THESE OLD SHADES by Georgette Heyer

4 Stars

GAH! I adore Georgian period romances. The ridiculous extravagance and theatricality of action and costume are simply divine.

"I thought you disliked melodrama, my friend?"
"I do; but I have a veritable passion for--justice."
"You've nourished thoughts of vengeance--for twenty years?"

Other pluses which definitely made this a win: Heroine disguised as a boy, swordplay as well as hoydenish behaviors overlaid with a sweet naïveté; and an older sworn bachelor and renown rake charmed back into life's pleasure from the malaise of ennui. It's Pygmalion with far more entertaining circumstances.

The button of her foil came to rest below his left shoulder.
"Touche," said Avon. "That was rather better, infant."
Leonie danced in her excitement.
"Monseigneur, I have killed you! You are dead! You are dead!"
"You display an unseemly joy," he remarked. "I had no notion you were so bloodthirsty."

If you like historical romances, brats, and an age difference then you really can't go wrong, here. I feel rather silly that the title was so off-putting to me that I failed to read it earlier. And yes, I comprehended the ancient Greek concept of shade, but dismissed the opportunity. Rather stupid of me, to be honest.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN by Cormac McCarthy

4 Stars

Reflections, times they are a changing. Aren't they always, and not. 

There aint no such thing as a bargain promise.

This is one of those 'things set in motion' stories. You know there's a train wreck coming and you're just holding on, watching it speeding towards you. A sense of the inevitable, that's the overwhelming feeling of this book from the individual events occurring to life itself. There's no escaping the past because it's what's led you to where you are, right now. It's not fate; it's consequences.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

I'm going to go off on a tangent now, so feel free to stop reading or skip ahead. Since the 2016 election my reading has dramatically altered course as I search for an answer. I see all the pieces, I understand the the real basis of discontent, but of all the choices available it was the most destructive option chosen and it confused/confuses me. Chaos was chosen willingly, enthusiastically. 

But it was a foolish thing to do. A vain thing to do. Do you understand? 

Do I understand? 

Yes. 

Do you have any notion of how goddamned crazy you are? 

The nature of this conversation? 

The nature of you.

A battle royale. A Game of Thrones. 

That's the opening scene. It's stark and beautiful and horrifyingly relevant. Death. And lying in those ruins among the dying and rotting is something that seems to be an opportunity. Moss makes a decision. Moss is dumber than dirt. 

Chirugh is a wonderful character, and in a way this story reminds me of The Seventh Seal.

I want to reread this one, again after a break. McCarthy's style of writing is just different enough that I was conscious of reading the entire time. The lack of quotation marks, vague character identifiers, and colloquial language meant that I couldn't just slide into it. It was like sitting on a hard wooden pew; you never forget you're there. 

Favorite quote:

How does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?

NORSE MYTHOLOGY by Neil Gaiman

3 Stars

Gaiman put together a compilation of favorite tales from Norse mythology and retold them in his own voice. Stories die out if they're not told, and this collection pays homage to the bards of old by reweaving the tales for a new audience. This gives an overview of Norse mythology following key events from the beginning to Ragnarok.

I had a few favorites:

Sleipnir's origins--LOL Loki.

Freya's wedding--LOL Thor.

Loki's children--I have a soft spot for Fenrir.

Poor Freya. The gods are always ready to throw her under the bus by marrying her off.

Again, Loki. The whole deal with the billy goat took some serious cojones.

Finally, it ends as it should with Ragnarok:

This will be the age of cruel winds, the age of people who become as wolves, who prey upon each other, who are no different than wild beasts. Twilight will come to the world, and the places that humans live will fall into ruins, flaming briefly, then crashing down and crumbling into ash and devastation. 

