Reading List 2007
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queenofthorns reading list, I thought I'd look back at the mixed (fairly small) bag of books that I read in 2007. There's no particular order.
Homebody – Orson Scott Card, Fiction, **1/2
I liked the premise more than the novel itself. I particularly liked the metaphor behind the way that emotional baggage/damage was tied into becoming trapped in the haunted house. But I found the dropped plot lines to be annoying and the love story entirely too convenient and wholly unconvincing. Still, I think I liked the story more than not.
Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor by Anthony Everitt, Non-fiction, *****
Decided to read this one because of the HBO series "Rome". It's a very readable biography that felt like a balanced view of a fascinating subject.
Stardust by Neil Gaiman, Fiction, ****
A loopy adult fairytale (that they made into a movie that I haven't seen). Overall, it's a fun and entertaining book with Gaiman's typically wry point of view. However, the beginning of the story is sllllloooooowwww. It took me forever to dredge through the first third of the book. I kept putting it down and going weeks before picking it back up again. However, somewhere around midway, it became very entertaining (if a bit ADHD in the way it trips between storylines). All in all I give it a thumbs up, but it has its slow and unnecessary parts.
Lamb: The Gospel According to Bif by Christopher Moore, fiction, **
I was interested by the premise, which was that a childhood pal of Jesus is brought back by an angel to write a new gospel. Said childhood pal has quite the irreverent view of Jesus Christ. But, while the premise seemed entertaining, the story's humor was decidedly bland, which is either surprising considering the potentially controversial nature of the story or totally unsurprising given the potentially controversial nature of the story. In the end, the story was slow and surprisingly dull. Well, I say the end, but the truth is, despite multiple attempts I never actually made it to the end of the book. The book isn't awful, but I wasn't particularly engaged by it. I was amused by the angel who became addicted to soap operas, however.
From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe, non-fiction, ****
I'm not sure how I missed reading this one. In college, everyone in the architecture department seemed to have read this, but I didn't. Anyway, I finally got around to it and found it to be interesting. I think he does have some points to make in regards to Modern architecture, but I also think he perhaps carries it a bit too far. That said, I found it to be a somewhat valid criticism of the profession, just carried a tad bit too far. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, fiction, ***1/2
A funny book which beneath the humor is quite depressing. I know they made a movie of it (another movie I haven't seen), but I gather that the book and the movie have different endings and that the book has the more depressing but realistic one. I guess what's depressing is that I've met people who are similar enough to the people in the novel that there's the realization that there really are people just like this. The story itself is mostly amusing and a light, quick read. But there are depressing conclusions to be drawn from it and the heroine can at times be annoyingly passive.
Death Masks (Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher, Fiction, ****1/4
Probably my favorite of the Dresden Files that I've read so far. Harry's hired to find the Shroud of Turin after it was stolen, a vampire wants a duel, and demons want to tempt Harry's soul. I enjoyed this Dresden File and the ending holds lots of potential for the series to come (which I'm sure those who have read more of the series than I have know more about, but I like to remain unspoiled).
Blood Rites (Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher, Fiction, ***3/4
Vampires making porn... sounds like an idea that fandom came up with! Heh. Not as dark as Death Masks (in my memory, but it's been months since I've read either novel), but it has the return of Thomas the vampire and I have a soft spot for Thomas.
On Writing by Stephen King, non-fiction, *****
Wonderful book. While the book is indeed about the craft of writing, it's also an autobiography that King writes about himself. He gives his own view on writing as well as information on his own struggles when writing his novels (as well as his struggles with drugs and the aftermath of the near fatal car accident a few years ago). I highly recommend this book.
Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir, non-fiction, ***
As always, where British Royalty is concerned, Alison Weir is an interesting biographer. It was interesting to get more information on Edward as he's always eclipsed by the (admittedly more interesting) ladies - Elizabeth I, "Bloody" Mary, and Jane Grey. Given that Weir has more complete books on the ladies, this book is a bit redundant but competent.
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, fiction, *
I wrote a wrote a scathing review of this book at the time I finished reading it. Quite simply, I hated it. Characters all spoke with the same voice (which is to say they only spoke to give exposition dumps), eras were indistinguishable, coincidences were ridiculous and Dracula's evil master plan was make the historian catalog his library! Ooh! Scary! Although, what else could one expect from a Dracula who, I don't think, actually killed anyone in the entire book. If he did it was part of his "brilliant" plan to frighten people off from writing his history by terrorizing random bystanders rather than doing the obvious and killing off the painfully slow and stupid protagonists. My inner Spike was bitching the entire time I read the book about what an idiot this Vlad was. So, in the end... I hated it.
