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sterling8's reviews
2145 reviews
Mother Aegypt and Other Stories by Kage Baker
4.0
I love Kage Baker! Although she hails from Pismo Beach, CA, she writes like a Monty Python trouper.
This particular book is a collection of short stories. The first three take place in her "Anvil of the World" cosmos, and the last is a Company story. I'm not always the biggest fan of short stories, but this author is excellent at that form. There is sly humor and a hint of darkness. The last story in particular, titled "Mother Aegypt", had me laughing out loud by the end, and I just don't do that with most humor writing.
This particular book is a collection of short stories. The first three take place in her "Anvil of the World" cosmos, and the last is a Company story. I'm not always the biggest fan of short stories, but this author is excellent at that form. There is sly humor and a hint of darkness. The last story in particular, titled "Mother Aegypt", had me laughing out loud by the end, and I just don't do that with most humor writing.
Broken: A Love Story - Horses, Humans, and Redemption on the Wind River Indian Reservation by Lisa Jones
3.0
I have mixed feelings about this book. The author started out writing a magazine piece about a crippled horse trainer and parlayed it into a book. For her research, she returned again and again to the reservation on which the trainer lived. She writes affectingly about the poverty and endurance of the people on the reservation. She also gets herself into some trouble because of her poor boundaries.
Jones is at her best exploring the issues of white privilege. I could take or leave some of the mysticism. There wasn't as much about the horses as I thought there would be, which disappointed me.
Think of the author as a closer-to-home, less humorous Elizabeth Gilbert. She writes honestly about some bad choices, but I felt she could have gone a bit deeper.
One caveat: there is a really brutal scene about horse castration in this book. Not for the faint of heart.
Jones is at her best exploring the issues of white privilege. I could take or leave some of the mysticism. There wasn't as much about the horses as I thought there would be, which disappointed me.
Think of the author as a closer-to-home, less humorous Elizabeth Gilbert. She writes honestly about some bad choices, but I felt she could have gone a bit deeper.
One caveat: there is a really brutal scene about horse castration in this book. Not for the faint of heart.
Grave Surprise by Charlaine Harris
3.0
The Harper Connelly series is quite a bit darker and more gothic than the Sookie Stackhouse books. In the second book, Harper has a mystery to solve when an extra body turns up in a grave that she is scanning. Harper has been hit by lightning, and the accident has left her with the ability to locate bodies and discover the cause of her death.
The relationship between Harper and her "brother" becomes more complicated. It's been obvious to the reader that the two are in love since jump street, but Harper finally figures it out in this book. She freaks out initially, but nothing comes of the revelation in the end. I'm waiting for something to actually happen with that relationship. The mystery itself I figured out as soon as the murderer appeared. And I'm not a great deductive reasoner. :)
The relationship between Harper and her "brother" becomes more complicated. It's been obvious to the reader that the two are in love since jump street, but Harper finally figures it out in this book. She freaks out initially, but nothing comes of the revelation in the end. I'm waiting for something to actually happen with that relationship. The mystery itself I figured out as soon as the murderer appeared. And I'm not a great deductive reasoner. :)
The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz
4.0
You could compare this author to Janet Evanovich, in that there's a PI (actually, a whole family of PIs), comedy, and quirky characters. The author tried hard, and I'm curious to see how the next books go. However, plot was really lacking. Everything was very episodic and designed to show how quirky the family was at the expense of getting anything going story-wise. I enjoyed it while I was reading it, but when I put the book down I wasn't especially motivated to pick it back up. Don't know if I'll try the next ones or not.
Red Glass by Laura Resau
4.0
Our bookstore is hosting Laura Resau for a reading next Saturday, so I quickly read the book and am very glad I did. This one won the Colorado Book Award for Young Adult fiction last year and deservedly so.
The story centers around a shy teenage girl who travels to Mexico to help her little foster brother visit his former home. Along the way, she falls in love and learns her own strength. The author vividly evokes the beauty and poverty of Mexico and Guatamala and writes with compassion about her characters. This one should be a book club recommendation.
The story centers around a shy teenage girl who travels to Mexico to help her little foster brother visit his former home. Along the way, she falls in love and learns her own strength. The author vividly evokes the beauty and poverty of Mexico and Guatamala and writes with compassion about her characters. This one should be a book club recommendation.
Sharpe's Waterloo by Bernard Cornwell
4.0
I am a big fan of Bernard Cornwell. He writes great historical military fiction. I've read several of the Sharpe books (totally out of order) and enjoy his gutter-born, dirty-fighting British soldier and survivor extraordinaire.
