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Feb. 17th, 2014 09:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tvordlj(it winter olympics bronze)
edited to add:
As Ange pointed out, this poor sentence looked abandoned in mid stream. What it was, was a reminder to write about our in-office IT Olympics last Friday and I forgot anyway once i got involved in all the book stuff.
Yes we had some fun events on Friday afternoon as dreamed up by our social committee. Events like "toss the boss" (manager faces on balls to be tossed into various size bins for points), bowling for snowmen (styrofoam snowmen), tabletop bowling, and other similar things. It was fun and our team ended up with a bronze medal overall which surprised me. We did quite well in one particular event but the rest were only iffy. We each got a choice of gift cards for 10$ and i picked the Starbucks one.
I guess i better catch up on my book list as I seem to have churned through quite a few in the last few weeks because some of them were fairly short and easy reads.
9 Trouble in Paradise - Robert B. Parker
Another of the Jesse Stone police chief books. Quick, easy read, I like them because I've seen a few made for tv movies that Tom Selleck made and which were filmed here in Nova Scotia mainly around the town of Lunenburg but sometimes you see Halifax locations. The Jesse character in the book is in his mid 30s but Selleck is obviously much older but it still worked. Anyway, Jesse is dealing with his complicated relationship with his ex wife, his drinking, and there's a big theft being planned in a rich community near Paradise..
10. The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman
Creepy little story about a man who comes to the village where he grew up and where he remembers an incident from his childhood, an incident that he forgets about until he visits again. I rated this down to 3/5 stars mainly because i wasn't happy with the ending. I can't spoil it. I also wasn't keen on a mid-40s man's point of view while telling the events through a 7 year old's eyes. The thoughts and emotions and feelings he said he had then were much too adult for a child and I would find myself thinking this or that was unrealistic for a child's assessment of a situation or reaction. But aside from that, the story was quite good and creepy as Gaiman likes to do!
11. Sweet Tooth - Ian MacEwan
A young woman, Serena, comes from a conservative family, headed by a Bishop. Her sister had gone off the rails but she went to university though was persuaded to take mathematics rather than focussing on literature which was her real passion. She reads like it's oxygen to her. She struggles through uni and has an affair with an older, married university professor, and through him, is recruited for MI5 in the early 1970s in the middle of the cold war right after he dumps her and disappears.
The government decides to undergo a project where the unknowing participants are British writers and artists whose political views appear to be anti-communist in the hope that by sponsoring them financially allowing them the freedom to continue to work without financial worry for a couple of years, it will enforce the British political stance in a subversive manner even though the writers are never told what to write. It is hoped they will continue with the general line of thought they had when their work was noticed.
Serena is charged with recruiting a writer/university professor from Brighton and in the process, she falls in love with him. She hasn't told him the truth about her job and his lucky break and the longer it goes on, the more difficult it is. She's also at odds with one of her bosses whom she had earlier developed feelings for, which were mutual, but the relationship didn't get far as he got engaged to someone else. That relationship gets more complicated, too.
There are good secondary characters including some of Serena's family, good dialogue and interaction.
12. My Lucky Life in and out of Show Business - Dick Van Dyke
Easy to read autobiography. He touches on his drinking problem and seems to gloss over it a bit as well as some other health problems. It's not deep, but it's ok if you like the actor and want to know about his life.
13 - The Bat - Jo Nesbo
This is the first Harry Hole book (and in which I discover how to actually pronounce his last name, "Hol-eh" which makes sense since he's Norwegian but I've always thought of it as the English way of saying it!) Anyway, I've read most of the others, all out of sequence, and many of them refer to this case where he flushed out a serial killer in Sydney, Australia. I've finally got round to reading it and I have to say, though I did like it, I liked it a bit less than the later books. It's difficult to say that his writing has developed and got better when these are all translated into English. Is it the translation that makes it seem a bit flat or is it the story? Maybe a bit of both. I have found some of the later books had really gripping stories where this one was not quite so involving but it did provide a lot more background for Harry. The problem with reading them out of sequence is that you do pick up spoilers for the ones you haven't read. There's one more I have to read, but I believe it's the most recent one.
14. Portrait of Julia - Robert MacNeil
I read his first book which was based around the 1917 Halifax Explosion but it's been years since i've read it and I don't really remember the details. This book picks up the life of Julia Robertson, one of the characters from the first book, and continues on. It's post-war, she's a widow and she's come to the south of France to see her godfather, a fairly well known painter. She's in a predicament that might not be so easy to solve and thinks back across the past 6 or 8 months that brought her to where she is today. She is involved with one man, a nice steady fella but infatuated with another one, a titled Englishman who is in the inner circle of the dashing young Prince of Wales. She is also unsure that her husband really is dead and needs to trace the threads to see if there really was a mix up. While she is contemplating what to do next, she's relating most of this to her godfather as he paints her. Sometimes she's telling or thinking things that are her own speculation of events, from her imagination, which threw me off a couple of times but then it's what people do, certainly what I do. Her secret is predictable, the outcome is a bit up in the air but hopeful. It's well written and an interesting take on Halifax and Europe in 1920 as lives are being rebuilt and the roaring 20s are just beginning.
