Get ready to pay attention!
Because as the main character relives her life over and over again you’ll want to remember who’s who, what was what and when things happened the last times around.
Would I recommend it? Yes – a book worth paying attention to!
Flavia is back!!!
Of course to be fair she’s been back before this in I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows but I see I didn’t manage to write a post about that.
Sorry.
Would I recommend it? Yes! I’d recommend all five and this one I liked better than the last two.
If you haven’t already please, do yourself a favor, read The Sweetness At The Bottom of the Pie where it all starts.
While I would cheerfully force Harry Potter into anyone’s hands who hasn’t read it yet, I was not as taken with this book.
Once I was hooked I couldn’t put it down and read far later into the night than I should have but it took a long time to get to that point.
Would I recommend it? Eh… Realistic people are impressive to read about, the depth of characters, their realistic quirks, it’s excellent writing. But does all that work make for likable characters? Not necessarily.
I’m not sure if it’s the elaborate feasts and celebrations, the crazy dresses, the scandalous going-ons, the hands off approach of raising children or the treasonous intrigue but whatever it is I love a good historical fiction full of kings and queens.
Would I recommend it? Even with it’s alternating view points between the two sisters I don’t think it’s quite as good as say something by Phillipa Gregory. But, if you have run out of Gregory’s works this one fits the bill!
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!
This book was fine.
Woman chef becomes hunter in order to truly participate in her omnivorous life.
Pretty good stories, good looking recipes but one thing really bothered me.
The chukar.
Georgia shoots her chukar at a Texas game ranch where “…an olive brown figure rises from the left, only 10 yards in front and, crosses my path in a diagonal leap skyward.”
She who has never tasted a chukar gets her bird, and life is good. I bet she even remembers how it tastes.
I have also been chukar hunting.
It was a bit different than that.
My Dad, brother and cousin Johnny all went chukar hunting in Nevada a few years ago. After lots and lots of driving we arrived and it was beautiful.
We parked the truck down along the river.
Until I realized that I had to hike up all that beauty.
See here is the thing, the locals don’t call them “Dirty Rotten Bastards” without due cause. Chukars hang out on the side of the mountain until they see you coming, then they run – straight – up – the – mountain. When they reach the top they no doubt do a few chukar high fives before the Dirty Rotten Bastards laugh and fly down the other side of the mountain. 
I don’t run up mountains as fast as a chukar, my game vest stayed empty.
After a few days of hunting we got smarter and learned what the birds ( I mean Dirty Rotten Bastards) were flying to and we were able to set up hunts so that they flew down our side of the mountain. That sounds like it should be much better, and it was. All you had to do was stop upward movement on a 45 degree, rocky, snow covered slope, pivot outward to be facing the flying birds and then attempt to stop gasping for oxygen in the thin mountain air so as to steady your gun and get a shot off.
My game vest still stayed empty.
Then I’d watch and watch as the unscathed bastards would fly off, mark where they went down, hike back down my mountain and get ready to chase them up the next one. It was fantastic in a masochistic sort of way.
Fortunately not everyone was as bad a shot as I was and we were able to eat chukar for dinner at night.
Unlike Georgia I do not remember how it tastes.
I was so tired by the end of the day it’s possible I would have thought cardboard a delicious dinner.
Tyler (who can kill a chuckar) and dogs along ridge.
As the local mountain lion hunter told us, you go Dirty Rotten Bastard hunting the first time for fun, the next times are all revenge.
And now that I have my own bird dog and know that I have to pretend I’m training for a marathon before I leave, I can’t wait until I have an opportunity to get my revenge.
Hopefully I’ll even remember how it tastes.
Would I recommend the book? I go bird hunting because I like the hunting. Figuring out what the birds are eating, where they will be and when, watching the dogs work the field (or mountain) and maybe if I’m lucky being able to fill my game vest with something tasty for dinner. I’d rather hike up and down mountains while puzzling out how it all works with friends or family than be certain of finding game on a managed property with a guide.
The author is a hunter to find out where her food came from, participate in the harvest and cook great food. I think what she does is admirable, I think her stories are good and I’m glad she wrote a book about it, I just can’t broadly recommend it as a hunting book. It’s not my kind of hunting.
It’s Philippa Gregory – Good
It’s historical fiction – Great
It’s got a main character that’s likable – Awesome
Would I recommend it? For certain
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.
Start with Outlander and then keep going.
I’ve been re-reading them in between other books since Jane has been born and I’m on my 6th book of hers in a month.
I haven’t yet had the words “dinna fash” or “you’ll ken” come out of my mouth yet but it’s a good thing I’ve only got one book left or I’d be yelling “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ” next time I burn dinner.
Would I recommend them? Having just stared blankly at the computer screen for a many minitues I have no tidy way to sum up the books nor why exactly I’d recommend them.
I think I’m in a Jamie and Claire induced stuper… and now I have to go read what happens next – even though I’ve read this one twice before.
It appears I read the first book in this series before I started writing about the books I was reading, which is annoying to me, and possibly to you to. Or maybe it’s just a bit of my need-to-have-some-part-of-my-life-in-order-so-I-choose-odd-small-things issue coming though and no one is annoyed other than me.
Regardless of who is or is not annoyed by this out of order book review I’ll attempt to put my own issues aside and carry on.
The Magicians by Lev Grossman was a recommendation from Pat Rothfuss’s blog. And since we should all have read at least The Name of The Wind by now we know he is a super author, and we should probably at least check out his recommendations right?
Right.
If you would like to do so yourself here is his link http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2009/08/things-i-like-magicians-and-faeries-of/
Personally I’d call The Magicians something of a Harry Potter meets Narnia in an adult sort of way.
(And by that oh best beloved I mean we’ve added, sarcasm, sex, drugs, alcohol, death and other assorted nasties)
I recall it being a fairly wonderful, if slightly startling book, so therefore I found the second in the series (see large title above) and brought it home. I then proceeded to read this book in a much shorter time frame than I should have which resulted in a much shorter night sleep than was really prudent.
And it was worth it.
Would I recommend it? Why yes, yes I would, thanks for asking.
And on a slightly different but still sort of related subject I feel compelled to share this flow chart of NPR’s top 100 science fiction and fantasy books (also recommended by Pat Rothfuss) because it’s funny if you’ve read enough of them to be dorky enough to get the jokes and possibly helpful in finding a new book to read if you haven’t.
