Month: January 2011

Review – The Hard Way

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The Hard Way

By Lee Child

Bantam Dell

ISBN:978-0-440-24103-4

4 stars

I’ve read a number of Lee Child’s books and there is one overriding thing I need to remind myself to do each time I start one — forget reality.  Please don’t take this to mean that I don’t like the books, because I do, it’s just that his characters, Jack Reacher in particular, always end up in the craziest situations that a person, a sane person, would have walked away from or never become involved in to begin with.  But, that is what also makes them interesting, so now I just go with the forget all reality tactic and I find enjoy the books much better.

Jack Reacher is back in New York City and spending time in a café drinking coffee, a favorite pastime of his.  One evening, he sees a man get into a car and drive away.  The next day, he’s approached about the small but rather forgettable event and ends up drawn into a kidnapping case that also involves a handful of rouge mercenaries on call for the U.S. government.  Unsure of how to walk away from the group he’s found himself oddly tied to because he can’t be certain that the kidnapped mother and daughter will be safe, he gets drawn deeper into the case and goes out of his way to help rescue two people he’s never met.

Oh, Reacher, how do you manage to rescue so many people in so short a time?  Also, how is it you manage to always be in the right place when trouble happens?  I want to be annoyed with these books because there is a huge disconnect between what happens and general reality (You know, reality for normal people.) but I can’t be.  Once I let go and fall into these books, I can’t help it, I’m stuck until I find out that Reacher has managed to save someone, stop something from blowing up, or just save the world in general.  I’m not a thriller reader either but these books put me into some sort of catatonic reading mode and I have to finish and find out that everything has worked out fine in the end.  I say that because everything always works out fine in the end.  At least that’s been the case for the books I’ve read in the Reacher series.

A co-worker of mine lends these books to me and I’ll admit there have been a few bombs along the way but for the most part, I enjoy them.  They’re one off books which can be read in one sitting and you don’t have to have read them in any sort of order to understand the plot.  By the way, the plot is pretty much always the same — something bad happens, Reacher shows up, saves the day.  These are books you pull out on a rainy or slow day and you just read.  You’ll be entertained by the end and glad that a co-worker loaned you that book.  You’ll also be tempted to write something nice about their sharing abilities so they loan you more.

Today’s Book with Extra Book Bits

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I’m about to finish The Woman in Black by Susan Hill.  It’s a ghost story and while it has it’s conventional parts, it feels more like a slow moving thriller and it works wonderfully.  She dishes out details slowly, building a lot of tension for the ending I know is coming.  The best word to describe it would be atmospheric.  It has long, lush sentences that evoke a foreboding for the horrible ending.  It reminds me a lot of Shirley Jackson whose storytelling has the same feel.  In case, you’re wondering how I know what’s coming — I read the end already.

I haven’t done a library loot in forever so here goes.

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (See above.)

Time Travelers Never Die by Jack McDevitt (On my list and it fits a challenge, a twofer book.)

Savage Kingdom: The True story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America by Benjamin Woolley (I read a book last year about Jamestown and loved it so I’m trying another.  We’ll see if my interest holds up through this one.)

Also new to me but not a library loaner is A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness.  I’ve been craving this one since it came through the door and it’s so my next book.  Admire that cover.  I love, love, love it.  Can’t really say why but the sapphire blue cover is working for me.

Thoughts – The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

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Thoughts – The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

By David Grann

Doubleday

eISBN: 978-0-385-52922-8

4 stars

I’m writing this review several weeks after finishing the book so this is more a few final thoughts rather than a full review.  I wasn’t planning to do a review at all considering I talked about the book a few times already but I kept coming back to it for several reasons so obviously the book made an impression which is why I’m involved in this current exercise.

In case you aren’t familiar with The Lost City of Z, it’s a non-fiction account of British explorer Percy Fawcett’s last expedition into the Amazon jungle in Brazil.  He was in search of the legendary, mythical might be a better word, city of El Dorado which was supposed to be a city of gold.  He disappeared on his final trip and theories abound as to what happened to him.  Grann takes up the story and puts his own twist on it.

