octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

Interesting enough overview of North American history, but suffers from being fairly superficial. It can hardly help being so, covering as it does the history of the continent from the first (European) colonisers to 1763. That is a massive amount to encompass in 250-odd pages, including as it does the colonisers from multiple countries, the interactions within each national group, the interactions between each national group, and all their interactions with the Native American populations as well.

Still, if you're like me - i.e. with very little knowledge of American history - a relatively brief summary such as this book provides can be useful in establishing some sort of context and timeline. I do feel a little less blank on the subject than before, so Asimov has managed to achieve that at least.

This is just totally weird. That was my first reaction, and I'm sticking with it. Weird can be good, though, and this is the sort of weird I enjoy, even if I have to read it several times to get it. I've read the editors' useful accompanying commentary, and I think I know what's going on, but I'm not gonna lie: the real attraction here is Blake's artwork. It's fantastic... creepy and strange and provocative.

"It was ok" really does sum this up for me. I've read a number of the Shannara books, and some of them work for me more than others. The ones I like better tend to have more women in them for a start - Wren and Teel are only bit players here, and the beginning relationship between Damson and Par (who I cannot, cannot help but think of as Plum and Golf Boy, the names in this series are truly terrible) is something I find deeply unconvincing.

Mostly, though, it's the length (too long for what it is I think, but my tolerance for bloat in SFF becomes ever shorter) and, above all, the characters. Rather, the characterisation. The Shannara books I warm to least have a very "been there, done that" feel about them and this one's no different. I feel like I've read all these characters before, in other Shannara novels. The descendants are exactly the same as the ancestors; it all feels very cut and paste to me. Oh, look, it's Shea and Flick wandering through the woods with Menion Leah again. Wait, one of them has duck feet. The differentiation!

That said, I do find the Shadowen creepy so it gets extra points for that. And for the one stab of real emotion I felt when reading that the Meade Gardens had been destroyed. The Federation needs to die in a fire for that alone...

This book is nearly everything I like, wrapped up nicely in one little package. It's actually two very small books: 84 CCR, and The Duchess of Bloomsbury, in which Hanff visits London and the bookshop-that-was.

Hanff has an easy, humourous style that contrasts well with the more reserved formality of her primary letter writer/recipient, Frank Doel. The friendship that she builds with him and his family/workmates really is charming, though it's terribly sad that she misses him in person. I've been reading a library copy - like Hanff, once I've read a really good library book, I need my own copy.

I need my own copy.

I'm a lot more familiar with Mansfield than I am with Woolf, but this was still a very interesting comparison of the two that became a lot more readable as it went along, even if it did feel occasionally dragged out. Their spiky friendship - part sympathy, part rivalry - is thoroughly explored, and one gets the sense that at bottom both KM and VW were a lot more similar than they (sometimes) wanted to admit.

Really interesting collection of Maori mythology, updated and reissued from its original 1963 edition. It does suffer, however, from lack of accuracy - and in fairness, the introduction takes pains to point this out. Much of the collected material was drawn from earlier sources that were not always accurate in themselves, and so the editor suggests that, for serious scholarship, original sources be consulted. This is all the more necessary as some of the stories in this book are choices, or conglomerations, for there are often multiple versions of the same myth come from different iwi. Still, as a layperson's overview, this collection holds value.

I do wish, however, that the editor had chosen to use footnotes instead of endnotes. Those endnotes are many and detailed, and having to keep flipping to the back of the book (often up to several times a page) to get more understanding of the context or the translation became really irritating. If a reader has to use more than one bookmark to keep track of your argument you've over-complicated things, in my opinion.

This is one of those Discworld books I enjoy but just don't love. It's paired, in my mind, with Moving Pictures, which was also a three star read for me and for much the same reason. This is a clever book, full of references to popular music but again, the emotional heart isn't there for me. There are some nice moments between Susan (one of my favourite Discworld characters) and Death, but every time I settled in to enjoy those I'd get dragged back to Buddy, whom I don't care about at all. By the end I'm ready to boot him off the cliff myself just to stop him interrupting the good bits.

Still a fun read, but one of Pratchett's more average efforts I think.

A collection made up of mini collections! This comes in parts, and covers a wide variety of topics from mythological women to a dying father. I've always enjoyed Atwood's poetry more than her prose, and this is no exception. The writing is cool and clear, but there are some lovely turns of phrase hidden in that apparent simplicity. Her poetry always looks so effortless, though I know that it can't be.

My favourite was "Half-hanged Mary", but "February" is one that I think I'll keep remembering too.

This is my first stab at reading Hemingway, and given his reputation I expected more. As it is, there is nothing about this book that I enjoyed. Part of that was the characters, who were uniformly tiresome and unpleasant with painfully repetitive dialogue, but most of it comes from the writing. I'd heard of Hemingway's prose being described as strong and muscular, devoid of description or emotion and privileging action, but really. Consider this, from the opening paragraph of chapter ten:

"Bayonne is a nice town. It is like a very clean Spanish town and it is on a big river. Already, so early in the morning, it was very hot on the bridge across the river. We walked out on the bridge and then took a walk through the town."

I mean, come on! I can appreciate clean, plain prose but this is one bare step up from "See Spot Run". Sorry, Mr. Hemingway, but this was achingly dull on all levels, and the most I can say for it is that at least it was over quickly.

I don't often give books five stars, tending to rate on a bell curve as I do, but I thought this was just astonishing. I was a little hesitant to read it, thinking that all the focus on religion might be off-putting to an atheist reader (no-one likes to be proselytised to in their fiction) but instead I got a thoughtful, balanced, heart-breaking exploration of the effect of alien life on religious faith. The intent is to inspire rather than convert, and if what it inspires is (in my case) thought rather than spirituality, then I can only admire the author for being able to hit two audiences with one stone. I cannot recommend it enough.

I borrowed this from the local library, and all I can say is that this is going on my list of books to buy so that I can have my own copy.