Recent Reading
Dec. 17th, 2014 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vamysteryfanGame of Mirrors by Andrea Camilleri. Inspector Montalbano is dealing with explosions near empty warehouses, an amorous neighbor, and the usual annoying reporters, in between delectable meals. I received an ARC of this book. The characters are old friends now. The series does not need to be read in order. Reading the Inspector Montalbano series often makes me hungry, with the culinary descriptions. The story is mostly carried forward by conversations. Worth reading!
The Corsican Caper by Peter Mayle. Wonderful writing, the food descriptions made me hungry, but I must agree with others that it's novella length at best. No mystery or suspense either.
Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid. This rewrite of the Jane Austen classic is part of a series updating Jane's books. Instead of diaries and dances in Bath, it's Facebook, smartphones, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The heroine Catherine still gets carried away by novels, but here it's Twilight. Catherine stills learns the lessons from the original novel. I like Val McDermid and she took a good approach to the rewrite, it just didn't work for me. I wasn't that fond of the original. Some scenes felt authentic, especially the frenzy for cellphone connection, but generally I don't think it translated well to modern day.
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. This book was hugely popular when it first came out but I'm only now reading it for the first time. Dinah is a minor character in the Bible, sister to Joseph and daughter of Jacob. Her story as well as those of Leah and Rachel are center stage. Jacob and Joseph as well as the other men don't come off very well in this version. I liked the instances where religions collided - that's true to the era and the area. It was a good read.
The nonfiction book of the week is When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning. This was an entertaining and enthralling read. After the Nazis burned books, librarians held massive book drives to send books to soldiers. Hardcovers ultimately proved too heavy. Thus was born Armed Services Editions: small, lightweight, literally designed to be "pocket books." The stories about soldiers reading them under all conditions and in all theatres will move you. Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Katherine Anne Porter's short stories are two unlikely authors that soldiers adored. I think the ASE program might have been the reason my father went into publishing after the war. Certainly many soldiers ended with a deep love of reading. It helped raise American literacy, too.
The Corsican Caper by Peter Mayle. Wonderful writing, the food descriptions made me hungry, but I must agree with others that it's novella length at best. No mystery or suspense either.
Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid. This rewrite of the Jane Austen classic is part of a series updating Jane's books. Instead of diaries and dances in Bath, it's Facebook, smartphones, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The heroine Catherine still gets carried away by novels, but here it's Twilight. Catherine stills learns the lessons from the original novel. I like Val McDermid and she took a good approach to the rewrite, it just didn't work for me. I wasn't that fond of the original. Some scenes felt authentic, especially the frenzy for cellphone connection, but generally I don't think it translated well to modern day.
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. This book was hugely popular when it first came out but I'm only now reading it for the first time. Dinah is a minor character in the Bible, sister to Joseph and daughter of Jacob. Her story as well as those of Leah and Rachel are center stage. Jacob and Joseph as well as the other men don't come off very well in this version. I liked the instances where religions collided - that's true to the era and the area. It was a good read.
The nonfiction book of the week is When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning. This was an entertaining and enthralling read. After the Nazis burned books, librarians held massive book drives to send books to soldiers. Hardcovers ultimately proved too heavy. Thus was born Armed Services Editions: small, lightweight, literally designed to be "pocket books." The stories about soldiers reading them under all conditions and in all theatres will move you. Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Katherine Anne Porter's short stories are two unlikely authors that soldiers adored. I think the ASE program might have been the reason my father went into publishing after the war. Certainly many soldiers ended with a deep love of reading. It helped raise American literacy, too.
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Date: 2014-12-18 08:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-19 02:40 pm (UTC)