book report XII

Catching up on my recently read books:

Perry Mason, Case of the Green-Eyed Sister and Case of the Empty Tin. Both are fairly convoluted plots, definitely fresh ideas, but seemed a bit overdone, really. Too much attempt to complicate, I thought.

James Patterson, Kiss the Girls. This was a reread, and the book still kept me on the edge of my seat and compelled me to finish it in a day. This is one of a small subset of my books—single volumes, written by major, much-published authors, that I really enjoy, but which just don't inspire me to buy the rest of the series. Since my to-be-read stack and list are both pretty full, I don't feel that I'm limiting myself too much by not wanting to get the rest of Patterson's series (as an example) at this point, even though I really like this one book. Besides, it leaves me a whole new series I could pick up if I ever felt I was running short on new books!

Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron. This is a book of short stories, essentially, with a framing device that 10 young ladies and gentlemen have fled the 1348 plague and are telling stories to each other to while away the time until the plague has passed. The book was written around 1350, and was a fascinating study into the views on love and marriage (which mostly don't seem to have been the same thing) held by 14th-century Italians of a certain (upper) class. It was a slow read—took me three weeks to finish—but definitely interesting.

Lydia Maria Child, The American Frugal Housewife. In the 19th century, this was a highly influential work, the manual for practical housewifery. It contains cooking tips, recipes, cleaning tips, and many pieces of moral advice on how to manage your money and your family. Obviously fairly outdated today (many of the ingredients, such as pearlash, I've never even heard of), it was still interesting reading and excellent reference material.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Better in the Dark. This is one of Yarbro's better works, much to my surprise. It has a lot of her usual flaws—conversations that go on too long while the reader is anxious to get back to the action, Saint-Germain's continual brooding, etc. But it also has a finely drawn, extremely compelling portrait of the time period (Dark Ages Germany), a very real-feeling heroine, and the action remains engrossing.