Skip to main content

The Sunday Salon


I’m in the middle of reading a couple of things right now, which is a bit unusual for me. This week I started reading an advance copy of The Swan Thieves, by Elizabeth Kostova (author of The Historian, which I enjoyed). I’m really struggling through it, because it is one tedious slog. I’m only about 200 pages in, and seriously considering not finishing. I’m just not connecting to any of the characters, none of which are believable or compelling. Elizabeth Kostova is also fond of advance-the-plot mechanisms.

On the other hand, I’m reading a Victoria Holt novel, Bride of Pendorric, and enjoying it very much. Holt’s stories are always creepy—a bit campy, too, but that’s the fun of it.

Also finished this week were The Emperor, the 11th book in the Morland Dynasty series; The White Horse King, by Benjamin Merkle (a biography of Alfred the Great, though it’s not so much a biography as an exposition of Anglo-Saxon England); and The Plantagenets: A Pride of Kings, by Juliet Dymoke. The last is the first in a series of six historical novels about the Plantagenet monarchs, as told through the eyes of the people who surrounded them. A Pride of Kings is told from the vantage point of William Marshal, about Henry II and his sons. Enjoyable, but I still prefer Elizabeth Chadwick’s The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion.

I’ve also spent a part of the weekend watching Lark Rise to Candleford, the BBC series based on the Flora Thompson book. Very, very good—can’t wait for season two to come out on DVD, as I’ve finished the first ten episodes of the series and am left wanting more.

We’ve also had our first snowfall of the winter yesterday! I’m sitting by the fire as I’m writing this, enjoying a quiet day.

How was your week?
Labels:

Comments

Meghan said…
I'm sorry to hear that you're not liking The Swan Thieves! I had heard that it was good, and now I am a bit concerned. I don't have an ARC, so at least I don't have to read it if it's bad!

Meghan @ Medieval Bookworm
December 6, 2009 at 2:07 PM
Kristen M. said…
I *do* have an ARC of The Swan Thieves and now I'm worried! Well, at least I know not to start it at a time when I can't give it my full attention. For the time being, I'm sticking with some lighter reads while I double-task with holiday prep.
December 7, 2009 at 1:15 AM
Judy Krueger said…
Last week I finished four books, of which three were excellent. Rally Round the Flag Boys by Max Shulman, a spoof on 1950s suburban life was humorous but not great. It was the #4 bestseller in 1957. Also as part of my 1957 reading list I read The Mystic Massuer, which was V S Naipaul's very first novel. Set in 1940s Trinidad, it gives a picture of life there for Indian families.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman is a fabulous ghost story for readers 8-12, though maybe too scary for some kids. Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry was the stand out book of my week; a ghost story and love story about two sets of twins. I did not think she could ever do as well as The Time Traveler's Wife, but she did!

I also have an ARC of The Swan Thieves and am sad to hear that it is not great because I so loved The Historian. Do keep us posted.
December 9, 2009 at 3:48 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