Find out what occupies Angela's time living in New Zealand.
What I am reading right now | On my list to read | What I have recently read | Favourite book recommendations
Booker winner last year, happy to read any good medieval historical fiction, let alone major award winning historical fiction. I've done over 200 pages, and it's dense and I have to really pay attention, and it's a laborious thing to be sure. There is so much sublety that I know I'm losing bits that I shouldn't, but what can I say.
A gift from Don, apparently it's had rave reviews, about which I know nothing. I'm going in naked, hoping for the best!
1776 by David McCulloughAnother one that's been on the bedside table for some time. It's in the queue, but I'll wait out the non-fiction for a wee while longer.
A memoir of a soldier fighting in Vietnam. From the book description: A platoon commander in the first combat unit sent to fight in Vietnam, Lieutenant Caputo landed at Danang on March 8, 1965, convinced that American forces would win a quick and decisive victory over the Communists. Sixteen months later and without ceremony, Caputo left Vietnam a shell-shocked veteran whose youthful idealism and faith in the rightness of the war had been utterly shattered. A Rumor of War tells the story of that trajectory and allows us to see and feel the reality of the conflict as the author himself experienced it, from the weeks of tedium hacking through scorching jungles, to the sudden violence of ambushes and firefights, to the unbreakable bonds of friendship forged between soldiers, and finally to a sense of the war as having no purpose other than the fight for survival. The author gives us a precise, tactile view of both the emotional and physical reality of war.
Ditto to putting it on hold for awhile while I get my fill of fiction for a bit.
Here's what my book club has chosen for 2010, with our one genre this year being Sci Fi/Fantasy, something most of us groaned about but we picked a book as a group.
The pile beside my bed includes a growing list of possible 'next' books:
I always consider Tracy Chevalier to be a quick, fluffy read. This book was no exception. It's like a supermarket paperback that you take on vacation, only more enjoyable because it's a period piece. I'm sure if I tried to find meaning - especially in this one which is about the lives and times of women in post Victorian England - I could but it moves so fast that I'm done before I know it and off to the next book. It's just what it is! I think I enjoyed this one better than the last, The Virgin Blue, but I'll hope for better in her latest which is our last book club read of the year.
Read for book club under the guise of our science fiction / fantasy genre - but I'd be hard pressed to categorise this book as either - the story is about an adult autistic man surviving in society on his own at a time in the future where autism has been eradicated and he is one of the last of his kind. Sounds from my description that it could be sci-fi-y but the story is much more focussed on the day to day life of this man and how he manages. It could take place in any time, really.
I thought the most difficult thing was that autistics have difficultly establishing emotional connections, and this is played out in great detail how the main character attempts to understand and interpret facial expressions, colloquial sayings, interpersonal relationships, and even inter-office politics but because he does so without any emotional content, I had very little feeling toward what was going on for this person. A catch 22 to be sure, since I can tell that the point of the book is to generate understanding of the autistic mind. I think in that regard it was a great explanation of what happens to autistic people, but in terms of a compelling story that wrapped me up, not so much.
2003 Nebula Award winner, an award given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
As the second one left me with a cliffhanger, I was more than happy to pass it onto Don and crack open book #3 in the series. This one is a bit longer with bigger pages but the same size print, and I knocked it off in 6 days. I was really taken with this series, great story telling even though it is neat in some places. I think the point of it, as I mentioned in my review of the second book below, wasn't really to be suspenseful all the time, with twists and turns. It was for women to get their revenge on the men who hate them. And they do by golly.
All in all the trilogy, called the Millenium Trilogy, kept me engrossed and wanting only to read books day and night for some 3 weeks. I would highly recommend the books, and I'm keen to see the Swedish movie of the first book, even if I do have to read subtitles for 2 1/2 hours.
Read this one, also 550 pages, right after the first as the trilogy kicks from one book right into the next. It took me a week, again mesmerizing me from start to finish. Well crafted books with lots of breaks but key action points that make you want to read the next section, then the next, then the next. What an intriguing character Lisbeth Salander is, I am really taken with her. Most of the women in his trilogy - with the first book's original title being Men Who Hate Women - kick ass big time, that is refreshing. I mean all of them are pretty awesome, so obviously he wanted to make a feminist point about women in his home country of Sweden.
