I ain't afraid of no ghosts

Ghost Story
Peter Straub

Ugh. I SO wanted to adore Ghost Story. It's scary, it has ghosts (sorta), and lots of people were quoted on the cover as saying "omg scariest book evvar!!1" or some such, so I thought it was right up my alley. And although it may have been "up my alley," it was a reallllly long alley, and not a particularly nice one, either. Oh, wait you say, the alley is supposed to be me? Whatever, you know what I mean. I mean this book bored the pants off me.

Ok, so: the novel concerns "the Chowder Society," a group of old men who meet together and tell scary stories (and presumably eat chowder, although that part isn't made abundantly clear). So they tell scary stories and THEN scary stuff starts happening to them. And then it's happening not only to them but also to their sleepy little hamlet, which is about to experience the worst winter in history. (Side note: do not read this book in May after a particulary snowy winter, since MORE SNOW is the LAST thing I want to imagine right now).

Also, the narrative jumps around a bit, so at one point it's the future, then it's the present, then it's the past, then it's the WAY past, then it's the present, which is fine, I'm no dummy, but some of it was a bit draggy.

Which leads me to Disappointment #1. Simply put, Ghost Story was a wee bit long for my tastes. This novel could have been pared down significantly without losing any momentum. By the end I was just like WILL THIS SHAPESHIFTER / MANITOU / CREEPY THING KILL EVERYONE ALREADY BECAUSE I'M GETTING VERY SLEEPY OVER HERE.

Which leads me to Disappointment #2. One should probably not be sleepy while reading a scary book. However, I fell asleep NUMEROUS times while reading Ghost Story, which leads me to conclude this scary book IS NOT SCARY. True, there were a few creepy moments, but lots of things are creepy without being scary. To wit:



Question: Would you be afraid of this dog?

Answer: Not if you had a brain in your head: this thing is clearly punt-able, syringe or not. And anyone who is afraid of an evil chihuahua deserves what's coming to him.

Which brings me to Disappointment #3. True, the Big Evil in Ghost Story is not an evil chihuahua, but sometimes it might as well be. Some parts were just plain silly, while other parts didn't make sense within the context of the novel. I'd elaborate, but doing so would involve some spoilers. Also, I don't feel like it. So there.

In a nutshell: Yawn. (But yay! for reading another resolution title! [Remember that?])

Bibliolatry Scale: 2 out of 6 stars

FTCBS: Personal copy (insert sad music here)

Monsters, they are everywhere

The Monster of Florence
Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi

In this in-depth look at the Monster of Florence, the serial killer plaguing the area since the early 70s, thriller writer Douglas Preston has paired up with Italian reporter Mario Spezi to detail the specifics of the case and highlight whom they believe is the guilty party.

The Monster of Florence began shooting pairs of lovers in parked cars. He didn't stop there, though: the women (of course) were horribly mutilated, and pieces of them were removed -- and never found. Who could commit such a crime? Ten years later, and the killer is still at large, striking fear into the heart of everyone in the area.

Fast-forward a bit, and Douglas Preston arrives in the area to research a new novel. He'll never write this novel, discovering instead the Monster of Florence and his fascination with the case. He begins to research the crime, along with pal Mario Spezi, and the result is this book. Their investigation leads to a number of the investigations inadequacies and mistakes, so it's no surprise when they fall under the suspicious eye of the police. (Preston is unable to return to Italy to this day.)

At right: Douglas Preston

The Monster of Florence is as much about Florence as it is about the Monster. Preston and Spezi explain the underlying ideologies of the city's inhabitants, especially the need to save face and the compulsion to find conspiracy everywhere. Such a mindset, coupled with a particularly wily criminal, have allowed the Monster to escape prosecution.

My biggest complaint is the lack of pictures. A few pages of glossy pictures appear toward the end of the book, and yet not everyone central to the case is pictured. Some people mentioned only once or twice are pictured while others not at all. That's a small beef, though, and anyone interested in the case will be pleased with this effort.

In a nutshell: Mostly fast-paced and entirely true, The Monster of Florence is an intriguing look at some very recent -- and disturbing -- events.

Bibliolatry Scale: 4 out of 6 stars

FTCBS: Yet another Christmas present; no publisher ties here.

