Category Archives: book review

Wrinkle by Scott Alan Ross

This book was lent to my by my Granny, it is a book her dermatologist wrote! Wrinkle is  a sort of crazy mystery involving botox, laboratories, plastic surgery, sex, murder, gambling and of course wrinkles.  My favorite part was learning a tiny bit more about botox, plastic surgery, lab mice and drug testing. Not that I have any personal plans for such things I just always like a book that gives you a glimpse into a profession I don’t know anything about. Very starkly different from Blue-Eyed Devil in that Blue-Eyed Devil is very sparse with words and Wrinkle is not. Granny said it’s got quite a few editing errors, I’m bad a noticing those (maybe you’ve noticed that about me) but I did pick up one or two.

Would I recommend it? Conditionally.  Not the best book ever, but certainly not the worst.  Don’t read it if it’s your only book you’ll have time for this summer, but if it sounds interesting and won’t kill three months of your free reading time pick it up!

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

If you love, religious history in particular Jewish history, old artifacts, particularly books, or book restoration. Then you should defiantly read this book and you will love it. If these topics are only of passing interest to you, then I’m not so sure. The author is a wonderful writer, tons of research must have gone into it, following the life of an ancient book is a really neat story, truly there is nothing wrong with this book, I just didn’t love it.

Would I recommend it? If  you have one of those interests listed above, yes. Otherwise  I’d recommend her book  Year of Wonders (about the plague) to anyone that was a great book!

Blue-Eyed Devil by Robert B. Parker

As you can see the pre-screening process is still working out!

Book four of the Virgil Cole books by Robert B. Parker was just as good as the first three.  Still short on words and long on action it was another quick read!  This was the final book with these characters and I really liked how the author ended things, to say more would be to give away too much you’ll just have to trust me!

Would I recommend it? Yes sir! Start with Appaloosa, Resolution, Brimstone and then finish up with Blue-Eyed Devil!

Stella, Fairy of the Forest by Marie-Louise Gay

Ivy in her best Reading Rainbow pose!

First off I will say that the illustrations in this book are really wonderful, I love the soft colors and all the detail. Ivy likes the book and I think it’s mostly because she likes to find all the hidden animals and bugs in the pictures.

There I said something nice, now lets talk about the text. There is nothing wrong with it exactly, just that yellow butterflies don’t eat butter, blue butterflies don’t eat sky, and please don’t make me accidentally read a book to my girl that says little snakes only swallow little people and that sheep are scary. Granted, Stella is trying to reassure her younger brother who is apprehensive about sheep and snakes but Ivy and I still had to have a talk about how sheep were nice and snakes are cool, and that butterflies drink nectar from flowers.  I also think this book has poor word flow.  Add to that two kids named Stella and Sam and the combination creates something that is both challenging to read out loud (almost a tongue twister) and that misses the lyrical quality that many books have when spoken.

The back flap says that “Marie-Louise Gay is one of Canada’s leading children’s book author-illustrators.” and that her first two books about Stella “…have been sold in more than ten countries.”  This lead me to wonder if I’m just a grump about books sometimes but in quick online search I found a few people who said that the first two were much better than this one. Maybe so but I hope the publisher spared the eight other countries!

Would I recommend it? Nope. I’d love to know if anyone has read her other books and liked them.

America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It by Mark Steyn

I think my biggest surprise picking up this book was when I checked out the back dust flap, it turns out that Mark Steyn is not an old English man with thin gray hair, big ears and wearing a cardigan, as I had  pictured him.  Instead he is one of those tater tot head guys, who knew?

If you have heard Mark Steyn on the radio like I have, (hence my completely wrong mental image of him) you’ll know what I mean when I say he writes like he talks.   He  sort of reminds me of a funny, intellectual, auctioneer…that’s either the best analogy ever or really awful, someone else who knows him is going to have to help me out.

