[books 2008] Various

[inulro]

4. The Black Angel by John Connolly

Now I've read all his books, so I can stop bothering you.

A Charlie Parker mystery, longer than most and different in that part of it is set in Europe (Connolly can make the States creepy and esoteric enough; he doesn't generally feel the need to move the action to Europe). Seriously good leave-me-alone-I'm-reading stuff.

5. Long Way Down by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman

The book that accompanies the recent BBC series. Like the series, it's entertaining and interesting enough, with moments of being moving (especially their visits to see the work that Unicef and Riders for Health do), but none of the sheer life-changing, life-affirming exuberance of Long Way Round.

6. Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

Neil's first collection of short stories, which somehow I've not read up till now. Overall I like Fragile Things better, but there's some really good stuff in here, particularly the Cthulu take-offs (hilarious) and the werewolf stuff, and the re-telling of Snow White. The Black Cat one is just heartbreaking. There's not surprisingly a few that didn't do much for me (unfortunately, Chivalry, the story that opens the volume, is one of them), but such is the nature of short story collections.

It's quite striking how in more than a few of the stories, the protagonists are English writers from rural Sussex stuck in the US, and there's one where the protagonist's mates are a not at all convincingly disguised Jonathan Ross and his wife (whose name escapes me). I guess he was still "writing what you know" at that point.

Comments

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

The one with Jonathan Ross and Jane Goldman was also based around a very thinly disguised "Circus of Horrors". I get the impression that the three of them went to the CofH, were deeply unimpressed (given the slagging off of the ringmaster, who does indeed come across as a cut-price Alice Cooper), and Gaiman got the inspiration for the story from that.