TSS-Challenge Update

There have been several great posts related to my Art History Challenge this week, and I just had to share them with y'all! 

• Colette at A Buckeye Girl Reads read two books about women artists and watched a documentary about Georgia O'Keeffe!  Although she didn't like either of the books or the documentary very much, she did find two new artists she liked:  Lilian Martin Spencer and Rolanda Sharples.
• M from Alberti's Window read Vasari's Lives (officially titled Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects), all about the wacky artists he knew while living in Renaissance Italy.  M wrote a great post about the women artists Vasari mentioned, and a review of the book itself.

I also decided to join yet another challenge, the Take Another Chance Challenge created & hosted by Jenners at Find Your Next Book Here.  Even though I didn't finish it, I enjoyed the Take a Chance Challenge so much I can't resist adding this one to my 2010 challenges.  I'm going to go for the Gambling it All Level and try to complete all 12 challenges--because that's how I roll.

I think I'm about tapped out in the challenge department at the moment, however, so I don't expect to be signing up for any more for a few months--no matter how tempting. ;)

Powered by ScribeFire.

Take A Chance Challenge: The Firemaker

The Firemaker by Peter May

I read this book for the Random Book Selection portion of the Take A Chance Challenge hosted by Jenners at Find Your Next Book Here.  Here's the challenge:

Go to the library. Position yourself in a section such as Fiction, Non-Fiction, Mystery, Children (whatever section you want). Then write down random directions for yourself (for example, third row, second shelf, fifth book from right). Follow your directions and see what book you find. Check that book out of the library, read it and then write about it. (If you prefer, you can do the same at a bookstore and buy the book!)

Before I left for the library, I wrote down, "4th row from entrance, 3rd shelf on right, 2nd shelf from top, 28th book from left."  My library has all the fiction books grouped together, so I didn't know if I was going to get a fantasy or mystery or whatever.  Except I accidentally picked the book 28th from the right instead of the left, so... clearly I need a t-shirt that says "I follow directions well."

Anyway, the book I wound up with was The Firemaker by Peter May.  It takes place in modern-day Beijing, where Margaret Campbell, a forensic pathologist, has come to teach at the police academy.  As she's being driven to the academy, her car hits a bicyclist with a "square-jawed high-cheek-boned face."  He's really tall and has big hands, too.  Turns out the guy is Deputy Chief Inspector of Section One (or something like that) Li Yan, and Margaret has mortally offended his manly sensibilities by giving him a dressing-down for not looking where he's going.

Li Yan writes Margaret off as a stupid foreigner; but after she assists on an autopsy of a burn victim, he can't help thinking, over the scent of burnt flesh, that she's awfully cute.  Before you know it he's taking her out to lunch, then ice cream; and then she's "assisting in the investigation," and meeting his uncle.  After a date that runs about 20 hours, involves many drinks, karaoke, nightclubs, teahouses, restaurants, street food, and hanging with Li Yan's BFF, Margaret spends the night in Li's apartment.  But will their love be able to last???  When Margaret returns to work the next morning, she's informed that everyone in Beijing knows she slept at Yan's place, and that she broke the law by doing so and is on the verge of being fired.  Pissed off, Margaret quits and books the next flight to the US; but Li Yan doesn't want her to goooo!  Will Margaret leave China & Yan?  Will Yan quit his job and move to Chicago to be with her??? 

Oh, yeah, and in the middle of all that there's a murder mystery.  But I skimmed through that part.

This is a mystery novel, but the mystery is laaaaaaaame.  It starts off promising:  three dead bodies discovered in Beijing, all with a Marlboro cigarette nearby.  But as the mystery goes on, it involves rice genetics (yes, rice genetics--sexy, no?) and a huge conspiracy in the Chinese government.  Now, I don't know that much about the Chinese government, but the author spends considerable time telling us that everything everyone does is seen and observed in China by everyone else.  So then I'm supposed to be convinced a conspiracy is possible in that sort of environment?  Okaaaay. 

Not only is the mystery itself unconvincing, but the sleuthing skills of our noble detectives are just sad.  There's a scene at the beginning of the book where Margaret identifies one of the dead guys; it's supposed to be amazing and impressive, but I could have figured it out.  In fact, practically all the "clues" Margaret and Li Yan suss out are pretty obvious.

There is one fun part of this book:  the descriptions of Beijing and culture there.  I loved hearing about how the schools in China were organized, how people greeted one another, and how cooperative Chinese society is in general.  Not to mention the food, parks, and entertainment scene of Beijing.

