Small but perfectly formed book, left me with an eerie feeling. Martinez' last book 'The Oxford Murders' explored mathematical puzzles which might or might not help to solve a series of bizzare murders and save the next victim. This one is more about cause and effect.
The author - our narrator - gets a desperate phonecall which plunges him into an impossible position. He fell for Luciana over the course of a month, 10 years ago. At the end of the that month she went back to her employer, rival novelist Kloster who according to Luciana is slowly extracting revenge for the destruction of his marriage by killing her family off one by one.
Is she mad? Is Kloster - now a best-selling novelist - plotting murder in his spare time or does his writing trigger an action in real world. Kloster's working on his masterpiece and it's going to be a killer.
Sep 29, 2008
Sep 27, 2008
Lurgy and Zoe Heller
I've got the lurgy - it's been brewing all week and finally here it is. I'm fighting with all the ammo in my medicine cabinet, lockets, alka seltzer (here they're for colds not hangovers I'll never quite get used to that) and some rather spiffy Robitussin which I took last night and it worked better than Night nurse or Bennalin. I was out cold - until about 10.30 this morning.
I've just read Zoe Heller's new book and while I liked it I was reading from the whodunnit perspective so of course Joel had to be banging Daniel - wrong!!!!! It's nicely written and there's a review below but the thing I learned from this book is that I couldn't ever be Jewish - all those rules!
The Believers – Zoe Heller
Heller introduces us to the Litvinoff family at a crisis point. Joel, the head of the family suffers a stroke at the start of an important trial in a New York courtroom. His wife Audrey calls her son and two daughters to his bedside. In between battling with the Doctors over her husband’s medical care and wrestling with her conscience over keeping him alive Audrey learns that Joel had a mistress – she was tolerant of his many affairs – but this mistress had a son which Joel has secretly been supporting and the family has its own troubles.
Lenny the recovering drug addict may have fallen off the wagon again. Barren Karla, dieting social worker whose husband Mike is so desperate to foist an adoption on her that’s he pushing her towards another man. And finally Rosa, whose radical atheist upbringing means that her work with disadvantaged African American kids should be ideal. But instead she feels a pull towards her Jewish roots and beings to explore her denied faith.
A complex study of nature over nurture in post 9/11 New York.
I've got the new Guillermo Martinez to read over the weekend we'll see how that goes and I plan on doing some writing tonight. Chris is out at the airport taking night shots and then he's going on a ride-along in South Jordan.
I've just read Zoe Heller's new book and while I liked it I was reading from the whodunnit perspective so of course Joel had to be banging Daniel - wrong!!!!! It's nicely written and there's a review below but the thing I learned from this book is that I couldn't ever be Jewish - all those rules!
The Believers – Zoe Heller
Heller introduces us to the Litvinoff family at a crisis point. Joel, the head of the family suffers a stroke at the start of an important trial in a New York courtroom. His wife Audrey calls her son and two daughters to his bedside. In between battling with the Doctors over her husband’s medical care and wrestling with her conscience over keeping him alive Audrey learns that Joel had a mistress – she was tolerant of his many affairs – but this mistress had a son which Joel has secretly been supporting and the family has its own troubles.
Lenny the recovering drug addict may have fallen off the wagon again. Barren Karla, dieting social worker whose husband Mike is so desperate to foist an adoption on her that’s he pushing her towards another man. And finally Rosa, whose radical atheist upbringing means that her work with disadvantaged African American kids should be ideal. But instead she feels a pull towards her Jewish roots and beings to explore her denied faith.
A complex study of nature over nurture in post 9/11 New York.
I've got the new Guillermo Martinez to read over the weekend we'll see how that goes and I plan on doing some writing tonight. Chris is out at the airport taking night shots and then he's going on a ride-along in South Jordan.
Sep 22, 2008
The Little Book by Seldon Edwards
Not an arc and more of this in a moment.
We had the midnight release for Brisingr - the last of the Paolini books and it was fairly well attended - not anything like Breaking Dawn but not bad. It still meant being up past midnight and in between selling books I kept looking at "The Little Book" and in the end I took it home and read it over the weekend. The review follows. It didn't hurt that Sunday a small furry animal fried itself on a powerline which knocked about 6000 people's power out - ours included.
We had a TW meeting yesterday afternoon - which was fun because we had it at Donna's new house. I think we need to do some more writing exercises soon because although we briefly discussed the Monet to Picasso exhibition we barely discussed our writing and while that is a good thing once in a while - shaking things up a bit - we're all talented writers and we don't want to lose that angle.