This 550 page book had me holding its massive weight for exactly one week, 7 days. I skipped television (not hard these days), persevered and avoided falling asleep on weekend afternoons in the sun on the deck to flip the next page, and stayed up too late on work nights engrossed - skipping sleep is not really in my best interest or the best interest of my husband and colleagues. But I couldn't put this one down and I'm going right to the second in the Millennium series, The Girl who Played with Fire. One negative was the way the last 50 pages or so wrapped up a bit neatly. But then, if I enjoyed the first 500, what's 50 of not so good. The story really winds down early and the rest is just extra anyway.
Switching Time by Richard BaerA frightening story I could only really get through by focussing on the fascinating dual timed story of someone with 17 distinct personalities and how she came to grips by bringing them together. I'm sure it's not a well known book, but I heard about it on NPR and it was gripping and horrifying.
Description: Switching Time is the first story centering on multiple personality disorder to be told by the treating physician. It is the incredible saga of a young woman stranded in unimaginable darkness who, in order to survive, created seventeen different versions of herself.
The worst of Dan Brown's books. I didn't like the story and plot development. Didn't find the characters interesting. Didn't care for it at all.
When book club chose its readings for 2010, we had to pick a science fiction/fantasy genre. I did a bunch of research on this genre, about which I knew nothing. This book came up on the list I found of award winning sci fi/fantasy, although it wasn't chosen. It looked interesting to me: "How might human history be different if 14th-century Europe was utterly wiped out by plague, and Islamic and Buddhist societies emerged as the world's dominant religious and political forces?" says the description in Amazon.com
I started it and it wasn't like anything I'd ever read. Each chapter begins oddly with a summary of what's to come in that chapter and closes with a statement about 'we don't know what will befall our hero but it will all become clear in the next chapter.' Strange. By chapter 5 or something, someone took a pen to my library book and wrote after the chapter ending statement, "Of course it will you bloody idiot." Funny.
But it just got a bit weird for me, more than 100 pages in, I just couldn't hook on and so I pulled the relatively rare eject button. Sorry.
Amidst all the Olympics coverage, I managed to eek out this non-fiction over the month long library borrowing period. I'd heard so much about it, I think I was expecting more explosive type content. It's more just how the company was created, how it is managed now, and the rise and function of mercenaries that are taking the place of militaries worldwide. An interesting read, but a couple of the chapters left me wondering if they belonged or not. The best information was in the concluding chapter. If it's of interest, it's worth a read.
Book club's book for March. Ugh, this one was tough. For many reasons. But I think the use of metaphor is waaayyyy over done, and I just was not into the story at all. The second half is pretty ridiculous, as she has an affair with a monk. And so the author seems to glorify this woman's affair as a way of 'finding herself' in her early 40s amidst her mother's mental illness and a husband who adores her. Nice, how can this character be sympathetic? She can't, it was uninteresting, overdone, and really silly.
I bought this book years ago based on its reputation. It had always been on my short list of reads. Last year I kept hearing its name over and over as one of the best books of the last century, if not the best book of the last century. Since then it's hovered close by my bedside.
I loved it. It was a fantastic adventure, so lyrical and so so funny. I found it much like the Isabel Allende books I've read in it's language and fantasy weaving into reality. It was a real pleasure to read, and I know I didn't understand nearly all that I should from this piece of literature, but I enjoyed myself regardless.
A murder mystery, and the next book in chronological order from one of my fave authors. A fast read, nothing fabulous but interesting enough for a fan like me.
Popped this pill in one rainy day over the New Year's holiday. Kept me interested and I could see the 'young' Dan Brown's style. Fast and interesting.
I've been wanting to read this classic for some time, and it was worth it. It's hard to know what is fiction and what is accurate, as I've not read any history from the founding of the state of Israel. I'll admit the drama of the storyline had moments of total over drama, but it's definitely of its time. Still, I stuck with it and breezed through the second 300 pages (600 total) in a few days, just wanting to find out what happens in the making of Israel. I understand there's a movie starring Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint, I might see if I can get ahold of that if I can. Since it was made in 1960, it's sure to have all that high drama as well, but I'll put that to one side!
