(no subject)
Nov. 7th, 2014 09:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tvordljWe have a holiday on November 11 which is Tuesday so I booked Monday off as a vacation day. Yesterday I decided to book off this afternoon as well as i had a "spare" half day vacation, having used one half for something or other a few months ago, I forget when that was. I'll stop in at the gym before i head home at dinnertime.
There's a Steampunk exhibit on at the Natural History museum here so I will try to get to that over the weekend maybe, If i can borrow Mom's car. It's being put on by a local Jules Verne Phantastical Society. Not sure what else I'll get up to on the weekend, perhaps I'll get busy and make the Turtle candy and find some Christmas paper and wrap the gifts that I'll have to mail.
76 - The Talented Mr. Ripley - Patricia Highsmith
I read Two Faces of January recently as the movie was coming out soon and it got me back into this author. I have read this one before but not for awhile and I wanted to read her other Ripley books. I thought it would be a good idea to start at the beginning. I think they movie they made of his was quite good, too even with a few changes they made. Tom Ripley is a chameleon and a con artist because he doesn't like who he is. He stumbles on the chance to get a free trip to Italy if he can persuade the son of a rich business man to come back to the US. He worms his way into Dickie's life, latching on to his new best friend and pushing Dickie's friend/girlfriend Marge out. But he becomes so attached that he resorts to desperate measures when Dickie finally has enough and has started to feel a bit crowded by Tom. Tom takes over Dickie's life, a much better life than his own, and juggles Marge, the police and Dickie's father to try to get away with what he's done.
77 - The Critic - Peter May
The second of the "Enzo" files, this one about a wine critic who had gone missing and turns up dead, drowned in a vat of wine several years after he'd disappeared. Another body that had been killed the same way soon turns up and Enzo sets out to figure out, using forensic evidence, who the murderer is. Good story, but there were annoying little things through the book that were getting on my nerves. Things like Enzo's vehicle. It is a Citroen 2CV. You know that because he refers to the 2CF constantly. There is never ever a reference to a "car", or a "vehicle" or even a Citroen. Ok, I get it, he drives a 2CV (take an old Volkswagon Beetle and make it kind of boxy looking and that's what it looks like). All the women and I do mean all of them are described in sexual terms of their attractive points. That gets a bit tiresome too. I read his Lewis Man trilogy and it was nothing like that. There are a half dozen Enzo books but I"m not sure I can slog through any more. Sometimes these little things end up dragging a good story down into mediocrity.
78 - And When She Was Good - Laura Lippman
A suburban madam with a son discovers that another similar woman in a nearby area committed suicide. Or was she murdered? Turns out the two women have more in common than originally thought. Heloise (used to be Helen) comes from an abusive family and ran off in her late teens. She was with a drug user and later became attached to a pimp who is now in prison and is the father of her son though he doesn't know it. We get flashbacks into her history as the current storyline progresses. She's not that likeable a character really. She's aloof, selfish and hard but you can kind of see how she got that way. She decides she should get out of the business for her son's sake but it might not be as easy as she thought it would be.
79 - The King's Curse - Philipa Gregory
Tells the story of Margaret de la Pole, a distant cousin of Henry VII and her life in his court through to her family's fall from favour. Told in the first person. I used to like Gregory's books but since they've become really popular, I think the quality has suffered. This happens with a lot of authors I find, and their books end up feeling very "same-ey" and churned out. The historical accuracy with this one hasn't suffered as much as some other of her recent books, however, which is better, but it does use a ploy called "As you know, Bob" to fill in the reader about a lot of stuff that happens, mainly historical facts that one character will tell another or write to another that both of them already know but the reader doesn't. It starts feeling like you're reading a textbook rather than historical fiction with characters experiencing these things.
80 - Falls the Shadow - Sharon Kay Penman
Second in her Welsh Princes trilogy covering Llewllyn, Davvyd, and Henry III's reign mainly and the rise and fall of Simon de Montfort. There seems to be less of the Welsh and more of deMontfort's struggly with Henry. Story is good, does have a bit of that same textbook feel at times, to bring the reader along in between events.
81 - Adult Onset - Ann-Marie MacDonald
I remember reading her first book, Fall On Your Knees which was amazing. She's a Canadian author and this is only her third book. This one is really good as well. It's about Mary Rose, married to Hilary and raising two small children. Mary Rose's mother had several miscarriages and still births along with three babies that lived and she had severe postpartum depression and, later, a lot of anger that she took out on her kids. Mary Rose has a quick temper as well. The story takes place over a week while Hilary is away and MR is struggling as a temporary single mother while memories and flashbacks of her childhood, and her relationship with her own mother are forefront. You're really in Mary Rose's head as she tries to get through each day and you read the memories from both her and her mother's point of view with a growing sense of dread, realizing that MR is going to have a memory that's probably been suppressed and when it comes back to her, it's not going to be a good thing. The book is very good, very real.
