Whose Body?

When a body is found in a bath, wearing only a pair of pince-nez, things are bound to be interesting. In Dorothy L. Sayers' first Lord Peter Whimsy book, Lord Peter is called upon to help answer the question of who the decedent is and how he came to be in a man's bathroom in the middle of the night, while helping a friend solve the mystery of a man gone missing.

Usually, I am not one for mysteries unless they are by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle but I think I will have to add Dorothy L. Sayers to my list now, as this was an excellent read. It was first recommended to me over a year ago and I had never had the chance to read Whose Body? or any other Lord Peter Whimsy tale until recently. While I was able to guess the culprit before he was revealed, I still found the story to be very creative and very enjoyable.

I have to say that the tone of this book was wonderfully funny and gave the story much of that which I found enjoyable. I found Sayers' off-hand comments about how things work in mystery novels, as opposed to real life, very amusing and I loved Lord Peter's character. Take this exchange between Lord Peter and his servant:

"Bunter!"
"Yes, my lord."
"Her Grace tells me that a respectable Battersea architect has discovered a dead man in his bath."
"Indeed, my lord? That's very gratifying."
"Very, Bunter. Your choice of words is unerring."

This is just one example and much of the dialogue has a great sense of humor to it.

In short, I loved this book and now that I have finished Whose Body?, I think I am going to go to the bookstore and find the next Lord Peter Whimsy book, called Gaudy Night. If you enjoy mysteries, you are sure to love this one!

Rating: 5.0

Cover-Up - BTT

This week, Booking Through Thursday asks:

While acknowledging that we can’t judge books by their covers, how much does the design of a book affect your reading enjoyment? Hardcover vs. softcover? Trade paperback vs. mass market paperback? Font? Illustrations? Etc.?

To be honest, I think the only design element that typically has an effect on whether I enjoy a book or not would be the font. If I am having trouble reading the text, I get frustrated and am more likely to dislike the book. On the other hand, when the font is used in an original way, like Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper, where each character's narration had a different font, I found this added to my enjoyment of the story itself. Few of my books have illustrations at this point and the cover rarely makes any difference in whether I like the story or not.

That being said, I must admit that while the cover and format may not affect whether I like the story, it often has an effect on whether I pick it up in the first place. If the cover interests me enough, in form or artwork, I am more likely to read the book, even if it is not the sort of book I would usually choose. Does anyone else do this? I know it is dangerously close to "judging a book by its cover," but there it is.

What do you think?

The Lovely Bones

I must have looked at the cover of this book a million times and every time, I wondered what it was about. The cover is very simple and, for that reason, always caught my attention but, I was usually busy looking for something else and I never took the time to pick this one up. That is until a friend lent her copy to me. I am very glad she lent this to me, because, otherwise, I would never have read it and then I would have missed out on a very good novel.

The Lovely Bones opens with Susie Salmon introducing herself and explaining that she was brutally murdered in 1973, when she was 14. Susie narrates the book from her Heaven, where she stays and watches her family, friends, and even her murderer as they continue in life. While Susie's mother and father begin to grow apart because of the murder, her 13 year old sister tried to deal with the effects as best she can. Her crush and a girl from Susie's school, Ruth, begin to grow closer after the situation. At the same time, Susie must grow up in many ways, even though she is dead.

Sebold uses Susie's voice to tell the story of a family's unexpected loss in a very unique way. While I had hoped for some things to happen, I wasn't disappointed with the choices Sebold made in her book. The beginning was tragic, as Susie explains how she died and the time immediately after her death, but the end is more joyful. I really liked this story and the way Sebold told it.

I just found out that The Lovely Bones is being made into a movie. I have mixed feelings about this since the movies are usually no where near as good as the book, but I enjoyed this one enough that I may brave the movie when it comes out.

Rating: 4.5

Orthodoxy

In honor of the fact that last week was been Holy Week and the fact that I needed to read something that would require me to think, I chose to read G.K. Chesterton's defense of the Christian philosophy, Orthodoxy. This is a book that I have heard many people recommend, including the sales clerk at B&N when I bought the book. I figured that since I enjoy Chesterton's fiction, I should try this piece.

