is a perpetually down on his luck wizard turned detective who fights a bunch of fantasy realm characters on the mean streets of Chicago. But these aren’t your childhood fantasy characters, of course. There are some mean baddies. He is so down on his luck that even the people who supposedly like him, seem to, well, not really like him. And he gets beat up A LOT. I wonder sometimes if Jim Butcher takes sadistic delight in imagining his main character demoralized, tossed about, and mostly ineffective (until the end at least). Anyway, I digress.

This installment finds Dresden dealing with an emotional breakdown after the third novel (I’ll save you specifics) and trying to keep himself alive after his world has started falling apart (mostly his fault). He is hired by a queen of the Winter Faeries to figure out who killed off the Summer Knight. It is too much to explain, but basically there are Winter Faeries and Summer Faeries and they trade off control of the year. They have knights and when one gets killed there is a disturbance in the force. And all hell breaks loose. Or at least Dresden must figure out what the heck is going on.

Like I said, the Dresden novels are fun, but repetitive. I’ve love Jim Butcher’s imagination and he sets a solid scene for the reader. I don’t like how much of the novel is focused on Dresden being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting the crap beat out of him until finally he doesn’t anymore. I know the purpose is to create suspense, but I find it hard to believe half the time that this loser will accomplish anything. I’ve started skimming the middle a bit just to get to the final scene where, yes, Dresden’s awesome powers shine through, and yes, Dresden makes it all (or, well, mostly) right.

The good thing about these novels is that the main character doesn’t always set everything to right. Someone always gets killed or turned into a vampire. But again we are reading about a down on his luck wizard.

Great vacation reading. Even I can finish them in two or three days (I’m a SLOOOOW reader). Solid fantasy detective stories with a bit of the pulp.

Books! The emperor’s new wife #cbr4

Published November 3, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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I loved Michelle Moran’s Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution, which I believe was her first book. The main character was believable and not overwrought, and the story held true to the events of the French Revolution without excruciating detail. I also enjoyed her Heretic Queen. Her latest novel, The Second Empress: A Novel of Napoleon’s Court, was on my anticipated releases list, but definitely not my favorite.

The story follows the adventures of Napoleon after he has become conqueror to the time of his fall. Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria becomes Napoleon’s second wife after he divorces Josephine (well, technically before he divorces, but whatever). She is forced into the marriage and oh so unhappy, but makes do. The chapters alternate between three perspectives: Marie Louise, Pauline, Napoleon’s selfish nymphomaniac sister, and Paul, Pauline’s Haitian courtier.

To be honest, I hate this, let’s call it, Phillipa Gregory “technique” that pervades so much historical fiction.  The alternating chapters never give you enough time with any one character. They feel like coverups for underdeveloped characters and laziness in storytelling. Michelle Moran has done much better so I was disappointed to see the book laid out that way.

While the novel is called the Second Empress, the only character with any real depth or development is Paul, the courtier. I wish Moran had stayed with him and written a different novel. Overall not my favorite, no Madame Tussaud, but a quick read (even I finished this one in four days).

Books! Is your father a werewolf or just mad? #cbr4

Published October 27, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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I am down with a good historical fiction about a strong woman, and The Book of Madness and Cures by Regina O’Melveny seemed to fit that bill. Set in the late 16th century, our “strong-willed Venetian woman” (according to the publisher) is shunned by the medical community in which she so longs to participate after her doctor father goes wandering off on some journey to … do something … write his book of illness I think (or is it her book?). Who knows. Anyway, 10 years later she gets a mysterious letter from her father in which he tells her, “Don’t follow me!” She of course follows his path and chaos ensues. Well, chaos for a 16th century woman.

I tried to like this book and there are some things I found attractive. First, as she is traveling she decides to continue her father’s work (or is it hers?) by creating entries on various maladies (mostly affecting women). Many of these passages are quite lovely and inventive. Second, the language is beautiful. You can tell that the writer is a poet. Writing like this points to O’Melveny’s love of the language:

“Sea people, then. Well, come in. Lake people aren’t so different. We both share the flux of the water, though we lake dwellers keep more to ourselves, I think. It’s the knowing of a place bound by mountains. While your water seems without end.”

That is a beautiful passage. It is gorgeous and seems “important”. But it is so not how people talk at any time period in history. Because of the strangeness of the dialogue and the bizarre malady descriptions, I kept thinking that these must be extended metaphors for something.  When reading works with heavy symbolism sometimes you can overlook the things you don’t understand and just listen to the language or story, but I could never get over that hump with this novel. I found it hard to trust the story or connect with the characters. First, the journey seems completely artificial. A very intelligent woman goes on a journey and doesn’t start with where her father was last seen, which is actually close to Italy, but instead follows her father’s exact footsteps that he took over 10 years. On the journey people keep telling her that they haven’t seen her father in years. Well, of course they haven’t!  Second, I started feeling disconnect in the references to the lost father. I kept wondering if he was a werewolf and I had inadvertently picked up historical fantasy again. Or was he just mad? Or was being a werewolf a metaphor for madness? What is it?

