Book post

[vamysteryfan]

These were books I put off reading for one reason or another. Three of the four were great.

Night Watch by Terry Pratchett. I don't know why I put off reading the Sam Vines books in the Discworld universe. They are so good. This was the classic time travel/paradox/"I taught myself all I know." In an odd way it explains the backgrounds of some of Discworld's most original characters

Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz-Zafon. I'm not sure how I feel about this book. The plot was interesting but I wish it had contained more about the Cemetery for Books. The characters weren't that engaging. It was well written, though.

Life of Pi by Yann Martell. I resisted reading this for the longest time but the movie commercials persuaded me to pick up the book. The characters were terrific and I loved the locations and descriptions. Very vivid writing. I thought the scenes in the boat would be dull but quite the contrary.

Possession by A.S. Byatt. Part literary detection, part love story, and a little Arabian Nights, the way the stories within the story curled in and then unfurled. The author was really gifted in writing in different voices. The letters, journals, and poems were brilliant and important to the plot. Well worth reading but it should be read carefully.

This week's getting clever book is Buildings of the District by Pamela Scott and Antoinette Lee. I finished it in one sense but it's a great reference book. It reminded me to look up. It wasn't just architecture - it was history and culture and art. I look at the DC neighborhoods with a new eye.

Comments

[elmyraemilie]

For future "getting clever" books, you might like Johnson's Life of London by the present Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. A delectable look at the history of the city through the lives of major characters who lived and acted there. Johnson is a delightful writer, with a very wry, British (oddly enough *g*) tone. For some reason (and it's not the writing style, I can assure you) it reminds me of Samuel Pepys, perhaps because Johnson "goes about" London so much. I'm enjoying it very much!

[vamysteryfan]

That does sound good! I put a hold on it in my library queue

[vamysteryfan]

I just finished reading this. Excellent rec! I loved his choice of nontraditional characters to tell the story of London. Also which bits of the story to tell. Whittington is much more interesting than his legend. The choice of banking was good too, The City being such an integral part of London. His love of the city really came out.

Even books have six degrees. After I finished London, I started reading Terry Pratchett's Dodger. He mentioned the swer guy - Bazelgone? - in the first chapter

[elmyraemilie]

Bazalgette is the sewer guy's name. A couple years ago, I read a book about the 1853 cholera outbreak in London; it's called The Ghost Map, written by Steven Johnson, and it made me an instant fan of Mr. Bazalgette and his Victorian over-achieving ways. I've seen him around in several other books since--I think perhaps in one of Neil Gaiman's, among others.

The six degrees have been Greek to me, or for me, these past several weeks. I read Jane Stevenson's London Bridges which centers around an elderly Greek man, the last remnant of a family financial house in the City of London; then I read Michael Sears' Black Fridays, which peripherally mentions Greeks. And the rejected Gabriel's Inferno was full of Greek scholars as well.