Category Archives: book review

Loitering With Intent by Muriel Spark

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 Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde

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!

City Dog, Country Frog by Jon J. Muth and Mo Willems

A sweet, simple story about friendship, seasons, aging and loss.

Illustrated by the same man who did Zen Shorts and Zen Ghosts the pictures are touching and funny all at the same time.

There is not a great deal of text, yet it is enough that the story can be read as a slightly silly, slightly sad book about a dog and his friends or as something that goes beyond that into friendship, aging, loss and the constant changing of the seasons while life goes on.

Would I recommend it? Yes.

Fighting For Your Life, Man-eater Bears by Tom Hron

Dear Cousin Johnny,

Thank you for giving me this book to read.  I now know that if things really go poorly I should attempt to punch a black bear that is trying to eat me (or my friend/family member) in the nose.  Since I’m hoping it won’t come to that I’m now considering getting a larger dog, baseball bat, machete and stun gun to bring with me in the woods – just in case- oh and I promise not to forget my binoculars. Also after learning that grizzly bears enjoy flattening and shredding nylon tents I may never go camping much less hiking in certain areas again. My Dad painted a vivid enough picture of polar bears for me that I wasn’t planning on spending my vacation with one anytime soon but just in case his stories were fading in memory I now have some new ones to reinforce them with.

Thank you as well for the nightmare this book gave me. I had accidentally fallen asleep in Clara’s bed and that got me right back up and into my own bed. You know, the one with my husband who has a longer reach than me and would be better at beating a bear with a bat or punching it in the nose than I would.  And I certainly can’t forget to thank you for introducing me to a huge amount of graphic, horrific, descriptions of people who were eaten alive by bears. I shall never forget what a bear can do, ever… even if I want to.

Finally thank you for giving me a book to read that made me laugh. Because if I’m going to read about graphic bear deaths I do truly prefer it to be with a good dose of sarcasm and contempt for those who ignore “traditional knowledge and wisdom”…  “for the sake of computer modeling by a bunch of pinheads who have never set foot on the pack ice.”

In Gratitude,

Jessie

Would I recommend it? Bears: They don’t just eat nuts and berries, sometimes they eat people.  There was quite a lot of useful and interesting information but it is certainly not for the faint of heart!

Mirror by Jeannie Baker

First off if you go find this book don’t be like me. Don’t pick it up, open it and think that it must be defective because there are no pages. Be smarter than me, be more like Ivy, she can figure out how to open it, see:It opens from the middle out… very tricky.

The book follows two boys, (the boy on the left lives in Sydney Australia and the one on the right lives in Morocco) as they go about their day.

Designed to be looked at together it requires a lot of space to open it all up, but it’s totally worth it.

The pictures that tell the story are amazing collages… …with unbelievable detail. Ivy and Clara didn’t really pick up much of the different culture, same life aspect but their interest in the pictures more than made up for it.

Would I recommend it? Yes, I’m hoping to remember this book again when the girls are a little older and can understand a bit more, but it was worth it just to check out the cool chickens!

City of Dragons by Robin Hobb

If you’ve ever gone to my page of fiction books and looked around you’ll see that I’ve got nine posts of Robin Hobb’s which in total review eleven books and almost every one says that you should really read Assassins Apprentice. So I just thought I’d start this one out by saying it again.

You should read Assassins Apprentice.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way I’ve only one really important thing to say about this book.

Even though this is the 15th book of Robin Hobb’s that I have read, even though ALL the others came in sets of three, (you know a trilogy, the thing fantasy writers seem to love) this is not book three of a trilogy. This is book three of four.

I just thought I should warn you.

Would I recommend it? Yes, but I have I mentioned that you should read Assassins Apprentice?

Girl Hunter by Georgia Pellegrini (and Chukar Hunting)

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.

Pocketful of Posies, A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes by Sally Mavor

I love nursery rhymes.

Once, just after starting my blog I wrote about some of my thoughts on children’s books. You can take a quick peek here: Pick a Good One, O Best Beloved, I’ll wait while you do…

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After reading that I’m sure you know exactly why I love reading nursery rhymes to the girls but just in case you didn’t go read it I’ll elaborate.

Even the most well known of the nursery rhymes have uncommon words, (dame, contrary, posies) and once you venture into some of the other less well known rhymes you get even more, horrid, doth, stile, delve, caper, sup and comely just to name a few. We certainly don’t stop and identify each unknown word, that would be boring but Ivy will often ask if she doesn’t understand a word even if it’s in a rhyme that she’s heard many times before. I like to think I’ve got a decent vocabulary but I’m not throwing around comely and caper very often! I can’t think of a better way to sneakily expand vocabulary than through a bunch of short fun rhymes.

Since the rhymes are so fun and short both girls are starting to memorize a few (beyond Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star)  so we can now “read” together trading lines back and forth. Good for the memory and just plan fun!

Nursery rhymes, gotta love ’em!

Recently one of my librarian cousins told me about this book:

As you now know from reading my old post I say gorgeous illustrations trump even crappy writing when we pick out a book.

This book has nursery rhymes and fantastic pictures -what can I say librarian cousins are great!

The illustrations are photos of artwork made out of everything from acorn caps to beads, sewn together on felt backgrounds and populated with little handmade people. Ivy and Clara have both poured over the pictures and so have I, they are fascinating!

Would I recommend it? Yes!

Kudos to anyone who can name all ten nursery rhymes my uncommon words came from!

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

Sometimes when everyone raves over a new book, my stubbornness emerges and I avoid reading it.

I have no good reason for this, I’m just contrary.

After approximately 45,879 people told me to read these books I was still ignoring them.

Then it was picked as our book club book last month so I gave in.

How did I like it? I’m not sure.

On the one hand:

I was completely sucked in, couldn’t put it down, dreamed about it (mostly nightmares), lost sleep over it and got the next books as soon as I could.

On the other hand:

The main character drove me nuts in the second book and was annoying in the third.  It’s got a pretty good ick factor, nightmare inducing even. By the third book I felt as though the author was sticking with her gimmick that worked instead of branching out leaving me a bit so-so on some of the plotting. And, even though this should be superfluous, the name Peeta was fine with me until I tried to say it out loud and then every time I saw it I thought of PETA and that’s just never good.

But even with all that I couldn’t put it down.

Would I recommend it? ??????

I know that since 87,902 people told me to read this some of you must be out there.  Help me out here, would you give it a broad recommendation, or do you all just like to get me to read things that are nightmare inducing??