octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

This was a quick and enjoyable read, partly because it's concerned with the wonder that is the public library (I do love my local library!) and partly because it's one of those warm, goodhearted reads where everything works out well in the end. The heroine, June, is a library assistant who has retreated into herself through a combination of shyness and grief for her dead mum. Her life's about to be upturned, however, as the council's planning to shut down the small town library in which she works, and so June - along with a number of very mildly quirky library users - have to band together to save their community resource.

Most of my reading material comes from the library. I'm there a lot, and I'm grateful to have it. Libraries do so much for their communities, providing services that go far beyond book borrowing, so I'm always going to appreciate stories that are so strongly focused on giving them the love and attention they deserve. This does just that, and if it's fairly predictable and pleasantly inoffensive it's still a happy, relaxing read. 

I have to admit that, before picking it up, I had my doubts about this one. I've read two Star Trek books recently that focused on the kid characters - one was a children's book featuring Jake Sisko, and the other had Alexander and Picard on a holodeck adventure together. Neither were that great, largely because of the adults putting kids at enormous risk to satisfy the demands of idiot plot. In Honor Bound, however, Worf proves a substantially better parent than Ben Sisko did in Arcade, and a far better teacher than Picard was in Ancient Blood. He demonstrated Klingon honor, and encouraged both Alexander and the school bullies his son was dealing with to learn about said honor in effective and appropriate ways. Which sounds pretty didactic as I describe it, but it really wasn't - just a fun, satisfying story where kids fight over their differences and then learn to appreciate each other and get along, which is basically Federation ideals at small scale.

Worf really was excellent here. A+ parenting all round. 

This is one of those books - and they don't all include mysteries - that's like an interlocking puzzle box. I really like that type of structural uncertainty in fiction, and while a few of those pieces here are rather more telegraphed than they might be, I still enjoyed the many, many convolutions of the story. The imagery, too, was appealing, particularly the looming, encircling fog and all the insects stuck in it. 

It's a very well put-together book, and the genre elements of it are all fantastic. I am, it must be said, a little less convinced by the characterisation of the primary murder victim though. It's hard to talk about it here without giving too much away - I prefer not to spoil things in reviews like this! - but Niema's moral transformation didn't really convince me, given how clearly wedded to power she was for much of her life. I suppose all those quiet decades acting as teacher and leader made a difference, but she clearly had no problem with the perennial problem of treating people as things (thanks, Granny Weatherwax!) no matter how far along she was in her ethical development. I suppose such inconsistencies can be seen as realistic, in their way, as no one's fully of a piece in how they act, but still. In comparison to investigator Emory, whose characterisation was outstanding, Niema does come across as more a piece of movable plot than a character in her own right. 

It's compulsively readable, though. I finished it in a day. I don't think I've read anything from this author before, but I certainly want to now. 

It has taken me six weeks to slog through this book - thank goodness for library renewals! In Jones' defense, I don't have even the tiniest bit of legal knowledge or background, and this is not really a book for the layperson, so it was always going to be difficult for me to get through. I strongly suspect that if I had any basic training in any sort of law this would be easier to understand, but even so I managed to get most of it, I think. Apart from chapter two. There I nearly foundered on theory. I'm one of those readers who desperately needs concrete examples to grasp any sort of theory at all, really, and credit where it's due: for much of the book Jones does give examples, and when he does it makes everything a whole lot easier to comprehend.

That being said, just because something is difficult, doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. There were a lot of things here that made me think of the law in different ways. The sustained argument about justice versus certainty, for example, makes a lot of sense, and chapter four's observations on inconsistent translations in Treaty settlement documents was eye-opening. I also liked the little stories sprinkled through the text - story is a form of communication that I very much do understand. That final story, of the new legend of Māui and the law, was fantastic. I'd read a whole book like that and it probably wouldn't take me six weeks.

Honestly, I'm glad I read it. I might be a little more glad that I'm not a lawyer, though. Still, maybe lawyers feel the same way about science books... 

There's some really interesting stuff in here, but I can't honestly say that it does what it says on the tin - the book's a little muddled, as if it doesn't quite know what it wants to be.

The subtitle, The Story and Science of Migration, is true for the first third of the book. It's a fascinating look at how scientists learned about migration, primarily through the lens of experiments on various animals. This is the type of thing that really appeals to me - not just knowing how or why, but understanding the process by which that how or why is obtained. Then migration gets dropped almost entirely: the second third is more about how various animals construct their homes, from birds to beavers to termites. Again, really interesting, and if it's moved away from the title it's still solidly a pop science book.

Then comes the final third, where the whole thing turns into a memoir, with chapter after chapter of Heinrich pottering about on his farm, or going deer hunting, or pondering the use of fire and how it, over the course of human history, contributed to the development of home. The experiments, and to a lesser extent the science, drops out entirely, and it's more straight nature writing than pop science, in that it primarily explores Heinrich's relationship with his own home. I'm not criticising the writing - I genuinely enjoyed reading this section. I could have read a whole book like this from him! But it's not the book I started reading, and I can't help but think that - interesting as the separate parts are - the book as a whole veered off track, and never really had a solid sense of its own identity. 