Atwood's latest and her follow up to Oryx and Crake, which I read recently in preparation for this new book, also one of my book club's reads. While not necessarily a sequel, it is a partner book married to Oryx and Crake and the two stories connect and finish together, in some ways. While I have enjoyed Atwood's storylines and her creativity in the books I've read so far, including The Year of the Flood, I found her use of language in this most recent book pretty ordinary. She's such a craftswoman and yet I read sentences of dialogue or narrative that I would write - which is not a good thing. Having just written and laboured over a short story of my own, I would read lines here and there and think to myself, that sounds like something I would write, not Margaret Atwood!! She's much better than that and I was a bit let down only on that one area. The story was still good.
A monster of a book, but I was drawn in with Possession and the skill of an author who could write that. Byatt displays no less skill with this book, but it was much more intense in that it left very little to the imagination. The author really wrapped herself around me and wanted me to experience the exact story she was writing, and nothing else. I would skim through pages here and there where she laboured through descriptions of the year in which she was writing because I really just wanted to get to the story and be done with the extraneous nonsense! Also, it should have started 100 pages in, the first 100 was horrendously slow. The story picked up but didn't always resolve itself, and I did enjoy it quite a bit once it got going.
I sped through this one in a few days while on holiday because my friend Sharon told me it was sorta a precursor to the newly released Atwood, The Year of the Flood, which is our January book club book. I really enjoyed The Handmaid's Tale and Atwood's style (of course I loved Blind Assassin, would like to read that again I think) and I like to read books in order if there is one. Good book.
The third book in her series of historical fiction on a period of the history of Wales. I just love her writing style and lyrical language. I dragged out reading this one as long as I could, I didn't want to be done with it and with the trilogy it closes out. A great book, great writing, great story. I've decided not to sell the trilogy because, unlike many books, it is something I will definitely read again. In fact, it prompted me to repurchase (after I sold before moving to NZ) the entire second trilogy of hers that comes later in her sequence that is about Eleanor of Acquitane and Henry II. I had read the first two and she came out with the third in the trilogy after I moved and I never read that one, so now I own the complete set and will start over from the beginning, gladly!
Book club book about an analyst in the late 1960s who chooses to live his life by chance based on the roll of dice. Apparently an underground classic. It is very funny and sarcastic and holding my interest more than I thought. It gets a bit crazy, I'll say. I bet for the 1970s it was quite risque for sure, I blushed a few times just reading it by myself, thinking maybe I picked something up in the porn aisle!! But it's very dark sense of humour kept me laughing the whole way, as the author's intention was to make fun of the whole lifestyle and way of psychiatry.
My next book club book, I thoroughly enjoyed it until about halfway, then I enjoyed it less because it was dragging on through silly stories, and by the end I was mystified why someone who was creating historical fiction (fiction being the operative word) wouldn't create more interesting fiction, particularly at the END! I had a similar reaction to my reading of The Poe Shadow - great idea but not sure it was executed to my satisfaction - of course since this book was long listed for the Booker Prize I guess I'm in the minority.
A classic, and a good read. I'd not read it before and sped through it, compelled and interested. I very much enjoy Atwood's style.
Good for the first half, then boooorrrrring. Not very interesting. A terrorist????
Great mystery that is better than your average crime drama, apart from the incredibly complex background information about Northern Ireland and all its factions and groups and terrorists. I couldn't follow all of the groups and nicknames and who was always with who - especially reading it before I went to bed most nights as I nodded off. But recommend if you want a good mystery that's better than the muck.
A fast one, but in her usual tradition. Not her best, I wasn't to taken with the story and it was over faster than it started, and was low on depth.
See The Psalm Killer - one of those mysteries that is mucky and boring. But I was interested in a quick read, a brief paperback story. Wouldn't recommend. But I would over this next one:
My gosh, what a monster book full of a whole bunch of NOTHING!! I picked this up at the public library sale before we moved, hardcover - not ideal. It is nearly 700 pages and sooooooooooooo heavy in terms of weight and so completely light in terms of story.
I have to say, I am not a person to abandon a book. I typically stick with it about 98% of the time. BUT I am seriously considering abandoning it because I am nearly 300 pages in with more than 300 to go and I cannot bear ANY of these characters, they are completely uninteresting. The writing style irritates me no end as Wolfe seems to want to explain every little thing to me rather than let me intuit it. And the lead character Charlotte is from the south, so she speaks with an accent. He explains this frequently in the beginning of the book by re-writing some of her words: did becomes dee-ud and there becomes they-ur and such and such. But I'm 300 pages in and he's STILL DOING IT! I know she speaks with an accent, I got it the first few dozen times. I'm OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've DITCHED THIS BOOK, HAPPILY!!!!