So, some readers are probably going, 'why did he bother?" Well, for one, I've had a few sagas on my to be read list for quite sometime and while I really enjoy reading them: The Táin: From the Irish epic Táin Bó Cúailnge, Y Gododdin, Beowulf, etc., they were not easily accessible to read. Frankly, this was painless and fun because you could laugh at the stories without decoding them. So, for an introduction to readers of all ages--okay maybe not young children because the gods were not PC creatures and there's some funny stories here that a teen to adult would be better situated to understand.

I am now ready for Ragnarok!

What???

Another recommendation fail, though it would be extraordinarily interesting to see them shelved together.

ARTEMIS by Andy Weir

3 Stars

Made for movie lunar romp.

This has all the right elements, and the engineering of it is really obvious. I can almost see the character and plot check boxes alongside Weir's monitor for verifying against his outline. There's nothing wrong with it, but there's no surprises. Want a popcorn book? This is a good choice. Not bad, not great, but you also won't be thinking about it much longer than it takes to read it.

Jazz is the hero in this first person point of view lunar intrigue story. Take the Wild West setting with it's power struggles and resource infighting, subtract gravity and atmosphere, add STEM learning modules and voila! You've got the basis of Artemis. Seriously, I can see using this as an interdisciplinary reading assignment for middle school students.

You've got the maverick entrepreneurial young adult rebel making her own rules, living her life her way. Not glamorous and scrapping by, but too proud to mend bridges until circumstances require it. Then, it is all so easy to get everyone on board with the plan. Of course, the lawless malcontent really has a heart of gold. Hooray!

I suspect this will be a bigger hit with the YA demographic.

V FOR VENDETTA by Alan Moore

4 Stars

In times of darkness and great need, we look for a hero.



Book 1:
The backstory and a particularly intriguing story of freedom versus justice emerges in this postnuclear apocalyptic story. Tick-tock, times up for some very bad people. I also recall why my farmboy friends are not stupid. I had a machete and gasoline, and they... well, I'd have been a bigger fan of chemistry, too. The things you learn playing in the shed.

 Book 2:
The saga continues, but this time we see Evey and her trajectory. There is an intersection with V and the past and how they have led to now. This is the mindfuck stage and entertaining when you see where it leads.

Book 3:
The future is here. The baton is passed. Do you take it? I actually found this more cogent than the movie version. While the cinema was beautifully shot, this showed the transitions better, albeit in a longer fashion rather than a few cuts. The power and depth of V as a entity and the use of letter is sketched out better. I liked the movie, but this was superior.

THE SPYMASTER'S LADY by Joanna Bourne

5 Stars

"Spying is a life of boring, ordinary tasks, performed while death scratches at the window."

So perfect that it might be the last romance I ever read.

I've had this on my To Be Read list for a long time, and while I've always meant to get around to reading it I never had. Until now. At time when I'd given up ever finding another romance I wanted to really read let alone enjoy.  So, a couple of months after being on the library waitlist I finally got to read it.
Clever, deadly, and amusingly droll. Granted I have a somewhat darker sense of humor, but this definitely ticked all the boxes I could want in a historical romance. Superb plot set in Regency France and England, but not the glittering and vacuous side. This was more chess than porcelain dolls.

"I will like England." She started walking again. "I have been here only four hours, and already I have met three men trying to kill me and one who bought me whelks. For better or worse, this is not a country that ignores me."

Delightful characterizations that are broad and deep, revealed slowly. There's a charm and humor as bullets knives fly. Then, there's the shell game. Follow the secret, who's got it, and what's it worth.

"If a secret may be owned, it can change ownership," he said. 

"Oh, surely. Secrets are most promiscuous, I have eloped with a few myself, in my time."

The romance is sublime. For two individuals who understand that tomorrow is promised to no one, it is surprisingly balance with a nice bit of slow burn as the flames of attraction kindle. The humor and tete a tete between Grey and Annique are fabulous.

"Perhaps, I will try to strangle you once more. Though you have the most beautiful body imaginable. Like a large animal." 

Adrian murmured. "What complex and interesting nights you two must have." 

"Shut up," Grey said.