Grann is a journalist so the book does in many respects read like a long scientific article.  That’s not a bad thing though because in a non-fiction book I prefer a more straightforward style instead of a writer that tries to woo me with fluffy descriptions.  Also, the Amazon doesn’t lend itself to descriptions of that sort, especially when one is describing flesh eating bugs — in that case, the less fluffy, less descriptive the better.  He does have a very engaging style so please don’t let my scientific article tag scare you off of this one.  Grann has a sense of humor and laughs at himself and his lack of even basic camping skills as he prepares to trek off into the jungle in the hopes of understanding Fawcett’s, and now his own, obsession with the Amazon.  It’s well researched, as far as I can tell but I know very little about the Amazon, and feels complete even for a book on the short side.  When I finished, I did amuse myself with a bit of googling to find out more about both Fawcett and the Amazon so I think he did his job well.

If you’re looking for something interesting, pick this one up.  The story Grann tells is a good one.

Review – The Exile: An Outlander Graphic Novel

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The Exile: An Outlander Graphic Novel

By Diana Gabaldon

Illustrated by Hoang Nguyen

Ballantine Books

ISBN: 978-0-345-50538-5

3.5 stars

The Exile is Outlander from Jamie Fraser’s point of view.  Being a graphic novel, it took me a few pages to move past and tell the voice raging in my head that while I didn’t picture Jamie Fraser this way, someone did so get over it.  Once I moved on, it was all good and the visions in my head and those on the page began, inexplicably, to merge.  As a side note, this book is beautifully illustrated so it was hard to be all that disappointed.

However, the story itself didn’t work for me and I think it’s because I know the story too well.  In graphic novel form it feels too light and that too much information is missing.  All the basics are here — Jamie’s story is pretty much the same as Claire’s so there isn’t much that differs — but it’s the little details that I loved about the first book that I missed.  And let’s face it, Gabaldon, if you’ve read any of the Outlander books, likes details.

For those not familiar with the story: Jamie Fraser is a Scotsman returning to his homeland with a price on his head.  Claire Randall is a 20th Century woman who, while visiting Scotland and touring a group of standing stones, passes into the stone circle and goes back in time to the 18th Century.  As two outsiders, Jamie and Claire are thrown together in a marriage of strange convenience but fall in love despite their circumstances.

Jamie and Claire are true to their characters, there’s still a lot of sex, and somehow Claire is much more voluptuous than I ever imagined her to be but that might just be due to the fact that I don’t add extra boobage to female characters instinctively.  Jamie remains the hot Scottish guy in a kilt too so plus for that.

There was one scene from the original book that I wish had been left out.  At one point, Claire tries to escape back to her own time and makes a run for the stone circle that brought her to the 18th Century.  She gets captured by a British Captain who is looking for Jamie.  Jamie is able to get her back before any damage is done but as punishment, he beats her.  I almost put the book down when I first read it in Outlander and hoped that the scene had been expunged from this version.  It hadn’t.  I had an even more visceral reaction to it this time around.  I tried to explain it to myself in terms of the time frame (1700s) but it will never be something I can overlook.  I’m sure many may think I’m making too much of one rather small part of the story but it just soured it for me.

If you’re a fan of Gabaldon’s Outlander series, you’ll probably, like me, want to read this one.  I wasn’t thoroughly sold but it hasn’t ruined the series for me either.  As I mentioned earlier, it’s really beautifully done and worth a look for that reason alone.

The Sunday Salon: Resolution Reading/Slumps

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I’ve been reading a lot of posts this week about resolutions and it got me thinking of my own, which happen to be non-existent.  Personally, I like it that way.  It seems, and has been proven over and over again, that if I make resolutions no matter how general and open, I break them.  Not intentionally you understand it’s more a subconscious thing that happens and I manage to talk myself out of and around keeping any and all resolutions.  To break the annoying cycle, in short, I don’t make resolutions anymore.  But, in fact, I did this year.  I just didn’t write them down.  I think this is all an elaborate ruse to fool myself into keeping the very vague things that I’d like to do.

In terms of reading, I don’t have any other than wanting to read more of my own books and more non-fiction.  Those I think I can keep but since I’ve written them down, I’ve probably jinxed myself and even those won’t happen now.