There's a Steampunk exhibit on at the Natural History museum here so I will try to get to that over the weekend maybe, If i can borrow Mom's car. It's being put on by a local Jules Verne Phantastical Society. Not sure what else I'll get up to on the weekend, perhaps I'll get busy and make the Turtle candy and find some Christmas paper and wrap the gifts that I'll have to mail.
76 - The Talented Mr. Ripley - Patricia Highsmith
I read Two Faces of January recently as the movie was coming out soon and it got me back into this author. I have read this one before but not for awhile and I wanted to read her other Ripley books. I thought it would be a good idea to start at the beginning. I think they movie they made of his was quite good, too even with a few changes they made. Tom Ripley is a chameleon and a con artist because he doesn't like who he is. He stumbles on the chance to get a free trip to Italy if he can persuade the son of a rich business man to come back to the US. He worms his way into Dickie's life, latching on to his new best friend and pushing Dickie's friend/girlfriend Marge out. But he becomes so attached that he resorts to desperate measures when Dickie finally has enough and has started to feel a bit crowded by Tom. Tom takes over Dickie's life, a much better life than his own, and juggles Marge, the police and Dickie's father to try to get away with what he's done.
77 - The Critic - Peter May
The second of the "Enzo" files, this one about a wine critic who had gone missing and turns up dead, drowned in a vat of wine several years after he'd disappeared. Another body that had been killed the same way soon turns up and Enzo sets out to figure out, using forensic evidence, who the murderer is. Good story, but there were annoying little things through the book that were getting on my nerves. Things like Enzo's vehicle. It is a Citroen 2CV. You know that because he refers to the 2CF constantly. There is never ever a reference to a "car", or a "vehicle" or even a Citroen. Ok, I get it, he drives a 2CV (take an old Volkswagon Beetle and make it kind of boxy looking and that's what it looks like). All the women and I do mean all of them are described in sexual terms of their attractive points. That gets a bit tiresome too. I read his Lewis Man trilogy and it was nothing like that. There are a half dozen Enzo books but I"m not sure I can slog through any more. Sometimes these little things end up dragging a good story down into mediocrity.
78 - And When She Was Good - Laura Lippman
A suburban madam with a son discovers that another similar woman in a nearby area committed suicide. Or was she murdered? Turns out the two women have more in common than originally thought. Heloise (used to be Helen) comes from an abusive family and ran off in her late teens. She was with a drug user and later became attached to a pimp who is now in prison and is the father of her son though he doesn't know it. We get flashbacks into her history as the current storyline progresses. She's not that likeable a character really. She's aloof, selfish and hard but you can kind of see how she got that way. She decides she should get out of the business for her son's sake but it might not be as easy as she thought it would be.
79 - The King's Curse - Philipa Gregory
Tells the story of Margaret de la Pole, a distant cousin of Henry VII and her life in his court through to her family's fall from favour. Told in the first person. I used to like Gregory's books but since they've become really popular, I think the quality has suffered. This happens with a lot of authors I find, and their books end up feeling very "same-ey" and churned out. The historical accuracy with this one hasn't suffered as much as some other of her recent books, however, which is better, but it does use a ploy called "As you know, Bob" to fill in the reader about a lot of stuff that happens, mainly historical facts that one character will tell another or write to another that both of them already know but the reader doesn't. It starts feeling like you're reading a textbook rather than historical fiction with characters experiencing these things.
80 - Falls the Shadow - Sharon Kay Penman
Second in her Welsh Princes trilogy covering Llewllyn, Davvyd, and Henry III's reign mainly and the rise and fall of Simon de Montfort. There seems to be less of the Welsh and more of deMontfort's struggly with Henry. Story is good, does have a bit of that same textbook feel at times, to bring the reader along in between events.
81 - Adult Onset - Ann-Marie MacDonald
I remember reading her first book, Fall On Your Knees which was amazing. She's a Canadian author and this is only her third book. This one is really good as well. It's about Mary Rose, married to Hilary and raising two small children. Mary Rose's mother had several miscarriages and still births along with three babies that lived and she had severe postpartum depression and, later, a lot of anger that she took out on her kids. Mary Rose has a quick temper as well. The story takes place over a week while Hilary is away and MR is struggling as a temporary single mother while memories and flashbacks of her childhood, and her relationship with her own mother are forefront. You're really in Mary Rose's head as she tries to get through each day and you read the memories from both her and her mother's point of view with a growing sense of dread, realizing that MR is going to have a memory that's probably been suppressed and when it comes back to her, it's not going to be a good thing. The book is very good, very real.