It is never a good sign when I am reading and the primary question I ask myself is “What the hell is going on?” Beautifully written, but not one I will ever pick up again.

Books! The very long life of George F. Kennan #cbr4

Published August 25, 2012 reading 2 Comments
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Sadly it looks like I won’t make my goal of 52 books this year for Cannonball Read. I might still be able to read close to that number (maybe) but I don’t know that I can force out all of the reviews I have let slide. This book, in my opinion, should count for 3 or 4 books though!

As an ex-Political Scientists I’ve read Kennan’s X article in Foreign Affairs several times. The article argues for an approach to the Soviet Union that would contain its expansive tendencies. This later became “containment” and official policy of the United States, a slight distortion as he was arguing primarily for diplomatic containment and not military.  Kennan’s ideas and writings were complex and, as John Lewis Gaddis in George F. Kennan: An American Life shows, sometimes contradictory, which tended to lead to Kennan’s own frustration when his ideas were put into policy.

Gaddis succeeds at showing us the full picture of the man through this expansive biography. He had access to all of Kennan’s writing, letters, and diaries and even the family. At times I wished for more discussion of the events of the day, but this is again a biography and not a history.

Although the work isn’t for the casual Cold War era reader, it is worth the effort if you want to know more about Kennan’s development as a public intellectual and his influence on the events of the 20th century.  Gaddis has created a biography of which Kennan could be proud.

Books! Wexford ain’t no Wallander #cbr4

Published July 31, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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It is so hard to write a review of a book I didn’t quite like. I’m still going strong for Cannonball Read though and should probably persevere. I picked up The Vault by Ruth Rendell randomly one day thinking it looked good from the cover and the jacket description. I know nothing about Ruth Rendell other than she writes popular mystery novels and is very British. From the sound of the descriptions her other novels might suit my tastes more (i.e., “dark and twisty”).

A rich, bratty couple renovating their fancy cottage in London discovers three bodies hidden in a small vault under their house. The “vault” is an unfinished basement that at some point was walled-over. Inspector Wexford is a retired detective who is asked to assist in figuring out this mystery. I was never entirely clear why he was involved as a civilian. Maybe because novelists seem to enjoy resurrecting their retired detectives for a final go. He helps by interviewing random people with minimal connections to the case and through his hard thinking and jaunts across London suddenly all becomes clear.

Wexford at one point describes his irritatingly immature daughter this way: “She made exasperation noises, sighs, and the kind of sound that accompanies the casting up of eyes.”  This could have easily described me as a reader unfortunately. Wexford uses strange leaps of logic to connect pieces of evidence that serve the goal of the book well (solve the mystery), but don’t ring true to this reader. For example, when they find a piece of paper with a French word and the name Francine they start looking for all the French-speaking women in London named Francine of a possible age range! Really?!? The London police have enough time on their hands to go after this random goose-chase, especially for people who have been dead for two or more years? At one point even Detective Superintendent Thomas Ede, the officer who reached out to Wexford, seems to tire of these random attempts to piece together a puzzle. In the end Wexford wins, but like his daughter, I just truly couldn’t care.

The only bright point for me was the description of London. Rendell goes to great lengths to describe the neighborhoods in which Wexford travels. A fan might find it fun to travel Wexford’s path.

Not my mystery novel. Might be yours. Check out Wallander first.

Books! Wanted a duck and got a swan #cbr4

Published July 26, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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The first Peter Carey novel I ever read ended up thrown against the wall in anger. That was Oscar and Lucinda. Actually it is the only book I’ve ever thrown against the wall. Not because it was bad, but because I cared so much for the characters. Funny then that the main character of his new novel, a woman name Catherine Gehrig, does the same with a nineteenth century manuscript. Unfortunately Catherine is not nearly as endearing as Oscar or Lucinda, but I was willing to overlook her faults considering the circumstances.

The Chemistry of Tears opens with the death of Catherine’s married lover, Matthew, and we watch as she mourns, cries, and generally self-destructs, which leads to the incident with the manuscript. She works as a conservator at the Swinburne museum and to assist with her healing, her boss gives her a new project, the re-creation of an automaton (we later find out a swan). Starting the project she unpacks the notebooks of Henry Brandling, the patron who commissioned a robot duck from some shady characters in the German Black Forest. In reading these notebooks, even after stealing them from the museum, Catherine begins the process of healing and recovery … for the most part.