First Impressions lead to False Ideas

Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart
Beth Pattillo

In Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart, Beth Pattillo brings us another romantic mystery involving the work of Jane Austen.

Her previous novel, Jane Austen Ruined My Life, involves a bunch of long-lost letters written by the author. This time, the mystery surrounds the long-lost first draft of Pride and Prejudice.

Claire Prescott, arriving at Oxford to present her sister's a paper to a summer symposium, quickly finds herself in the midst of Another Austen Adventure. She meets an elderly woman claiming to have the mythical First Draft tucked into the odd nooks and crannies of her home. BUT, she could be suffering from dementia. OR, she could be telling the truth. WHAT TO DO?

Wait, there's more! Soon after arriving at Oxford, she meets her own Mr. Darcy, a handsome, dashing gentleman also attending the symposium. Ruh roh: what about her boyfriend at home? OH NO WHAT TO DO??

In all, Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart is a light, entertaining little book that even non-Austen fans (like myself) can enjoy. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy it as much as Jane Austen Ruined My Life, but Pattillo still provided me with several hours of escape.

In a nutshell: Fast-paced, entertaining, and somewhat predictable, Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart teaches that not every dashing, handsome gentleman deserves to be adored.

Bibliolatry Scale: 3.5 out of 6 stars

FTCBS: This book was sent to me by the publisher.

The politest argument ever

Daphne
Justine Picardie

It's no secret that I love Daphne du Maurier; when I saw Daphne, historical fiction centered on her obsession with Branwell Bronte (ooh! and I love the Brontes, too!), I knew this book was destined for me.

The plot revolves around several key characters: du Maurier herself, eager to prove herself a "real" author by completing a biography of Branwell, the forgotten Bronte, that puts him in a new light; J.A. Symington, a former member of a Bronte expert who may not have honestly gained some of his most prized possessions; and, finally, our young (unnamed) narrator who finds herself in the middle of a real-life du Maurier novel just as she struggles to complete her own du Maurier studies.

At right: Daphne at work

While the plot was interesting, several things failed for me. The narrator's journey is simply not interesting, and I hated being taken from the world of du Maurier and Symington in order to return to this fool's problems. She's, what, 23 and married to some recently-divorced scholar 20 years her senior. Not surprisingly, he can't get over his first wife, and he doesn't respect her scholarly interest in du Maurier, and he's so condescending and blah blah blah.

Also, the dialogue. When moving between du Maurier and Symington, no problem. But when writing current dialogue...whoa. Not good. For example, during a scene in which our lovely young narrator argues with her husband's ex-wife, she says, "Rachel, don't be arch with me, and please stop manipulating me." Arch? Really? And, "please stop manipulating me"? This narrator needs a good case of "Bitch, step OFF." Or, maybe even something non-verbal?



'Nuff said.

In a nutshell: Daphne and Symington provide an intriguing tale; unfortunately, the narrator doesn't fare as well. Still, reading Daphne taught me more about one of my favorite writers.

Bibliolatry Scale: 3 out of 6 stars

FTCBS: I received Daphne as part of as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.

Buried secrets, broken souls, boring story

The Keeper
Sarah Langan

Things are going bad in the small town of Bedford. Its inhabitants are all awful people, but are they to blame for their own shitty natures? Or are they being slowly poisoned by the noxious town with a malignant paper mill at its heart? One young woman, Susan Marley seems to know the town's secrets -- or is she the cause of them? A series of bad events bring the town's secrets to the surface, and life in Bedford will never be the same.

I loved Sarah Langan's followup to this novel, The Missing, so I was interested in reading the book that started it all. I downloaded it on my Kindle and was prepared to be floored. And I was.

Unfortunately, I was floored not by its awesomeness, but by the lack thereof. The Keeper was BORING. There were a ton of characters that kept melding into one another, and I kept forgetting who was who. The first 70% of the book was setting the stage for the final destruction, but I was so bored that, when it came, I was glad to see the destruction come.

In a nutshell: I'm glad I read The Missing first, or else I might not want to read more by this author. As a first novel, however, Langan proves she has the chops to write some truly disturbing horror.

Bibliolatry Scale: 2 out of 6 stars

FTCBS: Back off, I purchased it for my Kindle!