Other than that, though, this book wasn't very good.  The mystery was not mysterious, the romance was pretty predictable and full of tropes, and the ending was unnecessarily dramatic and completely unbelievable.  I loved sexy Li Yan, but Margaret was annoying.  Oh!  Annnnnd all the American characters talked and acted as if they were British.  Shocker, the author is from the UK.  So why didn't he just make Margaret be from the UK if he obviously can't write a believable American character????  Lordy lordy lordy, that was annoying.

So, yeah, the novel had good points, but I really can't recommend it.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Take a Chance Challenge: The Birds

I watched the movie and read the short story The Birds (by Daphne du Maurier) for Amy's Summer of Hitchcock; but I decided it also could satisfy the requirements for the tenth part of Jenner's Take a Chance Challenge at Find Your Next Book Here:

Movie/Book Comparison
Find a book that you haven't read that has a movie based on it that you haven't seen. Read the book and watch the movie within a few days of each other. Write about your reactions to both the book and the movie and compare the two.

I read the story by Daphne du Maurier first, online.  It was incredibly creepy and atmospheric.  It takes place in post-WWII England, in a small farming villiage.  The main character, Nat, is retired but has two young kids and works on a farm part-time. 

The short story begins with Nat's tiny cottage being attacked by birds in the middle of the night.  The next morning, he goes to the farm to see if anyone else was attacked, but they hear his story with disbelief and incredulity.  However, it soon turns out Nat wasn't the only one who was attacked.  As he hears on the radio, birds gathered and attacked all over the country, perhaps even all over the world. 

As Nat hunkers down with his family in their cottage and services start to disappear, a claustrophobic feeling invades the story.  It's not so much a horror story as it is a struggle for survival against a completely unexpected and unstoppable enemy.  Birds, which no really notices that much in their daily lives, have suddenly become kamikaze terrorists attacking anything human with no concern for their own well-being or safety.  There's also a sense that they're doing this under the control of some higher power, following the tides and grouping together to attack specific places--what that higher power might be is never said.

After reading the story, I had high expectations for the movie, but Hitchcock basically changed everything.  He kept a lot of the arresting visuals in the short story, such as the black cloud of birds rising on the horizon; but instead of post-war England, we find ourselves in 1960's San Francisco, in a... bird store?  Huh.  Basically, Tippi Hedren (aka Melanie) is some sort of hieress, and she spends the first half hour of the movie chasing down this gross lethario named Mitch to a tiny seaside town so she can give him some lovebirds he ordered for his sister's birthday.  Um, one, why; and two, if he ordered the birds for his sister, why didn't he pick them up himself or make sure he was at his apartment when they were delivered?  I mean, that is just incompetent, not to mention a painfully weak opening for a movie.  So the characters have pointless conversations for about an hour and a half (or that's how long it felt), and then finally birds attack, and I'm like, "Yay!  Finally!"

Basically, the movie was full of lulz.  It was way too long, the "plot" was ridiculous, Hedren kept lolling her head about when there were no birds around at all, and the script was just lame.  Even though I had fun with the fake birds, there were hardly any bird attacks in the movie at all until the very end.  Overall, I was pretty disappointed.



Next week on Summer of Hitchcock, we're watching Spellbound.  So start polishing up your Dr. Freud accents, everyone!

Powered by ScribeFire.

Take a Chance Challenge: Kill the Dead

Kill the Dead by Tanith Lee

I read this book to satisfy the third part of Jenner's Take a Chance Challenge at Find Your Next Book Here:

Birth Year Book
Find a book that was published or copyrighted in the year of your birth. Read the book and write about it.

I was born in coughnineteeneightycough. I spent some time looking at the bestseller lists for that year, and almost decided to read a Sidney Sheldon novel, but I just couldn't do it. Then I was doing a search for Tanith Lee on Amazon.com for one reason or another, and I ran across Kill the Dead. Intriguing title, and it was written in 1980! Yay! I immediately decided to order it (from the library, since it is out of print) and read it for the challenge.

Tanith Lee is one my favorite authors. I admit that my reading of her books seriously stalled with Faces Under Water, but overall I consider her an absolutely brilliant writer who tells great stories and is always ambitious in her writing. I honestly don't know why she isn't as famous as Ursula K. le Guin or Charles de Lint (could it be the wtf covers?), but she deserves to be.

Kill the Dead takes place in some alternative land whose name is unknown. The back of the book makes it sound like it's a battle of wits between Parl Dro, a professional exorcist, and two witch sisters, one (or both?) of whom are ghosts; but that is not the case at all. The majority of the book is about Dro and a minstrel named Myal Lemyal, and their quest for Ghast Mortua, an infamous city of ghosts from which no Ghost Hunter has ever returned.