In this book, Chesterton is defending Christianity based on the philosophy created by the Christian faith, saying that Christianity often brings together two conflicting ideas in such a way that the positive factors from each are held and that no other philosophy can do this. According to Chesterton, Christianity has the ability to proclaim ideas that don't seem to be true but are actually right. It is very hard to explain his ideas in simple speech because so much goes into proving each of them but it was very interesting. I have never seen the Christian faith defended on the basis of the philosophy created but he manages wonderfully. The first three chapters were very slow, where he was showing the flaws in the prevailing philosophies of the time, which are still strong in today's society, but after the fifth chapter, it was very interesting to see how the Christian faith managed to answer some of the questions Chesterton poses.

This is a rather difficult piece (even though it is only 153 pages, it took me all week to read) because of the difficulty of the material, the older style prose, and the cultural references that are not as well-known as they would have been to the readers of the early twentieth century. Chesterton is discussing the deeper ideas between several different philosophies so some study in this area would probably help to read this.

While it was a challenge and I am not sure how much I can explain after reading this, I do think I will be reading this again sometime so that I can try to absorb some of Chesterton's ideas and his joy in life.

A really nice quotation from the book: "Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die."

Rating: 3.5

The End - BTT

Booking Through Thursday is here again and so I am going to take a break from my book that I am currently struggling through and answer this weeks question:

You’ve just reached the end of a book . . . what do you do now? Savor and muse over the book? Dive right into the next one? Go take the dog for a walk, the kids to the park, before even thinking about the next book you’re going to read? What?

(Obviously, there can be more than one answer, here–a book with a cliff-hanger is going to engender different reactions than a serene, stand-alone, but you get the idea!)

There are definitely a few answers to that in my own case. There are times, like when I finish a long series or when I have just finished something that really made me think where I will sit back and just really think about what I have read. There are also times when I have stayed up so late reading it that my first act upon finishing the novel is to get some sleep! If I really liked it, I will set it aside to recommend to my best friend.

As for picking up another book, that is usually pretty immediate. I don't usually go without at least one book in progress unless I just finished a book and now have nothing else I want to read at my house. In which case, finishing a book is soon followed by a trip to the library or the bookstore to find new material. No, usually, I have another pile of books on hand that are my "Read Next" books so as soon as I finish one, I can go to the next one. That is why I like to have a good bit of any series on hand because with them, I definitely want to start the next one as soon as I can.

Now that I've answered, I am going to go back to my book but tell me, what do you do?

The Redemption of Althalus

In search of some lighter fiction, I came upon a fantasy book by David and Leigh Eddings called The Redemption of Althalus. Deep in the fantasy genre, this book is about a thief named Althalus. As we are told in the very beginning,

It would be sheer folly to try to conceal the true nature of Althalus, for his flaws are the stuff of legend. He is, as all men know, a thief, a liar, an occasional murderer, an outrageous braggart, and a man devoid of even the slightest hint of honor. He is, moreover, a frequent drunkard, a glutton, and a patron of ladies who are no better than they should be.

After a terrible summer in "civilization," Althalus is asked to steal a Book from the House at the End of the World. Taking the job, he ends up getting stuck at the House with a talking cat who seems to have plans for him. Before long, she will send him to gather a group of men and women to fight evil, led by the man who employed him to steal the Book in the first place.

I did enjoy this book for the story and for some of the characters in the story. The plot has everything from a few love stories to a war, from corrupted religious officials to a bit of magic, and everything else one can think of. Dweia and Althalus are fun characters, along with several of the more minor characters but some of the characters were very flat. The bad guys are only bad guys and have no redeeming qualities to recommend them. Some of the story is a bit patchy in places as well. Althalus is on one track and then all the sudden, he and his group must do something completely different with little to no warning in the story line. While some of it is quite brilliant, or at least fun, some of it falls a bit.

I will probably read this book again but it won't be any time I am looking for something deep or terribly well written. For those lovers of fantasy books, this will probably be something up your alley, as long as you can look past the flaws. As long as you allow yourself to get into the adventure, you probably won't have too much trouble but I have read better fantasy novels before now.