The expanding cast provide some comedic relief for a story that dealing with characters having been through the Reign of Terror and now living with Napoleon's ambitions. The material is serious and there is a significant body count. While, this is a romance, there is enough reality surrounding them, losses affecting them that it is critical to balance the suspense.

"You should have learned to play the piano badly, years ago. I don't know what your mother was thinking.  

"I am not musical, me." 

"Neither are the young ladies of good family. They worship at the shrine of Euterpe, butt hear her not."

But, quite simply, there's a noblesse oblige observed between the key players, even in dark times when ideals are abandoned for expediency. The romanticized version of espionage is very attractive, but romance isn't for realism it's for fantasy. Thus, all the accolades accorded this book are well deserved and I only wished I'd read it sooner. 

"Too much blood on the chessboard of the Game, and we become no better than those military savages who litter the fields of Europe with the bodies of poor young men."

THE BONE PEOPLE by Keri Hulme

3 Stars

The ocean was the only song in the book that I enjoyed.

That said, it was a fascinating insight, but, like a door you never wished you opened. Hulme is a gifted wordsmith, rich, evocative language that paints a harsh and salt-stained landscape, which really gives a sense of New Zealand's vast wild spaces, also the staggering alcoholism, racial tensions and blithe brutality. . From a strictly objective point of few the story is stunning. Truly. Unfortunately, it is drawn out. 

Reading about people getting blinding drunk, being stupid, belligerent and abusive-- and then sick, nine of out ten days is not riveting. 

Reading about a kid being brutally beaten regularly, not a couple slaps or strops of a belt, but broken bones and scars that will never go away physically or emotionally, is depressing.

Reading about other people thinking something should be done, and doing nothing, well... that's F#@king infuriating. 

I have to give some leeway for the fact that this was published in the eighties. While corporal punishment used to be commonplace, thrashing your kids was not. It was never acceptable. 

There is a mysticism and magical realism employed within the story that blend well with the native Maori beliefs. There is an intense amount of Maori language used, so the index in the back is not a perhaps I'll use it supplemental because unless you understand basic phrases, titles, and terms of endearment then you'll miss significant context. I read this in paperback form so I can not speak to whether or not ebooks have clickable references, but it would be invaluable. 

Finally, my knowledge of NZ politics and racial issues is nil or near as nil as to be completely useless. Nonetheless, it is obvious within the story how characters are judged on how "Maori" they are from physical looks, to language skills, and beliefs. This is interesting, but it also makes the brutality of Simon, an extraordinarily "white" character disturbing. I haven't read any critiques about this, but it would be interesting to discuss with someone who had greater understanding of the issues. 

So, the theme really didn't appeal to me. The storytelling itself is beautifully worded if repetitive and drawn-out. The ending, well here's where it fell apart. Unrealistic and vague, as if more palatable closure was needed then either was laid out throughout the story or frankly, deserved by the characters. 

As much as I love the ocean, I don't want to visit here, again. 

Betelgeuse, Achenar. Orion. Aquila. Centre the Cross and you have a steady compass.
But there's no compass for my disoriented soul, only ever-beckoning ghostlights.
In the one sure direction, to the one sure end.

THE ELEGANCE OF A HEDGEHOG by Muriel Barberry

DNF, no rating

Intellectual masturbation that mocks intellectual masturbation.

Renee's hodgepodge approach to number orderings is extraordinarily distracting. All this time contemplating philosophy and different approaches and yet the ability to go from second to third to fourth to first to fifth and sixth. Or ages, twelve to five to seven. There are connections, but it is a meandering mindspace.

And you know you've been caught in the author's trap when you find yourself analyzing the choice of esthetic instead of the old fashioned aesthetic and concluding that for her modern, proletarian sense that esthetic is certainly correct and aesthetic would be all wrong.

OMG. I think I better understand the intellectual wandering as a bizarre need to present a position of superiority, but then there's something like this which highlights, as if I weren't already aware of the hypocrisy of Renee, how ignorant she is:

I sat there shouting at the television: go on, catch up with her, go on! I felt incredibly angry at the one who had dawdled.

