Meredith Pierce: Den fjortonde bruden/The Dark Angel

There's this thing going around Facebook right now (and NO ONE has nominated me, the feckers) where you list your ten favourite books, and a friend of mine had this on her list; a list she'd modified to be "ten most influential books". And I just was so struck with the memory of it. I immediately went to see if the library had it. They did, but only in Swedish. As a matter of fact, I think I might have read this very edition as a child, the cover art is the very same. 

My daughter thought this was so so lame, by the way. Almost as lame as me speaking doge. 

It's not very good, but it's hard to say if it's also the translation doing it no favours. This is high fantasy, so the language is supposed to be saga-like and formal - something that seldom translates well unless you have a terrific translator, more of an interpreter. I realised for example that the word quest is translated to spaning which is just no. But even in English I suspect it's lacking in lasting quality. A bit if a mix of Tolkien (the names definitely), Ray Bradbury (location: the moon?), even some Ursula LeGuin if I'm not way off... But I just don't get into this secondary universe. There are hints of science fiction but without scientific explanations - instead everything is solved by magic. It's a bit of a cop-out. Wouldn't mind reading it in English if it falls into my lap, but I won't go out of my way for it. Fun to revisit all the same! 

Jacqueline Winspear: Among the Mad

Took it out of the library on a whim when I borrowed the Flynn book, even though I'm not that keen on the Maisie Dobbs series at all. God, she's so annoyingly perfect. This one is about finding a man threatening to commit some sort of act of biological terrorism, including making profiles and so on way before her time. If Maisie Dobbs could be more of a real person, I'd be very grateful plz thx, also the novels don't have to have such an irritating way of attempting to educate you on a Historical Fact, in this case care of the mentally ill in the 1930s.

Right after this I re-read Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers, and the contrast between the two  doesn't favour Winspear does it. I also had several thoughts about it that I wanted to write down in the blog but couldn't get computer time so now I've forgotten. I hate my life. But I love Gaudy Night.

c'mon ketchup

And look at me forgetting to mention Christmas in my last post. On Christmas Day. Shabby! This year I got no books for Christmas, possibly because my poor husband is too down about me not reading the Hilary Mantle he got me for my birthday (Wolf Hall). I've read about two chapters and Am Not Keen. Maybe it picks up. I'll get there.

Anyway, I've read some Charlaine Harrises: Dead Reckoning and Deadlocked from the Sookie series, and see that she's writing the FINAL  novel now, due next year. I think this is a good move, it's gone far enough. I also read an Aurora Teagarden (A Bone To Pick) I managed to get a hold of, have been interested in that series for a while and can now understand why it's not more popular. Also read her free-standing novel about a rape/a serial rapist, A Secret Rage - not brilliant but clearly based on true experiences, which is, as I've said, why Harris's books work despite everything; the darkness is real (sorry for the dwama phrase but it is). She could definitely do with more analysing, better editing and more depth as a writer, but she pays her bills and I think she's pleased and works hard. Good for her.

I read an Elaine Viets mystery shopper novel which was fucking terrible, Murder With All The Trimmings. Skimmed it more like. Bloody awful, disjointed stuff. I thought they were a little fun before? What was I thinking? It wasn't even light entertainment. No excuse for sending this off to the printers. None.

I also read a HEAP ( a HAPE) of Patricia Wentworths. The Case Is Closed, Danger Point, The Chinese Shawl, The Clock Strikes Twelve, The Case of William Smith, The Catherine Wheel, The Brading Collection, Anna, Where Are You?, The Benevent Treasure and The Alington Inheritance.They're oh so formulaic, with Miss Silver's annoying cough, the convoluted plots that are not ashamed to include hidden passages and treasures, the strong men who grab their beloved by the wrists and say "don't be a damned little fool, can't you see I want you to stop working and take care of you!". Vomit vomit vomit. Yet I wish I had more. I was so in the mood for vintage crime. I started noticing how she often spends a lot of time describing what the women are wearing, so thought that this was worthy of an email to one of my favourite blogs, A Dress A Day. I probably won't get around to sending her the tip, but I'm going to try, There were at least two books in which the heroine worked as a fashion model for a designer, wearing fabulous clothes and displaying them with great effect so middle-aged frumpy women with more money than sense would be fooled into thinking that they, too, could look equally ethereal. It's really very interesting and revealing of the times. Ha.

I re-read some more Laurie King, and I read some Jim Butcher, Dresden Files. Death Masks and Changes. Another series which has gone a little too far, but we'll see. I also read Sacrifice, the latest Charlie Higson "zombie" book. He's beginning to go soft now because quite a lot of children survived, but hey I'm not complaining. Quite like how he's pulling it together.

I'm really really hoping I can start blogging more next year.

A bit of Harris

I've been mostly re-reading Ngaoi Marshes, including library ones, but I also found the missing books from the Sookie Stackhouse series last time I was at said book temple so I got them. Including the first one, much to my pleasure, because it always does seem a little off to not read the first one in a series doesn't it. So now I've read Dead In The Family, Dead and Gone, Dead Until Dark, Dead As A Doornail. In one of them, well, Sookie meets vampires 'coz Bill comes to town, in one there's the fairy wars and she's tortured (pretty gruesomely), then one is the follow-up to that and she's with Eric and... well, to be honest all I remember off-hand is that she first doesn't get a kick out of sex the way she used to because, hey, torture but then she does and all is well and there's a load of sex, but there was most likely some sort of plot too. In one of them her telepath five-year-old little relation comes to stay together with her fairy cousin, and in one her sister-in-law gets crucified, in one the were-wolves come out of the closet, in one Tara's vampire boyfriend gambles her off to a vampire psycho, and in one Eric's maker comes with the Tsvarevitch of Russia.

Oh, they all run together. I remember first one best, because it is the best. The longer the books run the more unbelievable the Sookieverse becomes. The supernatural beings are so unable to be discreet that no-one can credit that they were ever hidden. I appreciate the plot changes made in the tv show - they most often were for the better. Tara is an incredibly lame and uninteresting character in the books, whereas Tara on the tellybox is pretty fabulous.

Still get a kick out of them. But nonetheless I shall prolly be sticking to my re-reads for a while, mostly because I don't have the computer access to blog mostly. This post was brought to you by four interruptions. FOUR. (One was admittedly my own, I had to bitch about something.)