We can never be clean

Wise Blood
Flannery O'Connor

In Flannery O'Connor's first novel, Hazel Motes, grandson of an evangelical preacher, wants to escape his disturbing understanding of God. Haunted by Christ and unable to escape Him, Motes founds the Church of Christ Without Christ and preaches his ideas to any and all who would listen.

Unfortunately, things happen that stand in his way. And then OTHER things happen which are (a) pretty crazy, (b) contrary to Motes' actions and purported beliefs, and (c) provide the reader with O'Connor's opinions regarding Roman Catholicism.

Clearly, Wise Blood is a Very Important Book with Very Important Things to Say. That much is clear. Additionally, the prose is as fresh and as clear as a mountain spring. (Did I really just write that? I'm sorry.) Anyway, the point is, I was able to tear through this novel in a matter of hours.

At right: Brad Dourif as Hazel Motes

And now, for the single drawback: I couldn't connect emotionally to the book at all. I felt bad for Motes at times (especially by the end of the novel), but I didn't understand him. I "get" what O'Connor is trying to say via his character, but Motes himself is alien to me.

That said, Wise Blood is obviously profound and thought-provoking: I finished the book a couple of weeks ago and have been turning it over in my mind ever since. But that doesn't mean I enjoyed the experience.

Is that necessary, though? To a certain extent, it is -- for me, at least.

In a nutshell: A classic that is not necessarily enjoyable, but one that will leave you pondering for days.

Bibliolatry Scale: 4 out of 6 stars

FTCBS: Another Christmas present! Thus, no icky ties to disclose.

Technology implies belligerence

Blindsight
Peter Watts

Ok, so, full disclosure: Blindsight has proven that coleslaw is more intelligent than I am. This novel is certainly not for the faint of heart; it discusses the nature of consciousness, delves into bio and genetic engineering, and ponders the essence of human (and alien) life.

Sometimes, I didn't know quite what was happening in the novel, and yet (oddly enough) that didn't hinder my reading. While I might not have understood all the finer points, I *think* understood the greater points. For the most part.

Here's my pitiful attempt at a summary: Somewhere in our solar system (near Jupiter? Saturn? the Oort? ef it -- doesn't really matter), we find evidence of an alien presence. So we send a group of individuals to investigate. And, because making it that far is kinda hard, we like shrink-wrap them or something. At any rate, they're really wrinkly when they come out. Oh, and they're all modified in some way -- ah, our dependence on technology. It'll be the end of us. Or will it?

So, anyway, journey journey journey - and voila! Aliens. Can we communicate with these beings? Are the scramblers even sentient? Is sentience the same thing as consciousness? (I'm still not sure.) And what the ef are they even building? (I'm still not sure.) And what's going on back at earth? (I'm still not sure. Actually, I don't know if we're meant to be sure. So THAT's good.)

At right: my mental image of Watts' "scramblers." Minus the happy smile, of course.

In Blindsight, Watts gives readers an ambitious novel that discusses a variety of topics. While many have to do with the future, one point remains all-too-relevant: that of technology slowly encroaching upon all aspects of life, finally controlling (and even suffocating) us. Will we ever break the chains?? (Not any time soon, according to Watts. Although we probably should.)

In a nutshell: Difficult, ambitious, thought-provoking -- and unlike anything I've read before, Blindsight presents a future in which technology has come to control us.

Bibliolatry Scale: 4 out of 6 stars

FTCBS: This is another present from Santa. HOWEVER, you can read it online, seemingly in its entirety, here.

Memories are worse than bullets

The Shadow of the Wind
Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Whew! My first read of 2010 was of the magical kind, the type of novel you don't ever want to put down and the kind that haunts you after you do.

Do you even need a summary of this book? Because I feel like the last person to have read it. Also, it seems as though it's the type of novel that defies easy summary, and I am feeling particularly lazy today. (Today, you're thinking? As opposed to how you feel everyday!?!?! Touche, reader, touche. And, ouch.)

