I'm Swede on You

Benny and Shrimp

Katarina Mazetti

Penguin


I'm not usually prone to words like "heartwarming" and "charming," yet I can't think of anything better to describe this novel.  Benny and Shrimp are an unlikely pair that meet on a bench in a cemetery.  Benny is "visiting" with his mother and Shrimp (whose real name is Desiree) is contemplating the grave of her recently deceased husband.  One day, the couple exchange smiles and it is as if Cupid has sent arrows straight into their hearts.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that despite their obvious passion, they really aren't that compatible.

Benny is a farmer on the outskirts of town.  His life is tied to the rhythm of his cows and he is looking for a traditional Swedish helpmate -- someone who can help him fix the tractor, warm his bed, and make fantastic meatballs.  Shrimp, on the other hand, lives a more cerebral life.  She likes abstract art, thoughtful discussions about Lacan, and is the head of the children's section at the local library.  They are both in their late thirties and not expecting to be seized by love.  But they are and it surprising and funny and beautiful.

I'm not going to tell you how this story turns out.  It's actually worth the read.  Leaf fans be on the lookout for a reference to our team -- I think the author might have had a crush on Sundin.  Three quirky moo cows out of five.

I'm So Done with Vampires ...

Lonely Werewolf Girl
Martin Millar
Soft Skull Press

Over the past few months, life for the D-E-S has been a little chaotic. Aside from the occasional stolen moment, I haven't had a lot of down time and one of the things that I've longed to do is spend an entire day reading a really good book. This past Sunday, the Powers that Be presented me with the perfect opportunity - I was alone in a foreign country, I had completed enough of my work to avoid feeling guilty, and I had two (count 'em two!) books that looked like they might turn out to be a solid, friendly companion.

From the moment I picked up Lonely Werewolf Girl, I was completely entranced. I mean, who's kidding who? Werewolves are usually depicted in Fantasy Lit as brutish, furry, and well, mostly uninteresting. Imagine how engaged I was when the characters in LWG were all complicated, gritty and incredibly evocative. Take the heroine, Kalix, for example. She is a seventeen year old Scottish werewolf who has been kicked out of the family clan for attacking (and severely injuring) her father. Living in the alleyways of London, Kalix, while achingly beautiful, is a cutter and an anorexic who believes that no one loves her. Her older sister, Thrix, is a London clothing designer who counts among her clients the otherworldly Malveria -- Queen of the Fire elementals (and quite a character besides.) Kalix's two cousins and fellow family outcasts, Beauty and Delicious, are wannabe rock stars who have travelled so far down the road to hedonism that they have forgotten how to turn into werewolves. Add a battle for the head of the werewolf clan between Kalix's brothers and we've got enough drama to fill an entire day.

Lonely Werewolf Girl was totally worth the read-a-thon. I loved it so much that I flew through the 558 pages in less than twelve hours. That included time off for good behaviour (eating, peeing and going to the gym!) LWG gets four howling death-machines 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.

Someone's Gotta Do it ...

A Dirty Job

Christopher Moore

Harper Collins

Holy cow! It has been exactly a month since I last posted anything on this blog. Instead of providing a laundry list of excuses as to why I haven't been reading/writing, I'm just going to hang my head in shame and get on with today's entry.

A few years ago, I introduced a few of you to Lamb -- The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. It was easily the funniest book that I had read in the last decade and it became the then equivalent of the D-E-S Book of the Year. Because I had enjoyed it so much, I was reluctant to read anything else by the author. Why muck with perfection? (C'mon, you had to expect at least one Jesus pun.) Quite recently, one of my good friends bought me a copy of A Dirty Job and I thought it would be churlish of me to leave it unread. Who wants to be a churl?

I can't believe I'm typing this, but A Dirty Job is almost as funny as Lamb. Set in present day San Francisco, the novel tells the story of Charlie Asher -- a slightly neurotic owner of a Bay area secondhand shop. At the beginning of the story, Asher's wife dies giving birth to their daughter Sophie. As Charlie struggles to cope with his grief and get used to the demands of a new baby, he learns that he has inherited some disturbing new responsibilities. You see, Charlie wakes up one day to realize that he's become Death -- or at least one's of death's minions (Charlie's not the sharpest knife in the drawer.) The chaos that ensues when Charlie tries to reject his new role is mordantly funny. A Dirty Job gets four scythes out of five.