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69. Brenda Rickman Vantrease, The Illuminator: An illuminator of manuscripts meets a widow with a manor house and runs afoul of rich churchmen in the 14th century. He befriends Julian of Norwich, a dwarf, and various Lollards. On the order of Pillars of Heaven, but sadder.
70. Scott Turow, Innocent: A return to Rusty Sabich, of Presumed Innocent, and his lawyer Sandy Stern, also seen in Burden of Proof and other novels. This time it’s Rusty’s wife who is dead—maybe murdered, maybe from natural causes—but the evidence points to Rusty. Good detective work by Sandy and others. Good courtroom scenes. But as usual, best is the psychology of Rusty, his son, and , yes, another woman who has an affair with Rusty that casts suspicion on him.
Mary Kawal Robinette, Shades of Milk and Honey: Started and put down. Nothing especially interested me. Starts off like a Jane Austen novel—set in Regency times, a father with daughters who need to be married—but includes descriptions of practicing “glamour” that really didn’t work for me. Very distracting to have bad grammar in a style meant to mimic the delicate and precise language of Austen et al. And many typos, also—all in the first few pages.
Terry Pratchett, Small Gods: Picked up and put down. I think I will like this if I read it later—just not a good follow-up to Turow.
Jody Picoult, House Rules. Not in the mood for Picoult, either. This one’s about a kid with Aspergers, and maybe I’ll like it some other time.
71. Robin Oiviera, My Name is Mary Sutter: A Novel: A midwife is determined to become a surgeon during the Civil War, and travels on her own to Washington where she works in the hospitals. Gritty realism, grinding misery. And three men are in love with her! The relationship things work out fairly realistically, but more interesting is the relationship with her mother, also a midwife (oddly, they're upper middle class, in Albany NY--wonder how realistic that is). Readable, if not pleasant.
72. Jennifer Cruisie, Maybe This Time: In the mood for Turn of the Screw as madcap romantic comedy, with lovers from Midsummer Night's Dream and children by Gorey? This book's for you. Some of the characters and situations are wildly improbable--how else could you create a governess situation in 1992?--and it gets a little slow in the middle. But Crusie does what she does very well, including an excellent mix of fear, romance, and comedy, and some characters who really touch your heart.
73. Helen Simonson, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand: A traditional major living in a little English town falls in love with the also-widowed Pakistani woman who keeps a shop. Not knowing much about people of any kind who live in small English villages or Pakistanis who live in England, I can't judge the realism of this in social terms. There were obnoxious racists and greedy climbers on both sides, so I suppose that's fair enough. I was a little irritated by the psychological stereotypes, though--the good guys so very reasonable and sympathetic, the bad ones seen without regard to inner motivations.
74. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Advice on Dying: Discussion of how to prepare for inevitable death, with traditional Buddhist arguments for the necessity of meditation practice and study of the dharma during life. Commentary on a poem by the first Panchen Lama.
75. David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas: A series of intricately related stories, like Ghostwritten, which I loved. In this book, each story interrupts the previous one until the central one, and then the interrupted stories are each concluded. Neat structure. The inner stories were much more interesting to me—a journalist tries to expose a deceptive corporation, a clone breaks free of her corporate owners (yes, recalling Blade Runner and Windup Girl, but also very different from both), and a post-apocalyptic story set in Hawaii. But the story of the gifted musician who is exploited by the people he set out to exploit, the publisher escaping from imprisonment in an old people’s home, and the story of the 19tth century accountant sailing to California from New Zealand—they all work, and all eventually bear out the theme that we really create or destroy our worlds with the stories we tell ourselves. Very well-written.
76. Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear: How the wisdom that understands emptiness helps us overcome the fear of death. Very readable, very personal and touching.
70. Scott Turow, Innocent: A return to Rusty Sabich, of Presumed Innocent, and his lawyer Sandy Stern, also seen in Burden of Proof and other novels. This time it’s Rusty’s wife who is dead—maybe murdered, maybe from natural causes—but the evidence points to Rusty. Good detective work by Sandy and others. Good courtroom scenes. But as usual, best is the psychology of Rusty, his son, and , yes, another woman who has an affair with Rusty that casts suspicion on him.
71. Robin Oiviera, My Name is Mary Sutter: A Novel: A midwife is determined to become a surgeon during the Civil War, and travels on her own to Washington where she works in the hospitals. Gritty realism, grinding misery. And three men are in love with her! The relationship things work out fairly realistically, but more interesting is the relationship with her mother, also a midwife (oddly, they're upper middle class, in Albany NY--wonder how realistic that is). Readable, if not pleasant.
72. Jennifer Cruisie, Maybe This Time: In the mood for Turn of the Screw as madcap romantic comedy, with lovers from Midsummer Night's Dream and children by Gorey? This book's for you. Some of the characters and situations are wildly improbable--how else could you create a governess situation in 1992?--and it gets a little slow in the middle. But Crusie does what she does very well, including an excellent mix of fear, romance, and comedy, and some characters who really touch your heart.
73. Helen Simonson, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand: A traditional major living in a little English town falls in love with the also-widowed Pakistani woman who keeps a shop. Not knowing much about people of any kind who live in small English villages or Pakistanis who live in England, I can't judge the realism of this in social terms. There were obnoxious racists and greedy climbers on both sides, so I suppose that's fair enough. I was a little irritated by the psychological stereotypes, though--the good guys so very reasonable and sympathetic, the bad ones seen without regard to inner motivations.
74. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Advice on Dying: Discussion of how to prepare for inevitable death, with traditional Buddhist arguments for the necessity of meditation practice and study of the dharma during life. Commentary on a poem by the first Panchen Lama.
75. David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas: A series of intricately related stories, like Ghostwritten, which I loved. In this book, each story interrupts the previous one until the central one, and then the interrupted stories are each concluded. Neat structure. The inner stories were much more interesting to me—a journalist tries to expose a deceptive corporation, a clone breaks free of her corporate owners (yes, recalling Blade Runner and Windup Girl, but also very different from both), and a post-apocalyptic story set in Hawaii. But the story of the gifted musician who is exploited by the people he set out to exploit, the publisher escaping from imprisonment in an old people’s home, and the story of the 19tth century accountant sailing to California from New Zealand—they all work, and all eventually bear out the theme that we really create or destroy our worlds with the stories we tell ourselves. Very well-written.
76. Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear: How the wisdom that understands emptiness helps us overcome the fear of death. Very readable, very personal and touching.
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I loved Major Pettigrew's Last Stand -- I guess I thought the characters were more nuanced than you did. (But it also felt like my kind of comfort read, with that particular wry English-comic-novel tone I love. Personal-preference thing. [grin])
Funnily enough, the description of the glamours was the only thing that worked for me in Kowal's book! (Yeah. It was flat flat flat.)
[hugs]
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And re-reading my comments on Major Pettigrew, I think what I said is more negative than what I felt. I did like the Major and Mrs. Ali very much, and many of the others. It was only the vicar's wife and her counterparts on the Pakistani side who seemed so one-sided--others, like Mrs. Ali's nephew and various of the older villagers were indeed more complex and appealing.
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Jodi Picoult -- I tell people that while she writes well and compellingly, nobody gets to be happy in her books, boyoboy.
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