Between the Lines: The subtle elements of fiction by Jessica Page Morrell, non-fiction, ****
It's yet another book on writing, but I rather liked this one. It didn't cover the same material of all the others and what it did cover, I thought it covered well.
Pompeii by Robert Harris, fiction, **1/2
Anything I might say about the novel as a whole is easily trumped by its ending. OMG, the hero and heroine survive the explosion of Vesuvius by climbing into the aqueduct!11!!! I mean, really, WTF?! There's some interesting things in the book. Interesting information and characterizations (Pliny the Elder was the most interesting) but then there's that ending.
Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England by Alison Weir, non-fiction, **3/4
When reading this book, it continually struck me that this history begs for someone to write an epic slash romance for Edward II and Piers Gaveston that is also sympathetic to Queen Isabella. Poking around I see that there have been a couple of books that choose to focus either on the Edward II/Piers Gaveston story while vilifying Isabella, or the complete reverse where Isabella is shown as the poor misused wife while vilifying Edward II and Piers Gaveston. It seems to me that there should be someone somewhere who could write a historical novel that was sympathetic in some degree to all three as, buried beneath Alison Weir's biography, there lies an interpretation that abuse begets revenge begets misery, and that all three suffered because of it. I agree with several of the Amazon reviews about Weir's biography that some of her wording comes off as homophobic and it bothered me when reading it, but I am fascinated by the story buried beneath Weir's interpretations. Edward II seemed like a gay man judged incredibly harshly in his age. And it continually struck me that incidents that Weir interprets as Gaveston's arrogance (which, to be fair were also judged as arrogance by Gaveston's contemporaries) can also be interpreted as his being romantically jealous. If one took the stance that Gaveston was also a gay man genuinely in love with Edward, it puts a different spin on Gaveston's inclusion of himself in Edward's and Isabella's wedding. It also reinterprets his appropriation of Isabella's jewels. And, though I could be wrong, it seemed that most of the "villainy" attributed to Gaveston was his "corruption" of the King, which by a more modern view, isn't a corruption at all. It seemed to me that it's not difficult to come to a conclusion that Edward and Gaveston were deeply, epically in love and that Edward's degeneration into revenge after Gaveston's execution makes sense. Now, I think it's also easy to see Edward's other lover, Hugh Despenser, in a villainous (and misogynist) light who opportunistically used Edward's desire for revenge leading, eventually, to both his and Edward II's unhappy ends. It didn't seem that Isabella broke with the King until Despenser came along. And it was Despensers abuse of Isabella that led to her falling in love (and into having an affair) with Roger Mortimer... which is what led to Edward II's loss of the throne. Uh... okay, back to the book. I have many criticisms with Weirs biography both in the tone (I can see where there is arguably homophobia in some of her interpretations) and her pacing (the middle of the book draaaaaaaaaaaagggggsssss), but the history itself is fascinating and tragic. It would make a great historical novel if someone could write one sympathetic to both Edward and Isabella as they both seem a bit tragic to me.
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, fiction, ****1/2
Fun quest. There are some similarities between this book and Gaiman's "Stardust" and "Anansi Boys", but the plot is tighter than "Stardust" (but not as succinct as "Anansi Boys"). Still, it's an enjoyable urban fantasy that wasn't as dark as I would have anticipated (though where I originally got the impression that the story was particularly dark, I don't know). The book meanders a bit, but all in all, I enjoyed its hero and his quest (as well as the darker implication that maybe he's just crazy). I would recommend this one.
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, fiction, ***1/2
Okay, I totally admit that I bought the book after seeing the ads for the Will Smith movie (which I haven't seen). The book is actually an anthology, but I haven't read the other short stories. As for the story of title I liked the twist at the end that the hero is a "legend" as a legendary monster. Just as vampires are legendary monsters, in a world of vampires, the slayer of vampires becomes a legendary monster. So, the title "I Am Legend" is a mislead in that, to the last survivors -- the vampires and the vampire hybrids -- the last man is the monster.
