Another Crop!

Book # 33- Those Terrible Middle Ages by Regine Pernoud - This was an interesting book, written in the mid 70s because Regine Pernoud, a French medivalist, was sick and tired of how the Middle Ages were portrayed constantly (and wrongly) as backwards and violent and barbaric. General perception lumped 1000 years together and neglected to actually examine the changes over the times, in social mobility and advances in art and politics and law... all of it. No of course, the Middle Ages weren't great, but they also gave us a lot of good things that the Renaissance, and it's desire to go back to the Classics took away from us (more rights for women were definitely a part of that). Enjoyable book.

Book # 34- Dear Life by Alice Munro - This could quite possibly be Alice's last book, and a magnificent one as always.

Book # 35- Kushiel's Chosen by Jacqueline Carey - So looks like I found my popcorn books for the end of the year. As with Kushiel's Dart, I still find Phedre quite... passive as she chases after Melisande and plays her game and nearly dies numerous times. She's a shit to poor, besotted Joscelin most of the time (yes, I know, he can be a prat, but lets face it, hot, blonde, peerless swordsmen who are also a bit of a prat are kind of a weakness of mine...), so yeah, the romantic in me was actually kinda happy the two of them reconciled at the end.

Book # 36 - Kushiel's Avatar by Jacqueline Carey - Ok, this one, this one was pretty good. Pretty epic and damn dark in some areas, Phedre was definitely, finally, anything but passive and yeah, I ended up liking this one the best so far.

For the first time ever, I think I've completely lost track of where I am... I don't know why I'm so horrible at keeping this up this year... (well, August and September were kinda bad for a variety of reasons we won't get into here.)

24, 25, 26, 27

24 is Among Others by Jo Walton - Loved this book. Off beat and magical and a love letter to reading, especially reading 60s and 70s Sci-fi/Fantasy.

25 is Dance of the Happy Shades by Alice Munro - Can't say much other than so much love for her short stories.

26 is Captive Queen by Alison Weir - Eleanor of Aquitaine was pretty cool. Her husband Henry? Not so much.

27 is Darkness of the Light by Peter David - Glad I finally got around to reading this. Bit of a slow start, but once I figured out what was going on, it got quite enjoyable. And I liked how PAD began tying all, what seemed to be disparate, threads together.

Book #9 is Open Secrets by Alice Munro

This collection actually has some unifying elements to it, mainly in that the stories all revolve around the town of Carstairs and (more loosely), the Doud family and their piano factory. And as with most Alice Munro stories, the narrators are women.

Some of these stories seem more... sprawling than is usual for Munro, especially The Albanian Virgin, an odd tale of Charlotte (or Lottar) who is captured by Albanians during a trip. She tells the tale as an eccentric, older woman, so we're not entirely sure how reliable the narrator is.

I also particularly like the Jack Randa Hotel, which has Gail, who's been jilted by her significant other for a younger woman, follows him to Australia. Her stalking of course rather blows up in her face, but at the same time, she gets a modicum of revenge.

Vandals is a typical Munro work, in that it starts off just fine and then takes a completely unexpected turn to a rather dark place and leaves you feeling rather uncomfortable.

But that uncomfortable feeling is why I like to read Munro, he stories might be short, but they are never, ever simplistic and they rarely sit easily with you after you've read them.

Book # 17 - Friend of My Youth by Alice Munro

I find it difficult to review Munro's stories. I love them, I love the sense of disquiet they leave me with (because that's always the feeling I get from them), but as they're all short stories and while marvelous, I am too lazy to get into the intricacies of them all... heh.

Munro's stories are deeply female-centric, usually take place in small-town Ontario (or small-town elsewhere in Canada) and are coming of age tales. Whether the coming of age happens to be a young girl, a teenager, a 40-something wife and mother having a midlife crisis, it doesn't really matter, they all discover something about themselves or their situation. And a lot of it is rarely... good. There's a strong undercurrent of melancholy in her stories, a near... fatalism about the inevitable passage of time. And yet, despite this, I wouldn't call her stories depressing by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, I think I love her stories because they feel real.

I keep meaning to go back and flesh out my last post, but I'm trying to write some other stuff and get reading done, plus you know, baby, so yeah, I've not been able to do that, and I think this post is going to be just as brief for awhile.

Number 31 is Too Much Happiness by the Canadian queen of the short story, Alice Munro. I think the title is a bit of a misnomer, because there is never, ever too much happiness in Alice Munro stories. They are overwhelmingly kinda... not really depressing, but definitely uncomfortable. There is something always off kilter about her stories, which is probably why I like them so much.

Lucky number 13 is Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro.

