Book 9: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Normally, I'm not a big fan of mystery novels. However, 50books.com gave these books such good reviews that when I saw this one on sale over the weekend, I just had to give it a shot.



It's the first in a series that currently has 8 books (I think) by Alexander McCall Smith. It follows the adventures of a lady detective, Mma. Precious Ramotswe, in Botwana. I read a blurb somewhere that compared these books to the Judge Dee books by Robert van Gulik, which is an odd coincidence, since that is the one other mystery I own.

I can safely say that this is much better than Judge Dee.

One of the things I enjoyed most was not the mystery aspect of the books (which was also good), but the descriptions of life in Botswana and the commentary on her society that Precious gives. I don't want to say too much, since it is a mystery, but the biggest case she takes on in this book concerns a boy kidnapped by witch doctors.

A good, quick, fulfilling read. I will buy the rest of the series.

Book 8: The Handmaid's Tale

Back to Atwood!


So, apparently I have a thing for dystopian future novels. What can I say?

This is my last Atwood book. I'm thinking of picking up Alias Grace, but it'll have to wait a while since I have several oterh books that need to get read.

You know what? I'm not going to write about this book, since it's taught in schools everywhere and has been written about all over the web. It's great, I enjoyed it, it's a classic, everyone should read it. The end.

Book 7: Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War

After the letdown that was Surfacing, I decided to take a short break before I read the next Atwood book on my shelf. Clive Barker's first Abarat book was amazing, so I decided to pick up the sequel.



I loooved the first Abarat, because it's a completely different reading experience than I'm used to. If you do decide to read it, make sure you get an edition (paperback or hardback) that has Barker's illustrations. They're beautiful, and they really add a lot to his descriptions of the fantastic events in the book.

Abarat and its sequel tell the story of teenager Candy Quackenbush, who lives in a suburban town centered around a chicken processing plant. One day, she walks past the edge of town and into a whole other world, where she has special powers and meets outlandish characters. In this new world, called Abarat, she lives a completely different life from her life in Chickentown. In the sequel, she discovers more about her past and why it was so easy for her to adapt to life in the Abarat.

The Abarat itself is a pretty original world. It's mostly a sea (the Isabella), which has 25 islands. There is one island for every hour of the day, plus one island known as the mystical "25th hour." Instead of having the islands all go through all the hours of the day, it is always a given time on each island. There's a noon island, where it's always midday, and a 6PM island, which is always at dusk. It's a pretty original concept that works well for the story.

I can't stress enough that this book is fantastic, but even if it wasn't, the pictures make it worth reading. READ IT.

Book 6: Surfacing

So, once I finished The Blind Assassin, I scoured my local used bookstore for another book by Atwood. This one looked interesting:



Sadly, I didn't care for it as much as her other two books I've read. The story didn't flow very well, in my opinion, and some of the biggest questions were never answered. The book follows a nameless narrator as she goes to visit her father's cabin in the wilderness with her boyfriend and another couple. They are visiting because her father has suddenly gone missing, and she wants to see if he left any clues to his whereabouts.

Not only do you never find out even the slightest hint of whatever happened to her dad, the book also takes a sharp left into crazy-ville towards the end. I'm sure it's just full to the brim of symbolism and commentary on modernity, feminism, etc, but as we discussed previously, I'm absolute pants at subtext.

I'll probably be taking this one back to the used bookstore.

Book 5: The Blind Assassin

So, I admit it, I have a soft spot for Margaret Atwood. Last year, I read her book Oryx and Crake, and it sent me into an Atwood-buying frenzy. This is just the first of several of her books to come!



This book, which won the Booker Prize a few years back, intricately intertwines the story of sisters Laura and Iris Chase as they grow up and into childhood. Laura commits suicide in the opening sentences of the book, but the book is really told by an elderly Iris Chase looking back on her life. The story jumps between several different times: the older Iris telling the story, the girls growing up in the 1930s, Laura's post-humously best-selling novel about secret lovers meeting in borrowed rooms, and an outlandish sci-fi story that those lovers tell each other. Needless to say, Atwood weaves all these stories seamlessly together for a big reveal at the end of the book, supplemented by short newspaper articles about the sisters' lives that provides an "outsider's" perspective.

I think I actually liked this one better than Oryx and Crake. It was a little slow at first, but it really picks up in the last half. It's not for everyone, though: a lot of the reviews on Amazon.com show that not everyone can handle the jumping around between plots.

I wish I had something insightful and/or witty to say about this book, but I don't. It's just that good.

Book 4: Perelandra

I read Out of the Silent Planet late last year, and it was better than I was expecting. It's not that I somehow doubted C. S. Lewis, it's just that I had heard the religious symbolism in his space trilogy was OVER THE TOP, and I was afraid it would somehow overshadow the story. Thankfully, this was not the case!

The plot follows Dr. Ransom as he is contacted by aliens that need him to go to Venus. Once he arrives, he learns that Venus is essentially a paradise, and he encounters a green woman that is completely innocent. However, Ransom's sinister friend follows him from Earth, and tries to corrupt the lady.

Now, I shold probably mention that I NEVER get symbolism. For me to actually pick up on symbolism in books, it either has to be ridiculously over the top or someone has to flat out tell me it's there. So when I say that the religious symbolism wasn't apparent to me until near the end of the book, realize that might not be the case for you. Lewis finally gave it away (to me) when a snake bit Ransom on the heel and the wound wouldn't heal - I remember this from the Bible. So I can honestly say, it was a great book and I intend to read the last book of the series, That Hideous Strength.

Book 3: Hart's Hope

I read Drowned Ammet on the flight to the conference, and then started this one and read it on the way home.

Hart's Hope by Orson Scott Card


I'm something of an Orson Scott Card junkie. I read his online column (www.hatrack.com if you're interested), and I did a thesis paper on his works in high school. If you're unfamiliar with him, he's one of the best sci-fi writers today, probably ever. His first novel was Ender's Game, which is still ridiculously popular. He's written about 30 or so full length novels, and a few volumes of short stories, and I've read pretty much all of it.

I really liked this book because of how raw it is. It's really easy to tell OSC's early books from his later ones, because the earlier ones are so much more gruesome. In Ender's Game, children kill each other. In Treason, mutants grow extra limbs, and will cut off their own arms to avoid being harvested by their peers for body parts. Not to be outdone, Hart's Hope starts out with the rape of a young teenage girl. This makes her so bitter that she hoards all the magical power she can to kill the man that raped her and stole the throne that was rightfully hers. Although this little summary might not show it, the man that raped her, Palicrovol, is actually the "good guy" and his son by another woman eventually grows to overthrow the evil queen.

There's only one thing I have to say about this book that isn't absolutely glowing praise: the style of this one takes a while to get into, but once you do get into it, it absolutely works for this story. It's told in the style of a folktale, very matter-of-factly, with the narrator not delving into the deeper emotions and motivations of the main characters. It reminded me a little of the Bible, but I think you'd have to read it to really understand why since I can't explain that association.

This book does raise some questions that aren't so easily answered. By Palicrovol's "act of mercy" in not killing the child he had to rape, he created a monster that was out for revenge. But he thought he was doing right by overthrowing the child's father, and evil monarch. Who is worse? Palicrovol, for his single deliberate but evil act? Or Asineth, driven mad with revenge, who was broken as a child but will now stop at nothing to get back at Palicrovol? This book is a beautiful example of how there are two very different sides to every story.