Wedding Photography: Getting Perfect Results Every Time by Ian Gee
The Art of Wedding Photography: Professional Techniques with Style by Bambi Cantrell
You Drive Me Crazy: Love Poems for Real Life ed. Mary Essleman and Elizabeth Velez Poems and Readings for Weddings ed. Julia Watson
Essential Poems (To Fall in Love With) ed. Daisy Goodwin
Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott (unfinished)
The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde (unfinished)
The Weavers of Saramyr by Chris Wooding (unfinished)
Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel KaySpirit Gate by Kate Elliott (unfinished)
The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde (unfinished)
The Weavers of Saramyr by Chris Wooding (unfinished)
Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay
Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay
Jinx High by Mercedes Lackey
Next by Michael Crichton
The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren WeisbergerSolitaire by Kelley Eskridge
Making it Up by Penelope Lively
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Break No Bones by Kathy Reichs
A decent chunk of my reading last month was wedding related - the two wedding photography books, and three books of wedding/love poems and readings. My mother and uncle are taking our photographs, so I wanted to take a look at a couple of how-to books for some ideas on groupings and posing. These two books were both fairly hackneyed and old fashioned - I now know how to pose with a bouquet, but that was almost the only piece of useful information I gleaned from their pages. There was no mention of digital cameras - they both assumed you were shooting with film, which meant that a lot of their advice was useless.
I enjoyed the books of poems more, although I found Julia Watson's collection the most useful, as it was geared towards weddings. I was trying to choose readings to be used during the ceremony, but in fact I found the ones we're almost decided on online, rather than through these books. They were still useful little volumes to browse through, though.
There were three started-but-unfinished books in May. I picked up The Weavers of Saramyr from the library because of its pretty cover and intriguing blurb. However, it was so terribly written that I began dog-earing pages that had particularly awful examples of clunky prose, and decided that I just couldn't continue with it. And the perspective kept leaping in and out of characters' heads in a distracting way, which made the whole thing worse. I gave up on Spirit Gate because there were too many characters in it, and the story wasn't interesting enough to keep me involved. The Well of Lost Plots was an unsuccessful attempt to get more into Jasper Fforde's work. I read and quite liked The Eyre Affair, but couldn't find the sequel at the library so settled for number three in the trilogy. That was a mistake - a lot of things seemed to have happened in between, and very confusing things kept happening. I think if I give Fforde another go, I'll try go read those books in order.
I had a bit of a Guy Gavriel Kay binge last month, due to the easy convenience of books already in my bookshelf - the library seemed to be having a barren spell. I read a total of six, but must confess to skimming a little through the Fionavar trilogy as I became increasingly irritated with the rather overblown style he used in those books (some of his earliest). He becomes more subtle and effective as he goes along, with Lions of Al-Rassan being my favourite of the books I read. (And ooh, they're making a movie ! Fun.) Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors are a duology, if that's the right word - they follow on from each other. I remember doing a class in history on whatever Roman Emporer these books are based on (the one with the wife that people wrote used to be a prostitute and do stage shows), and thinking, o h, that's where he got all that stuff from. I am always mildly disappointed when people base their fantasy novels very firmly in historical events - it's less fun, because I'm wondering what's historically accurate, and I'd really much rather be reading something that touts itself as historical fiction. And I think Kay could probably have done a lot of what he did with these books within the constraints of historical fiction and I probably would have enjoyed them more.
And in the basket labelled "Trash - May" goes the following books - Jinx High, which was one of Mercedes Lackey's first books, I think, and was really quite terrible, The Devil Wears Prada (which was actually quite fun to read, but the heroine irritated me enormously - I couldn't figure out whose side we were supposed to be on, her's, or her concerned family's) and Next, which is a terrible Crichton novel about genetic stuff. All sorts of genetic stuff along with, I suspect, little scientific basis and no actual characters, just ciphers that race around going "Argh! Genetic manipulation! Argh!"