I have read better Sharpe books than this one, although I certainly did enjoy this book. Waterloo is a daunting subject and one I knew nothing about except that Wellington won the battle. There is such a wealth of literature that Cornwell ends up describing the battle at a bit of a detriment to the Sharpe plot, which is hardly a plot at all. But the battlefield tactics descriptions were chilling and compelling. I was fascinated with the details of the different types of French cavalry and how they were used, the way infantry was deployed depending on if they were facing cavalry or artillery, etc. Cornwell does not shirk driving home the horror of war, and although he admires good soldiery, he also realizes the carnage that war leaves behind.
I have read better Sharpe books than this one, although I certainly did enjoy this book. Waterloo is a daunting subject and one I knew nothing about except that Wellington won the battle. There is such a wealth of literature that Cornwell ends up describing the battle at a bit of a detriment to the Sharpe plot, which is hardly a plot at all. But the battlefield tactics descriptions were chilling and compelling. I was fascinated with the details of the different types of French cavalry and how they were used, the way infantry was deployed depending on if they were facing cavalry or artillery, etc. Cornwell does not shirk driving home the horror of war, and although he admires good soldiery, he also realizes the carnage that war leaves behind.
The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia
2.0
Neil Gaiman has a blurb on the front of this book, and I was hoping that the story would follow through on the promise that Sedia does for Moscow what Gaiman does for London. However, I feel this book probably suffered in translation. Many of the Russian mythic or legendary figures were unfamiliar to me, so I wasn't sure why one was supposed to be so scary. Everything seemed a bit too matter-of-fact for characters falling into an underground part of Moscow where pagan deities and folklore creatures hide.I knew some of the lore from reading C.J. Cherryh's Rusalka novels, and I enjoyed those books more.
The author would have rather long, meditative asides and character histories in which she analyzed current Russian criminality, the Russian Civil war, and the mongol invasion. But I didn't feel enlightened or astonished after any of those asides. Maybe I've been spoiled by Sergei Lukyanenko. :)
The author would have rather long, meditative asides and character histories in which she analyzed current Russian criminality, the Russian Civil war, and the mongol invasion. But I didn't feel enlightened or astonished after any of those asides. Maybe I've been spoiled by Sergei Lukyanenko. :)
Bone Rattler by Eliot Pattison
3.0
Eliot Pattison is a sensitive writer who richly depicts the culture of the American colonial era and takes a good stab at some of the eastern Native American cultures of the times too. His main character is in an almost impossible situation as an indentured servant who is required to inform upon his fellow Scots prisoners.
Downsides to the book: I really wanted to become immersed in the time period that Pattison so richly describes, but the book was often confusing. Questions were evaded and never answered (this drives me crazy), there were a huge amount of factions among the British, the Scots, and the Natives and it was hard for me to keep track of who was after who. I would probably have enjoyed the book more if it had been written as a straight historical piece without the mystery part of it.
Downsides to the book: I really wanted to become immersed in the time period that Pattison so richly describes, but the book was often confusing. Questions were evaded and never answered (this drives me crazy), there were a huge amount of factions among the British, the Scots, and the Natives and it was hard for me to keep track of who was after who. I would probably have enjoyed the book more if it had been written as a straight historical piece without the mystery part of it.
A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg
4.0
I ended up gulping down the last half of this book after easing into it. Molly Wizenberg also writes the food blog Orangette and writes articles for Bon Appetit. I sometimes find her articles for the magazine a bit precious, so I was very pleasantly surprised by how the book drew me in. The book talks about her love of food, but also about her love for her parents and how she met her husband. In fact, most of the last part of the book is a love letter to her husband, with recipes. There are recipes after every short chapter (5 pages or so) and most of them look delectable. Whether it be a frisee salad with bacon and dijon viniagrette, a dried fruit pie, or her really decadent Winning Hearts and Minds chocolate cake, there is much to tempt the appetite.
The book is like pulling a cosy quilt over ones head on a rainy day in Seattle with a cup of cocoa in hand- comforting and warm. Okay, sometimes it was a bit cute, but the author writes with a casual, assured voice. I was extremely touched by her chapters about the death of her father from cancer- probably the high point of the book because of the courage with which she wrote about her love and pain.
The book is like pulling a cosy quilt over ones head on a rainy day in Seattle with a cup of cocoa in hand- comforting and warm. Okay, sometimes it was a bit cute, but the author writes with a casual, assured voice. I was extremely touched by her chapters about the death of her father from cancer- probably the high point of the book because of the courage with which she wrote about her love and pain.
The Whole World Over by Julia Glass
3.0
I enjoyed reading the book while I was reading it. It did not compel me to go back to it after I put it down. The characters were mainly likable. I enjoyed Walter and Saga especially. Alan was annoying and self-pitying, and I couldn't figure out why his wife Greenie (and what's with him giving her that annoying, childish name?) would want to stick with him. The book was just too long for the plot, and it felt like it ended without anything being resolved. This may be slice-of-life, but couldn't we have at least one relationship at a satisfactory point before ending the book? So- good writing, but needs an editor and a way to make this feel like something other than a middle book in a series.