It's basic physics.

DNF - Called it quits at chapter 18 because we just don't suit as reader and book. Maybe another time this would work, unlikely, but nonetheless, I can see how this could really shine from the right perspective. Alas, not me. Thus, no rating.

Still love this quote though: I have read so many books...
And yet, like most autodidacts, I am never quite sure of what I have gained from them.

Z: A NOVEL OF ZELDA FITZGERALD by Therese Anne Fowler

3.5 Stars

Even now, I would choose differently than I did.

For me, this was a fascinating biography. I entered it with little knowledge of anything byoned the works of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald. As it turns out, that gave me an insight into their lives for many of his stories were thinly veiled, fictionalized versions of his dreams and demons. A golden couple of the Jazz Age that skated the edge for too long, the stress of reality and the Great Depression inevitably took a toll lon them emotionally, psychologically, and physically. 

It is written as first person point of view from Zelda's perspective and gives a strong sense of an intimate diary. It frames her life from childhood in the Deep South to the wild parties of NYC to the glittering carousel of postwar Paris. As a couple they were like flames making one giant bonfire, both burning bright. Scott chasing his next novel and dueling with the demon of alcoholism, both believing the act they put on to sell more books wasn't them, and the machinations of outsiders meddling in their marriages--and not just infidelities. Let's just say, I like Hemingway's writing, but he's obviously an ass and this book really nails him to the wall. Hard to imagine that my regard for Hemingway as a person or lack thereof could actually decrease but it plummeted.

For readers who come to this book with a more informed background might not be as impressed; this is an entertaining biography not an academic one. For me, it was a missing piece of mosaic that helped add a whole section of a picture developed in my mind from years of history and art, all the people mentioned and how they tied in helped me weave the information together. 

Zelda was a modern woman, who unlike many of her feminist friends, climbed into the cage of marriage not because she was stupid, but because like many women she loved Scott. Alas, love does not conquer all, it can be a salve as we battle realities or the greatest torment. Anyone who's been in a long term relationship knows that it is like the ocean, waves come, you go up and down, and you either cling together or drift apart or occasionally, who climb on top of the other drowning them. This story does a beautiful job of demonstrating both Scott and Zelda's love for each other, unfortunately they were trapped in time and a certain prescribed set of values and as the less privileged party Zelda suffered for it. The greater sacrifice was hers.

Work of a wife.That was it, W-I-F-E, my entire identity defined by the four letters that I'd been trying to overcome for five years.

For years, Zelda wrote short stories to help finance the family coffers and from the start the editor said they could get more money if they sold them under Scott's name--so she did. When she finally wrote a book and published it under own name the reception was less favorable. The process was ego destroying for both Fitzgeralds and gave their demons stronger footholds. At the end, I'm melancholic. Their lives were a heroic and tragic, larger than life.

Btw. Fowler claims this is not a biography rather a fictionalized imagining of what it was like to be Zelda. 

DEARLY DEVOTED DEXTER by Jeff Lindsay

4 Stars

Delicious. The first one was so good that I took a second helping.

If book one, DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER, was an eight on the horrifying scale then turn the dial right up to eleven. So what if it only goes to ten, this is an eleven. Just push the envelope further. More suspense, more emotion, and definitely more investment in Dexter as a hero. A flawed, dark knight.

The nemesis here is quite impressive and the events are more gruesome. I won't lie, I really liked this one. What is truly a boon to the series is Dexter's developing character and his interpersonal relationships, which for someone who is incapable of emotions is very interesting to watch how he navigates.

There is something sweet about Dexter, an earnestness that shine through that makes him lovable. He may not be capable of emotional attachments, but he uses logic to validate his relationships in the finest form of rationalization I've seen in awhile. I suppose being able to understand his motivations completely makes me feel an empathy for him.