Started: 20 August 2012
Finished: 24 August 2012
Pages: 384
Yet another in the long line of mysteries I'm reading this summer.
Louise Penney is new to me, and Still Life was her first novel. It was nominated for a number of prizes, including a British prize for best unpublished first mystery novel. One can certainly see why. Although the first chapter is overwritten, she gets over herself pretty quickly and puts together a nicely written murder in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.
Recommended, if you like this sort of thing.
Monday 27 August 2012
YVR by W.H. New
Started: July 14, 2012
Finished: August 24, 2012
Pages: 126
What is it with the poetry? Really, it's been a long time since I've read as many as 3 books of poetry in a year. Unfortunately, I liked where I started (Memory's Daughter) more than where I've ended up.
Which isn't to say that YVR was without merit. But I suspect that it would be difficult to read and enjoy without both a knowledge of Vancouver and a knowledge of Vancouver's history. Too much of the imagry and too many of the references would slip by you otherwise. But if it's our cup of tea, the book is a single poem to Vancouver, past, present, and future.
"This is a praise poem:
for the public school,
where cultures mix to become now,
the lion dance as everyday as
Robbie Burns and Halloween
for the idea of the Vancouver neighbourhood,
which no longer paints living space,
by colour, languge, filiation --
for crossing meaningless lines, for talking over
fences, for walker's right-of-way, for
public space to meet in, share --
We do not stop hearing the pipes and sitar,
cymbals, fiddles, dulcimer, drums --
But the past does not fix our children
sing their own songs, wear their own clothes --
If we choose, we will learn who we are
from the breath of our grandchildren:
Praise them -- "
(from "Main Street", pg. 96)
Finished: August 24, 2012
Pages: 126
What is it with the poetry? Really, it's been a long time since I've read as many as 3 books of poetry in a year. Unfortunately, I liked where I started (Memory's Daughter) more than where I've ended up.
Which isn't to say that YVR was without merit. But I suspect that it would be difficult to read and enjoy without both a knowledge of Vancouver and a knowledge of Vancouver's history. Too much of the imagry and too many of the references would slip by you otherwise. But if it's our cup of tea, the book is a single poem to Vancouver, past, present, and future.
"This is a praise poem:
for the public school,
where cultures mix to become now,
the lion dance as everyday as
Robbie Burns and Halloween
for the idea of the Vancouver neighbourhood,
which no longer paints living space,
by colour, languge, filiation --
for crossing meaningless lines, for talking over
fences, for walker's right-of-way, for
public space to meet in, share --
We do not stop hearing the pipes and sitar,
cymbals, fiddles, dulcimer, drums --
But the past does not fix our children
sing their own songs, wear their own clothes --
If we choose, we will learn who we are
from the breath of our grandchildren:
Praise them -- "
(from "Main Street", pg. 96)
Monday 20 August 2012
Blackout / All Clear by Connie Willis
Started: 12 August 2012
Finished: 17 August 2012
Pages: 491 / 641
Connie Willis conceived of this as a single book but her publishers insisted on publishing it in two installments. I wouldn't have minded so much if it hadn't meant that when I first read it I ended up waiting almost a month between the time I finished the first half (Blackout) and the time I tracked down and read the second (All Clear).
Those of my readers who read SF have almost certainly already read this. It won both the Hugo and Nebula awards in 2011: the Hugo because it's gripping and has great characterizations, humour, and heroism, and the Nebula because the quality of the writing.
Reading the book for a second time gave me the opportunity to observe the skill used to foreshadow, build suspense, reveal character, develop the plot, and develop the conceptual framework of time travel, all through the mechanism of multiple parallel storylines. It would have been trivial to have made a muddle of it, and just slightly less trivial to have come up with something banal. Instead Willis wrote something both entertaining and inspiring. If living through the London Blitz as a non-combatant wasn't like this, it should have been.
Finished: 17 August 2012
Pages: 491 / 641
Connie Willis conceived of this as a single book but her publishers insisted on publishing it in two installments. I wouldn't have minded so much if it hadn't meant that when I first read it I ended up waiting almost a month between the time I finished the first half (Blackout) and the time I tracked down and read the second (All Clear).
Those of my readers who read SF have almost certainly already read this. It won both the Hugo and Nebula awards in 2011: the Hugo because it's gripping and has great characterizations, humour, and heroism, and the Nebula because the quality of the writing.
Reading the book for a second time gave me the opportunity to observe the skill used to foreshadow, build suspense, reveal character, develop the plot, and develop the conceptual framework of time travel, all through the mechanism of multiple parallel storylines. It would have been trivial to have made a muddle of it, and just slightly less trivial to have come up with something banal. Instead Willis wrote something both entertaining and inspiring. If living through the London Blitz as a non-combatant wasn't like this, it should have been.
Saturday 11 August 2012
Points of Departure by Pat Murphy
Started: July 16th, 2012
Finished: August 4th, 2012
Pages: 316
Pat Murphy writes "speculative fiction" rather than "science fiction", and her stories generally include both an element of the fantastic and an element of ambiguity. How did that battered woman escape her abuser? Did the trekker find a yeti when he retraced the footsteps of his long-lost father? And is the derelict old woman who lives in a residential hotel crazy, or did she actually find part of an alien spacecraft. Who knows? As she says "The government does not want people to know about the alien spaceships. They deny all reports of UFOs and flying saucers. The government is good at hiding the things people would rather not see: the old men and women in the lobby, the hookers on the corner, the aliens who visit our world."