Rating: 4.0

Playing Editor - BTT

This week's question for Booking Through Thursday is a bit more challenging:

How about a chance to play editor-in-chief? Fill in the blanks:

__________ would have been a much better book if ______________________.

For the most part, I am not sure what I would change in any given book. Many times, even if I don't like the events or plotline in a given story, I can later see why the author chose to arrange things in that fashion. Often times, things make sense in hindsight, so I wouldn't want to change those elements.

On the other hand, there have been times when I don't like the ending to a story. Perhaps I would have changed the endings to a few stories, like a few of those I have read in the last two weeks or so, but that is more of the job of an author, not an editor.

I can't write stories myself so for now, I just have to content myself with enjoying the work of others.

My Sister's Keeper

After hearing so much about this particular book, I decided that I should read it and see what I think. First of all, I have to say that I am a little concerned with how many people seem to love reading depressing books. Why is that? When I was younger, I read stries with heroes and knights and very clearly marked "bad guys" because it was an escape. I could fall into another world. With these books, I fall into a world that is worse than my own, which I suppose could make me grateful for the life I have but also makes me rather depressed because I know this stuff really goes on in other peoples' lives.

With that said, this My Sister's Keeper was still a very engaging book and one that was good enough for me to read, even if I was depressed by what was happening in the plot. Anna, a thirteen year old girl, was concieved as a genetic match for her sister Kate, who was diagnosed with a particularly harsh form of luekemia at age two. Since she was born, Anna has undergone several procedures to help her sister but now, when her sister's kidneys begin to fail, Anna may have other ideas and has hired a lawyer to sue for medical emancipation.

This story is told from several points of view, including Jesse, the eighteen year old brother and resident troublemaker, Sara and Brian, parents to Anna, Kate, and Jesse, Campbell Alexander, Anna's attorney, and Julia Romano, Campbell's ex-girlfriend from high school. It is a very well written narrative and the characters are well rounded and dynamic, even if the story takes place over a period of ten days. I liked that the font was different for each character, further seperating each individual and helping to give each of them added personality. I liked the side stories; if nothing else, they added to the process of humanization.

This book and Picoult's writing has the habit of raising many questions in the readers mind about what could or should have been different and what you might have done in the character's place. It is a mark of Picoult's skill that you do ask these questions and know enough about the characters to love them, even if you disagree with what they have done. The one flaw in that, for me, was the mother. I wasn't sure of her feelings until the very end but I still don't know what could have been done differently.

The one thing I disliked about the book would be a sudden plot twist near the end that I thought was simply too much. I won't say any more than that, so each person can decide for themselves, but I disliked Picoult's choice there.

My Sister's Keeper was a good book. I am not sure how many books like this I could read before being really depressed but this was a good story and I think Picoult did a good job handling rather sensitive material, though I feel she must live in a very dark sort of world. It seems to work for her but I think I am going to go read something fluffy soon, for the preservation of my sanity.

Rating: 4.5

Additional Reviews:
gautami tripathy

Salem Falls

I have been hearing so much about Jodi Picoult's writing lately and so I decided to give her a try and I grabbed Salem Falls when I was last at the library. While the subject matter and tone of the book is a bit heavy, I decided to go for it and see if I would also enjoy Picoult's work.

When Jack St. Bride was released from prison, after serving eight months for a crime he says he didn't commit, he was looking for a quiet town where he could try to rebuild his life. What he found was Salem Falls, a sleepy little town in New Hampshire, and Addie Peabody, a woman with ghosts of her own. Just when Jack thinks he has found someplace he can stay, four bored high school girls are at the center of the shattering of this life.

This book is the same story of the Salem Witch trials in many ways. In fact, I could call this story a modern incarnation of the witch hunts - Picoult re-enforces this similarity by choosing to place her story in the town of Salem Falls, though I think she may also mean that here, Salem, and the story of those times, falls. I am not sure about that but I do know I enjoyed the book. The characters were human, some with lots of flaws and some with just a few, but all humanly flawed. It was a great depiction of small town life, with all the secrets buried under the skin of the town's life. There were some characters that I grew to detest, based on their actions, but I disliked them more because they were realistic in their thoughts and choices.