I purchased this book some time ago because I was interested to learn what happened in this region during the 1990s. The book was supposed to be the most readable account from someone there witnessing the political situation as a journalist. It was a really interesting read, but extremely difficult to follow with all the armies and militaries of each of the sections of Yugoslavia, many of which are now their own country. I took my time and made it through, but I'm not sure how much I retained because it was one of the most detailed non-fiction historical books I have read.
I adored, like many people, the Poisonwood Bible. I cried and cried after I read it! Now my book club has chosen to read the followup book - but not a sequel - by Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer. I generally enjoyed the book, as did most of my book club, but it's loaded with metaphor about nature and reproduction and the insect world and on and on. It was a bit heavy, and often preachy. The book is divided into three story arcs that kinda sorta intersect, but it's tough for me to divert my attention from one story to go to another, especially if I'm interested - it's like the book wants me to stop reading it. Not my style. But a decent read.
Mister Pip by Lloyd JonesThis finalist for a recent year of the Booker Prize has been passed around by kiwis for years and we have given it as a gift to both our sets of parents. Don read it and I think I was the last to get to it. A quick read, an enjoyable, touching story of some island in the South Pacific in the middle of a civil war and the inhabitants deal with it through the eyes of a teenage girl. Very well done, takes an unpleasant turn toward the end, but I should have seen that coming.
My friend Kate saw his new release at the store and bought it straightaway. She went through it in days, I think, and kindly passed it right to me. It is a monster of a book at nearly 800 pages or something and Kate hauled it around while travelling! I couldn't read it in many physical situations because it was too heavy to hold in my hands or prop on my stomach or chest at night in bed (it hurt!), but it was a fast enough read and a good book by the time I got through it in a couple of weeks, scars are still healing tho :) . Not as good as his past two because it whizzed through so many different stories within the story, my head was exhausted from the spinning. I would say worth the read but be sure to follow everything well enough. I wasn't prepared for the ending either, after all that stuff, BOOM. That ending. I was kinda annoyed, but not annoyed enough to not like it.
But, if you've perused my page before you'll see that one of my favourite book recommendations is his last novel, This Much I Know is True.
I thought Pearl's first book was really entertaining and The Poe Shadow had great reviews, so I recommended it to book club. Book club, yours truly included, HATED IT. It was really really uninteresting in every way: plot, story, character development, story, and plot. I mean from beginning to end I couldn't find myself caring about this story, and the ending was abominable. Shocking. Only 3 of us in our 8 or 9 member club even got passed the opening chapter to finish it. I've just heard he has a third out about Dickens. Think I'd give it a go, but not for long. I don't often put books down in the middle, but if he pulls the same garbage again I think I'd think about putting it down.
Winner of the 2006 LIANZA Children's Book Award, we chose this for book club and I was hesitant to get started not knowing what to expect, but it was a really sophisticated story and an interesting plot that made me wonder if it is too old for the target age group - teenagers - but apparently I'm a bit of an American prude b/c none of the rest of the book club thought twice about the teenage heroine shagging and getting knocked up at 16. Must be my recovering-Catholic-ness that made me think that was a bit odd, but it is life. It's how you deal with these things, right? ANYWAY, I really enjoyed most every part of the book except the discovery that it is a part one of two - the author decided to write the story in two parts and I gave up on reading part two, wasn't THAT interest.
Body of Secrets by James BamfordFinally finished this non-fiction book that piqued my interest, I think Don purchased it originally. It is about the creation of and secret development of the 'ultra-secret' National Security Agency of the US. It's been quite interesting, if not slow reading due to the small font and high level of detail-none of which I'm likely to remember. But apparently Bamford has gotten hold of a great deal of formerly super top secret classified material, even as far back as the Second World War and into the 60s and beyond. I found it very interesting despite it taking weeks to slog through.
My 'read at work' book turned into I cannot get to reading it at work, I'll take it on holiday and then I won't finish it there either so I'll have to quick get it done already as it's taken so damn long and it's just a supermarket paperback book for pete's sake - book. Done! It's as expected.
A grizzly tale of Stalin's Russia in the 1950s with a serial killer story to the center, surrounded by lots of icky interrogations and crimes against the State of socialist Russia, thanks to friend Sharon this one caught my interest and I really enjoyed it. It has good reviews and was hard to put down. Highly recommended for those who enjoy a historical murder mystery. I was surprised at the end, which can be hard to do sometimes!
