book reviews

I'm really on a roll! Pretty excited about the number of books getting finished, I have to say.

Kate Atkinson, Case Histories. It's a rarity that I choose a new fiction author, but I was excited about this. Then, as I read it, I became less and less so. Firstly, the detective was entirely too stereotypical - ex-cop, newly divorced, heavy smoker, heart of gold. The only trope he missed was being a drunk. The resolution to one of the stories was made up out of thin air, because the author was trying to do entirely too much to build it up properly ... or at all. A third story was completely unconnected with the other two - no real reason for it to be there. And for all the sex - either had or desired - surrounding the detective, there was no sense of chemistry at all. A really disappointing book.

George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin. I remember getting these books (this one and its sequel) when I was about 7. And you can tell they've been well-loved. (There's something about books that are worn from many of your own readings. They're just more special.) I read it to the kids and discovered that it doesn't translate so well to being read out loud ... although Greyson, at least, was clamoring for the sequel when I was done, so I must have imparted some of my enchantment with Irene and Curdie on to him. It's a lovely story about innocence and trust and courage.

Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Irate Witness. Something unusual - to me, at least - since this is a book of short stories, only one of which involved Perry Mason. I don't read a lot of Gardner's non-Mason works, so it's always refreshing to run into one of these story compilations. The last story was a bit weak, I thought, but the others were interesting. You could almost feel Gardner being playful with some of the ideas, using the short story format to test things out.

Louis Bromfield, The Man Who Had Everything. This is a tale of a wealthy and successful man who has, essentially, a nervous breakdown and goes looking for the peace he felt once as a youth in a brief interlude. It's over-written, pretentious, and dull, and whatever the final point was, I missed it and don't have any interest in going back to look for it.