All in all, I was very happy with this book and am now very interested in other books by Picoult. Luckily for me, I have a copy of My Sister's Keeper waiting on the nightstand for me to pick up and I think I will be diving into that as soon as I next sit down to read.

Rating: 4.5

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

I was searching my local library for something that looked decent and I came across The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards, which I have seen before but never really looked at until now. I figured that many people thought it was good and as I am currently attempting to expand my horizons and read items that would normally have passed under the radar, I decided to give it a go.

The story begins with a young family - a doctor and his wife who is pregnant with their first child. Norah, the wife, goes into labor in the middle of a snow storm and so Dr. Henry is forced to deliver what turns out to be twins, with the help of a single nurse, Caroline. The first child is a healthy boy but the second is a girl with all the signs of Down's Syndrome. In a flash decision, Dr. Henry gives the girl to Caroline, telling her to put the child in an institution and then tells his wife that the child died. Caroline, unable to leave the child in the institution meant for the feeble-minded, takes the child to raise as her own. What follows is the story of how these two children, Paul and Phoebe, grow up.

This is essentially a story about consequences: what happens to a family with just a single decision and how it can change lives forever. Even those who are not aware of the decision are directly affected by the waves made. The story-telling is well done and you care about the characters, even when poor decisions are made. For the most part, the main characters are fulled rounded off - they are human, at their best and, in places, at their worst. They make mistakes but there is usually a surrounding mass of history underlying each choice, just as real life often seems to work out.

While I was left with a few questions, besides the inescapable "what if's," I found the story compelling and empathized with the plight of several of the characters. It's not a fun book but I am glad I found this one, and may have to get a copy of my own in the future. This is definitely a piece of literature worth re-reading.

Rating: 4.0

Hero - BTT

Last week, Booking Through Thursday was about our favorite heroine. This week:

You should have seen this one coming... Who is your favorite Male lead character? And why?

This one is really hard to say. I guess I have never really thought about my favorite guy in books. I guess I was always pretty fascinated with Edmond Dantes, from The Count of Monte Cristo, and his multiple transformations. Even though most of the novel is spent in his seeking revenge, he still has humanity within his character and wakes up to the world around him at the end.

I also liked Sherlock Holmes. He wasn't much on the interpersonal skills sometimes and there was the opium addiction but he was smarter than anything and I always admired that. He caught the bad guy and figured things out. Good job, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, even if you did try to kill Holmes.

The Pursuit

I suppose I could have spaced these books out but I do enjoy these light Christian romances, even when the writing and the preaching seem a bit corny. Either way, I decided to finish the English Garden series and read The Pursuit, by Lori Wick.

In this book, we meet Edward Steele again, as he is preparing to leave Africa and head home to England. On the way, he meets two gentlemen who are traveling with him and when he promises to help them, he gets pulled in for more than he bargained for. Of course, this is a love story so we will eventually meet Niki Bettencourt.

This is a typical romance novel, with the Christian preaching and "conversion stories" thrown in, but the book is still enjoyable. Perhaps, the enjoyablity is in its very predictability - you know what is going to happen before you open the book and you can sink into the light story and just enjoy the idea of love being as easy as the stories always make it. Either way, I enjoyed this story for what it was and will probably continue reading Wick's work when I need something light and fluffy.

Rating: 4.0

The Visitor

Some time ago, I decided to stop reading romance novels because of certain scenes that were not appropriate, in my mind, to a young, single woman. I didn't feel comfortable reading them so I set aside all romance novels until last year when a friend introduced me to "Christian romance" with a book by Lori Wick. It was pretty good, or at least good enough that I decided that I would be willing to read books by her in lieu of the normal romance novels that one can find. In these books, the more intimate scenes have been deleted, though there are often what I term "conversion scenes," where someone accepts Christianity and talks about how it changes their life and so on and so forth. These scenes are a little silly to me but they are miles better than the scenes from the old romance novels that made me blush while I was trying to enjoy a fluffy book/love story.