The ghosts, called deadalive, of this world are not like Caspar the Friendly Ghost; they are demons who feed off the living and can--and do--kill them, as well. They are extremely dangerous to hunt and kill; but Dro is a legendary exorcist and has never met a ghost who could kill him. Literally, most people don't even believe he exists. As he passes through a town on his way to Ghast, he encounters and minstrel of brilliant talents, both psychic and musical, and they form a quick bond despite Dro's reluctance.

This is a great book. I loved the characters, I loved learning about Parl Dro's past, and there wasn't a single dull moment in the book (at 170 pages, there better not be). These type of journey books can be a bit repetitive, but this one keep me interested through the whole thing and only got more interesting as the book continued. Also, there's a twist at the end--actually, two twists--that I didn't see coming at all. It was the kind of twist that makes you immediately want to flip to the beginning of the book and re-read it to see how it all plays out now that you know it (if I hadn't had to return the book to the library, I really would have done that).

Overall this was a satisfying, great read that I really enjoyed. I'm happy I got to read this book, since it has inspired me to start reading Tanith Lee again. I highly recommend it to those who love fantasy.

Powered by ScribeFire.

The Sunday Salon

I didn't get much reading done this week, what with job interviews and trying to throw together a presentation about Counter-Reformation art in a day.  I did finally finish Bound by Your Touch by Meredith Duran on Monday night.  It was a very good book that I would definitely recommend to anyone who likes historical romances (review forthcoming).  Then I started Kill the Dead by Tanith Lee.  I'm reading this book for the Take a Chance Challenge and it was due at the library about two days ago. =/  The guy who is in charge of Interlibrary Loans is going to kill me.  Did I mention he used to be my Earth Sciences teacher in high school?  Oh, yeah, and he also is a member at the bank my mom works at, and the last time I was late returning a book, he told my mom about it! o.O On the plus side, though, I always get the books order.

I don't know why, but it's been really difficult for me to focus on reading these past two weeks (hence the loooooong time it took to read Bound By Your Touch, even though it was a good book).  Maybe the heat is just getting to me and I can't concentrate.  Nevertheless, I still acquired my usual pile o' books the past two weeks.  I even bought some books (the first time I've bought a book since March--very exciting!).

Here's what I bought:

• Don't Tempt Me by Loretta Chase
• My Wicked Marquess by Gaelen Foley
• Bending the Rules by Susan Andersen
• What Happens in London by Julia Quinn
• Bound by Your Touch by Meredith Duran

Here are the books I got at the library:

• The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson (heard about it at I'm Lost in Books)
  
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (recommended by just about everybody)

I also read "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier for Summer of Hitchcock (review of both story and movie forthcoming).  And I won a contest at One Literature Nut.  Yay, me! ^_^

So hopefully this next week will see me out of the summer doldrums and I'll be able to get some serious reading done.  And hopefully I'll finished Kill the Dead soon, because I'm determined to do so before I return it.  Even if I risk the wrath of the librarians. :P

What did you read this week?

Powered by ScribeFire.

Take a Chance Challenge Update: Rude Mechanicals

Rude Mechanicals by Kage Baker

I read this as part of Jenners' Take a Chance Challenge at Find Your Next Book Here to satisfy the requirements for the second challenge, Random Word:

Go to this random word generator and generate a random word. Find a book with this word in the title. Read the book and write about it.

My word was "mechanical." Do you know how many genre novels have the word mechanical in the title? Not that many. Also, strangely, a high percentage of them have something to do with Shakespeare. Anyway, I sorted through the few candidates and decided Rude Mechanicals by Kage Baker was the least of the evils.

Rude Mechanicals is about two time-traveling cyborgs, who call themselves Immortals (even though this is a misnomer, since they were never alive to begin with), that live in 1930's Los Angeles. One, Lewis, is an assistant to the assistant director of Max Reinhardt's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream; and the other, Joseph, is a private detective for Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Why are there time-travelling cyborgs, you ask? Well, they work for an organization in the distant future that invented time travel, but decided it wasn't profitable. So instead they send out cyborgs to collect historical artifacts and sell them as intiques in the future. Lewis is supposed to collect Reinhardt's production notes, and Joseph is protecting a treasure buried in the Hollywood Bowl. But then the treasure is dug up, and Jo needs Lewis' help to get it back.

You would think that would be pretty easy for the cyborgs, since they have super strength, zoom vision, heat vision, super hearing, telepathy, can control electricity, and can alter chemical compositions; but instead, it takes them like 70 pages to get the treasure (a violet diamond). The story kind of drags. What are the consequences if they don't get the diamond? Will they be fired? Go to the great cyborg scrap pile in the sky? I don't know, so there doesn't seem to be that much at stake in their search.