In a nut shell the book covers current events (2006) focusing on Islamic terrorism and how it is affected by demographics. It also delves into world history as it relates to demographics. For instance, the reason the English were able to run around the world creating their empire?  Demographics, they were the first to conquer infant mortality so they had a surplus of young flag waving men ready to ship out.

Would I recommend it? Yes. Unless you have a problem calling an Islamic terrorist an Islamic terrorist, then you will be irritated by the book, end up throwing it across the room and come yell at me for ever recommending it. Though before the book hits the wall I’d be willing to bet it gets at least one begrudging snort of laughter out of you!

*Despite what I’ve said this book isn’t all giggles, Steyn paints a fairly grim picture of the future, especially for some countries, like Russia, Japan, Italy, Spain, Germany…

**  Does combining Eddie Izzard and Mark Steyn threaten the stability of this blog post? Will my whole site implode from the incongruity of it all?

The Virgin’s Lover by Philippa Gregory

I love both this authors writing style and her stories! In this book Queen Elizabeth finally takes the throne, what follows are the ins and outs of court, her lover, her suitors, war, trouble with the coin, trouble with the church, plots against the throne, backstabbing, double crossing and those inconvenient wives of ambitious husbands.

Would I recommend it? Yes, and if you like the time period check out some of her others too. The books stand alone if you have a particular one you are interested in such as The Other Boleyn Girl (which I have read and is excellent) but you can start at the beginning of the 16th century with The Constant Princess, (which I have not but I have yet to read a bad book by her-now I have, click title to see what I thought of that one) she has other books as well that I haven’t delved into, yet…

Where’s My Mom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

Forget what I said yesterday, this book doesn’t meet that criteria.

In this book  little monkey lost his mom and a butterfly is trying to help him find her and getting it all wrong!

“No, no, no! That’s an elephant”

If you can get passed the fact that it is a rhyming book but “come” and “mom” don’t really rhyme (unless you pick up an accent and call her “mum” instead), and that butterfly has a creepy head (I think it’s the nose that bothers me) it’s a pretty good one!

Would I recommended it? Yes unless you can’t say mum or have a major phobia of butterflies with noses.

Princess Hyacinth the Surprising Tale of a Girl who Floated by Florence Parry Heide

I think in order to be a really great picture book, the book needs to appeal to both kids and adults.  In my perfect picture book world the kids would love hearing the books and the parents would love reading them, at least the first hundred times. Princess Hyacinth the Surprising Tale of a Girl who Floated by Florence Parry Heide illustrated by Lane Smith is just such a book.

In addition to being a fun to read funny book. I love that the words are all over the page.

And the illustrations crack me up! This is the princess weighted down with her heavy princess clothes.

Would I recommend it? Definitely!

Peek-A Who by Nina Laden

I’ll start this post off with a confession. I received this book from a friend, and when I got it I thought it was dumb. There are few words, few pages, I didn’t even think a kid would like it.

I was totally wrong.

At 7 months old Clara loves this book. She laughs at every page, loves the mirror in the last one, and it has the added bonus of being a board book so even after it soaked in a pile of spit-up it’s still readable.

Would I recommend it? Yes. Baby giggles and grins are worth reading a book adults cringe at!

Brimstone by Robert B. Parker

I’m actually still reading this book, it is the third in a series but I can say after reading the first two (Appaloosa and Resolution) that by the time I managed to get this posted I might be done again! Now before you point out all the reading time I have while sitting around nursing a sick baby, and accuse me of reading too fast let me say that these books are populated by gun fighters.  And these guys, they don’t chat much. The book looks big, but here is a typical page:

Notice the lack of wordage?  Not big on descriptions, not big on conversation. But do you really need someone to layout a western scene for you in great detail? The books make me chuckle, the guys contemplate human nature between shooting people, protecting the town whores, drinking whiskey and getting into and out of trouble, what more could you ask for out of a western?

Would I recommend it? Yes!  Start with Appaloosa, and think about getting two at a time from the library, they go quick!