Synopsis: A retelling of the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast. Review: I suppose it’s because of all the babysitting I’ve done, but I just couldn’t shake the image of Belle in her big yellow dress as I read Robin McKinley’s Beauty. But setting that aside, I would have loved this when I was 12. It’s swoony and romantic, featuring a narrator who’s my kind of girl. It hews very closely to the classic tale, while adding some imaginative elements such as the whispering…
Synopsis: While working on a novel in Tunisia, a writer encounters his own heart of darkness. Review: I had written a truly brilliant review of Patricia Highsmith’s The Tremor of Forgery, but it got eaten. Fie! The salient points were: Patricia Highsmith plays cat and mouse with the reader just like her most famous creation Tom Ripley played cat and mouse with anyone he encountered She is a master of nuance characterization The final third of the novel is a tour-de-force of subtle character dynamics…
Synopsis: A young woman discovers her destiny among a cadre of psychic dragons, and hatches a radical plan to save her planet from a deadly threat using time travel. Review: I wish I had discovered Pern when I was in high school. Dragonflight, one of Anne McCaffrey’s books set in the dragon-strewn world, is perfect YA sci fi fantasy. Lessa is a fantastic heroine whose impulsive acts have big consequences, and the book doesn’t try to achieve too much. It’s difficult to talk about a…
Synopsis: A collection of short stories set mostly among Indian immigrants in the US. Review: Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake was one of my favorite reads of last year, so I decided I needed to check out her much-buzzed about collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies. It will surprise no one who has read these tales that I found them both simple and spectacular. I am not usually a fan of short stories, though now that I am short on time for reading I’m finding…
What’s your favorite book that nobody else has heard of? You know, not Little Women or Huckleberry Finn, not the latest best-seller . . . whether they’ve read them or not, everybody “knows” those books. I’m talking about the best book that, when you tell people that you love it, they go, “Huh? Never heard of it?” A Candle in Her Room by Ruth Arthur tells the story of several generations of a family haunted by a charismatic and evil doll. It scared me silly…
Synopsis: The first of two anthologies featuring short stories by George RR Martin, ranging from fantasy to science fiction to horror to genre hybrids. Review: I am one of those readers who had never heard of George RR Martin before encountering A Game of Thrones, book one in his Song of Ice and Fire series. What I did not know is that Martin has had a prolific career as a short story writer, primarily in the genre of science fiction. Dreamsongs Volume 1 includes some…
Synopsis: Short stories, essays, and an unfinished novel by Shirley Jackson, queen of American Gothic and author of “The Lottery.” Review: My love for Shirley Jackson has been well documented in this blog, so I was delighted when my husband got me Come Along With Me for my birthday. The collection opens with “Come Along With Me,” the novel that Jackson was working on when she died at the untimely age of 44. At about 33 pages, there isn’t much of a narrative, just a…
Synopsis: Callously ravished by the man she hoped to love, an 11th Century Norwegian woman shapes her life around dreams of vengeance. Review: Gunnar’s Daughter is an early novel from the Sigrid Undset, author of the Nobel Prize-winning Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, and it is no less of a powerful, shocking work not just for a book set in medieval Norway, but for a book written at the beginning of the 20th Century.
Synopsis: The conclusion of the epic battle against the darkness. Review: I’m sorry to announce to everyone who has been excited I’m reading Kay that I found The Darkest Road to be a slog… around page 275 I realized that I had nothing invested emotionally in any of the characters or their journeys. I just never really engaged with the story. That said, Kay is a beautiful writer and I will certainly be checking out Tigana and Last Light of the Sun, though not for…
Synopsis: Book 2 of the Fionavar Tapestry finds five Canadian students returning to an alternate universe where they continue to fight an epic battle against a demonic demigod and step further into their unique destinies. Review: As with any good second book in a trilogy, The Wandering Fire deepens the Fionavar mythology and heightens the stakes for all involved.