[books 2008] Some variety
Dec. 14th, 2008 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro66. Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L Sayers
Not nearly as good as I recall Gaudy Night being, but it was about 15 years ago that I read it. Entertaining enough bus reading. One thing struck me - as in Hound of the Baskervilles, the plot features a boggy area of land into which men and animals sink to their deaths. Doyle's is in Devon, this one is on the North Yorks Moors. Whatever happened to these wonderful plot devices? Have they all been filled in and made safe, or did they never actually exist? Enquiring minds want to know.
67. The Touch of Ghosts by John Rickard
A random library selection based on the fact that it involved a ghost town. After an unfortunate prologue, I spent the first 25 or so pages going "this guy so wants to be John Connolly (troubled detective based in New England - this guy Vermont rather than Maine, but there's a character from Arostook, an area which figures prominently in one of the Connolly novels). After that, however, I was hooked and plowed through it at record speed.
Recommended. He's got a couple other books out and will look out for them.
68. Ghost Riders: Travels with American Nomads by Richard Grant
This might well be the best book I've read this year. I got it from the library because I wasn't convinced, but now I want my own copy. Grant has thoroughly researched the various nomadic groups that are big in the American cultural consciousness from the Native Americans to the Mountain Men and original cowboys, and spent a serious amount of time with the various nomadic "tribes" that inhabit the American West today. Full of wonderful liminal history, including a lot on white people "going native" early on. Lots of wonderful insights and quotes and if I go into any more detail I'll end up quoting the whole thing.
Recommended to anyone interested in the history & culture of outsiders and fringe groups, or who just likes entertaining travel writing.
Not nearly as good as I recall Gaudy Night being, but it was about 15 years ago that I read it. Entertaining enough bus reading. One thing struck me - as in Hound of the Baskervilles, the plot features a boggy area of land into which men and animals sink to their deaths. Doyle's is in Devon, this one is on the North Yorks Moors. Whatever happened to these wonderful plot devices? Have they all been filled in and made safe, or did they never actually exist? Enquiring minds want to know.
67. The Touch of Ghosts by John Rickard
A random library selection based on the fact that it involved a ghost town. After an unfortunate prologue, I spent the first 25 or so pages going "this guy so wants to be John Connolly (troubled detective based in New England - this guy Vermont rather than Maine, but there's a character from Arostook, an area which figures prominently in one of the Connolly novels). After that, however, I was hooked and plowed through it at record speed.
Recommended. He's got a couple other books out and will look out for them.
68. Ghost Riders: Travels with American Nomads by Richard Grant
This might well be the best book I've read this year. I got it from the library because I wasn't convinced, but now I want my own copy. Grant has thoroughly researched the various nomadic groups that are big in the American cultural consciousness from the Native Americans to the Mountain Men and original cowboys, and spent a serious amount of time with the various nomadic "tribes" that inhabit the American West today. Full of wonderful liminal history, including a lot on white people "going native" early on. Lots of wonderful insights and quotes and if I go into any more detail I'll end up quoting the whole thing.
Recommended to anyone interested in the history & culture of outsiders and fringe groups, or who just likes entertaining travel writing.
