Reading and re-reading
Feb. 17th, 2006 11:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
st_aurafinaI'm trying to keep a record of books that I've read this year, and I'm starting to lose track.
I got Anansi Boys down. Easy.
(And![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
coffeeandink had a link to an interesting review: Anansi Boys)
Since then, I've read Elizabeth Knox's latest book, The Rainbow Opera, the first in a young adult series. I really enjoy Elizabeth Knox's style of story telling, she likes to foreshadow and hint, and she uses very visual language.
In Daylight, the concept of her vampires is really carefully and thoughtfully unfolded. I bought it because I'm fond of that genre, and because I was so disappointed in Laurell K Hamilton's slutty!Anita. I wish it hadn't been described as a book about vampires - I'd rather have found it out on my own.
I don't know why, but I seem to read Elizabeth Knox in high summer, and her stories suit that dreamy, unreal feeling I get on those really humid and still days.
Carol Goodman wrote The Lake of Dead Languages, a really good murder mystery set in a private girls' school in up-state New York. I didn't enjoy her second book, The Seduction of Water as much. There's this thing that makes me crazy - when characters know something and won't tell, and the whole plot hangs on them not telling. It's a thing that later seasons of X-Files did almost every episode. I don't get it. There's more than one way to find stuff out. And people don't not tell if they really don't want you to know. They lie if they really don't want you to know. Otherwise they're just flirting with you.
Garth Nix wrote The Abhorsen trilogy, a really clever series. I read them last year - they're a young adult series, and Mr Nix builds a really substantial fantasy world.
His Keys to the Kingdom series is for a younger audience, for about the same reading level as kids who enjoyed Artemis Fowl. Mister Monday is really good fun. The concept is a bit gimmicky (seven keys, seven days, etc) but he weaves a lot of mythology in, and again there's clever world building. I'm a sucker for world building, so I'll be following up on this series.
I've re-read three of the books in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet (which I swear wasn't a quartet when I read it in primary school, but now I find there's a book about Sandy and Dennys, which I haven't read). This is a strange, strange series, filled with all kinds of really heavy concepts. Reading it at an impressionable age has definitely influenced my way of thinking, and although I think it is meant to have lead me towards a deeper understanding of Christianity, the concepts appply to any kind of faith, and how we fit into the universe. And what the universe is and how it all exists in a grain of sand, really. It makes me happy - that's smart religion.
At the back of the reprinted version of A Wrinkle in Time was a family tree that showed how the Murrys (from the Time Quartet) connect with the Austins. So I went onto Meet the Austins and The Moon by Night, and the really scary thing about these books is that I've read them before, and remember only two scenes. I had no idea that I'd read them, they're at about 4th grade level. I had the weirdest deja-vu when these scenes popped up. The Austin books are more overtly religious than the Time Quartet, which normally is a little off-putting to me, especially in YA books, as it usually becomes quite preachy. In the Austin books it's quite thoughtful, not brash, not preachy.
Now I'm in the middle of The Arm of the Starfish, whichmusesfool serendipitously talked about here:
http://musesfool.livejournal.com/1049072.html
and wrote fic for here:
http://musesfool.livejournal.com/1049172.html
and which I might even be able to go and read tonight.
I think that's everything. Phew! Do this more often, you fool! Then you won't have to do it all in one big clump.
I got Anansi Boys down. Easy.
(And
coffeeandink had a link to an interesting review: Anansi Boys)Since then, I've read Elizabeth Knox's latest book, The Rainbow Opera, the first in a young adult series. I really enjoy Elizabeth Knox's style of story telling, she likes to foreshadow and hint, and she uses very visual language.
In Daylight, the concept of her vampires is really carefully and thoughtfully unfolded. I bought it because I'm fond of that genre, and because I was so disappointed in Laurell K Hamilton's slutty!Anita. I wish it hadn't been described as a book about vampires - I'd rather have found it out on my own.
I don't know why, but I seem to read Elizabeth Knox in high summer, and her stories suit that dreamy, unreal feeling I get on those really humid and still days.
Carol Goodman wrote The Lake of Dead Languages, a really good murder mystery set in a private girls' school in up-state New York. I didn't enjoy her second book, The Seduction of Water as much. There's this thing that makes me crazy - when characters know something and won't tell, and the whole plot hangs on them not telling. It's a thing that later seasons of X-Files did almost every episode. I don't get it. There's more than one way to find stuff out. And people don't not tell if they really don't want you to know. They lie if they really don't want you to know. Otherwise they're just flirting with you.
Garth Nix wrote The Abhorsen trilogy, a really clever series. I read them last year - they're a young adult series, and Mr Nix builds a really substantial fantasy world.
His Keys to the Kingdom series is for a younger audience, for about the same reading level as kids who enjoyed Artemis Fowl. Mister Monday is really good fun. The concept is a bit gimmicky (seven keys, seven days, etc) but he weaves a lot of mythology in, and again there's clever world building. I'm a sucker for world building, so I'll be following up on this series.
I've re-read three of the books in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet (which I swear wasn't a quartet when I read it in primary school, but now I find there's a book about Sandy and Dennys, which I haven't read). This is a strange, strange series, filled with all kinds of really heavy concepts. Reading it at an impressionable age has definitely influenced my way of thinking, and although I think it is meant to have lead me towards a deeper understanding of Christianity, the concepts appply to any kind of faith, and how we fit into the universe. And what the universe is and how it all exists in a grain of sand, really. It makes me happy - that's smart religion.
At the back of the reprinted version of A Wrinkle in Time was a family tree that showed how the Murrys (from the Time Quartet) connect with the Austins. So I went onto Meet the Austins and The Moon by Night, and the really scary thing about these books is that I've read them before, and remember only two scenes. I had no idea that I'd read them, they're at about 4th grade level. I had the weirdest deja-vu when these scenes popped up. The Austin books are more overtly religious than the Time Quartet, which normally is a little off-putting to me, especially in YA books, as it usually becomes quite preachy. In the Austin books it's quite thoughtful, not brash, not preachy.
Now I'm in the middle of The Arm of the Starfish, which
musesfool serendipitously talked about here:http://musesfool.livejournal.com/1049072.html
and wrote fic for here:
http://musesfool.livejournal.com/1049172.html
and which I might even be able to go and read tonight.
I think that's everything. Phew! Do this more often, you fool! Then you won't have to do it all in one big clump.