15 The Chaperone - Laura Moriarty
This is the third book in recent weeks that I've read that takes place in the 1920s. This one is about Cora who was orphanned and started life in a Catholic orphanage in New York City. She was sent out on a train with other children for adoption into midwest families. She grows up with a family in Wichita on a farm but her new parents die suddenly and she's left alone at 17 with no legal claim as she was never formally adopted. She marries her lawyer and has to live with a secret after nearly dying giving birth to twin boys.
Although she really isn't friends with the Brooks family, somehow she is asked to be a chaperone for 15 year old Louise Brooks who is going to attend a prestigious dance school in NYC for a month. Louise will go on to become a famous silent film star. At 15 she is headstrong and spoiled, parents who never showed any affection and let her do whatever she wanted. She is, therefore, a handful for conservative, old-fashioned Cora, who persists in trying to keep Louise out of trouble. But the book really isn't about her relationship with Louise over all, it's about Cora trying to find who she is. Back in New York she's digging into her roots, trying to discover where she came from. She meets a kind man who works for the orphanage who helps her.
The first half of the book is told in flashbacks to Cora's life from the present before and during the New York stay. This part of the book I enjoyed. The last third seemed more like cleaning up all the loose ends, the rest of her life back in Wichita. It all felt like more of an anti-climax that lasted a long time. It was still a good story but it didn't hold my interest as much as the main point of the book did. It did show how Cora had been changed by her experiences, conflicted by her conservative background with a world that was changing and becoming more liberal. Another good view on the 1920s, this time in both conservative Kansas and in New York City.
16 - 40 Years of Queen - Harry Doherty
This is a big lovely coffee table type book about the history of the band Queen. The origins of the band, bios of each member, stories around the creation and production of each of the studio albums, stores from live touring and a wrap up after the death of Freddie Mercury. Lots of photos, and there are inserts as well, reproductions of posters, tickets, some handwritten lyrics and letters from band members.
Right, that's caught up then. I always have a few books on the go at any given time and then it seems like i finish 2 or 3 within days of each other. To look at the "finished" dates, you'd think i read a book in a day or two but i rarely do that unless it's really short.
My mom's birthday is today. She'll be 80 next year which shocks me a little. Mind you, i'll be 55 in a few weeks and that shocks me even more! How the hell did that happen?
edited to add:
As Ange pointed out, this poor sentence looked abandoned in mid stream. What it was, was a reminder to write about our in-office IT Olympics last Friday and I forgot anyway once i got involved in all the book stuff.
Yes we had some fun events on Friday afternoon as dreamed up by our social committee. Events like "toss the boss" (manager faces on balls to be tossed into various size bins for points), bowling for snowmen (styrofoam snowmen), tabletop bowling, and other similar things. It was fun and our team ended up with a bronze medal overall which surprised me. We did quite well in one particular event but the rest were only iffy. We each got a choice of gift cards for 10$ and i picked the Starbucks one.
I guess i better catch up on my book list as I seem to have churned through quite a few in the last few weeks because some of them were fairly short and easy reads.
9 Trouble in Paradise - Robert B. Parker
Another of the Jesse Stone police chief books. Quick, easy read, I like them because I've seen a few made for tv movies that Tom Selleck made and which were filmed here in Nova Scotia mainly around the town of Lunenburg but sometimes you see Halifax locations. The Jesse character in the book is in his mid 30s but Selleck is obviously much older but it still worked. Anyway, Jesse is dealing with his complicated relationship with his ex wife, his drinking, and there's a big theft being planned in a rich community near Paradise..
10. The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman
Creepy little story about a man who comes to the village where he grew up and where he remembers an incident from his childhood, an incident that he forgets about until he visits again. I rated this down to 3/5 stars mainly because i wasn't happy with the ending. I can't spoil it. I also wasn't keen on a mid-40s man's point of view while telling the events through a 7 year old's eyes. The thoughts and emotions and feelings he said he had then were much too adult for a child and I would find myself thinking this or that was unrealistic for a child's assessment of a situation or reaction. But aside from that, the story was quite good and creepy as Gaiman likes to do!
11. Sweet Tooth - Ian MacEwan
A young woman, Serena, comes from a conservative family, headed by a Bishop. Her sister had gone off the rails but she went to university though was persuaded to take mathematics rather than focussing on literature which was her real passion. She reads like it's oxygen to her. She struggles through uni and has an affair with an older, married university professor, and through him, is recruited for MI5 in the early 1970s in the middle of the cold war right after he dumps her and disappears.
The government decides to undergo a project where the unknowing participants are British writers and artists whose political views appear to be anti-communist in the hope that by sponsoring them financially allowing them the freedom to continue to work without financial worry for a couple of years, it will enforce the British political stance in a subversive manner even though the writers are never told what to write. It is hoped they will continue with the general line of thought they had when their work was noticed.
