checkers65477 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
checkers65477) wrote2008-11-01 09:56 pm
checkers65477) wrote2008-11-01 09:56 pm
Entry tags:
Recommended reads
I've been reading The Shining Company by Rosemary Sutcliff and I have a vague feeling of having read it before, though I didn't think I had.
Sutcliff's descriptions are beautifully written. After a couple dozen pages where we get to know the characters, there are these two paragraphs:
Life in the valley went on as it had always done. Harvest followed seed time; then came hunting for fresh meat in the winter, when we mounted the wolf guard over the lambing pens and every full moon brought the threat of cattle raiders. Spring, when the streams ran green with meltwater from the snows of Yr Wyddfa. Autumn when they ran yellow with fallen birch leaves.
And so there came an evening a year and more after the merchant with the archangel dagger.
Time has passed so easily, logically, and in such a believable way. With so few words, so skillfully written. Wow.
The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, was another lovely book. My favorite thing was the setting. It takes place in Georgia in the deep south, during the hottest part of the summer. Definitely a Girl Power book, and it's been made into a movie. I don't read too much adult fiction but this is one I'd recommend. My mother read it years ago and passed it on to me and it's been sitting on my TBR pile ever since. I should have listened to my mother!
It's strange--what makes this an adult book, when so many other coming-of-age stories are YA? I know it had crossover appeal; we sold it at our book fair and some of the older girls bought it. But I'm pretty sure it was marketed as an adult book. The main character is 14, perfect for YA. The story is told in first person, so it's all from her POV. There's nothing objectionable in it--older teens have read lots worse. Hm. Must be one of those cases that it's adult because the publishing company deemed it adult.
What have YOU been reading?
Sutcliff's descriptions are beautifully written. After a couple dozen pages where we get to know the characters, there are these two paragraphs:
Life in the valley went on as it had always done. Harvest followed seed time; then came hunting for fresh meat in the winter, when we mounted the wolf guard over the lambing pens and every full moon brought the threat of cattle raiders. Spring, when the streams ran green with meltwater from the snows of Yr Wyddfa. Autumn when they ran yellow with fallen birch leaves.
And so there came an evening a year and more after the merchant with the archangel dagger.
Time has passed so easily, logically, and in such a believable way. With so few words, so skillfully written. Wow.
The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, was another lovely book. My favorite thing was the setting. It takes place in Georgia in the deep south, during the hottest part of the summer. Definitely a Girl Power book, and it's been made into a movie. I don't read too much adult fiction but this is one I'd recommend. My mother read it years ago and passed it on to me and it's been sitting on my TBR pile ever since. I should have listened to my mother!
It's strange--what makes this an adult book, when so many other coming-of-age stories are YA? I know it had crossover appeal; we sold it at our book fair and some of the older girls bought it. But I'm pretty sure it was marketed as an adult book. The main character is 14, perfect for YA. The story is told in first person, so it's all from her POV. There's nothing objectionable in it--older teens have read lots worse. Hm. Must be one of those cases that it's adult because the publishing company deemed it adult.
What have YOU been reading?
no subject
(Anonymous) 2008-11-02 05:26 pm (UTC)(link)It amazes me that The Secret Life of Bees and The Stones of Mourning Creek are adult and YA respectively. They deal with similar subject matter, but TSLoB has a happier ending.
~Feir Dearig
no subject
Secret Life of Bees seems to have done better as an adult book than it ever would have as YA. I suppose it might have won more awards as a children's book but might not have been on the Bestseller lists or have gotten the movie deal.
I was pleased with the ending. I was worried that it wasn't going to end well but it seemed realistic and satisfying.
no subject
I'm reading Crossing to Paradise by Kevin Crossley-Holland (which is the same as Gatty's Tale only in American and with a truly dreadful cover). It's very good but I think I prefer the Arthur books with their oh-so-poetic short chapters. The narration in this is not as breathtaking, and sometimes Gatty seems a wee bit precious to me. But still, I enjoy the way he deals with the time period and the mindset of the people, and the things which were and weren't accepted. It's especially interesting to compare books like Pagan and the Arthur books and my friend Alan's mysteries and this, all set around the same time and concerning the Crusades and pilgrimages.
I have The Shining Company but haven't read it yet.
no subject
no subject
Just (as in, within the last half-hour) finished re-reading Dragonhaven. (Should have been doing reading for school. Oops. Don't tell anyone.) It is replacing The Blue Sword as my favorite McKinley (and I have read, as far as I know, every published novel and short story collection by McKinley there is. I'm not quite so much a nerd that I've researched about the possibility of any obscure ones that aren't widely known, but if there are any I'd surely like to know). I love the wandery way the story is told, and Jakes voice in general. Somehow it was alot funnier this time through. Or maybe I just forgot all the funny bits, because its not a book you would generally think of as being funny like you would other books. My head is still kind of stuck in Jake-voice, since I was reading for a few hours straight.
no subject
no subject
no subject
I am struck by how Ella seems so much older than fifteen. Perhaps it is because she is writing it retrospectively?
no subject
no subject
She does age as the story goes on, and you do get the sense that she's growing older--and so to me, it feels more like she goes from, say, sixteen to eighteen, but every now and then she'll sneak in a line about just being fifteen or having just turned sixteen and I'll go "no! wait! no you're not!"
also your comment makes me giggle, because that's exactly what she says (in reply to Char's neverending "are you old enough to marry yet?")--"A moment ago I was too young to marry you. Now, I am old enough to beg you to marry me." Or something like that.
The book also has a ton of wonderful, witty, subtle observations about love that I definitely didn't pick up on when I was younger.
...OH it makes me angry that "The Midwife's Apprentice" won the Newberry instead.
no subject
I feel the same way about A View From Saturday, which beat out The Thief. Blech.
no subject
I have been reading lots of old mysteries, Sayers and so on. But some other stuff too so will try to keep the blog slightly more up to date!