Cell by Stephen King, fiction, ****
I didn't read these two books back to back, in fact there were months between reading these two books, but writing up this list, it strikes me that there's lots of overlap between "I Am Legend" and "Cell" (and Stephen King even admits to having been a fan of the book "I Am Legend"). Cell starts with a hero (anti-hero) who is a comic book artist who has sold his first comic on the day of a huge terrorist attack/apocalypse. It was painfully clear that Cell is post 9/11 because the description in the wake of the terrorist attack has some of that "feel" to it. However, this is fantasy and so for all the visceral pain, this isn't a real terrorist attack and it's never revealed "who" did this (which I read as a criticism of the book on Amazon, but which I don't think matters. The "who did this?" isn't the point of the novel. It's dealing with the consequences of the world as we know it, ending. And it is fantasy because, like "I Am Legend", the end of the world results in hordes of zombies (and in Cell it's living zombies while in I Am Legend it's some form of living vampire). The band of characters followed in Cell is decidedly smaller than in books like "The Stand". There are only a handful, but they all are sympathetic and very much non-super human. In the Amazon reviews I read some criticism of the ending of the book, but like the criticism of King not identifying who released the the "pulse", I don't agree with the criticism of the end of the novel. I understand why King cut off leaving the ambiguity that he did. If the hero had saved his son in the end, there would be those who would accuse the ending of being saccharine. And if he didn't save his son, there would be those who would think the book pointless. Leaving it in question at the end, is really more a test for the reader than for the writer. He could have easily chosen one answer or the other. It's there to be chosen. So it's up to the reader -- did his last ditch effort save his son, or not? You choose. It's a "lady or the tiger" choice. In the end, I enjoyed this one not because of a new or particularly inventive plot but because of sympathetic characterization.
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard, non-fiction, ****
Non-fiction that reads a great deal like fiction. In 1912, having recently survived an assassination attempt and lost the election for his 3rd term as President, Teddy Roosevelt chose to go to the wilds of Brazil with his son Kermit and famed Brazilian explorer Candido Rondon to chart a tributary of the Amazon called the River of Doubt. Along the way they experienced hardship, malnourishment, a murder, an execution, waterfalls, rapids, and Roosevelt himself comes perilously close to death from infection and malaria. Hard to believe that an ex-President ever did anything this dangerous and ill-advised, but he did it. Interesting read. (Explorers, they be crazy).
(I also read "This is Your Brain on Music," which explored how our brains process music and how music evokes emotional connections, but I was sick when I read the last few chapters and I should read them again because cold medicine seems to have completely wiped those chapters from my memory. Since I can't remember the conclusions of the book, I'm not really counting it as fully read.)
queenofthorns reading list, I thought I'd look back at the mixed (fairly small) bag of books that I read in 2007. There's no particular order.Homebody – Orson Scott Card, Fiction, **1/2
I liked the premise more than the novel itself. I particularly liked the metaphor behind the way that emotional baggage/damage was tied into becoming trapped in the haunted house. But I found the dropped plot lines to be annoying and the love story entirely too convenient and wholly unconvincing. Still, I think I liked the story more than not.
Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor by Anthony Everitt, Non-fiction, *****
Decided to read this one because of the HBO series "Rome". It's a very readable biography that felt like a balanced view of a fascinating subject.
Stardust by Neil Gaiman, Fiction, ****
A loopy adult fairytale (that they made into a movie that I haven't seen). Overall, it's a fun and entertaining book with Gaiman's typically wry point of view. However, the beginning of the story is sllllloooooowwww. It took me forever to dredge through the first third of the book. I kept putting it down and going weeks before picking it back up again. However, somewhere around midway, it became very entertaining (if a bit ADHD in the way it trips between storylines). All in all I give it a thumbs up, but it has its slow and unnecessary parts.
Lamb: The Gospel According to Bif by Christopher Moore, fiction, **
I was interested by the premise, which was that a childhood pal of Jesus is brought back by an angel to write a new gospel. Said childhood pal has quite the irreverent view of Jesus Christ. But, while the premise seemed entertaining, the story's humor was decidedly bland, which is either surprising considering the potentially controversial nature of the story or totally unsurprising given the potentially controversial nature of the story. In the end, the story was slow and surprisingly dull. Well, I say the end, but the truth is, despite multiple attempts I never actually made it to the end of the book. The book isn't awful, but I wasn't particularly engaged by it. I was amused by the angel who became addicted to soap operas, however.
From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe, non-fiction, ****
I'm not sure how I missed reading this one. In college, everyone in the architecture department seemed to have read this, but I didn't. Anyway, I finally got around to it and found it to be interesting. I think he does have some points to make in regards to Modern architecture, but I also think he perhaps carries it a bit too far. That said, I found it to be a somewhat valid criticism of the profession, just carried a tad bit too far. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, fiction, ***1/2
A funny book which beneath the humor is quite depressing. I know they made a movie of it (another movie I haven't seen), but I gather that the book and the movie have different endings and that the book has the more depressing but realistic one. I guess what's depressing is that I've met people who are similar enough to the people in the novel that there's the realization that there really are people just like this. The story itself is mostly amusing and a light, quick read. But there are depressing conclusions to be drawn from it and the heroine can at times be annoyingly passive.
