Fiction

The Birth House

2 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction /

It’s been a long time since I put off sleep to finish a book. Sleep trumps just about everything right now, my life is just like that. That all changed last night when I found myself closing the final pages of The Birth House at 1:44am.

Sassymonkey and others have been raving about The Birth House for ages. My library, as wonderful as it is, didn’t have it and I couldn’t get it through inter-library loan. So Sassymonkey, she surprised me with it. At first, I was grouchy about that. I owe her a seriously large package and I’m horrible about mailing things. And here she is, sending me package after package after package – making me feel more guilty with each knock on the door by the postman. Also, I’m behind on my reading. How dare she send me books I am dying to read? HMPH.

TW picked up The Birth House before I had a chance. And she read it straight through, staying up long after I’d fallen asleep. This also made me grouchy. TW read MY book BEFORE I had a CHANCE. HMPH. And then she had the nerve to talk about how AMAZING it was. HMPH again.

I decided to ignore the huge stack of library books waiting to go back and picked up The Birth House on Wednesday evening. I read the prologue and promptly went to sleep wondering why this was a book to rave about… the prologue wasn’t. On Thursday evening, I picked up The Birth House and read 12 pages and promptly went to sleep wondering if I was going to be sorely disappointed in this book. I picked up The Birth House on Friday evening and read it straight through – every single page, stopping only to run over and pick up Michelle at 11:30pm and bring her home (whining about her cutting into my reading time).

The Birth House – awesome. Maybe the best book ever written. OK OK not the best book ever written but still, wonderful – spectacular – extraordinay (to borrow TW’s description). And by a Canadian, too. I mean really, Canadian writers rarely grab me and keep me – but Ami McKay, AWESOME.

Buy the book. Read the book. Give it to friends and family. Man, I might have to read it again today! Oh wait, I can’t, I need to read Inheritance of Loss, darn it.

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Carry Me Down

2006, Books in Bed, Fiction, Reading Lists /

Down, down, down and down some more. This book was properly named.

Carry Me Down took close to a week to read and not because I wanted to savor every word. Everytime I picked it up I would hope something good would happen and everytime I put it down I just felt depressed and hopeless.

I am very glad this did not win the Booker. It was well-written. It was interesting. It was depressing in what I’ve begun to think of as the “Irish way”. Angela’s Ashes-like. Aren’t there any uplifting Irish novels?

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The Booker Prize

3 Comments / Favorites, Fiction, Reading Lists /

Well, as suspected, Inheritance of Loss is the 2006 Booker Prize winner. I haven’t read it yet and now that it has won I have some irrational desire NOT to read it. Weird, eh? Ah well, it is on my shelf waiting patiently so I will give it a go… after I finish Carry Me Down. (In the Company of Men is still on my reserve list at the library and I will read that too, eventually.)


I would like to thank the folks who blogged about the short listed books on the Man Booker Prize Blog. I really enjoyed reading their thoughts about each of the books and following their progress through the stacks.

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Mother’s Milk

1 Comment / 2006, Books in Bed, Fiction /

Mother’s Milk, from the Booker short list, was good but not winning material.

I found Robert interesting, his parents a complete bore and Thomas a little annoying. Maybe if I had read the “Some Hope” trilogy, I’d have more compassion or interest in Patrick (and Mary) but I didn’t and I don’t. If St Aubyn continues writing about this family, I hope he focuses on the boys and leaves their parents (and grandmothers) out of it.

Onto the next Booker? Or should I take a break and read something else, instead?

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Marlon Brando? Fan-Tan!

2006, Books in Bed, Fiction /

The most interesting thing about Fan-Tan was the “afterword” (if you get this book, read that first!)

The second most interesting thing about Fan-Tan was the cover.

The third most interesting thing about Fan-Tan was really only interesting after I read the “afterword”. The story itself. Interesting. But not really interesting until you put the whole Brando/Cammell thing together.

It wasn’t a bad book but not a great one either. I think it would have been a good Brando movie, too bad it didn’t work out that way. Nice pulp fiction feel. One good sex scene. (Good as in well written and interesting and not run of the mill sex.)

Check this one out at your library. Or if you are a Brando fan (are there any Cammell fans?) buy it. I think you’ll be glad – but read the “afterword” first.

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Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

2 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams is a bit like Hitchhiker’s Guide with a little Christopher Moore thrown in for good measure. As TW says, “So you recommend it, then?” Well duh. I’m a Hitchhiker fan and a huge Chris Moore fan. What’s not to like?

Quirky characters. Weird science. Unbelievable made totally believable. Tons of snark and sarcasm. Yea, I recommend it.

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Soul Kitchen

2006, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

Soul Kitchen, the latest installment in the story of Rickey and Gman, by Poppy Z Brite… What to say, what to say? It was good, better than Prime but not as good as Liquor. I was afraid there would be too much “politics” in there particularly early in the book when I saw this, “MR CONGRESSMAN. MR PRESIDENT. PEOPLE OF THE USA. HERE R YOUR SHRIMP WHERE R OUR LEVEES”. But nope, if Poppy went back and edited after the hurricane, she didn’t destroy the book in doing so because that was the only mention of levees and there was no heavy political (or social) message going on. (She finished it right before the hurricane, by the way.)

If she keeps this up, she’s going to have a whole generation of readers who don’t know she was a horror writer. I’m not sure that’s completely good but it does say something positive about her as a writer, doesn’t it?

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The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

3 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery /

I can’t for the life of me figure out why our library does not have a copy of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation. I’ve been checking once a month for at least a year. I finally got tired of checking and requested it via interlibrary loan. Two days later, I had the book in my hand. Why I waited so long to go that route is beyond me. The moment I finished it, I went to the ILL form and requested the sequel.
The Pink Carnation was a fun read, quick and compelling read, and definitely chick lit. But really excellent chick lit. Good characters, good dialogue, good sex scenes. Heh. Happy ending, too. Excellent in every way.

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