Anyway, onto slumps.  I’ve been sort of in a reading funk this year.  Yes, even nine days in and I’m getting myself slumpy.  How can that be?  I have no answer so if you have one let me know.  Please.  Here’s what happened.  I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  I knew it would be a tough book to follow so I picked a book I knew would be completely different — The Tudor Secret by C.W. Gortner.  I’m reviewing the book for The BookReporter so I knew I had to finish it and since it was something all together different, I knew it would be a good place to start.  It was.  The book itself was fine and entertaining as the Tudors and their antics always are.  Then I spent a whole evening trying to figure out what to read next.  I scoured the shelves, checked the library to see if my holds were in, and finally opened the Nook.  That’s when I found The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  It was short and it entertained me.  Then came yesterday when I spent the entire day on the couch feeling under the weather and cranky and all I wanted was a book and couldn’t find one that fit.  Alas, after this very long paragraph, I’ve come to the slump problem.  I didn’t have any books I wanted to read.   I tried The Last Pendragon by Sarah Woodbury hoping that my enduring love of Arthurian legend would pull me through.  It didn’t entirely fail me but it did take me 134 pages to rescue me.

Part of the problem is that I have a book I really, really want to read — A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness — but I’m doing this one for review and it’s not due for several weeks and I promised myself that I would hold off since I have another book due in between.  I’m beginning to think that if I had just read the book instead of putting it on the side; I wouldn’t be in this stupid slump right now.  Ah, oh well.

I noticed that I have several reviews that I never posted thanks to holidays and breaks and me giving myself permission to sleep a little later on some days (which is why Thursday and Friday of last week were quiet here).  So, I’ll be setting up some posts today to catch-up on my backlog which has been patiently waiting for me to get butt in chair.  The next two weeks will be the weeks of reviews here at Just Book Reading.

Happy Sunday everyone.

Re-Read Thoughts: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

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Since I read the final two books in my Harry Potter Re-Read back to back I thought it would be a good idea to put my thoughts together because the books sort of melded in my head.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

By JK Rowling

Scholastic Inc.

ISBN: 0-439-78454-9

The short re-cap: Harry returns to Hogwarts for his sixth year.  His hopes are high after learning he will be having private lessons with Dumbledore, finds he has feeling for Ginny he never imagined, and realizes his life is about to change forever.

Spoilers below; I’ve warned you so no complaints.

I love how book six begins with a visit to the Muggle Prime Minister.  I don’t know why but the scene where the Muggle Minister gets annoyed by having to wait for the Minister of Magic to appear just makes me laugh.  I love, love, love Fred and George and the new joke shop.  U No Poo!  How can you not chuckle at that?  Also, the Fleur and Mrs. Weasley testing of the waters of the in-law pool is a nice aside in a book that can otherwise be full of tension.  The pensive is probably one of my most favorite of Rowling’s magical inventions and the ways she uses it to tell Voldermort’s story makes it all the more interesting.  And then, there’s the romance.  I don’t care much for teen angst but here it’s not annoying.  Ron and Lavender are amusing but poor Hermione getting stuck with Cormac McLaggen is just mean.  And yes, I know she’s doing it to hurt Ron but she could have picked better.  Harry and Ginny — I love that these two get together but I hate that they break up.  Harry, can you be more stubborn?  Yes, he can but I won’t go there now.

I can’t escape it so I’ll mention it — Dumbledore’s death.  It’s sad and it makes the ending of this book seem so final.  Each time I want it to end differently and it doesn’t but I appreciate that Rowling has people die in this series.  It’s necessary for the story and adds much more weight to it.

The Half-Blood Prince is one of my favorites in the series.  This is probably my second favorite followed by the Prisoner of Azkaban.

 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

By JK Rowling

Scholastic Inc.

ISBN: 0-545-01022-5

The short re-cap: Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave Hogwarts and their families behind to search for the horcruxes hidden by Voldermort.  Camping ensures, fighting begins, and life as Harry knows it will never be the same.

OK, folks, spoilers drill remains in place.

The Deathly Hallows is a sad book for many reasons but for me it’s sad because it’s the end.  There’s no more to look forward to.  Also, the first time I read this book I didn’t so much mind the epilogue.  This time it didn’t feel necessary for me to know that Ginny and Harry marry and have three children or that Ron and Hermione stay together.  But, that off my chest now, let’s move on.

