Thursday, October 24, 2013

great audiobook

Engleby by Sebastion Faulks, read by Michael Maloney, a UK actor. He's a great reader and it's a good book. Mike Engleby is an intriguing but scary character.

Monday, October 14, 2013

two really good novels and one awful mystery

Really liked All Over Creation by Ruth Ozeki, 2004. A novel that takes over, the characters are believable. Interesting plot too. A potato farm in Iowa is the main location, and the people living and not living there deal with everything that is wrong with global farming. She writes really well, this is a very good book.

I listened to half of Night Film, 2013, by Marisha Pessl. Sigh, Hate occult stuff, satan and all that. Very long and very tedious book going nowhere. I am not going to listen to the rest.

Really enjoyed Barbara Pym's Excellent Women. Very incisive, witty, good writing. Not sure when she wrote it, in the 50's I think. She's a very good writer.

Friday, October 4, 2013

some good books

Thoroughly enjoyed Rowling's new mystery, and did not expect to at all because the Harry Potter books are tedious and I never finished one of them. But this book is good. The Cuckoo's Calling, 2013. I liked the two main characters, thought the plot was pretty good. I hope she writes some more about the same characters.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce, 2013 was good too. Great story, Harold goes on a quest and finds his life. He is a retired sales representative receives a letter from an old friend, Queenie, who informs him that she's dying from cancer. Harold scribbles a polite reply and heads to the mailbox at the end of the road and keeps going, for 600 km until he gets there, facing all the things that really happened in his life en route.


Unleashed by David Rosenfelt, 2013 was very mediocre. Kept listening to it becuase it was not too long, it's only saving grace. Maybe it was the reader but it was not a good book at all.


The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, 2013 is a great book. A very good writer, a war book, but worth the read. The Iraq war, he writes about Al Tafar located in the province of Nineveh in northwest Iraq where the men will do most of their fighting. This man can write.

The heart of the matter by Graham Greene, not sure when he wrote it. Another man who can write. Very perceptive observations of people - and relationships. Interesting book, I like it.


seating arrangments by Maggie Shipstead, 2013, is the name of a book i did not like at all and gave up before I got half way. Was not interested in a single character or the story.

Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog, did not finish either. she needs an editor, way too wordy and long, her books are, for me. Entertaining and likeable characters flitting about in time, but way too long.