Kelley Eskridge's Solitaire was a really excellent novel. I'm hesitant to classify it as sci-fi - it's set in the future, and involves a sort of virtual reality prison (the only 'sci-fi' part, really) and is a wonderful story of loyalties and love and personal identity. The political situation confused me a little at first, but I eventually got the hang of it (it's not terribly complicated, I was just being a bit dense). A very enjoyabe read - annoyingly, it is the author's debut novel, and she has not been published since.
Making it Up was recommended by Mum, and I really enjoyed it. It's a collection of short stories, based on the author wondering "what if?" about various points in her life. What if her family had moved to this country instead of that, what if she'd pursued her early interest in archeology? (I have made it sound as if the stories revolve around the Penelope Lively character, which they don't - sometimes, she is the central character, bearing other names, and presumably, other personality traits, and sometimes she is merely mentioned by her imagined descendants.) A lovely little collection - I particularly enjoyed reading the little notes which prefaced each story about her inspiration for it.
I picked up Ian McEwan's Atonement after several people saying last month that they liked it better than Saturday, only to realise that I had actually read it before. I thought the cover seemed familiar. I am ever more rapidly turning into my father. And yes, it is excellent, isn't it? Although I do find those books that make me shout "what are you DOING?" at the characters a little exhausting.
I realise that there's nothing wrong with having a formula, especially if it's a successful one - but Kathy Reichs formula of ending every chapter on a cliffhanger (e.g. "She turned, and I saw immediately that there was something terribly wrong" or "I finally knew what had killed Daniel") became incredibly annoying by the end of the book. It was just like watching a TV show. Apart from that stylistic irritation, Break No Bones was a pretty cool story, lots of bodies for Reichs' heroine, Tempe Brennan, to examine, and while the final solution to the mystery was, to my eyes, fairly unrealistic, it was enjoyable all the same.
This month, I'm reading Lois McMaster Bujold, an excellent and new-to-me SF/fantasy author, Joanne Harris' latest book (Lollipop Shoes, the Chocolat sequel), Louise Erdrich, who I suppose would be in the category of magic realism, and a few mysteries I saw recommended on Bookgirl's Nightstand - Still Life and Jar City.
A decent chunk of my reading last month was wedding related - the two wedding photography books, and three books of wedding/love poems and readings. My mother and uncle are taking our photographs, so I wanted to take a look at a couple of how-to books for some ideas on groupings and posing. These two books were both fairly hackneyed and old fashioned - I now know how to pose with a bouquet, but that was almost the only piece of useful information I gleaned from their pages. There was no mention of digital cameras - they both assumed you were shooting with film, which meant that a lot of their advice was useless.
I enjoyed the books of poems more, although I found Julia Watson's collection the most useful, as it was geared towards weddings. I was trying to choose readings to be used during the ceremony, but in fact I found the ones we're almost decided on online, rather than through these books. They were still useful little volumes to browse through, though.
There were three started-but-unfinished books in May. I picked up The Weavers of Saramyr from the library because of its pretty cover and intriguing blurb. However, it was so terribly written that I began dog-earing pages that had particularly awful examples of clunky prose, and decided that I just couldn't continue with it. And the perspective kept leaping in and out of characters' heads in a distracting way, which made the whole thing worse. I gave up on Spirit Gate because there were too many characters in it, and the story wasn't interesting enough to keep me involved. The Well of Lost Plots was an unsuccessful attempt to get more into Jasper Fforde's work. I read and quite liked The Eyre Affair, but couldn't find the sequel at the library so settled for number three in the trilogy. That was a mistake - a lot of things seemed to have happened in between, and very confusing things kept happening. I think if I give Fforde another go, I'll try go read those books in order.
