Tag Archives: book reviews

The Book of Unholy Mischief by Elle Newmark

Posted by melydia on May 8, 2012 None comments

The Book of Unholy Mischief by Elle Newmark: The 15th century is drawing to a close, and Luciano finds his life as a thief on the streets of Venice abruptly ended by the chef to the Doge, who takes him in as his apprentice. Meantime, the city is all astir about a mysterious book, said to contain untold secrets, spells, and other dangerous information. As he struggles to determine just how much his master knows about this book, Luciano sneaks food to his streetrat friends, witnesses the political machinations of assorted factions, and attempts to court a nun. It’s actually a fairly decent piece of historical fiction, but I have a soft spot for both Venice and that particular time period, so I may be biased.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman

Posted by melydia on May 4, 2012 None comments

The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman (unabridged audiobook read by Anton Lesser; 6.5 hours on 6 discs): Sally Lockhart, recently orphaned, finds herself suddenly embroiled in a complicated plot wherein multiple people want to either kill her or save her. There are guns, and opium, and diaries, and shipwrecks, and over all it’s a pretty good whodunit. A little confusing at times, sure, but full of delightfully memorable characters.

A note on the audio: Lesser is simply marvelous. Seriously: he’s so good that I may go out of my way to listen to other books he reads, even if they aren’t normally my sort of thing. He’s just that excellent.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Posted by melydia on May 1, 2012 None comments

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (unabridged audiobook read by Doug Ordunio; 16 hrs 21 min on 13 discs): This book aims to answer the question of why Eurasia became such a world power and dominated other nations. The historical (and racist) answer was that there was some inherent difference in the people of those lands, but this book goes into explicit detail on why this is clearly not the case. Rather, it boils down to a large number of factors dealing with crop and livestock domestication, climate, and geographic accessibility. There’s a lot of truly englightening information gathered here, but the text is quite dense, and quite difficult to digest quickly. It’s not a casual beach read, but certainly well worth picking up.

A note on the audio: This is a difficult book to earread, as the narrator is very monotone and yet also puts emphasis on unexpected words. Having to decipher the words through the jarring inflection made it much harder to digest the already dense information. If you want to read this one, stick with the paper version.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Walpurgis III by Mike Resnick

Posted by melydia on April 27, 2012 None comments

Walpurgis III by Mike Resnick: A lot of Resnick books are about a super criminal being hunted by a super bounty hunter/assassin in the far future, and this book is no exception. Luckily, this is the sort of story he tells very well. The trouble here is that the criminal (Conrad Bland) fancies himself Satan incarnate, intent on killing everything and everyone in his path. Which would be fine – his quotes at the beginning of each chapter are often scandalously amusing – but he’s decided to base himself on the planet Walpurgis, a haven for a large number of Satanic religions. This is where things get a little silly. Told from the alternating viewpoints of the assassin (Jericho) as he attempts to find Bland, and the chief of police (John Sable) as he tracks down Jericho for killing random civilians in his jurisdiction. There’s a little bit of “who’s more evil, the man who kills compulsively or the one who does it emotionlessly as a means to an end,” but this is overshadowed by the focus on the fairly ridiculous religious practices of the assorted sects of Satan-worshippers. I guess if you’re easily shocked and titillated, this might be a delightfully scandalous read, but I could have skipped this one and been none the worse for wear.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris

Posted by melydia on April 20, 2012 2 comments

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris (unabridged audiobook read by David Sedaris, Elaine Stritch, Dylan Baker and Sian Phillips; 3 hrs on 3 discs): These stories are kind of…awful. Not like poorly written – they’re quite well done, as far as that goes – but like, um, awful. Violent and mean-spirited and horrifying and depressing and generally unpleasant. I honestly am not even sure how many of them were supposed to be funny, something I’ve never had difficulty discerning with any of Sedaris’s nonfiction. The limerick at the end of “The Sick Rat and the Healthy Rat” got a bit of a chuckle out of me, but in general I did not enjoy this collection at all.

