[Books 2007] Umberto Eco and Kathy Reichs

[inulro]

I don't think I've ever finished this many books in a month before. Amazing what spending lots of time stuck in traffic alternating with being unable to leave the house for a week combined with a large pile of thrillers will get you.

6. Bare Bones by Kathy Reichs
I really like this series. Forensic anthropology rocks. Especially forensic anthropology set in Montreal and North Carolina. It's interesting that while many authors' books get longer as they go along, these seem to be getting shorter. Not great literature, but thoroughly enjoyable.

7. Conversations About the End of Time by Umberto Eco and others (the February Bibliogoths book)
Look, I read a book with Real Ideas in it! This is a book that consists of Stephen Jay Gould, Jean Delumeau (French historian), Jean-Claude Carriere (French screen-writer and all around learned guy) and Umberto Eco in conversation with some French journalists about the meaning, or lack thereof, of the year 2000, from a scientific, historical, philosophical and religious perspective. It's less heavy going than it sounds (I think, but the Stephen Jay Gould chapter is easy and a joy to read, and I'm familiar with a lot of the concepts presented in the historical & religious studies areas from my previous life, so those bits might be more challenging to others).

Another one I highly recommend.

Still not well. I am so not impressed.

Comments

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I believe this is my seat over here in the 'pissed off about being ill' corner.

[mimmimmim.livejournal.com]

Sadly, Cross bones was rubbish. I dunno if Reichs had decided that the Da Vinci code was such a big seller she wanted a piece of the action or what, but I was really disappointed in it. Then again, most writers put out a duff book in a series.

I'm also annoyed by the apparent cramming of the word 'Bones' into her titles nowadays, but that could be because I loathe the TV series.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I haven't read Cross Bones yet.

I think the TV series is hilarious, it just has nothing to do with the books.

[mimmimmim.livejournal.com]

I may be being unfair to it. I reread Lindsay Davies' 'See Delphi and Die' over my holiday and enjoyed it much more the second time around, when I wasn't racing through it.

I picked up a book at Oxfam in the crime section that you'd like. It's subtitled 'An Elizabethan Spy Story' but it's actually an academic exploration of Walsingham's spy in the French ambassador's entourage at a point where Elizabeth I was trying to decide what to do about Mary QoS and the French were having problems with the Hugenots. It's fascinating, although it's made me realise how much my academic side has atrophied over the years. (For some reason, I have the urge to read Shakespeare as well right now. If I lie down and read trash, perhaps the urge will go away...)

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I've read about that book - either I bought a weekend paper when it came out or I was still subscribed to History Today. I'm not generally at all interested in the Tudors, but that book does sound like fun.