I love this.

I've read a number of Barry's books before, both fiction and nonfiction, and while I've liked most of them, I don't recall giving any of them more than three stars. Her characters often resonate with me more than her drawing, but this? This was wonderful all through. It's basically a book designed to encourage people to draw. Who cares if you're not good at art? Trace this monkey character and colour it in, and pay no attention to people who roll their eyes at you for trying. Creativity, Barry argues, is less the result than the act, or the attempt.

As someone who is hopeless at art, this may be the most encouraging have-a-go book I've ever seen. Not that I've read many have-a-go-at-art books, but you get the drift. It's stuffed full of whimsical figures - such as the near-sighted monkey, who acts as a guide - and entertaining one-liners. My favourite: the book suggests, when sad, to make a chicken by pasting cotton wool in the shape of a fowl onto cardboard. A picture of a depressed elephant-like creature leaves a note on the bottom of the page: "At first I thought the chicken was crappy looking but then I had my heart broken and making that crappy chicken was the only thing that made me feel better. Signed, Mr. Trunk."

I should not have cackled at sad, chicken-making Mr. Trunk. I did anyway. Sympathetic and enchanted. Then there's the rest: "There is nothing lame about drawing fungus." The banana pancake mix in the washing machine. The endless swarms of bats. The proper etiquette of disposing of banana peels when a guest in someone's house. The sad, doomed relationship between Mr. Trunk and Mr. Beak. Play in the sun, you vampire! Don't cigarettes.

Whenever I rate a book five stars on review sites like this, it's a reminder to myself that I have to go buy a copy. (Nearly all my reading material comes from the library. I make a note to buy what I don't want to give back.) I want my own copy of this - it's absolutely delightful. And encouraging. But mostly delightful. 

This was entirely predictable in every respect, but I still enjoyed it - it's a quick, easy read that's fairly relaxing, and that was all I was looking for today so that's good. The title does make me cringe a little... it almost sounds as if it should be one of those bodice-rippers that B'Elanna canonically reads, but alas, nothing doing.

The most interesting thing about this was one of the subplots, where Voyager picks up an alien who is dying from a disease. There's a cure available, but that cure was made by a Mengele type who experimented on her species, and she has understandable moral qualms about using his work, even if it's to save her own life. I had to go and look up the date of a Voyager episode, "Nothing Human," which is similar, albeit with the storyline transposed over to B'Elanna and a Cardassian doctor. The moral quandary, and even the hologram representations of both the evil doctors, are very much alike, hence my curiosity. I even wondered if they had the same writers, but no. Michael Jan Friedman wrote this book, which came out in 1997, and Jeri Taylor wrote the 1998 episode. 

I wonder if the two of them discussed it! Maybe swapped ideas, or something like that. The similarities seem too great for coincidence. 

I read and reviewed both books collected here separately, so this is basically just for my own records. Dragon got four stars from me and Lambs three, so the average is obvious.

Honestly, my perception of this series is so very coloured by the tv series Hannibal - one of my absolute favourites - that I'm not sure how much of my reaction to the books is actually for the books, and how much is a reflection of the show. Season three was, I think, my least favourite of the series, the one that reflects Red Dragon, yet I prefer the book version to that of Lambs. Go figure. Maybe because it's been a while since I rewatched that the book characters are hitting differently, but there it is... my preferences are inconsistent. I know it and don't care. I enjoyed the first book more than the second. 

I remember talking about Blake's Urizen in my PhD, but any related insanity was probably due more to the PhD than the poetry, despite the fact my own illustrated edition of it comes with Blake's weird, often creepy paintings. Francis Dolarhyde, off his rocker, has no such academic defense. One of Blake's paintings sets him off, though if Blake hadn't existed no doubt it would be something else. Dolarhyde's a strangely sympathetic villain - it's impossible to root for him, but it's clear he's a result of extreme child abuse and mental illness rather than pathological evil. There's not a lot of charisma there, not like Lecter, who also suffered as a child but who I have absolutely no sympathy for (entertained as I often am by his horrifying self). They're two very different antagonists, which makes for an interesting read.

Will Graham is less interesting. Don't get me wrong: I don't find him dull. There are certainly plenty of protagonists in similar books who could be tarred with that brush, but Graham's a little too sharp-edged. He's not always likeable - being consistently and angrily mopey - but he has a sort of vicious self-awareness that makes him interesting, even if his temperament is typically wet-blanket. Still, I suspect if I had his job I'd be equally miserable.

While I'd read most of the rest of this series (out of order) before I watched the Hannibal tv series, this is the first time I've read Red Dragon... it's been on my to-read list for ages, and I finally tackled it. While it's probably not terribly helpful to say that my main interest was seeing how it differed to that fantastic show, it's a really entertaining book in it's own right. Honestly, I think I prefer it to Silence of the Lambs.