A note on the audio: Despite the stories not being my cup of tea, all four narrators were brilliant. I was especially glad to hear Baker, as I’d enjoyed his reading of another book ages ago. Funny how if you listen to enough audiobooks you start remembering readers.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Beginner’s Luck by Laura Pedersen

Posted by melydia on April 17, 2012 None comments

Beginner’s Luck by Laura Pedersen: When high school and her ginormous family get to be too much for her, Hallie drops out and gets a job as a yard person for the rather eccentric Stockton family. Here she meets kooky aging activist Olivia; the Judge, her husband suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease; her fabulous son Bernard who deals in antiques; and Gil, Bernard’s relatively sane husband. (And a chimp, but that’s not important right now.) Though a longtime and pretty successful gambler, Hallie soon finds herself spending all her time with the hospitable (and often very, very funny) Stocktons. This is not a book I would have picked up had it not landed in my hands courtesy of a generous BookCrosser, but I’m so glad I did. The characters were brilliant, the plot more or less believable (I’m still not convinced putting money in someone else’s parking meter is actually against the law), and perhaps most importantly, it made me want to put forth more effort toward making my house a home. Definitely a good beach read.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

Posted by melydia on April 13, 2012 None comments

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross: Back in the Middle Ages there was a popular legend of a 9th century woman who, disguised as a man, became Pope. Whether or not you believe this to be the truth doesn’t matter much, because the story of this brave and intelligent woman is engaging regardless. I loved learning about all the strange superstitions and infuriating prejudices. Joan’s own journey captured my heart as well. Excellent historical fiction.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

e: The Story of a Number by Eli Maor

Posted by melydia on April 10, 2012 1 comments

“e”: The Story of a Number by Eli Maor: Like its more famous cousin pi, e is an irrational number that shows up in unexpected places all over mathematics. It also has a much more recent history, not appearing on the scene until the 16th century. My favorite parts of this book were the historical anecdotes such as the competitive Bernoullis and the Nerwton-Leibniz cross-Channel calculus feud. Unfortunately, this math history text is much heavier on the math than the history, including detailed descriptions of limits, derivatives, integrals, and imaginary numbers. The trouble with this large number of equationsis that if you’re already familiar with the concepts you’ll be doing a lot of skimming, but if the subject is confusing then reading this book will probably not give you any new insights. In short, as much as I normally enjoy books about math and science, this particular one felt too much like a textbook. Recommended only for those folks with a very strong love for the calculus and related topics.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Evermore by Alyson Noel

Posted by melydia on April 6, 2012 1 comments

Evermore by Alyson Noel (unabridged audiobook read by Katie Schorr; 8 hours on 7 discs): After surviving the car crash that killed the rest of her family, 16-year-old Ever gains the abilities to hear thoughts and see auras. Damen is the ridiculously hot new guy in school who catches Ever’s attention when she discovers he alone is immune to her telepathy. Comparisons to Twilight are inevitable, but unlike Bella, Ever has both a soul and a backbone. She doesn’t let Damen or anyone else walk all over her, and she genuinely cares about her family and friends. I had fun with this one, amused by some of the teenage silliness and intrigued by the speculations on immortality and reincarnation. In fact, Damen and Ever’s relationship was possibly the least interesting part. My favorite character was Riley, Ever’s dead little sister who still visits almost every day. I don’t know that I’ll necessarily read the rest of the series, for fear that it will focus too narrowly on the OMG-eternal wuv between Ever and Damen, but I definitely enjoyed this story.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Posted by melydia on April 3, 2012 2 comments

Atonement by Ian McEwan (unabridged audiobook read by Jill Tanner; 14 hours on 12 discs): I wanted, so desperately, to like this novel. But the fact of the matter is that I found it tremendously tedious. Though the back cover blurb talks of young Briony’s mistaken accusation regarding her cousin’s sexual assault and its horrible consequences, this event does not actually happen until about halfway through the book. The plot is buried in page after page of literary navel-gazing, and the “twist” ending put me off so much that I wondered why I’d wasted all that time getting there. I suspect the movie is tidier, assuming it leaves out such thrilling passages as Briony pondering the possibility of her not being the star of everyone else’s life story while watching her finger bend back and forth. The writing itself was fine – the description quite vivid, the language very, er, literary – but I found the whole thing tiresome and I frankly can’t understand why so many rave about this lengthy piece of rambling blather.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

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