Book Logging
Aug. 16th, 2015 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckGibbons, Stella. Cold Comfort Farm - I didn't really enjoy this book. I'd heard that it was funny, but I didn't find it so. The characters managed to be both paper thin and utterly opaque. I didn't feel like any of them were actually people.
Gosling, Mya L. Brevity Is the Soul of Wit - This isn't widely available. Our library has it because the author is local, but neither Amazon nor GoodReads had heard of it when I checked a week or two ago. It' s less than 45 pages long. Each page is a three panel summary of a different Shakespeare play, done with stick figures. It wasn't actually as funny as I hoped it would be or as it might be with, say, six panels instead of three.
Mullan, John. What Matters in Jane Austen? : Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved - This was pleasant enough. I found the analysis interesting without being overwhelming, and the author offered plenty of support from the texts to support his contentions. I'm not sure I should have read this when I haven't yet read Emma or Northanger Abbey, but I'm not sure I'm going to read either of those, so.
Started but not finished:
Gordon, Alan. Thirteenth Night - I got about halfway through this and was thinking that it wasn't bad and that, maybe, I'd found a new series to enjoy. Then I looked at the blurb for the second book in the series and realized that I couldn't go on because, in order for book two to contain the things the blurb said it contained, things that would really make me angry had to happen in the second part of the first book. Basically, this book is the first in a long series set in thirteenth century Europe about a traveling entertainer who is part of a large organization of spies, assassins, and general meddlers who try to keep Christian Europe peaceful and balanced. The main character's backstory includes having been Feste from The Twelfth Night and having deliberately manipulated events so that they came out as they did. The book starts fifteen years later with word coming that Duke Orsino is dead, possibly murdered, and that the political situation is very, very unstable. Theophilus (who was Feste) returns, disguised as a merchant, to figure out what's going on. The blurb from book two has Viola and Theophilus married and traveling to Constantinople. Book one has Viola recently widowed with two children, ages fourteen and ten. This leads me to conclude that either the kids die in the second half of the book or Viola abandons them. I don't find either option acceptable, so I shan't continue.
Gotham Academy v.1 - I only managed about ten pages of this. I simply couldn't follow what was going on. I have no idea whether or not I'd have enjoyed the story if I could follow it.
Hillsborough, Romulus. Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai -This book was cataloged as non-fiction and, as far as I can tell, seems to be sold that way, too. It's really not. There are a lot of (poorly written) conversations that can't possibly come from the historical record. The book fails as a novel, too, by having long passages that fit better with a non-fiction book, discussing events the characters weren't involved in and analyzing historical trends. The author either needed to make up a lot more (like personalities for the characters!) or a lot less. I had hoped that this would work better than his book on the Shinsengumi, but apparently disliking the Shinsengumi gave him the necessary distance to write something that read like non-fiction.
Nimona - I read about half of this, but I could only read in fits and starts because I found it difficult. There's a waitlist at the library, so I couldn't keep it and keep fighting my way through it. Then again, I'm not sure I want to read something I have to fight to get through. The story and setting were interesting, but for all the book's named after Nimona, I didn't get the impression that she was anything but a catalyst.
Rex, Adam. Smek for President! - I really regret not finishing this. It got buried in a pile of stuff next to my bed, and I forgot about it for weeks. I renewed it three times, and that seemed like long enough to keep a book. I hope to go back and finish it later because I was having fun. It wasn't as good as The True Meaning of Smekday, but that was superlative, so 'not as good' means merely pretty good. I did get the impression that this was more J.Lo's book than Tip's, but I might be wrong as I haven't read the whole thing.
Solnit, Rebecca. Men Explain Things to Me - For some reason I was expecting something different from this-- Bitterness, yes but also wit. Instead, the half of it that I read dragged. It said important things but nothing new to me and nothing in any way that made me or anyone else more likely to pay attention. I read more of it than I would have otherwise because I was out of the house and had only brought one book with me.
