Saturday, February 26, 2011

Elizabeth's Women; Last Sacrifice; Fables Vol. 14; Catching Fire; Katherine the Queen; Among Others; Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer

Okay, I need to seriously get caught up here!
First off, an interesting book about the women who influenced Elizabeth Tudor, "Elizabeth's Women" by Tracey Bowman. She had a lot of complex relationships with women, no doubt caused by her mother's death when she was just a toddler as well as having to be a woman trying to justify her ability to rule in a man's world. It was a good read and I enjoyed it.
"Last Sacrifice" by Richelle Mead is the final Vampire Academy book. That's sad, I've really grown to love and enjoy this series. I liked the way it ended, and there was a lot of suspense and action along the way.
"Fables Vol. 14" by Bill Willingham focused on the fables new enemy, the Dark One, who destroyed their Manhattan hideout. Frau Totenkinder goes in search of a way to defeat him while Ozma tried to take her place in her absence among the witches. Bufkin the winged monkey successfully defeats Baba Yaga (good for him!) and King Ambrose deals with a murder in his new peaceful kingdom.
"Catching Fire" is book two of Suzanne Collin's "Hunger Games" series, and it was great. Katniss is struggling to be convincingly in love with Peeta in the hopes of saving them from the wrath of the Capital in light of the recent uprisings. As a way of punishing them for their defiance, they get sent back to the Hunger Games. There was a shocking surprise at the ending, and I can't wait to find out what happens.
"Katherine the Queen" by Linda Porter was a well done biography about Queen Katherine Parr and highlighted her influence on Queen Elizabeth. Obviously no real new info here for me, but it was nicely laid out and very well written.
"Among Others" by Jo Walton is a new sci fi book that's been getting good buzz on a lot of the blogs I read. Maybe if I was more into sci fi and fantasy books I would have enjoyed it more, but I'm not, so while I could tell it was good I wasn't as enthralled with it as everyone else is. It's good, but not my cup of tea. I can relate to the lead character's deep love of books and her quick reading abilities, but not her choice of reading material.
And finally, a bit of fictional whimsy "The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer" by Lucy Weston. On the eve of her coronation Elizabeth learns she is a descendant of Morgaine on her mother's side. Morgaine was the original vampire slayer and died trying to defeat King Arthur's son, Mordred. Mordred is now battling Elizabeth for her kingdom. It was quite clever and original and fairly accurate, historically, for being fiction.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The Autobiography of Mark Twain Vol. 1; Hunger Games; Annotated Brothers Grimm; Room

I have read some real gems over the last two weeks. First up, "The Autobiography of Mark Twain Vol. 1", edited by Harriet Elinor Smith. I know I've said before that I don't like Twain's work, but really, I don't know what I was thinking. "The Prince and the Pauper" was one of my all time favorite books when I was growing up, my sister's too, so much so that when I moved she told me I could take all of our shared classic books except for that one because she wanted to keep it. I of course let her because honestly do I really need any more books to try to find room for? No, of course not. But anyway, back to Twain. The autobiography was a loose collection of letters, notes, and musings at first and then segued into his failed attempts to write a chronological account of his extraordinary life. It was witty and wry and very funny and I think now I'm ready (if I were to have the time to go back and reread "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn") to finally truly appreciate them.
"Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins is the first in a trilogy. This was quite brilliant, it had a "Battle Royale" feel to it. Katniss Everdeen goes to represent her district in the 74th annual Hunger Games put on by the Capitol in the ruins of what used to be the U.S. The game pits 24 players against each other, and the last one standing gets to return home a wealthy hero. It was clever and well written and I hear they're making a movie about it to be released next year. With any luck I'll have read the second and third by then :)
"The Annotated Brothers Grimm", edited by Maria Tatar, collected some of the brothers more popular fairy tales together but she did leave out some, like the little mermaid and the little match girl. After discussing "Fables" I was eager to read some of the not Disney sanitized versions of the stories that Willingham used for his inspiration.
And finally, a book I literally stayed up all night to read because I could not bear to put it down, was "Room" by Emma Donoghue. Narrated by five year old Jack, it tells the story of a young woman and all she's done to make living in their tiny 11X11 foot room bearable for her young son. It's their prison, and she knows what's on the outside, if they could just escape their captor. To Jack, however, it's all he's ever known and it's home. It was a gripping and powerful story of motherly love and human survival instinct and I would highly recommend it.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

His Father's Son; The Queen's Lover

I met Bentley Little years ago, when I was an undergrad at Cal State Fullerton, his own alma mater. He's a good gross out writer, and I liked a lot of his earlier stuff, but some of the things I bought eight or nine years ago didn't impress me much. Every year I would keep buying his latest book and put it on the shelf, swearing to get around to it but never would. I went to Chicago and knew I would need something to read on the plane that would hold my interest and yet not be too demanding of my brain, so I grabbed one of my Bentley backstock "His Father's Son". I was quite impressed with how good it was. It was less crude than some of his previous works and the plot had a really neat twist to it. Plus it was set in this part of Orange County, so he mentions familiar landmarks, which always makes a book more interesting to me, since I can easily see in my mind what he's talking about. In this story a normal editor from Irvine thinks his dad, who has been hospitalized with sudden onset dementia, is confessing a murder to him when he visits. He starts investigating and convinces himself his dad is a closet serial killer when his dad starts describing more murders to him. He ends up becoming the worst kind of monster in his pursuit to learn the truth about his dad. Fun, gruesome stuff.
I was sadly unimpressed with Vanora Bennett's "The Queen's Lover". Catherine, Princess of France, marries King Henry V of England, who dies not long after their little son Henry is born, leaving an infant as King of England and thus a power struggle for control of the throne ensues. It was just dull and the characters, even though they are drawn from some interesting people in British history, were lifeless.