A excerpt from A.A. Milne’s The house at Pooh Corner sums up my feelings on this book quite nicely:
…”Christopher Robin tried to teach it to me once, but it didn’t.”
“What didn’t?” said Rabbit.
“Didn’t what?” said Piglet.
Pooh shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It just didn’t.”
Would I recommend it? It started out really promising, I thought I would love it, I thought I was loving it… and then, in the words of Pooh, “It just didn’t.”
For almost three years an amazing thing has been happening – I’ve been blogging.
And I love my blog, I really do.
I write, you read, it’s amazing.
Amazing and but for fifty years I could have been one of the women in the book:
Struggling to find time to hand write stories to bring to their friends to read and critique while surrounded by their collective children.
Typing copies up to be mailed in to magazines and editors just to get someone other than their best friends to read what they have to say.
And here I lay in my bed, no doubt killing my neck with my horrible posture, clicking away at my keyboard and then with the push of a button and the magic of the internet – there it is for anyone to read.
Amazing.
Would I recommend it? Yes. This book is, of course, about so much more than a group of writing women. And while there are many, books about a group of friends going through life together the voice of the main character really struck a cord with me this time.
I am curious to know if you’ve read it if you felt the same. Was it really a good read or did it just speak to me?
Would I recommend it? Sara Gruen is the author of Water for Elephants, as well as Riding Lessons and Flying Changes all of which I would recommend. Ape House is her newest, and I’d recommend this one too, in fact it might be my favorite of hers so far!
One day my travels on the internet brought me to Stuck in a Book. As I browsed the site I discovered that Stuck in a Book and Harriet were hosting a Muriel Spark reading week. Who, I thought, is Muriel Spark and what is this reading week business of hers all about? Ever the intrepid internet explorer at one AM I hit Wikipedia to discover just who Muriel Spark was. Then it was onto my library loan site to get a few books of hers so that I could read them, post reviews the week of April 23-29 and thus join the Muriel Spark reading week.
And so that brings me, finally, to Loitering With Intent, the first Muriel Spark novel I have read.
There are main characters, and there are main characters. The most common ones are those who you suspect due to their large amounts of charisma, good luck, good looks, and the fact that they have a series of books named after them will, survive to have the fairy tale, good karma, feel good sort of end. Then there are the other ones, the more interesting ones. The main characters who range from a bit off the moral high road to the down right dubious and nasty (Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris comes to mind) characters who leave you in doubt up to the end whether they’ll get their happy ending, or even if they deserve it. These main characters are sometimes hard to love, like, or even enjoy reading about the workings of their twisted minds, but they do without a doubt make a book much more interesting.
Loitering With Intent‘s Fleur is by no means all the way to the evil end of this spectrum, but she does fall squarely into the dodgy (may I use that word- American that I am- since I’m talking about a book set in London???) portion of things and that is what makes the book so interesting. She’s not your normal shining star of a girl. Fleur is more of an penniless, egotistical, writer, who’s not completely believable… but I sorta liked her anyway.
Would I recommend it? Yes, the book kept me guessing and you really need to meet the fabulous Lady Edwina who was the best part of the whole thing!
If your interested in more Muriel Spark don’t forget to check in with Stuck in a Book and Harriet as they alternate posting this week!
One of the fun things about the Weekly Photo Challenge is that in looking at other peoples entries I have found some amazing blogs. One of them is Anne Freeman Images: Art of the Outdoors. Anne’s pictures are amazing, her short stories are fun and she has posted a few book reviews – what’s not to love? I read about One of Our Thursdays is Missing on her site and she gave it such a fantastic review that I went and requested it through the library system as I promptly forgot half of what she said in her review.
She says, right there, in plain English, that this is not the first in the series but do I remember?
No.
Fortunately Anne was right, this was a very fun book and I also will be heading back to the library to get the first in the series The Eyre Affair.
Would I recommend it? Yes. War is threatening between Racy Novel and Women’s Fiction you don’t want to miss out on that! Unless you have an issue with puns. If you have an issue with puns you may want to steer clear. In that regard it is reminiscent of the Xanth books but less 14 year old boy humor and more book humor.
And don’t be like me.
DON’T FORGET!
This is not the first in the series, if you want to start at the beginning don’t start here look up The Eyre Affair instead!
First off you should know that even though the word witch is in the title vampires feature prominently in the book as well. I usually avoid vampires, but since I never read anything sensible like a book flap, I didn’t know they were in here until it was too late. Fortunatly gruesome incidents were minimal and I ended up enjoying the book.
Would I recommend it? Well now, if you are someone like John who’s sense of the universe is completely disrupted by vampires who don’t die in the sunlight then you’d better avoid it. If the specific traits and habits of vampires are of less importance to you this may be an enjoyable read with an interesting mix of magic, history and science.
I am not into philosophical reading, therefore this was not a good book for me.
Would I recommend it? No, but it might taste good.
