![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[books 2011] catch-up
Dec. 7th, 2011 01:55 pmOnce again, I've failed to keep up.
72. Deadlock by Sara Paretsky
This is the second in the VI Warshawski series. I've read the first and the third (and a random volume from later in the series). I liked this a lot more than I liked either the book before or after it. Maybe because it's obvious she's put a lot of research into the subject of the mystery (Great Lakes shipping); maybe I was just in the mood. The dramatisation has recently been played on Radio 4 Extra, so I read it with Kathleen Turner's voice in my head.
One thing that really struck home was at VI's cousin's funeral, many of the relatives pass judgement on his choice of career (he'd been a professional hockey player) at his own funeral and are really negative about VI not living in the suburbs and having 6 kids. I remember all too well people being like that in the 80s (the book was published in 1984 and is set a couple years earlier). In some ways I really don't miss the 80s.
73. Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
A novella really, following a 1930s scientific expedition to Svalbard. Three English men choose to over-winter in a remote location; but there's something else there with them. A few of you have read this recently and recommended it; it is indeed very, very good and highly recommended.
I just have one little niggle; the protagonist finds out about the history of their site through a conversation with a Norwegian trapper who also overwinters on Svalbard who is probably illiterate. It is clear that the Englishman does not speak Norwegian, so that assumes the trapper speaks (quite complicated) English. I'd have to check, but I'm fairly certain that most Norwegians speaking English is a post-WW2 phenomenon.
I thought her name was familiar and I see that she wrote the Wolf Brother series of books for young people. I started to read the first one and gave it up not because it offended me, but because it didn't grab me that much and I had too much else going on at the time. I might give this series another go.
74. Microcosm: A Portrait of a Central European City by Norman Davies and Roger Moorhouse
This is a history of the city of Wroclaw (previously Breslau), now in Poland (previously in Germany, Prussia, Austria, the Holy Roman Empire, etc). Davies' central thesis is that most of Central Europe has been subject to changes in ethnicity, population and nationhood for as long as the historical record goes back, and a similar book could be written about many Central European cities.
This book is huge, and full of really interesting factoids. It mainly left me wanting to know more about medieval and early modern Central Europe, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The only complaint I have is that it is weighted heavily towards the 20th century, which interests me less, but I'm sure that's a minority opinion.
75. The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
This book is also huge, but only took me five days to read. I think I like it even better than The Blind Assassin. It's the story of three Toronto women whose lives have been blighted at different times by their involvement with a femme fatale named Zenia. They thought she was dead, but then she turns up again.
All three main characters are real enough that you care about them, but tip just slightly into caricature so that a lot of the book has an undercurrent of being really funny. I especially got a kick out of the teeny tiny history professor who specialises in the history of war. Atwood makes well observed comments about women academics studying subjects that are still perceived as male domain (It was a prominent feature of my own academic career), but the titles of the classes that this woman teaches are hilarious.
It was published in 1993 so the present-day part of the story is set in the Toronto I was still living in, and I recognise just about every shop and restaurant she mentions.
My only complaint is that I felt slightly let down by the end. Logically, it works, but emotionally I felt a bit ripped off.
72. Deadlock by Sara Paretsky
This is the second in the VI Warshawski series. I've read the first and the third (and a random volume from later in the series). I liked this a lot more than I liked either the book before or after it. Maybe because it's obvious she's put a lot of research into the subject of the mystery (Great Lakes shipping); maybe I was just in the mood. The dramatisation has recently been played on Radio 4 Extra, so I read it with Kathleen Turner's voice in my head.
One thing that really struck home was at VI's cousin's funeral, many of the relatives pass judgement on his choice of career (he'd been a professional hockey player) at his own funeral and are really negative about VI not living in the suburbs and having 6 kids. I remember all too well people being like that in the 80s (the book was published in 1984 and is set a couple years earlier). In some ways I really don't miss the 80s.
73. Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
A novella really, following a 1930s scientific expedition to Svalbard. Three English men choose to over-winter in a remote location; but there's something else there with them. A few of you have read this recently and recommended it; it is indeed very, very good and highly recommended.
I just have one little niggle; the protagonist finds out about the history of their site through a conversation with a Norwegian trapper who also overwinters on Svalbard who is probably illiterate. It is clear that the Englishman does not speak Norwegian, so that assumes the trapper speaks (quite complicated) English. I'd have to check, but I'm fairly certain that most Norwegians speaking English is a post-WW2 phenomenon.
I thought her name was familiar and I see that she wrote the Wolf Brother series of books for young people. I started to read the first one and gave it up not because it offended me, but because it didn't grab me that much and I had too much else going on at the time. I might give this series another go.
74. Microcosm: A Portrait of a Central European City by Norman Davies and Roger Moorhouse
This is a history of the city of Wroclaw (previously Breslau), now in Poland (previously in Germany, Prussia, Austria, the Holy Roman Empire, etc). Davies' central thesis is that most of Central Europe has been subject to changes in ethnicity, population and nationhood for as long as the historical record goes back, and a similar book could be written about many Central European cities.
This book is huge, and full of really interesting factoids. It mainly left me wanting to know more about medieval and early modern Central Europe, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The only complaint I have is that it is weighted heavily towards the 20th century, which interests me less, but I'm sure that's a minority opinion.
75. The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
This book is also huge, but only took me five days to read. I think I like it even better than The Blind Assassin. It's the story of three Toronto women whose lives have been blighted at different times by their involvement with a femme fatale named Zenia. They thought she was dead, but then she turns up again.
All three main characters are real enough that you care about them, but tip just slightly into caricature so that a lot of the book has an undercurrent of being really funny. I especially got a kick out of the teeny tiny history professor who specialises in the history of war. Atwood makes well observed comments about women academics studying subjects that are still perceived as male domain (It was a prominent feature of my own academic career), but the titles of the classes that this woman teaches are hilarious.
It was published in 1993 so the present-day part of the story is set in the Toronto I was still living in, and I recognise just about every shop and restaurant she mentions.
My only complaint is that I felt slightly let down by the end. Logically, it works, but emotionally I felt a bit ripped off.