Joe and Deanna gave me this book for Christmas and I breezed through it, relating all too much to this topic I'm too familiar with :).
The Knitters Book of Yarn by Clara ParkesI finished perusing this one, a very handy guide I'll reference again and again in my knitting. Plus there are a couple of patterns I've already allocated to people on my knitting list.
It is a great resource, one to help me learn more about yarn qualities so that I understand better how to choose specific yarns for specific projects. I'm such a dork!
This book I could not put down. I breezed through its 650 or so pages in a few days, maybe a week at the outset, but it was all I wanted to read. The author claims she wrote it prior to the publication of the Da Vinci Code, but it's very much in that type, only a completely different subject matter - Dracula. Its beginning captured me and the story kept me turning pages with only one caveat - one must really consider this sort of in the fantasy genre as every time a new 'clue' came up in the 'chase' the two main characters would find what they needed to solve that clue very quickly, it was all a matter of chance really that just laid out before them. Much like the Da Vinci Code. If you can get over this, I enjoyed this book a great deal!
The second book I've bread by Robert Wilson, but his first novel I believe. I enjoyed the first book I read and this one has the same style, era, and locales - lots of Portugal in this one too, so much so that it became rather irritating. Yes, I know you live in Portugal and drive down that street all the time and it connects to the other street, but no one else knows that much detail!!! Still, I enjoyed the story quite a bit and read it very quickly without always falling asleep at night - a good sign from me of a good book.
Midwives by Chris BohjalianI actually read this one last week after I put down the Possession tome. This was an Oprah book club, a good book on a topic that I'm not too keen on (if you know me) but it was a great story and the ending was fresh, I didn't see it coming and I'm usually a guesser of endings. Worth the read.
This was for our September book club and was some 500 pages, but an award winner (Man Booker) so I was looking forward to it. It became one of those books that was hard to get into, and it dominated all my reading - usually I can read 3 or 4 books at the same time, but not with this one. I could only deal with it for some reason. It was heavy, slow for the first half, and full of different styles that were very interesting and so well written, but a slog nonetheless. After the first half, it got easier and more interesting and I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. I would recommend it and tell people to push through, it's worth it.
Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay PenmanA really good read in the style and genre I enjoy quite a bit. Its about medieval Wales and is historical nonfiction. All those names begin with Wy... a challenge just keeping names straight. But well worth it and the first in a trilogy on the topic of Wales. I'll crack the next one soon.
I had not heard of this book, but saw Dawkins on an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher and was immediately drawn to him, being an atheist myself (recovering Catholic). He made me laugh and think at the same time, and his book was no different (he has authored numerous books).
A biologist, intellectual and professor at Oxford University, you would think his writing would be completely inaccessible - I surely thought it would be above my head. It wasn't, and I sped through it, although not completely comprehending some of the biology of Darwin and natural selection (I'm no brainiac, I can admit defeat when I don't get it!). But his logic confirmed some of my own about religion, my feelings about why religion is destructive and unnecessary in the world.
Dawkins touches on the logic of religions, on all of them, he doesn't prefer one over another, he dislikes them all equally -- they all do have the same base problems by being systems of belief rather than fact or science. He attacks creationism and intelligent design with the science of evolution and natural selection. He finds the flaws in those who say that religion is the only way to instill morality; that religion has beneficial effects on health, stress, and the general well being of people; and that it is somehow superior for people to just 'have faith' in anything and everything rather than to question and find answers--which science does (and could, for questions that remain unanswered). But how much easier is it for people to say, "It must be God." Easy, but not right of course, since God hasn't given many answers himself, but science has certainly taught us a lot these many years.
He opens the book with a fabulous chapter describing how religions receive unquestioned (and undeserved) respect by individuals, governments, institutions, corporations -- everyone, and for what purpose, given their history of action. People who question faith and question a religion are considered beyond disrespectful, and many of us (myself included) shy away from doing so or even discussing religion generally because of the fear of offending. But in my home or privacy of my thoughts, I find all religion absurd, violent, fear-inspiring and dangerous to the world, although I rarely say this to anyone other than my spouse. Dawkins says it and encourages other to do the same. So there, I've said it, I'm an atheist and I am proud of it!
