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book roundup
Jul. 18th, 2005 07:51 pmTentatively starting the new Harry Potter in audio version - good listening when I'm sewing.
Other stuff:
The Historian - A slow chase through hundreds of years of history and several countries and cities, a teenage girl goes on a hunt for her mother and Vlad the Impaler. I enjoyed it because it was a very cerebral chase, most of the action taking place in ancient cities and in dusty libraries all over the world. I'm a sucker for travelogues, even fictional ones, especially when it paints eastern Europe the way this book does, as a place of secrets hiding behind alternately stoic and luxe facades. The ending is a bit easy, but the ride makes it worthwhile. Good if you like mysteries, history, and/or vampires.
V for Vendetta - D.'s had it for years; I finally pried it off our tightly packed graphic novels shelf because I want to read it before the movie comes out. I've been slow to appreciate the storytelling genius of Alan Moore and this is wonderfully dark and smells like 1984, though the dystopian post-Thatcher Britian in which the story is placed is somewhat disturbingly famliar.... I finished Book One last night and found it hard to put down!
A Perfect Red - Shem had this at the CSA syposium and I mentally set it aside until I saw it on the new books shelf at the library. Another good history book for laypeople, it describes the history, science, economics, and espionage behind cochineal (how the HELL do I pronounce this? cutch-en-nel? Cutch-eh-neel?), the vivid red dye discovered by the Conquistadores in Mexico. Reading this I developed a craving for a blisteringly red velvet Elizabethan gown that won't quite go away....
Other stuff:
The Historian - A slow chase through hundreds of years of history and several countries and cities, a teenage girl goes on a hunt for her mother and Vlad the Impaler. I enjoyed it because it was a very cerebral chase, most of the action taking place in ancient cities and in dusty libraries all over the world. I'm a sucker for travelogues, even fictional ones, especially when it paints eastern Europe the way this book does, as a place of secrets hiding behind alternately stoic and luxe facades. The ending is a bit easy, but the ride makes it worthwhile. Good if you like mysteries, history, and/or vampires.
V for Vendetta - D.'s had it for years; I finally pried it off our tightly packed graphic novels shelf because I want to read it before the movie comes out. I've been slow to appreciate the storytelling genius of Alan Moore and this is wonderfully dark and smells like 1984, though the dystopian post-Thatcher Britian in which the story is placed is somewhat disturbingly famliar.... I finished Book One last night and found it hard to put down!
A Perfect Red - Shem had this at the CSA syposium and I mentally set it aside until I saw it on the new books shelf at the library. Another good history book for laypeople, it describes the history, science, economics, and espionage behind cochineal (how the HELL do I pronounce this? cutch-en-nel? Cutch-eh-neel?), the vivid red dye discovered by the Conquistadores in Mexico. Reading this I developed a craving for a blisteringly red velvet Elizabethan gown that won't quite go away....