The Visitor is the third book in a series called The English Garden Series. The books stand alone but they involve people living in a small English village by the name of Collingbourne. In The Visitor, we meet the Steeles, Henry, Charlotte, Elizabeth, Edward, and Cassandra. Cassandra is asked to read to a young man, Alexander Tate, who is healing after a fall from a horse riding accident that has affected his sight. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is experiencing the pains of unrequited love as the man she loves is in Africa with her brother, Edward.

I have to say that even though the writing isn't particularly good and the plot lines are in no way unique (they are the typical boy meets girl romance type plot), I do enjoy Wicks work. The story and the writing are a bit corny and Wick spends a lot of time going through Biblical passages and preaching through Pastor Hurst but I still like the stories. I don't always agree with her ideas or theology but I choose not to let that affect my enjoyment of the tale of two people (or in this case, four) falling in love, even when the path isn't particularly easy.

Rating: 4.0

Blessings

To be honest, I don't know how much I was expecting from Anna Quindlen's Blessings. It wasn't that I thought it was going to be bad, but that it isn't the normal fare for me. I was looking for a book by an author whose last name began with 'Q,' for the A-Z challenge and I thought it would be something that I could get through, but I wasn't expecting much more. Happily, I was fairly wrong and found this book to be rather good.

Blessings is the story of Skip Cuddy, a man recently released from prison after serving her sentence for a robbery charge, and Lydia Blessings, the 80-year old woman who employs Skip as her grounds caretaker. One day, a teenage couple leave a box on the steps leading up to the apartment above the garage, where Skip lives, and inside the box, is a newborn little girl. Quindlen uses a varying third-person point of view so that we come to know Skip and Mrs. Blessings very well and come to love them as the house and the lives of both are changed by this little girl.

I enjoyed the book for the most part, alone with the process of learning the history of Quindlen's characters. Especially in the case of Mrs. Blessings, flashbacks are used to show us the paths taken to get to this point. Mostly I enjoyed this book, but is it okay if ending made me like it a little less? Is the authors choice of plot direction reason enough for my opinion to markedly drop? I saw part of it coming but part of it left me rather unhappy about how Quindlen chose to end her story, and I can't help but feel that things would have been much better if little things had changed. (I would go into more specifics if I could, but I figure ruining a story is tantamount to some sort of grave readers' sin.)

I am not sad that I picked this book from the shelves of the library and I enjoyed it more that I expected to but I was left wanting a bit more in the plot. I expect that most people would enjoy the book, ending and all, but I don't know if I will reread it any time soon.

Rating: 4.0

The Blind Assassin

I noticed that many people really seem to enjoy Margaret Atwood's work, so when I saw one of her books on my latest trip to the library, I decided to try it and see what I think. I can't be sure as to my entire reaction because I am still puzzling it out in many ways but I will say that it was engaging (I stayed up till five in the morning because I didn't want to put it down) and not at all what I was expecting.

The Blind Assassin begins with the death of Laura Chase, ten days after the end of the Second World War, explained to us by her sister, Iris Chase Griffen. The next thing the reader sees is the prologue to a book within the book, entitled The Blind Assassin, by the same Laura Chase, published by her sister two years after her death. What follows are two stories, one told to us by an aged Iris - her recollections of the past and how the sisters had grown up, and the other being Laura's book, a story of secret meetings of two lovers and the story he is telling her. In that aspect, it reminds me of W, or Memories of Childhood.

This story isn't happy; in fact, I would call it a tragedy, though that seems to be Atwood's normal fare: perhaps I should have expected it. Many of the major events are foreshadowed by newpaper articles throughout the text, giving the reader a taste of what is to come, though just enough to create a sense of wondering how this will effect things or how it will come about. The writing was wonderful, though the style in certain parts did grate my nerves at the beginning. All in all, a book I am glad I decided to pick up and I think I may have to try more of her books.

On the other hand, trying to decipher what Atwood's message is - that is a challenge. I know there is a deeper message, if only in her selection of the title, but I am still working on understanding what her point (or points) may be. I suppose that makes me appreciate the book even more.

Rating: 4.5

Additional Reviews:
gautami tripathy