lilaia

A sweet book in which events are recounted through letters. 3 1/2 stars

The mystery was rather light and had a hurried finish but it’s always a pleasure to revisit the characters. While not as good as others in the series, that P.D. James wrote this in her late 80s is amazing.

The first of the Peculiar Crimes Unit mysteries, set in modern times with flashbacks to the London blitz. Great characters and scene setting, and the mystery was definitely on the peculiar side. Will look for others in the series.

Markus Zusak’s tale of a girl growing up in Nazi Germany and the everyday events (not enough food, typical squabbling among neighborhood kids) and not so everyday challenges she faces. The narration by Death really makes the book – the many stories about Germans who weren’t Nazi sympathizers become tired and somewhat unbelievable against the fact of millions of lives lost or damaged. This story is worth reading.

38 Neuromancer by William Gibson
I wonder if this is considered such a classic because it’s pretty good for SF rather than being pretty good in general. Not as dated as I expected.

39 The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly
Coming of age tale of a boy in WWII England who finds a land where fairy tales are true – and very dark. I really like retellings of this sort and this was very well done.

35 The Grand Tour, sequel to Sorcery and Cecilia. Good though not quite as good as the first.

36 A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz. Incredible writing. Story of a strange father and son – descriptions just sound flat, this was a great read.

37 Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce. Strong story set in the Tortall world.

33 An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear. Another good story in the Maisie Dobbs series.

34 The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain. I wouldn’t want to eat everything he has but I’d love to travel to and eat at almost all of the places he’s visited. Some essays are more successful than others but all in all a pretty good read.

A good read, made me want to re-read Weetzie Bat.

Fun story of two cousins living an alternate Regency England where magic exists. One is in London making her debut, the other still at their country home, and the story is told entirely through their letters to each other.

27 High Wizardry by Diane Duane. Rather disappointing after the first two in the series. Not enough of the parts that I found interesting (interstellar travel, wizard interactions with other beings) and far too much of the amazing incredible fabulous younger sister. Yawn.

28 Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear. This series on the other hand keeps getting stronger.

29 Where Memories Lie by Deborah Crombie. She’s having a similar problem to Elizabeth George’s, where so many characters have been introduced that to include them all in the current story is to have many short fragmented stories and a lack of cohesion among the whole. Not a bad book but not one of her best.

30 Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. What if the moon were knocked into a closer orbit of the earth? Miranda and her mom and brothers endure hunger and weather changes but nothing overly scary. The ending in particular was disappointing, an unexplained copout.

25 Deep Wizardry by Diane Duane. Loses none of the strength of So You Want to Be a Wizard – great story, imaginative and characters remain interesting and real. Would have benefited from some more of the humor found in the first book but still very good.

26 Pardonable Lies – third in Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs books and another strong contribution to the series. There are only two more books out – I wish there were more, the characters and stories are so good.

Second in Julia Spencer-Fleming’s series with an Episcopal priest and small town police chief as protagonists. Better than the first one, both the structure of the story and the story itself were tighter. The characters are interesting and not simply small town stereotypes.

Almost halfway to 50!

I finished painting the living room. The color is warmer and goes with my new couch. I also got rid of the ugly blinds and will get a slipcover for my chair. It’s going to be a much more welcoming room for me and guests.

I can’t put my finger on what I find compelling about Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series but I just want to keep reading. This second book is set in 1930 England but like the first is strongly influenced by WWI. The mystery itself is kind of weak but the characters and setting drew me in.

19 Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
Mystery set in 1929 London with flashbacks to the detective’s past as a nurse in WWI. Very good.

20 The Russian Concubine by Kate Furnivall
If you enjoy soap operas you’re sure to like this implausible, over the top story. Ugh

21 Careless in Red by Elizabeth George
Not bad but definitely far from her best. More Havers in the next book plz.

22 Ironside by Holly Black
Very good. Maybe not as good a story as the other two but I think her writing has improved.

Philip Pullman returns to the His Dark Materials universe with this story of how Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrneson met. Short but good and the woodblock illustrations are lovely. I haven’t looked at the game that comes with the book yet.

Strong first mystery by Julia Spencer-Fleming. She creates an interesting pairing – a female Episcopal priest and a big city cop now working in a small town. It’s a treat to find a new series and have several more books to look forward to.

With all the fantasy and YA books I read, I am amazed no one recommended this book – I found out about it from a discussion others were having. Imaginative, a great adventure and with real protagonists who lack the annoying traits found too often in YA lit, this is a winner. And best of all, there are seven more books in the series!

A friend recommended Gregg Hurwitz to me and I’m hoping the rest of his books are better than this one. A supposed thriller, the plot meanders all over the place and ends with a whimper. A good quarter of the story could have been cut and the book would have been better for it.

Re-reading these as an adult has been much more interesting than I expected, more than a simple re-visit of beloved children’s books. I’m seeing things I would have missed as a young girl – how hard everyone in the family works for the basics, how innovative they had to be living so far from ‘civilization’, how Ma and Pa are consistently cheerful in the face of some pretty hard times and always looking on the bright side. Maybe it’s Laura Ingalls Wilder shading things to be that way – but it would make sense that pioneers would need more than their share of optimism to keep going. And of course I’m struck by how little they all had – this is only 150 years ago. Laura and Mary shared a tin cup until they were 6 or 7 it sounds like – unimaginable nowadays. I don’t see that in some romantic “good old days” way (thank goodness we don’t easily get malaria or measles or have to walk hundreds of miles for a job because the crop failed) but it’s helpful to have the reminder that today’s necessities were often yesterday’s luxuries.