Another problem with the book is that we as readers don't see a lot of the action. Lewis is the central character, but he's not the one getting into scrapes while chasing for the diamond--Jo does that while Lewis waits in the car. So all the "hilarious" action is delivered to us by Jo, telling Lewis what happened after the fact. Talk about action.

The book isn't terrible. If I had read the rest of Baker's many, many Company novels and had more invested in the characters, I might have enjoyed it more. But as it was, for me it was surprisingly draggy and boring for a 114-page book.



Even though I didn't enjoy this book, so far I am enjoying this challenge. God knows I never would have picked up Rude Mechanicals if it wasn't for the Take a Chance Challenge, and it was nice to read something completely different for a change.

I have also picked out the books for challenges 1, 3, and 4; I just haven't read them yet. For challenge 1, random book selection, I'm reading The Firemaker by Peter May; for challenge 3, birth year book, I chose Kill the Dead by Tanith Lee; and for challenge 4, judge a book by its cover, I chose Laura Rider's Masterpiece by Jane Hamilton.




I'm still thinking about the movie/book comparison challenge. I've written down some possibilities: My Cousin Rachel, Lonesome Dove, Coraline, and The Time Traveller's Wife (not sure if that will come out soon enough to count for the challenge, though), but I haven't committed to anything yet.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Take a Chance Challenge Update: Rude Mechanicals

Rude Mechanicals by Kage Baker

I read this as part of Jenners' Take a Chance Challenge at Find Your Next Book Here to satisfy the requirements for the second challenge, Random Word:

Go to this random word generator and generate a random word. Find a book with this word in the title. Read the book and write about it.

My word was "mechanical."  Do you know how many genre novels have the word mechanical in the title?  Not that many.  Also, strangely, a high percentage of them have something to do with Shakespeare.  Anyway, I sorted through the few candidates and decided Rude Mechanicals by Kage Baker was the least of the evils.

Rude Mechanicals is about two time-traveling cyborgs, who call themselves Immortals (even though this is a misnomer, since they were never alive to begin with), that live in 1930's Los Angeles.  One, Lewis, is an assistant to the assistant director of Max Reinhardt's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream; and the other, Joseph, is a private detective for Metro Goldwyn Mayer.  Why are there time-travelling cyborgs, you ask?  Well, they work for an organization in the distant future that invented time travel, but decided it wasn't profitable.  So instead they send out cyborgs to collect historical artifacts and sell them as intiques in the future.  Lewis is supposed to collect Reinhardt's production notes, and Joseph is protecting a treasure buried in the Hollywood Bowl.  But then the treasure is dug up, and Jo needs Lewis' help to get it back.

You would think that would be pretty easy for the cyborgs, since they have super strength, zoom vision, heat vision, super hearing, telepathy, can control electricity, and can alter chemical compositions; but instead, it takes them like 70 pages to get the treasure (a violet diamond).  The story kind of drags.  What are the consequences if they don't get the diamond?  Will they be fired?  Go to the great cyborg scrap pile in the sky?  I don't know, so there doesn't seem to be that much at stake in their search.

Another problem with the book is that we as readers don't see a lot of the action.  Lewis is the central character, but he's not the one getting into scrapes while chasing for the diamond--Jo does that while Lewis waits in the car.  So all the "hilarious" action is delivered to us by Jo, telling Lewis what happened after the fact.  Talk about action.

The book isn't terrible.  If I had read the rest of Baker's many, many Company novels and had more invested in the characters, I might have enjoyed it more.  But as it was, for me it was surprisingly draggy and boring for a 114-page book.



Even though I didn't enjoy this book, so far I am enjoying this challenge.  God knows I never would have picked up Rude Mechanicals if it wasn't for the Take a Chance Challenge, and it was nice to read something completely different for a change.

I have also picked out the books for challenges 1, 3, and 4; I just haven't read them yet.  For challenge 1, random book selection, I'm reading The Firemaker by Peter May; for challenge 3, birth year book, I chose Kill the Dead by Tanith Lee; and for challenge 4, judge a book by its cover, I chose Laura Rider's Masterpiece by Jane Hamilton.




I'm still thinking about the movie/book comparison challenge.  I've written down some possibilities:  My Cousin Rachel, Lonesome Dove, Coraline, and The Time Traveller's Wife (not sure if that will come out soon enough to count for the challenge, though), but I haven't committed to anything yet.

Powered by ScribeFire.