Death Masks (Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher, Fiction, ****1/4
Probably my favorite of the Dresden Files that I've read so far. Harry's hired to find the Shroud of Turin after it was stolen, a vampire wants a duel, and demons want to tempt Harry's soul. I enjoyed this Dresden File and the ending holds lots of potential for the series to come (which I'm sure those who have read more of the series than I have know more about, but I like to remain unspoiled).
Blood Rites (Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher, Fiction, ***3/4
Vampires making porn... sounds like an idea that fandom came up with! Heh. Not as dark as Death Masks (in my memory, but it's been months since I've read either novel), but it has the return of Thomas the vampire and I have a soft spot for Thomas.
On Writing by Stephen King, non-fiction, *****
Wonderful book. While the book is indeed about the craft of writing, it's also an autobiography that King writes about himself. He gives his own view on writing as well as information on his own struggles when writing his novels (as well as his struggles with drugs and the aftermath of the near fatal car accident a few years ago). I highly recommend this book.
Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir, non-fiction, ***
As always, where British Royalty is concerned, Alison Weir is an interesting biographer. It was interesting to get more information on Edward as he's always eclipsed by the (admittedly more interesting) ladies - Elizabeth I, "Bloody" Mary, and Jane Grey. Given that Weir has more complete books on the ladies, this book is a bit redundant but competent.
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, fiction, *
I wrote a wrote a scathing review of this book at the time I finished reading it. Quite simply, I hated it. Characters all spoke with the same voice (which is to say they only spoke to give exposition dumps), eras were indistinguishable, coincidences were ridiculous and Dracula's evil master plan was make the historian catalog his library! Ooh! Scary! Although, what else could one expect from a Dracula who, I don't think, actually killed anyone in the entire book. If he did it was part of his "brilliant" plan to frighten people off from writing his history by terrorizing random bystanders rather than doing the obvious and killing off the painfully slow and stupid protagonists. My inner Spike was bitching the entire time I read the book about what an idiot this Vlad was. So, in the end... I hated it.
Between the Lines: The subtle elements of fiction by Jessica Page Morrell, non-fiction, ****
It's yet another book on writing, but I rather liked this one. It didn't cover the same material of all the others and what it did cover, I thought it covered well.
Pompeii by Robert Harris, fiction, **1/2
Anything I might say about the novel as a whole is easily trumped by its ending. OMG, the hero and heroine survive the explosion of Vesuvius by climbing into the aqueduct!11!!! I mean, really, WTF?! There's some interesting things in the book. Interesting information and characterizations (Pliny the Elder was the most interesting) but then there's that ending.
Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England by Alison Weir, non-fiction, **3/4
When reading this book, it continually struck me that this history begs for someone to write an epic slash romance for Edward II and Piers Gaveston that is also sympathetic to Queen Isabella. Poking around I see that there have been a couple of books that choose to focus either on the Edward II/Piers Gaveston story while vilifying Isabella, or the complete reverse where Isabella is shown as the poor misused wife while vilifying Edward II and Piers Gaveston. It seems to me that there should be someone somewhere who could write a historical novel that was sympathetic in some degree to all three as, buried beneath Alison Weir's biography, there lies an interpretation that abuse begets revenge begets misery, and that all three suffered because of it. I agree with several of the Amazon reviews about Weir's biography that some of her wording comes off as homophobic and it bothered me when reading it, but I am fascinated by the story buried beneath Weir's interpretations. Edward II seemed like a gay man judged incredibly harshly in his age. And it continually struck me that incidents that Weir interprets as Gaveston's arrogance (which, to be fair were also judged as arrogance by Gaveston's contemporaries) can also be interpreted as his being romantically jealous. If one took the stance that Gaveston was also a gay man genuinely in love with Edward, it puts a different spin on Gaveston's inclusion of himself in Edward's and Isabella's wedding. It also reinterprets his appropriation of Isabella's jewels. And, though I could be wrong, it seemed that most of the "villainy" attributed to Gaveston was his "corruption" of the King, which by a more modern view, isn't a corruption at all. It seemed to me that it's not difficult to come to a conclusion that Edward and Gaveston were deeply, epically in love and that Edward's degeneration into revenge after Gaveston's execution makes sense. Now, I think it's also easy to see Edward's other lover, Hugh Despenser, in a villainous (and misogynist) light who opportunistically used Edward's desire for revenge leading, eventually, to both his and Edward II's unhappy ends. It didn't seem that Isabella broke with the King until Despenser came along. And it was Despensers abuse of Isabella that led to her falling in love (and into having an affair) with Roger Mortimer... which is what led to Edward II's loss of the throne. Uh... okay, back to the book. I have many criticisms with Weirs biography both in the tone (I can see where there is arguably homophobia in some of her interpretations) and her pacing (the middle of the book draaaaaaaaaaaagggggsssss), but the history itself is fascinating and tragic. It would make a great historical novel if someone could write one sympathetic to both Edward and Isabella as they both seem a bit tragic to me.