Had a slight problem with this book, got to page 136, half way through a story, when bam, I noticed that the next page was 189. Missing pages! What the hell??? So, I discovered this on the weekend, didn't really have time to head over to Chapters (which is where I bought it and fortunately I did find the receipt), so I would've finished this sucker on the weekend, rather than yesterday, had I not hit this snag. Yesterday after work, headed to the Chapters I bought it at, returned it, and promptly found out that they didn't have any more copies in stock. Sigh. Fortunately, headed over to local bookstore Pages, and they did have a copy. So yeah, went home and finished reading.

As usual, this is a collection of short stories. I love Alice Munro's short stories. There's always something wonderfully off kilter about them, even though they're about pretty mundane things. Her collections often have a theme through them (or at least, I shoehorn one on them), and this one seemed to be marital strife. A lot of the stories had the protaganist divorced, or embarking on an affair, or running away from an unhappy union or, or widowed, or, in the last story, having to suffer through a loved one not recognizing their partner due to the ravages of Alzheimers (and yes, you may recognize this story as the basis for Sarah Polley's recent movie; Away From Her).

As usual, the reactions to these various characters and their various reasons for what they do are mixed; understanding, incredulousness, sadness, pity and even some revultion in one story.

The last story, The Bear Went Over the Mountain, is indeed a bit of a tearjerker. The husband is revealed to be a bit of a cad, but one who does deeply love his wife and had never dreamed of leaving her despite his numerous indiscretions. But due to the Alzheimers, she leaves him. In the home he is forced to put her in, she strikes up a deep relationship with another of the home's residents, and she doesn't remember her real husband at all, no matter how many times he comes to visit her. It's hard not to feel sorry for her husband, so doggedly visiting, hoping for her return, witnessing her 'affair' first hand, but there's also a little bit like, well, why did he cheat on her in the first place though, and is what's happening now almost a little karmic pay back? The story actually does end as happily as it can, given the circumstances.

Really enjoyed this collection.

Number 16 was a pretty quick read , but for the most part, I find collections of short stories are generally quick reads. So number 16 is a collection of short stories, The Love of a Good Woman, by Alice Munro. I like Munro's writting style, its blunt and poetic at the same time. I liked all the stories in this collection, all told from the pov of a woman, sometimes first person, sometimes third, sometimes in the form of a letter, with a common thread of adultery weaving through them. Which of course means that sometimes the stories end quite badly. I also found a lot of the stories ended quite abruptly, which I found jarring at the time, but upon reflection, realize that might just be the point, so many relationships end abruptly and that's what these stories are about alot of the time, endings.

Munro is so good at capturing unhappiness, unhappiness in a relationship, knowing that there must be soemthing better out there. Sometimes her protagonistis find it, sometimes they don't. There are few 'happy ever after' endings in her writing. Its not that things are bitter or bad or horrible or happy, the endings are just... realistic it seems. And I really appreciate that about her writing.

Wow, I think this is the shortest review in this blog yet. Not to short-shift Munro at all, but I think I just feel her stories more than I can really rationally write about them.

*insert usual comment about how I haven't updated this blog in awhile...*

Since last update, G and I went on a trip to England, London specifically, and it was wonderful and perfect and everything I could ever have wanted it to be and of course I bought books over there :)

But what have I read since I last updated?

All My Friends are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman. G lent me this book and it was a fun, quick, little read written by Canadian author Andrew Kaufman. Its a funny little book where the main character is about to loose his wife forever, because she cannot see him since he was made invisible on their wedding day by a rival for his wife's affections. Everyone in the book has a 'superpower' based on the most outstanding aspect of their personalities (i.e. the wife is the Perfectionist) and I found myself wondering what my personality-related-superpower would be and strangely enough, I couldn't come up with one. But anyway, it was a fun book and really enjoyed all the different superheroes (as I also found myself going 'Oh yeah, I know someone like that') and it was a satisfying, happy ending.

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. Believe it or not, this is NOT an Arthurian-themed book that I picked up in London. This book is about a case of a wrongfully accused and convicted man (one George Edalji) who's cause renowned author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle comes to champion. The book is a very, very interesting look at the lives of two very different men, and infact, it isn't till about 2/3s of the way through that Arthur and George finally meet. I admit, I kept wondering if the crimes George was accused of would end up being linked to the crimes of Jack the Ripper, but that was never done, and I actually found myself happy that they weren't. Its funny though, while I have read some Sherlock Holmes stories and liked them well enough, I've found that I enjoy books where Holmes' creator is a main character very enjoyable (like in the List of Seven) Sir Arthur seemed to be an extremely fascinating character all of himself as well.

I just began Alice Munro's latest offering The View from Castle Rock, which I hope to have finished fairly soon.

Rereads of late includes lots of Anne McCaffery books; Dragonflight, Dragonquest and the MasterHarper of Pern.