Anyway, here's something via Amazon:

The time is the 1950s; the place, Barcelona. Daniel Sempere, the son of a widowed bookstore owner, is 10 when he discovers a novel, The Shadow of the Wind, by Julián Carax. The novel is rare, the author obscure, and rumors tell of a horribly disfigured man who has been burning every copy he can find of Carax's novels. The man calls himself Laín Coubert -- the name of the devil in one of Carax's novels. As he grows up, Daniel's fascination with the mysterious Carax links him to a blind femme fatale with a "porcelain gaze," Clara Barceló; another fan, a leftist jack-of-all-trades, Fermín Romero de Torres; his best friend's sister, the delectable Beatriz Aguilar; and, as he begins investigating the life and death of Carax, a cast of characters with secrets to hide. Officially, Carax's dead body was dumped in an alley in 1936. But discrepancies in this story surface. Meanwhile, Daniel and Fermín are being harried by a sadistic policeman, Carax's childhood friend. As Daniel's quest continues, frightening parallels between his own life and Carax's begin to emerge.

Ok so that was a lot better than I'm capable of doing right now. Suffice to say, I loved reading this novel; it was fun, it was engaging, it was about books, and -- this is key -- the ending was perfect, in a heart-wrenching kind of way.

For some reason, though, I can't give it a perfect score. Why? I'm not sure. At times it was too perfect; I also have beef over some points that seemed important at the time but then didn't come to much. But these are minor quibbles. And I'm giving it a nearly perfect score, anyway.

However, this book made me feel like A Really Stupid American. Spain had a civil war?? That happened when??? For real? Who knew? Clearly, not me. To wikipedia I go!

In a nutshell: Fun, magical, both highbrow and lowbrow -- what's not to love?

Bibliolatry Scale: 5.5 out of 6 stars

FTCBS: Santa left this one at my mom's house, and she was kind enough to pass it along. Many thanks, mom!

Reading Resolution: 2010

Another year is here, so it must be time for another Reading Resolution. You might remember last year's resolution, which I bombed.

That, however, is okay. This is less a "to do" list than it is a guiding hand. I aim to read these 80, but, if I don't, life will go on. And if something else catches my fancy this year, I plan to read it without feeling the pangs of guilt I felt last year.

Have you read any of these? Any recommendations?

Ahmed, The Land of Invisible Women
Avant, If God were Real
Balzac, Cousin Bette
Balzac, The Unknown Masterpiece
Bambara, The Salt Eaters
Barry, The Secret Scripture
Bolano, The Savage Detectives
Buckley, Boomsday
Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop
Cervantes, Don Quixote
Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Chevalier, Burning Bright
Conescu, Being Written
Connolly, Nocturnes
Cox, The Meaning of Night
Daniels, Futureproof
Davis, The Thin Place
Dick, Dr. Bloodmoney
Dick, Now Wait for Last Year
Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, A Scanner Darkly
Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Eisenberg, Twilight of the Superheroes
Eliot, Daniel Deronda
Eliot, The Lifted Veil
Eliot, Brother Jacob
Groff, The Monsters of Templeton
Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge
Herbert, The White Plague
Hickey, The Painted Kiss
Houellebecq, The Possibility of an Island
Hugo, Les Miserables
Keret, The Girl on the Fridge
King, Under the Dome
Langan, The Keeper
Levine, Illegal
Listfield, Best Intentions
Maazel, Last Last Chance
MacDonald, Fall on Your Knees
MacLean, Why the Long Face?
Mann, Death in Venice
McCabe, The Butcher Boy
Meek, The People's Act of Love
Oates, Because it is Bitter, and Because it is my Heart
Oates, Little Bird of Heaven
Oates, We Were the Mulvaneys
O'Connor, Wise Blood
Oyeyemi, The Icarus Girl
Parker, Ovenman
Pattillo, Mr. Darcy Broke my Heart
Peace, Tokyo Year Zero
Pears, The Dream of Scipio
Picardie, Daphne
Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Powers, The Echo Maker
Powers, Generosity
Preston, The Monster of Florence
Price, Clockers
Pyncheon, V
Radcliffe, The Italian
Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho
Rice, Blood and Gold
Russell, St. Lucy's Home
Straub, Ghost Story
Stross, Accelerando
Svoboda, Trailer Girl
Teuthold, The Necromancer
Thomson, Soft
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Tolstoy, War and Peace
Trollope, Barchester Towers
Wallace, Oblivion
Watts, Blindsight
Wellington, Monster Island
Wharton, The House of Mirth
Wharton, The Buccaneers
White, The Aunt's Story
White, Voss
Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind
Zweig, Beware of Pity


TOTAL = 80

TOTAL READ = 5