Anyway here's the review.
Two things attracted me to "The Little Book" The first - I'm a sucker for a Time travel story and the second the majority of the book is set in Vienna. A city I love. My first trip abroad sans parents. We stayed in youth hostels first in Austria and then Switzerland. Vienna was our first stop and I fell in love from the moment we left the airport. We went to the opera, saw the famous Viennese White Horses perform, did a fiaker ride (horse and carraige) bummed around art museums and had coffee and pastries in a wide selection of Viennese cafes. We even went to the Prater and took a ride on the famous Ferris Wheel. I have never felt so instantly at home in a city before or since.
The Review
So how did 47 year old Wheeler Burden, last of the Boston Burdens go from being attacked in a doorway in 1988 San Francisco to walking around the Ringstrasse in Vienna in 1897?
Wheeler is quite a character, baseball legend, famous musician, writer and now Time Traveller? Once he's sure this isn't some kind of surreal coma dream, Wheeler starts to realize that this time and this place is significant in the creation of his own history and of his father's - the equally legendary Dilly Burden.
The whole 'don't mess with the past you may damage your future' reasoning of his father doesn't apply to Wheeler, he becomes a patient of the soon to be legendary Sigmund Freud, takes a lover who may paradoxically destroy them both and makes an instant enemy of his own grandfather. Wheeler sets about creating his own legacy. We learn about the Burdens and the good and bad ways they have influenced historical and current events and the strong woman who was the love of Wheeler's life who Waltzed with him one last time.
If you've never been to Vienna this book will make you want to go, if like me you've been it makes you yearn to go back. Fab!
We had the midnight release for Brisingr - the last of the Paolini books and it was fairly well attended - not anything like Breaking Dawn but not bad. It still meant being up past midnight and in between selling books I kept looking at "The Little Book" and in the end I took it home and read it over the weekend. The review follows. It didn't hurt that Sunday a small furry animal fried itself on a powerline which knocked about 6000 people's power out - ours included.
We had a TW meeting yesterday afternoon - which was fun because we had it at Donna's new house. I think we need to do some more writing exercises soon because although we briefly discussed the Monet to Picasso exhibition we barely discussed our writing and while that is a good thing once in a while - shaking things up a bit - we're all talented writers and we don't want to lose that angle.
Anyway here's the review.
Two things attracted me to "The Little Book" The first - I'm a sucker for a Time travel story and the second the majority of the book is set in Vienna. A city I love. My first trip abroad sans parents. We stayed in youth hostels first in Austria and then Switzerland. Vienna was our first stop and I fell in love from the moment we left the airport. We went to the opera, saw the famous Viennese White Horses perform, did a fiaker ride (horse and carraige) bummed around art museums and had coffee and pastries in a wide selection of Viennese cafes. We even went to the Prater and took a ride on the famous Ferris Wheel. I have never felt so instantly at home in a city before or since.
The Review
So how did 47 year old Wheeler Burden, last of the Boston Burdens go from being attacked in a doorway in 1988 San Francisco to walking around the Ringstrasse in Vienna in 1897?
Wheeler is quite a character, baseball legend, famous musician, writer and now Time Traveller? Once he's sure this isn't some kind of surreal coma dream, Wheeler starts to realize that this time and this place is significant in the creation of his own history and of his father's - the equally legendary Dilly Burden.
The whole 'don't mess with the past you may damage your future' reasoning of his father doesn't apply to Wheeler, he becomes a patient of the soon to be legendary Sigmund Freud, takes a lover who may paradoxically destroy them both and makes an instant enemy of his own grandfather. Wheeler sets about creating his own legacy. We learn about the Burdens and the good and bad ways they have influenced historical and current events and the strong woman who was the love of Wheeler's life who Waltzed with him one last time.
If you've never been to Vienna this book will make you want to go, if like me you've been it makes you yearn to go back. Fab!
Sep 17, 2008
NanoWrimo
Just got an e-mail from the nano people. It's hard to believe that in a couple of months NanoWrimo will be happening again. I did my first one last year and I fully intend to do it again. The object is simple, write a novel in a month, 50,000 words. There are no prizes but that's not the point. Hopefully you end up with a body of work that you can edit to death in the coming months. With Nano you just write - give your inner editor the month off and get stuck in.
Hopefully I can find some arcs to read this week!
Hopefully I can find some arcs to read this week!
Sep 12, 2008
62,397!
Third draft - complete. I'm going to step away from it for a couple of weeks and then re-read and do a final edit before printing a copy.
