Confessions of a Pagan Nun was very good. Much, much, much better than Black Elk in Paris.
A woman who became a Druid scribe who became a Nun scribe who was drowned in a well as a pagan. Cool stuff. Lots of women’s wisdom there.
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Or maybe I should have titled this “The Legacy of The Moonstone” since I read Robinson Crusoe simply because I loved Betteridge and Betteridge worshipped RC.
Upon reflection and upon finishing RC, I think I was duped once again by The Moonstone. I believe I would have been happier with my simple childhood memories of RC. I do not remember the section in the middle, where RC was so damn fixated on “the Savages” from my childhood. (Please don’t suggest I read an abridged copy, I didn’t. I hate abridged copies and have always refused to read them.) I think I simply skimmed over that tedious bit as a child and moved along to the good part – since I was sorely tempted to do so last night.
Also upon reflection, I did appreciate picking up RC again and reading it with an eye for what Betteridge found so appealing and helpful. I wish Wilkie Collins had written a book of short stories about Betteridge’s life with the answers from RC included in each story – the moral of the story, according to RC or some such thing. That would have been interesting.
Enough with The Moonstone, sorry it has sort of taken over my life. I can usually keep it in check, but sometimes it just slips out!
Robinson Crusoe – long and tedious in the middle. The lack of “chapters” didn’t help it any. The end, back to civilization, it was all rushed and not worth reading and should have been a book of its own rather than a jumble of 10 pages.
I don’t think I can quite convince myself to read The Further Adventures of… or anything Selkirk – though if Skeeter insists, I will obey. After all, she read The Moonstone with me.
I finally finished Misquoting Jesus and I learned something very important. Two things actually.
First, reading a book that feels like a sixth grade text book can be incredibly boring. And no matter how interested you are in the subject, a book like that is almost impossible to keep focused on.
Second, The New Testament – it’s not accurate. No kidding, right? Right. I’m not sure what I expected to find in this book, but whatever it was I did not find it. Obviously The New Testament isn’t accurate. We don’t have the original writings or anything close to the original writings. All versions have flaws. No kidding.
I didn’t hate the book, don’t get me wrong. It was ok. It was just sixth grade textbook like, boring and unenlightening. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I’d been reading it with a bunch of sixth graders and we could have discussed each section or something. But I don’t have any sixth graders around who would indulge me in such painful textbook-like reading. So, I was bored.
Onto Robinson Crusoe!
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I did it! I finished The Odd Women! For awhile, I thought life was going to conspire against me and prevent me from finishing before the month ended. I’m so glad I read it.
I was afraid I was going to hate it and end my Summer Reading Challenge on a sour note. Gissing, well he’s an odd duck and I can’t decide how I feel about him in general. But I didn’t. It drove me nuts in places, silly women making silly choices and all of those ridiculous men reigning over the women, or expecting to be able to reign over women. Bah. Down with the patriarchy! Heh.
I wasn’t thrilled with how Monica’s story ended. I was very pleasantly surprised by what happened with Rhoda and Everaud, I think that worked well – from the feminist perspective.
The only question I’m left with is why was it so hard to acquire this book? It isn’t available at my library or at the SFCC library (I never had time to check at UF). I checked two used bookstores in town and it wasn’t there. I called Barnes & Noble and it wasn’t in stock. Weird. I don’t understand it.
The Bullet Trick has clinched it. Louise Welsh is awesome. I’ve now read all of her books and loved every single one of them.
This one is about a magician or a conjurer, if you prefer. How about an illusionist, I like that better. He’s also got a way of landing himself into difficult situations.
The Bullet Trick had a wee bit less sex but the book was still sexy. Rather than primary gay characters there were secondary gay characters and some gay jokes.
Loved the book. Love Louise Welsh.
I really thought I had reserved The Stolen Child on audio but apparently not. I wonder what it is like on audio. Has anyone listened to this one, rather than read it?
Not that I didn’t enjoy reading it. I did enjoy it. I had heard so many good reviews about it, I was worried. Particularly in the first few chapters when I found it just a little slow and it wasn’t holding my attention very well. I think by the 4th chapter (which really isn’t very far into the book) I was hooked.
Changelings. Hobgoblins. Faeries. Humans. I think I prefer the changelings, how about you?
I love book blogs. Without book blogs I would not have been introduced to tons of great books. Books like The Sculptress! Awesome. If only I could remember, or easy find, the book blog where I heard about The Sculptress. But it’s hard and I’m tired so I have given up for awhile. Whoever you are, if you are reading this and you blogged about Minette Walters sometime in the last six months – THANK YOU.
Did Olive do it or didn’t she? Does it matter?
Finally! I finally managed to pick up The Year of Magical Thinking and read it. Finally! I’ve only reserved it six times from the library and it’s officially one day overdue as it is. But I read it and I’m glad.
I’ve always been a Didion fan and I was a little bit afraid I would not like this. I was afraid it was going to be too weepy or too whiney, something out of character for Didion. Thank goodness, it wasn’t that at all. It was pure Didion and I hope to goodness I’m a cool customer like her if/when I’m faced with death or a child’s illness or heaven forbid, both at the same time.
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I reserved Tamburlaine Must Die from the library because TW and I had been talking about The Cutting Room and I realized we had never read any of her other books, even though we really enjoyed that one.
This one – better than The Cutting Room. Louise Welsh’s fictional account of what happened to Christopher Marlowe (remember, he’s the one some people think wrote the better Shakespeare pieces). I liked it. It could have happened that way. And of course, Welsh handles gay sex better than most. There’s nothing worse than poorly written gay boy sex.
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Because I couldn’t make my way through Gravity’s Rainbow and because Gravity’s Rainbow was one of my Summer Reading Challenge books, I decided to take a recommendation from someone at “work” and read Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 instead. About the only thing I can say is I managed to make it through the whole book
Conspiracy theories, bah who cares. And can someone tell me why this guy insists on writing incredibly long sentences? He’s much worse than I am. Look, this is how it starts:
One summer afternoon Mrs Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Invararity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary.
I mean really, was that necessary? The whole book is like that. The whole book is unnecessary. No more Pynchon for me, thank you.
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