So it took me about 30 pages to think “This book feels really comfortable and familiar.” And another 50 to think “Weird, I totally know what’s going to happen next.” And then it started to dawn on me… Yes, turns out I’ve read these before. About 15 years ago is my guess, during a poverty period in my NYC days when I was actually going to the library twice a week… Too funny.
Still really enjoyed them second time around. 🙂
Don’t know how much business I have blogging about a book I didn’t finish… But I got farther than I did the first time I tried to read it! Very Joyce-ean in its rhythms.
I just kinda lost interest when it got to a point in the plot where it became unclear who was real, who was just a dream or fantasy, what situations had atually happened, which were made up in the character’s mind…
Enjoyed it up until that point…and then kept finding myself AVOIDING reading. I mean, given that reading is the thing I’d almost always rather be doing than anything else, if I’m on the bus thinking “well, maybe I’ll just stare out the window instead”, then you’ve got to figure this book maybe isn’t really for me, you know? 🙂
Making: About to blindstitch the binding to the back of Mariko’s quilt. Halfway through the second sleeve on Maddox.
Reading: “Landor’s Tower” by Iain Sinclair. Actually tried to read this once about two years ago and never got past the first chapter. Picked it up again and am zipping right through. Very Joycean in its language and rhythms.
Watching: Season one (and perhaps the only) of Jericho. After reading Meg’s recent post, I decided to try it out. Even though Skeet Ulrich has always given me the skeeves in the past, I am totally diggin’ him on this show!
Listening: Jason Isbell, which finally hit iTunes. Like it a lot!
Better late(r) than never, oui?
The best movie I saw in May BY FAR was Grindhouse!!! It was a completely satisfying, entertaining and exhilarating trip to the theater and shame shame shame on those of you who didn’t go it!!! The studios will just keep on putting out mediocre bullshit movies if people don’t go see the ones that are actually good!
The best book I read in May was Love Is a Mix Tape which I loved, loved, loved. I mean, LOVED.
The best concert I went to in May was a close one but I’m going to have to give the nod to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Arcade Fire was also good, but not quite as good as the first time I saw them, so I’m giving them a close second.
My favorite tunes in May were: the Buffy: “Once More, With Feeling” soundtrack (who can resist???); the new Travis album, which I am listening to incessantly and hello I get to see them Live in about a week!!!; and Elvis Perkins. I also really enjoy the singles “Mama Who Bore Me” and “Totally Fucked” from the Spring Awakening soundtrack; “Find Love (Let Go)” a new single by Kyle Andrews, “Ordinary Days” new single by Dolores O’Riordan (who’s a Cranberries member I think); and “Broken Radio” by Jesse Malin which features Springsteen.
Random personal highlights: Maryland!; three nights at Second Story; The Strizzy wedding!!! and wandering DC with Ame.
Lowlights? Thankfully after a month between, I don’t remember what any of them were! Woot! Here’s to forgetting the bad!
Sort of an odd duck. I don’t think it was ALL due to me just having seen “Evening” before I started reading this, but the time it takes place in felt confused. It FEELS like it’s the ’50s or ’60s, very formal, the wife part of a “society” family, the way the murder took place, the writing of letters, the lingering on of CJ’s spirit: all felt very “old,” belonging to the time of Capote and “In Cold Blood.”
But then there are references to snowboarding, and photo shop and Mailboxes, etc. = so it’s supposed to be contemporary. I never really got over this tonal imbalance and really felt much of the plot and the characters would have worked better in THAT time rather than THIS one.
Did enjoy the epistolary drama, the lead’s plan to break the murderer’s heart. The ending reminded me of a very specific part of “Evening,” but I don’t want to give anything away. If you’ve seen that and read this, shoot me an email (link below “Say What”?), I’d love to know if anyone else noticed this particular resonance.
Second in the series (#1 here).
Still involved with the werewolves but the mystery here centers around the local vampires and their seethe. Very spooky stuff!
Some neat religious imagery with Mercy insisting on wearing a lamb necklace instead of a cross: “I don’t wear a cross. As a child, I’d had a bad experience with one. Besides, a crucifix was the instrument of Our Lord’s death — I don’t know why people think a torture device should be a symbol of Christ. Christ was a willing sacrifice, a lamb, not a cross for us to hang ourselves on; or at least that’s my interpretation.”
So I was in a bookstore to pick up the second Kim Harrison book and they didn’t have it, but I found this book instead.
Mercy Thompson = mechanic AND “walker” (can shape shift into a coyote), brought up in a pack of werewolves and involved with another one in her current locale. Has to enlist the help of a local vampire and a local witch to solve this mystery.
Whipped right through it, couldn’t put it down. So with the Harrison books, and the Terry Goodkinds I started earlier, somehow I have now gotten myself involved in THREE fantasy series. And then there’s Proust where I’m ready to read Book 4, and the Vidal novels of Empire where I’m ready for #2… I just don’t have the kind of reading time I want!!
I bought this book some time ago and found that I had three Helprin novels on the shelf and had yet to read anything by the man. I’m so glad I finally did as this novel was really lots of fun. Tale of two bumbling oafs in the Royal Family sent off to “conquer America” and stop embarrassing themselves. In the tradition of comedies of manners, or Tristam Shandy. While the subjects, and many of the periphery characters, are soundly mocked, there are also beautiful, poetic, descriptive passages as they make their way through America…very hard to resist a road trip after this one!
There are so many funny moments, and there is also a very tender love story as the Prince and his wife finally come to know each other. There are also a lot of really funny “Who’s on first?” moments, particularly when they meet up with politician Don Knott. “Are you x(whatever)x?” “No, I”m not.” “No, I’M Knott.”
Thoroughly enjoyed it.
A bounty hunter witch quits her job to go solo, in cahoots with a vampire and a pixie, and winds up on the run for her life. Gotta love it when the heroine is flawed enough for you to be worried about her at the same time you’re rooting for her. Very enjoyable start to a series: really liked the pixies vs. fairies bits, and the old shaman across the street…