Serena is charged with recruiting a writer/university professor from Brighton and in the process, she falls in love with him. She hasn't told him the truth about her job and his lucky break and the longer it goes on, the more difficult it is. She's also at odds with one of her bosses whom she had earlier developed feelings for, which were mutual, but the relationship didn't get far as he got engaged to someone else. That relationship gets more complicated, too.
There are good secondary characters including some of Serena's family, good dialogue and interaction.
12. My Lucky Life in and out of Show Business - Dick Van Dyke
Easy to read autobiography. He touches on his drinking problem and seems to gloss over it a bit as well as some other health problems. It's not deep, but it's ok if you like the actor and want to know about his life.
13 - The Bat - Jo Nesbo
This is the first Harry Hole book (and in which I discover how to actually pronounce his last name, "Hol-eh" which makes sense since he's Norwegian but I've always thought of it as the English way of saying it!) Anyway, I've read most of the others, all out of sequence, and many of them refer to this case where he flushed out a serial killer in Sydney, Australia. I've finally got round to reading it and I have to say, though I did like it, I liked it a bit less than the later books. It's difficult to say that his writing has developed and got better when these are all translated into English. Is it the translation that makes it seem a bit flat or is it the story? Maybe a bit of both. I have found some of the later books had really gripping stories where this one was not quite so involving but it did provide a lot more background for Harry. The problem with reading them out of sequence is that you do pick up spoilers for the ones you haven't read. There's one more I have to read, but I believe it's the most recent one.
14. Portrait of Julia - Robert MacNeil
I read his first book which was based around the 1917 Halifax Explosion but it's been years since i've read it and I don't really remember the details. This book picks up the life of Julia Robertson, one of the characters from the first book, and continues on. It's post-war, she's a widow and she's come to the south of France to see her godfather, a fairly well known painter. She's in a predicament that might not be so easy to solve and thinks back across the past 6 or 8 months that brought her to where she is today. She is involved with one man, a nice steady fella but infatuated with another one, a titled Englishman who is in the inner circle of the dashing young Prince of Wales. She is also unsure that her husband really is dead and needs to trace the threads to see if there really was a mix up. While she is contemplating what to do next, she's relating most of this to her godfather as he paints her. Sometimes she's telling or thinking things that are her own speculation of events, from her imagination, which threw me off a couple of times but then it's what people do, certainly what I do. Her secret is predictable, the outcome is a bit up in the air but hopeful. It's well written and an interesting take on Halifax and Europe in 1920 as lives are being rebuilt and the roaring 20s are just beginning.
15 The Chaperone - Laura Moriarty
This is the third book in recent weeks that I've read that takes place in the 1920s. This one is about Cora who was orphanned and started life in a Catholic orphanage in New York City. She was sent out on a train with other children for adoption into midwest families. She grows up with a family in Wichita on a farm but her new parents die suddenly and she's left alone at 17 with no legal claim as she was never formally adopted. She marries her lawyer and has to live with a secret after nearly dying giving birth to twin boys.
Although she really isn't friends with the Brooks family, somehow she is asked to be a chaperone for 15 year old Louise Brooks who is going to attend a prestigious dance school in NYC for a month. Louise will go on to become a famous silent film star. At 15 she is headstrong and spoiled, parents who never showed any affection and let her do whatever she wanted. She is, therefore, a handful for conservative, old-fashioned Cora, who persists in trying to keep Louise out of trouble. But the book really isn't about her relationship with Louise over all, it's about Cora trying to find who she is. Back in New York she's digging into her roots, trying to discover where she came from. She meets a kind man who works for the orphanage who helps her.
The first half of the book is told in flashbacks to Cora's life from the present before and during the New York stay. This part of the book I enjoyed. The last third seemed more like cleaning up all the loose ends, the rest of her life back in Wichita. It all felt like more of an anti-climax that lasted a long time. It was still a good story but it didn't hold my interest as much as the main point of the book did. It did show how Cora had been changed by her experiences, conflicted by her conservative background with a world that was changing and becoming more liberal. Another good view on the 1920s, this time in both conservative Kansas and in New York City.
16 - 40 Years of Queen - Harry Doherty
This is a big lovely coffee table type book about the history of the band Queen. The origins of the band, bios of each member, stories around the creation and production of each of the studio albums, stores from live touring and a wrap up after the death of Freddie Mercury. Lots of photos, and there are inserts as well, reproductions of posters, tickets, some handwritten lyrics and letters from band members.
Right, that's caught up then. I always have a few books on the go at any given time and then it seems like i finish 2 or 3 within days of each other. To look at the "finished" dates, you'd think i read a book in a day or two but i rarely do that unless it's really short.
My mom's birthday is today. She'll be 80 next year which shocks me a little. Mind you, i'll be 55 in a few weeks and that shocks me even more! How the hell did that happen?
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no subject
Date: 2014-02-17 03:17 pm (UTC)Happy birthday to your Mom.
My personal favorite aging quote lately is 'Don't let aging get you down. It's too hard to get back up.'
no subject
Date: 2014-02-17 05:03 pm (UTC)Yes, good quote!