Thompson, Victoria. Murder on Washington Square - I only read a couple of chapters of this. I didn't find the voice of it congenial and really didn't feel like spending a whole book that way.
Gosling, Mya L. Brevity Is the Soul of Wit - This isn't widely available. Our library has it because the author is local, but neither Amazon nor GoodReads had heard of it when I checked a week or two ago. It' s less than 45 pages long. Each page is a three panel summary of a different Shakespeare play, done with stick figures. It wasn't actually as funny as I hoped it would be or as it might be with, say, six panels instead of three.
Mullan, John. What Matters in Jane Austen? : Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved - This was pleasant enough. I found the analysis interesting without being overwhelming, and the author offered plenty of support from the texts to support his contentions. I'm not sure I should have read this when I haven't yet read Emma or Northanger Abbey, but I'm not sure I'm going to read either of those, so.
Started but not finished:
Gordon, Alan. Thirteenth Night - I got about halfway through this and was thinking that it wasn't bad and that, maybe, I'd found a new series to enjoy. Then I looked at the blurb for the second book in the series and realized that I couldn't go on because, in order for book two to contain the things the blurb said it contained, things that would really make me angry had to happen in the second part of the first book. Basically, this book is the first in a long series set in thirteenth century Europe about a traveling entertainer who is part of a large organization of spies, assassins, and general meddlers who try to keep Christian Europe peaceful and balanced. The main character's backstory includes having been Feste from The Twelfth Night and having deliberately manipulated events so that they came out as they did. The book starts fifteen years later with word coming that Duke Orsino is dead, possibly murdered, and that the political situation is very, very unstable. Theophilus (who was Feste) returns, disguised as a merchant, to figure out what's going on. The blurb from book two has Viola and Theophilus married and traveling to Constantinople. Book one has Viola recently widowed with two children, ages fourteen and ten. This leads me to conclude that either the kids die in the second half of the book or Viola abandons them. I don't find either option acceptable, so I shan't continue.
Gotham Academy v.1 - I only managed about ten pages of this. I simply couldn't follow what was going on. I have no idea whether or not I'd have enjoyed the story if I could follow it.
Hillsborough, Romulus. Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai -This book was cataloged as non-fiction and, as far as I can tell, seems to be sold that way, too. It's really not. There are a lot of (poorly written) conversations that can't possibly come from the historical record. The book fails as a novel, too, by having long passages that fit better with a non-fiction book, discussing events the characters weren't involved in and analyzing historical trends. The author either needed to make up a lot more (like personalities for the characters!) or a lot less. I had hoped that this would work better than his book on the Shinsengumi, but apparently disliking the Shinsengumi gave him the necessary distance to write something that read like non-fiction.
Nimona - I read about half of this, but I could only read in fits and starts because I found it difficult. There's a waitlist at the library, so I couldn't keep it and keep fighting my way through it. Then again, I'm not sure I want to read something I have to fight to get through. The story and setting were interesting, but for all the book's named after Nimona, I didn't get the impression that she was anything but a catalyst.
Rex, Adam. Smek for President! - I really regret not finishing this. It got buried in a pile of stuff next to my bed, and I forgot about it for weeks. I renewed it three times, and that seemed like long enough to keep a book. I hope to go back and finish it later because I was having fun. It wasn't as good as The True Meaning of Smekday, but that was superlative, so 'not as good' means merely pretty good. I did get the impression that this was more J.Lo's book than Tip's, but I might be wrong as I haven't read the whole thing.
Solnit, Rebecca. Men Explain Things to Me - For some reason I was expecting something different from this-- Bitterness, yes but also wit. Instead, the half of it that I read dragged. It said important things but nothing new to me and nothing in any way that made me or anyone else more likely to pay attention. I read more of it than I would have otherwise because I was out of the house and had only brought one book with me.
Thompson, Victoria. Murder on Washington Square - I only read a couple of chapters of this. I didn't find the voice of it congenial and really didn't feel like spending a whole book that way.
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