The camping is slow and the first part of this book does feel like it drags a bit.  While the searching for the horcruxes bit is a necessary part of the plot, it’s slow and the in fighting with Harry, Ron, and Hermione gets tired.  Although, this is the book in which I fall in love with Neville and Luna.  They both shine brightly doing more to help Harry that he could or would have ever asked them to do.  They’re stand up people and I couldn’t be happier that it’s Neville that chops off Nagini’s head!  Luna is still loopy but she gets people so well, that in the end, when she sees Harry sitting on a bench in the Great Hall after the battle, she’s the one that provides him his means of escape.  Ginny is pure fire and the way Harry looks for her dot on the Maurader’s Map is sweet, if still a little creepy.

Snape.  I skipped mentioning him in my thoughts on the Half-Blood Prince even though he plays a large part there because I wanted to talk about him here.  No, I didn’t have a change of heart.  I still dislike him greatly.  He does redeem himself, in Harry’s eyes, but not mine.  My dislike of him has been cultivated for far too long for me to like him now even after knowing what he has done to help Harry.  Snape harbors too much hate for Harry’s father James to really care much about him the end.  Yes, I know he does care but for me it feels forced and I can’t go along.

Earlier I said I found this book sad.  There are a number of reasons but the one that stands out is Dobby’s death.  I got a little teary when reading it.  Dobby has been there for Harry and to have him die now is heartbreaking.  Harry finds resolve in his death but I don’t.  For me, it’s sadder than Dumbledore’s death.

There are some amazing moments:  Mrs. Weasley taking on Bellatrix.  How fabulous is Molly!  Ron finding he cares about house elves, at least for Hermione’s sake.  Hermione’s quick thinking that gets them out of several incidents.  Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s escape from Gringotts on a dragon.  Neville becoming the man!

My re-read may have started on a whim and took a lot longer than I thought it would to finish the seven books but I’m glad I made the time.  These aren’t books I pull off my shelf often, in fact, it’s been years since I’ve read any of them but it was fun to re-live this story.  Even knowing what happens and how it will all end, there were still a few surprises here.

Final thoughts on all the books:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone — It must have been at least 10 years since I read this one and it was a lovely surprise.  The story is full of wonder at the beginning and I forgot how easily Rowling can pull a reader into her world.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets — I wanted to pace myself for the re-read because I didn’t want to burn out.  I did rush into this one and while I loved it, I was really looking forward to book three.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban — Undoubtedly, my favorite.  I loved it the first time I read it and fell in love all over again on page one.  The story takes a little bit darker turn but it also re-introduced me to characters like Lupin and Sirius that I heart.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — I have to say that I enjoyed this one more on this reading.  Why, I can’t really say but I discovered many things this time around that I forgot.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix — While I didn’t find as much joy in book five as I did in the previous four, I still liked it.  Harry gets very moody in this one and my tolerance for teen angst is low so I was annoyed a bit but nowhere near enough to stop!  Besides, I get to intense moments of Snape dislike in this one and that’s totally worth it.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — Again, more Snape disliking and that’s good.  Also, while the teen angst gets to me, the teen romance got me in this one.  I think it’s because I love when Harry and Ginny together.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — It’s sad because so many people die in this one but there’s something so wonderful about seeing it through to the end.  While I can do without the epilogue, the ending seems just right for me.

Well, after several months, my re-read is over and all I have to say is the end.

Teaser Tuesdays

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so that other participants know what you’re reading.

I’m only a few pages in to The Tudor Secret by C.W. Gortner but it’s proving interesting and slightly amusing.

“Though Guilford had been at court for over three years, presumably engaged in more than the satiation of his vices, he got us lost within a matter of seconds.  I imagined being discovered centuries later, two skeletons with my hands locked about his throat, and took it upon myself to ask for directions.”  (pg. 32)

2011 Challenges

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As I said in my Sunday Salon, I’m joining fewer challenges this year.  I completed almost all of the challenges and read-alongs I participated in last year, but I want to leave my schedule open for more leisurely reads in 2011.  So the list is short…

Time Travel Reading Challenge hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books

I’m in for five time travel books.  Alyce was kind enough to post a number of books on her challenge page; several have made it onto my list already.

 

The Royal Mistress Challenge hosted by The Misadventures of Moppet

I’ve signed up for Maid of Honour level which is three books but there’s a good chance I’ll read more than three for this challenge.

 

2011 E-Book Reading Challenge hosted by La Coccinelle at The Ladybug Reads

A goal of mine this year is to read the books I’ve been downloading to my Nook so this is perfect.