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, fiction, ****1/2
Fun quest. There are some similarities between this book and Gaiman's "Stardust" and "Anansi Boys", but the plot is tighter than "Stardust" (but not as succinct as "Anansi Boys"). Still, it's an enjoyable urban fantasy that wasn't as dark as I would have anticipated (though where I originally got the impression that the story was particularly dark, I don't know). The book meanders a bit, but all in all, I enjoyed its hero and his quest (as well as the darker implication that maybe he's just crazy). I would recommend this one.
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, fiction, ***1/2
Okay, I totally admit that I bought the book after seeing the ads for the Will Smith movie (which I haven't seen). The book is actually an anthology, but I haven't read the other short stories. As for the story of title I liked the twist at the end that the hero is a "legend" as a legendary monster. Just as vampires are legendary monsters, in a world of vampires, the slayer of vampires becomes a legendary monster. So, the title "I Am Legend" is a mislead in that, to the last survivors -- the vampires and the vampire hybrids -- the last man is the monster.
Cell by Stephen King, fiction, ****
I didn't read these two books back to back, in fact there were months between reading these two books, but writing up this list, it strikes me that there's lots of overlap between "I Am Legend" and "Cell" (and Stephen King even admits to having been a fan of the book "I Am Legend"). Cell starts with a hero (anti-hero) who is a comic book artist who has sold his first comic on the day of a huge terrorist attack/apocalypse. It was painfully clear that Cell is post 9/11 because the description in the wake of the terrorist attack has some of that "feel" to it. However, this is fantasy and so for all the visceral pain, this isn't a real terrorist attack and it's never revealed "who" did this (which I read as a criticism of the book on Amazon, but which I don't think matters. The "who did this?" isn't the point of the novel. It's dealing with the consequences of the world as we know it, ending. And it is fantasy because, like "I Am Legend", the end of the world results in hordes of zombies (and in Cell it's living zombies while in I Am Legend it's some form of living vampire). The band of characters followed in Cell is decidedly smaller than in books like "The Stand". There are only a handful, but they all are sympathetic and very much non-super human. In the Amazon reviews I read some criticism of the ending of the book, but like the criticism of King not identifying who released the the "pulse", I don't agree with the criticism of the end of the novel. I understand why King cut off leaving the ambiguity that he did. If the hero had saved his son in the end, there would be those who would accuse the ending of being saccharine. And if he didn't save his son, there would be those who would think the book pointless. Leaving it in question at the end, is really more a test for the reader than for the writer. He could have easily chosen one answer or the other. It's there to be chosen. So it's up to the reader -- did his last ditch effort save his son, or not? You choose. It's a "lady or the tiger" choice. In the end, I enjoyed this one not because of a new or particularly inventive plot but because of sympathetic characterization.
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard, non-fiction, ****
Non-fiction that reads a great deal like fiction. In 1912, having recently survived an assassination attempt and lost the election for his 3rd term as President, Teddy Roosevelt chose to go to the wilds of Brazil with his son Kermit and famed Brazilian explorer Candido Rondon to chart a tributary of the Amazon called the River of Doubt. Along the way they experienced hardship, malnourishment, a murder, an execution, waterfalls, rapids, and Roosevelt himself comes perilously close to death from infection and malaria. Hard to believe that an ex-President ever did anything this dangerous and ill-advised, but he did it. Interesting read. (Explorers, they be crazy).
(I also read "This is Your Brain on Music," which explored how our brains process music and how music evokes emotional connections, but I was sick when I read the last few chapters and I should read them again because cold medicine seems to have completely wiped those chapters from my memory. Since I can't remember the conclusions of the book, I'm not really counting it as fully read.)
