Only the Shadow Knows

Shadowplay
Tad Williams
DAW

As I write this, I’m sitting at the gate in LHR waiting to board a flight. While I haven’t been travelling too much as of late, I am still managing to put in enough time at the airport to get some serious reading done. For this particular trip, I actually broke one of my cardinal rules of travel and brought along a ginormous 600+ pager. Yeah, yeah, -- not exactly a short haul friendly tome. On an overseas flight (where I can, ahem, check luggage), it makes the space argument a little less compelling, and frankly, this one was definitely worth the room in the carry on.

Shadowplay is Williams’ second book of the Shadowmarch trilogy. If you recall, I reviewed the first book for one of my initial entries for this blog (don’t go back and read it – WAY too long). While I really liked the opening effort, I think that the second instalment lived up to (and maybe even exceeded) the standards of the first. From the moment I picked it up, I didn’t really want to do anything but read. So what if I travelled a few thousand miles to go to the office this week? Work schmerk.

Book Two of the series picks up right where the last book left off. Unlike a lot of serialized fiction, Williams makes the assumption that the readers have been following along and very little time is wasted summarizing the plot. As for the content, it’s the usual fantasy fare -- anthropomorphic creatures, battles, magic and death. Really – what’s not to love? Three fellowship rings out of five.

Anything But

The Big Sleep

Raymond Chandler

Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

Okay, so I've got to come clean. Deep breath ... I'm addicted to detective novels. There ... I said it and it hardly even hurt. Of course, I'm blaming it all on an evil, yet "well-intentioned" friend. Last summer when I was dying for a good book, Russ recommended Chandler's The Big Sleep. Unfortunately, the local bookstore didn't have it and I picked up The Lady in the Lake instead. I totally loved that novel, but believe it or not, this one was even better.

Like the other Marlowe book, The Big Sleep is set in and around Los Angeles in the late 30s. The cagey and unspeakably sexy hero, Philip Marlowe, has been hired by an aging oil tycoon to find out who has been blackmailing one of his wayward daughters. There are more twists in this plot than a mountain road has curves, and while I will admit to finding it a bit of a stretch at times, the writing was so engaging that I didn't really care. Chandler possesses a grim economy of words that is both disconcerting and delightful. His more than slightly misogynistic descriptions of women are especially wonderful and for those of you who are (un)lucky enough to have me as an IM contact, you might have noticed that you were treated to an entire week of politically incorrect Marlowisms.

Oh yeah ... if you haven't figured it out, the title of this week's entry relates to the title of the book. It was anything but a big sleep --in fact, I couldn't put it down. Four RedBulls out of five.

Working Girl

The Observations
Jane Harris
Faber and Faber

I have to apologize to my regular readers for not updating the blog the past couple of weeks. There really isn't a good excuse. Admittedly, part of me is still thinking about The Book Thief, but I've also been crazy busy at work, getting frustrated by my diet/workout schedule, looking around for a new place to live, and spending a significant amount of time writing email. I can normally multi-task with the best of them, but really -- I've been pooped.

The other part of the problem was the subject of this week's entry -- Harris' The Observations. I can't think of another way to say it, so I'm just going to be blunt. This book completely sucked. It could be that my expectations were too high. In picking it up off the table (I got it a few weeks ago when I was over in the UK) I was drawn in by the comparisons to characters such as Moll Flanders and Becky Sharp. I loved both of those books and was really looking forward to a similar read. So that was my first mistake.

I might have been able to live with the flat characterizations had the book told a more interesting story. It's been awhile since I've thoroughly savaged a text, but Harris' narrative was entirely predictable. No such thing as subtle foreshadowing or plot twists in this effort. One vituperative Victorian out of five.

It is certain that stealing nourishes courage, strength, skill, tact ...

The Book Thief
Markus Zusak
Black Swan

I must have been about ten or so when my mother decided I was mature enough to understand, and therefore read, The Diary of Anne Frank. Up to that point, the war hadn't been discussed much in my house. I grew up knowing that both of my grandfathers had "fought for our country", but being a child of the 70s, I didn't really have any context for what that meant. Reading Anne's story completely changed my life. I became obsessed with the narratives of the Second World War and in particular, I developed an unhealthy interest in the Holocaust.

The main character in The Book Thief, Liesel Meminger, reminds me a great deal of Anne Frank. Set in a small town just outside of Munich, the novel tells the story of a little girl who is sent out to live with a working-class foster family just prior to the start of the war. In some ways, the books is a classic bildungsroman as the reader is witness to Liesel's journey from young girl to young adult. In other ways, though, the story is about larger themes -- war, resistance, inequality, literature, love, and kindness. Every page of this novel (curiously narrated by Death) deserves to be read and once you pick it up, you won't be able to put it down. Four stolen books out of five.