Reading Chris Fowler's first Bryant and May mystery Full Dark House so far so good! I'm going to check for arcs tonight - hopefully they'll be some good ones.
Reading Chris Fowler's first Bryant and May mystery Full Dark House so far so good! I'm going to check for arcs tonight - hopefully they'll be some good ones.
Sep 9, 2008
The Pure in Heart - Susan Hill
The second of the Simon Serrailler books (not sure how you pronounce his name I've been doing it the French way) This is much darker than The Various Haunts of Men, it deals with themes we shy away from, child abduction, a would-be stalker, Simon's reaction to the the fallout from the murders in Lafferton a year ago. Simon is called back from his holiday in Venice his sister - not Cat - is desperately ill. He throws himself back into his work rather than explore the feelings he had for DS Graffam. At the same time Andy Gunton is released from prison and returns to Lafferton. It seems all roads lead to Lafferton as Diana, Simon's old flame invades his life. This book is more procedural than the first and the course of the investigation is all too familiar. I'm thinking that the final book in the trilogy will resolve some of the thread left hanging by this - I hope so. I felt we only got half a story. Still it's a fascinating one. Hill gets the portrait of village life just right and nails the issues with GPs and locums which are a very real problem in UK at the moment. Andy the ex-con also gets a sympathetic portrayal his determination to stay straight dented by the probation system, his bitch of a sister and old 'friends' who won't take no for an answer. Overall a good follow-up. Looking forward to book three.
Sep 8, 2008
Informal Book Club
That sounds so much better than chain letter book club. You wouldn't think those two things would go together would you? It's simple you mail a book off to the person whose name and address is on the bottom of the letter. Then you copy the copy you have and put one of the address labels that come with it on the bottom of the six letters you send out. Honestly the letter explains it better than I have.
Why am I doing this you ask? Well for a start it's free books and I've promised myself that I will read every single one I get as a way of freshening up what I read - and I will of course review them here.
I've got six people in mind but I'm asking them first because well it's polite. If anyone is interested in being in my part of the chain that's assuming the six don't say - free books sign me up! Send a comment to this blog - US only though.
No writing today - we are finally getting a new bed - yay! This means lots of moving furniture around - also lots of swearing as various parts of my anatomy make painful contact with corners, wooden and metal. I've got bruises up both my arms and knees that look like a painting by David Hockney.
Why am I doing this you ask? Well for a start it's free books and I've promised myself that I will read every single one I get as a way of freshening up what I read - and I will of course review them here.
I've got six people in mind but I'm asking them first because well it's polite. If anyone is interested in being in my part of the chain that's assuming the six don't say - free books sign me up! Send a comment to this blog - US only though.
No writing today - we are finally getting a new bed - yay! This means lots of moving furniture around - also lots of swearing as various parts of my anatomy make painful contact with corners, wooden and metal. I've got bruises up both my arms and knees that look like a painting by David Hockney.
Sep 4, 2008
You are Here
I'd like to think that I take the environment seriously - I recycle as much as possible but this book gave me a hefty slap in terms of how much I actually know about climate change. I'm not going to call it Global Warming which if we are honest has become a byword for the green marketing machine. Thomas Kostigan - the author - travels to parts of the planet actually affected by what we do here. He connects the dots in a way that is both revealing and horrifying. The most polluted city in China - and no it's not Bejing - polluted because US consumers want cheap Chinese made goods (I knew I hated Walmart for more than just it's annoying adverts). Mumbai - our future if we don't wake up and do something about it. Fresh Kills, New York - the world's biggest landfill and best kept secret. You see all the things we throw away don't actually go away - they come back in our air, our water, our food.
This book - out in October - should be required reading for school children.
As a side note after Kostigan's comments about where our clothes come from I checked the labels in the four loads of laundry I'm doing, China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, England (clothes I bought in UK) and only 2 T-shirts were made in the US.
I finally got a copy of the next Susan Hill - The Pure In Heart and I'm dotting the I's and changing commas to full stops on my 3rd draft.
Update
I've spent the weekend researching alternative energy sources and home composting. The Susan Hill is good but it's not going to end well:-(
This book - out in October - should be required reading for school children.
As a side note after Kostigan's comments about where our clothes come from I checked the labels in the four loads of laundry I'm doing, China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, England (clothes I bought in UK) and only 2 T-shirts were made in the US.
I finally got a copy of the next Susan Hill - The Pure In Heart and I'm dotting the I's and changing commas to full stops on my 3rd draft.
Update
I've spent the weekend researching alternative energy sources and home composting. The Susan Hill is good but it's not going to end well:-(
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