I had a bit of a Guy Gavriel Kay binge last month, due to the easy convenience of books already in my bookshelf - the library seemed to be having a barren spell. I read a total of six, but must confess to skimming a little through the Fionavar trilogy as I became increasingly irritated with the rather overblown style he used in those books (some of his earliest). He becomes more subtle and effective as he goes along, with Lions of Al-Rassan being my favourite of the books I read. (And ooh, they're making a movie ! Fun.) Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors are a duology, if that's the right word - they follow on from each other. I remember doing a class in history on whatever Roman Emporer these books are based on (the one with the wife that people wrote used to be a prostitute and do stage shows), and thinking, o h, that's where he got all that stuff from. I am always mildly disappointed when people base their fantasy novels very firmly in historical events - it's less fun, because I'm wondering what's historically accurate, and I'd really much rather be reading something that touts itself as historical fiction. And I think Kay could probably have done a lot of what he did with these books within the constraints of historical fiction and I probably would have enjoyed them more.
And in the basket labelled "Trash - May" goes the following books - Jinx High, which was one of Mercedes Lackey's first books, I think, and was really quite terrible, The Devil Wears Prada (which was actually quite fun to read, but the heroine irritated me enormously - I couldn't figure out whose side we were supposed to be on, her's, or her concerned family's) and Next, which is a terrible Crichton novel about genetic stuff. All sorts of genetic stuff along with, I suspect, little scientific basis and no actual characters, just ciphers that race around going "Argh! Genetic manipulation! Argh!"
Kelley Eskridge's Solitaire was a really excellent novel. I'm hesitant to classify it as sci-fi - it's set in the future, and involves a sort of virtual reality prison (the only 'sci-fi' part, really) and is a wonderful story of loyalties and love and personal identity. The political situation confused me a little at first, but I eventually got the hang of it (it's not terribly complicated, I was just being a bit dense). A very enjoyabe read - annoyingly, it is the author's debut novel, and she has not been published since.
Making it Up was recommended by Mum, and I really enjoyed it. It's a collection of short stories, based on the author wondering "what if?" about various points in her life. What if her family had moved to this country instead of that, what if she'd pursued her early interest in archeology? (I have made it sound as if the stories revolve around the Penelope Lively character, which they don't - sometimes, she is the central character, bearing other names, and presumably, other personality traits, and sometimes she is merely mentioned by her imagined descendants.) A lovely little collection - I particularly enjoyed reading the little notes which prefaced each story about her inspiration for it.
I picked up Ian McEwan's Atonement after several people saying last month that they liked it better than Saturday, only to realise that I had actually read it before. I thought the cover seemed familiar. I am ever more rapidly turning into my father. And yes, it is excellent, isn't it? Although I do find those books that make me shout "what are you DOING?" at the characters a little exhausting.
I realise that there's nothing wrong with having a formula, especially if it's a successful one - but Kathy Reichs formula of ending every chapter on a cliffhanger (e.g. "She turned, and I saw immediately that there was something terribly wrong" or "I finally knew what had killed Daniel") became incredibly annoying by the end of the book. It was just like watching a TV show. Apart from that stylistic irritation, Break No Bones was a pretty cool story, lots of bodies for Reichs' heroine, Tempe Brennan, to examine, and while the final solution to the mystery was, to my eyes, fairly unrealistic, it was enjoyable all the same.
This month, I'm reading Lois McMaster Bujold, an excellent and new-to-me SF/fantasy author, Joanne Harris' latest book (Lollipop Shoes, the Chocolat sequel), Louise Erdrich, who I suppose would be in the category of magic realism, and a few mysteries I saw recommended on Bookgirl's Nightstand - Still Life and Jar City.
2 comments:
Excellent! I have read both the crimes recommended, and they are both good (they have reviews somewhere on my book blog!)
I don't think its called 'Jar City' in Australia - it might be 'Tainted Blood', which is one of his titles. Nevertheless, I really enjoy his crime writing.
Louise Penny is also good, although I wouldn't recommend the book following 'Still Life' - its very slow.
I think my library must have a US copy Be-zen, as it's called Jar City there. Glad you're still updating your book blog!
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