Skip to main content

Sunday Salon


It’s been a quiet Sunday. I’ve been in Pennsylvania for the past week or so, and I’ve had a lot of time to read. I’ve only written one review this week, of The Far Pavilions; but I’ve finished a few others: The Séance, by John Harwood (creepy), The Book of Unholy Mischief, by Elle Newmark (good except for the culinary anachronisms), and The Piano Teacher, by Janice Y.K. Lee (not enough character development). I’m currently reading Mistress Shakespeare, by Karen Harper, and enjoying it immensely. Otherwise, not much new has been going on here in my neck of the woods.
Labels:

Comments

Alyce said…
I thought Book of Unholy Mischief looked good. It was one that I requested but didn't receive.
December 14, 2008 at 11:34 PM
Danielle said…
Lucky you to get an advance copy of John Harwood's book--just today I came across it and had to add my name to the library list! The blurb on Amazon called it creepy, too, and a must read for Wilkie Collins fans, and since I'm a Wilkie Collins fan I guess I must read it!
December 15, 2008 at 10:21 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.
194 comments
Read more

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars...
115 comments
Read more

Review: The Piano Teacher, by Janice Y.K. Lee

The Piano Teacher is a complicated novel. On the surface, it’s about a love affair between two British ex-patriots in Hong Kong in 1952-3. Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong with her husband Martin at a time when the world is still recovering from WWII; Claire takes up work as a piano teacher for the daughter of a wealthy Chinese family, where she meets Will Truesdale, the Chens’ enigmatic chauffeur. The book jumps back in time between the 1950s and the beginning of WWII, when Will is interned in Stanley, a Hong Kong camp for enemies of Japan. On “the outside” is Tudy Liang, Will’s beautiful Eurasian lover. There’s no doubt that Lee’s writing is beautiful. But there’s something lacking in this short, terse novel that I can’t quite put my finger on. First, I think it’s the tenses she uses when taking about each story: that which is set in the 1950s is in the past tense, while the war scenes are talked about in the present tense (confusing, no?) The interpersonal relationships of the m...
12 comments
Read more