I’ve read several of Carey’s books and this was definitely the most difficult to finish. Catherine’s actions in her grief and self-pity are sometimes distasteful. In addition Henry’s story is a bit convoluted and confusing. I had to re-read several passages to make sure I understood the plot. Overall Carey’s themes of the constitutive elements of life and death and the lingering impact of the Industrial Revolution give the novel its heart. The quote below is one of the most beautiful paragraphs in the book as it describes this imitation of life:

“Every eerie moment was smooth as a living thing, a snake, an eel, a swan of course. We stood in awe and, no matter how many hundred hours we had worked on it, this swan was never, not for a moment, familiar, but uncanny, sinuous, lithe, supple, winding, graceful. As it twisted to look into one’s eyes, its own stayed darkest ebony until, at that point when the sun caught the black wood, they blazed. It had no sense of touch. It had no brain. It was as glorious as God.”

We imagine this imitation of life while in the background is the indescribable horror of the Gulf oil spill that Catherine’s assistant watches unceasingly on a webcam. If the book has a failing it is that Carey is trying to do too much, prove too much, so that some of the story becomes muddled and confused. But then again, is that an imitation of life?

If you are using Nancy Pearl’s Rule of Four to find a new book (which I just read today), Carey’s doorway is most certainly language with plot, characters, and setting mixed somewhere in there.  It is a beautiful book, but it may take some dedication and perseverance. Good qualities in a conservator.

Books! Running with Murakami #cbr4

Published July 5, 2012 reading 4 Comments
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I have a hard time playing the favorites game. My absolute favorite book might depend on the genre or the time in my life I read it or my mood. However, I can say that Murakami is probably one author whose works I have enjoyed most consistently. I haven’t read everything, but Kafka on the Shore was my starting point and I’ve tried to slowly read through his works since then. I say slowly because I don’t want to binge read Murakami and suddenly have nothing left. Lately though I’ve started building up quite a pile of his books and have needed to work through them. What I Talk about When I Talk about Running is one I’ve had laying around for a while and I finally decided to tackle it.

I say tackle because I’m neither particularly interested in running nor keen on reading books abut running. I like running, but I’ve been stuck in the middle of a Couch to 2K for about 2 years (didn’t even know this state had a name until a month ago). I bought it because it is Murakami and he is a pretty interesting guy. Not many people just decide in their 20′s to open a jazz club and then when they turn 33 just as quickly decide to become a writer. Around his Jesus year he also decided to become a runner. And there you have it. Now he is a marathoner and triathelete who writes amazing books that deftly combine the mundane and the surreal.

What I Talk whose title is based on a Raymond Carver short story collection called What We Talk about When We Talk about Love chronicles Murakami’s path to becoming a runner and his preparation for the 2005 New York City marathon. He reflects somewhat on his writing, but for the most part he talks about running. This may disappoint some Murakami fans, but as he describes his obsession with running we see the familiar themes of alienation and independence, especially when he runs the mythological marathon route from Marathon to Athens and later during an ultramarathon in Hokkaido, Japan. I can’t even imagine the drive someone would need to push through so many solitary miles and so much blank time.

Expect a well-written memoir/travelogue about running from one of our contemporary treasures. Not my favorite Murakami ever but it would be difficult to choose just one anyway.

The halfway mark and The Prometheus Deception #cbr4

Published June 27, 2012 reading 2 Comments
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We’ve almost hit the halfway point for the Cannonball Read IV. I’m crazy behind though. I’ve read 17 books and only reviewed 12. While that is good for me, I’m nowhere near 52. But the summer and vacation starts today, so here’s to some great reads in the next month!

The Prometheus Deception by Robert Ludlum has nothing to do with the marketing campaign for Prometheus as my friend recently asked me when he saw me reading the book. I don’t quite know how to interpret that question because I never saw the marketing campaign. The movie I enjoyed, however. But this book has nothing to do with the movie. It is an addition to the Ludlum spy canon complete with turns and twists that will make your head spin much like Linda Blair in The Exorcist (i.e., not in a good way).

As the story begins, the main character, Nick Bryson, is a master spy working for a super secret spy agency called the Directorate, but he is asked to resign by the company for some vague reasons about age and judgement. He assumes a new identity as a dowdy professor and five years later all hell breaks lose when the CIA comes to recruit him to bring down the Directorate (for some additionally vague reasons). After some strange occurrences, betrayals, and more, Nick begins to question who his friends are and who is telling the truth.

As this sounds, it is the typical Ludlum story. Now, I am definitely a fan of the Bourne series, so that’s one reason why I picked this up. In that series Ludlum handles well the interplay between betrayal and truth. In this book the main character just seems amazingly gullible. A bit too gullible for a master spy. Actually his willingness to believe whomever has his attention in a moment makes him a particularly frightening spy as he is killing a lot of people and blowing a lot of stuff up. Let’s just say this character and the storyline are not the top of Ludlum’s game, and considering this is one of his last (or his last novel), then the failings make more sense. Quick summer read though.