Finished: August 4th, 2012
Pages: 316
Pat Murphy writes "speculative fiction" rather than "science fiction", and her stories generally include both an element of the fantastic and an element of ambiguity. How did that battered woman escape her abuser? Did the trekker find a yeti when he retraced the footsteps of his long-lost father? And is the derelict old woman who lives in a residential hotel crazy, or did she actually find part of an alien spacecraft. Who knows? As she says "The government does not want people to know about the alien spaceships. They deny all reports of UFOs and flying saucers. The government is good at hiding the things people would rather not see: the old men and women in the lobby, the hookers on the corner, the aliens who visit our world."
Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie
Started: 5 August 2012
Finished: 8 August 2012
Pages: 220
Why can't modern authors take a leaf from Ms. Christie's books? She fits a whole who-dunnit, complete with about 8 suspects, classical quotations, and several red herrings into a little over 200 pages.
There's a reason why Agatha Christie books still appear in airport bookshops while Ngaio Marsh and Ellery Queen are a more of a special interest. Her books have not dated. The murderer may always be the least likely suspect, and a moment's reflection makes some of her key plot points seem *rather* improbable, but her writing is fluid and her characters entertaining. All of which combines to make her books entertaining rather than period pieces.
Finished: 8 August 2012
Pages: 220
Why can't modern authors take a leaf from Ms. Christie's books? She fits a whole who-dunnit, complete with about 8 suspects, classical quotations, and several red herrings into a little over 200 pages.
There's a reason why Agatha Christie books still appear in airport bookshops while Ngaio Marsh and Ellery Queen are a more of a special interest. Her books have not dated. The murderer may always be the least likely suspect, and a moment's reflection makes some of her key plot points seem *rather* improbable, but her writing is fluid and her characters entertaining. All of which combines to make her books entertaining rather than period pieces.
Saturday 4 August 2012
Coming Back by Marcia Muller
Started: 2 August 2012
Finished: 3 August 2012
Pages: 292
Marcia Muller completes the big three of contemporary women mystery authors. Muller started writing in the late 70s though, so Sharon McCone has been detecting for a few years longer than either Kinsey Milhone or V.I. Warshawski. Muller has also evolved McCone's life far more than the others: once a loner working as the house investigator for a legal cooperative, McCone now married and runs a high end investigative agency staffed by ex-FBI and ex-cops.
From a practical point of view, Muller herself is running a business. She writes books that she feels appeal to the zeitgeist -- late 70s San Francisco, the heroine has ties to Berkeley and social justice. The social justice element faded through the 80s and into the 90s. Late 90s, some of her clients became high tech businesses. By the 2000s she'd struck out to found her own agency. By the 2010s, she's wealthy and married to a guy who owns a rather frightening security business with ties to the CIA.
I think that's why I have never loved McCone. The mysteries are always solid, the plots fast-paced, the San Francisco background interesting, and the cast of secondary characters always evolving. But I always feel a little bit like I'm being sold something.
That being said, there's nothing particularly wrong with this one. It was kind of interesting to have the story told as a series of vignettes by the various members of her team. The story moved along, and wasn't too implausible most of the time (although seriously, you aren't going to report the abduction to the police? Or those corpses you find along the way? And how is it you were able to convince the social workers to give you custody of that abandoned 13 year old you found along the way?) And it let me unwind when I needed to unwind. So, mission accomplished.
Finished: 3 August 2012
Pages: 292
Marcia Muller completes the big three of contemporary women mystery authors. Muller started writing in the late 70s though, so Sharon McCone has been detecting for a few years longer than either Kinsey Milhone or V.I. Warshawski. Muller has also evolved McCone's life far more than the others: once a loner working as the house investigator for a legal cooperative, McCone now married and runs a high end investigative agency staffed by ex-FBI and ex-cops.
From a practical point of view, Muller herself is running a business. She writes books that she feels appeal to the zeitgeist -- late 70s San Francisco, the heroine has ties to Berkeley and social justice. The social justice element faded through the 80s and into the 90s. Late 90s, some of her clients became high tech businesses. By the 2000s she'd struck out to found her own agency. By the 2010s, she's wealthy and married to a guy who owns a rather frightening security business with ties to the CIA.
I think that's why I have never loved McCone. The mysteries are always solid, the plots fast-paced, the San Francisco background interesting, and the cast of secondary characters always evolving. But I always feel a little bit like I'm being sold something.
That being said, there's nothing particularly wrong with this one. It was kind of interesting to have the story told as a series of vignettes by the various members of her team. The story moved along, and wasn't too implausible most of the time (although seriously, you aren't going to report the abduction to the police? Or those corpses you find along the way? And how is it you were able to convince the social workers to give you custody of that abandoned 13 year old you found along the way?) And it let me unwind when I needed to unwind. So, mission accomplished.
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