book reviews

Slow month this month, I'm afraid. Still, getting a fair amount of reading done!

Charles Busch, Whores of Lost Atlantis. A funny little romp about a down-on-his-luck actor who puts together a little play that brings together an entertaining cast of characters and spirals into a much bigger thing. Light and campy, but a lot of fun.

Jane Ziegelman, 97 Orchard. Excellent book! It brings together the stories of five immigrant families who lived in a New York tenement building over the course of a century, focusing on the foods they ate. But it doesn't stop there. The author weaves the food history together with the greater history of the countries the families came from, the America (and New York) they came to, and studies how the foods they brought with them changed America, as well as how America changed the families' eating habits. It's an ambitious scope, but she makes it work in an extremely engaging and readable way.

Melissa Wiley, The Far Side of the Loch. While this has the same engaging and detailed stories of daily life as the rest of the series, the author's decision to have the main character be unhappy through most of the book takes away from the feeling a bit. The Little House series as a whole is about stronger characters than that, and this book felt very ... confining. You could sense the character's frustrations, but I didn't really see how the frustrations advanced her character or the overall plot. Not as good as most.

Agatha Christie, Partners in Crime. Secretly, I have always wanted to be Tuppence Beresford. This set of short stories showcases Tuppence and Tommy in all sorts of little mysteries of the kind Agatha Christie does so well (and a bit lighter than Christie's usual fare, which is fun). They pretend to be various fictional detective in the midst of each case, and use their own personal brand of deduction to great effect.