As spy stories go, Ludlum tends to be extremely detailed and technical in his writing. If you like very detailed descriptions of how to pull off a particular heist (and who doesn’t?!), he is a great storyteller for you. If you are looking for a more nuanced character, try the Bourne books.

Witches, vampires, daemons, oh my! #cbr4

Published May 27, 2012 reading 3 Comments
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My twelfth Cannonball Read was A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I found it in a random browse through Overdrive and it sounded pretty decent. Hey, I like witches and books. And it is decent. It could have been so much better though.

A Discovery of Witches is about a 30-something academic who represses her witchy abilities because of her parents’ tragic death when she was was seven. She lives in a world populated by four types of creatures who are not really allowed to co-mingle: humans, witches, vampires, and daemons. After meeting a mysterious stranger, hijinks ensue including almost getting killed twice and a possible war between the creatures.

The things I like about this book:

  1. The main character, Diana, starts out strong and intelligent putting Bella and all of her ilk to shame.
  2. The house in which the witches live is the coolest thing ever. It is probably the most clever part of the whole book. I really hope the supposed upcoming movie takes the house seriously because the movie will suck if not.
  3. It has a cat.
  4. Daemons are awesome.
  5. One of the funniest moments involves the cat trying to give a vampire a mouse offering. Good times.

The things I hate about this book:

  1. After discovering the mysterious stranger, Diana turns into a lovesick moron. She becomes dumb. And she does dumb things to move the plot along. I hate when female characters do this!
  2. The mysterious stranger remarks so much about Diana’s bravery that I start to wonder if it is mockery.
  3. The writing can be good and then suddenly it becomes wretched. Here is an example: “When the last of the water left me, I felt scooped out like a pumpkin, and freezing cold, too.” So maybe that’s not the worst of it, but it can get much worse.
  4. GET A FREAKING EDITOR! Why the snausages is this book over 500 pages long? It makes no sense. Edit this baby.
  5. It needs more daemons. I got a fever, and the only prescription is more daemons. And cats.

If you like fantasy, this is a decent summertime read. It has some really slow moments (hence the need for an editor) and certainly is not a high-paced member of the fantasy genre. Keep in mind it is the first of a trilogy (gugh) that has not been published yet (more gughs). It also reads more like a romance fantasy than a mystery fantasy. But I was engaged enough with the story to keep going through 500 pages and I could read it while doing laundry. Hey, reading is what matters!

It is available through the GSO PL’s Overdrive.

just in time for the olympics #cbr4

Published May 27, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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I’ve had London: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd sitting on my shelf for many years and the pages had started to yellow. I don’t know why I picked it up, but I remembered that the Olympics were in London after I started reading. Great timing!

London is one of those historical novels that follows a family through the millenia. With a different storyline in each chapter, he traces the paths of several families resident in the city. These works are fun for their historical breadth. London in particular hits the highlights of the city’s history from the first Roman site to the building of the Tower of London to the Great Fire and up to the Blitz. Some of the chapters I enjoyed most were The Whorehouse, Hampton Court, God’s Fire, London’s Fire, and The Suffragette either for the plots or for particular characters.

The difficulty for a book like this must be balancing the “here’s the history” part with “here’s the story”. Rutherfurd does a pretty decent job moving between the historical parts and the characters’ stories. While not perfect, he pulls off these transitions much more effectively than others I’ve read.

I have two problems with this type of novel though. One is that the character development is nonexistent (for the most part). You really don’t have much time with the characters. Plus the focus of the chapter is developing the plot, so sometimes the characters get lost in the mix. Once you start to believe in a character, they are dead and you’ve moved on to the next group. If you read the book knowing this will happen, you are much more likely to enjoy it.

Second, in these types of novels the author often tries hard to connect the generations through some sign that all the generations share. In London it is a shock of white hair and webbed fingers (wtf?!) that passes through the generations of one family. Saylor in Roma used a medallion that was passed down through the generations. In some ways the physical object seems more believable than TWO genetic mutations. I just don’t understand why this is necessary. It adds nothing to the story to see a character suddenly resemble one from many years ago. Rutherfurd tries to interweave this into the different stories to show the connections between the generations, but it never really succeeds in my opinion.

Overall this chronicle of the history of London is a great summertime read if you enjoy history but don’t mind the problems of historical fiction. Keep in mind that it is over 1100 pages long (therefore should count for like 5 CBR4 books!). If you want to read this book in time for the London Olympics, get started now! I have a copy available at Paperback Swap.

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