This is a spy novel that spans WWII all the way beyond the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and is about a group of spies on all sides of the playing field. It was really interesting and compellingly written, intelligently written, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I was often lost, however, due to the complexity of the number of spies and their being double, triple and quadruple spies and so I was often thinking, 'huh? What the heck just happened, and to whom?' But I got the general gist of the story pretty much and really enjoyed it! Am glad we own his first book, A Death in Lisbon.
A fascinating life story of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born woman now a citizen of The Netherlands who was raised as a Muslim in Africa before seeking asylum in Holland to escape a forced marriage and stifling cultural and religious oppression as a woman in Muslim society. For her first 20 years, she practises Islam and does all that is required of her as a Muslim woman (including forced genital mutilation). Then she was given to a man in marriage whom she did not approve, and sought to escape from and seek a new life in Holland. While there, she took language and history classes, and received a bachelors and masters in political science. She ultimately became a member of Dutch Parliament and, most controversially, turned against Islam and today preaches against the idea that Islam is a peaceful religion. She also works to help the lives of women in Muslim society by bringing attention to the shocking statistics of genital mutilations, wife beatings, honour killings, and on and on. If you remember the murder of the famous Dutch film direct Theo Van Gogh by a Muslim extremist, he was murdered because of his relationship with Ayaan and the film they made together, Submission Part One.
I've resisted questioning practises in Islam because I don't want to insult someone else's religion, although the treatment of Muslim women is completely deplorable. But Ali doesn't pull any punches, and she doesn't have to being a former Muslim. She argues that Islam is NOT a religion of peace, as so many say it is. She argues that Islam is the reason that Muslim women in Holland--not well integrated in Dutch society--are disproportionately abused and murdered, and therefore that Muslim women everywhere, including her home of Africa, are treated the same not because the society is backward, but because they are Muslim and believe blindly in a religion that promotes their subjugation.
Ali has turned against Islam and religion entirely, now an apostate. She does not believe in a God and feels great freedom in her life now that she is not handicapped to think that anytime she does something like show the wrong piece of skin that she will go to hell, or that she can marry the person she wants, or that she can wear trousers and no head scarf without fearing hell. She is now working to get out the message that rigid interpretation of the Quran means misery for Muslim women, that people need to question and debate Islam as a religion, and also to prevent these atrocious human rights violations against Muslim women.
What I also found though provoking was the issue in The Netherlands with integration of Muslims into Dutch society and how a country/society manages these cultural divides; I think it's relevant in France, as we've seen in recent years, in the U.S. with Hispanics, and even here in New Zealand with Pakeha and Maori. Highly recommended.
Of course. Also see more recent read The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova for another good read in the same style.
What a wonderful book this is, dark and depressing and uplifting all at the same time. I read it about 3 years ago for book club at Westminster Library and our group talked for nearly two hours. It is a bear at more than 600 pages, but well worth the journey. The story takes place in India in the mid-1970s and interlaces the stories of 4 Indians during a chaotic political time. Gut wrenching and sweet, a highly recommended book.
I keep seeing this book in bookstores and I wonder when Wally Lamb will write his next book because this one was stunning, even better than his first She's Come Undone. I've recommended it to tons of people and should actually read it again myself.
Many of you have probably read this book already, I was a bit late to it. It was on a book club reading list that I had, but I had to miss that month, and this was probably 2 years ago. But I finally bought the book and packed it away bound for New Zealand. Late last summer (your summer, my fall) I opened it up and started it, slowly, but after I got through the opening part that was pretty sad and horrific, I was hooked and read the rest of it over the next half day. I couldn't put it down, and when I finally did at the last page, I was in tears, it was so good. What a great, great book. I think anyone who reads this will love it, men or women.
No sooner do I put this one on hold at the library, already in the middle of three books and moving very slowly, than it comes in and I'm on a three-week deadline before the fines start in. Oy! But I jumped into it, putting down all other books, at the recommendation of NPR's Summer Reading List.
Good thing, it was a great ride, a really enjoyable book with a fabulously witty and evil main character. All of the characters were really vivid and the story wasn't contrived or tossed together for the sake of a book, it was almost like reading a play. I could easily imagine this book as a play or a movie and I've already got all the actors in mind who would play the characters.
Very well done, highly recommended if your sense of humour tends toward the dark and you enjoy a good, witty read.
