Steve's Bookshelf 2013

[Karsa Orlong]

 

My list, my rules!   

 

But you're in my thread, therefore I laugh at your so-called rules  

[Karsa Orlong]

There are so many good books listed here. My own list is growing substantially.

 

That seems to happen a lot around here!

 

I hope you enjoy whichever books took your fancy, if and when you read them

[Timstar]

That seems to happen a lot around here!

 

Yes, yes it does

[Janet]

But you're in my thread, therefore I laugh at your so-called rules  

Ah, but note my careful wording - I said list, not thread! 

[Karsa Orlong]

Ah, but note my careful wording - I said list, not thread! 

 

Touché

 

Like you meant it that way     

[Timstar]

Guy Gavriel Kay's books are all (mostly) £2.99 on Kindle at the moment. What would be the best one to start with? Tigana?

[Karsa Orlong]

Nice price!  Personally I'd go for The Lions of Al-Rassan, as it's my favourite.  If you want to push the boat out, the two-parter Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors is fantastic, as are A Song for Arbonne and Tigana. 

 

Basically, you can't go wrong, providing you don't buy Lord of Emperors without getting Sailing to Sarantium

Edited June 26, 2013 by Karsa Orlong

[Karsa Orlong]

Book #35:  The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy

 

 

From Amazon:

 

Los Angeles, 15th January 1947: a beautiful young woman walked into the night and met her horrific destiny.

Five days later, her tortured body was found drained of blood and cut in half. The newspapers called her 'The Black Dahlia'. Two cops are caught up in the investigation and embark on a hellish journey that takes them to the core of the dead girl's twisted life . . .

 

 

Thoughts:

 

This, the first book in Ellroy's 'LA Quartet', is a work fiction based around true events: the horrific murder of Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles in 1947.  The story itself covers the period 1946 to 1949, and is about LA cop Dwight Bleichert and his partner Lee Blanchard, two ex-boxers who become obsessed with the investigation for quite different reasons.  I don't know much about the real-life case, apart from the fact that it remains unsolved, and was every bit as gruesome as Ellroy describes it herein.  There's a lot of detail of Bleichert and Blanchard's investigation, naturally, but how much of it holds true to the real investigation I don't know - not a great deal, I suspect, else Ellroy's story would be quite different.

 

What I can say for sure is that The Black Dahlia is not for the faint-hearted or easily offended. Quite apart from the murder itself - and in typical Ellroy style - he paints a disturbing picture of LA in the 40s, and the people who inhabit it.  Racism, sexism, in fact every kind of bigotry you can imagine, is exhibited by the characters, some of the cops being the worst examples.  Corruption is rife, from the ruthlessly ambitious wannabe-district attorney Ellis Loew downwards.  The cops will stop at nothing to get a conviction, even if it means withholding or even faking evidence.  You suspect that Ellroy has an axe to grind, given his own mother's murder (I haven't read his book about this, called My Dark Places).

 

This is nothing new if you've read Ellroy before, so I knew what to expect.  It's tough to look beyond the depravity but, if you can, you find a warts-and-all portrayal of police procedure coupled with visceral characterisation.  Hard-boiled does not even begin to describe it.  It's difficult to say I enjoyed a book this full-on, but I did find it extremely compelling, stark, and unsettling - as I have done with his other books that I have read.  Ellroy is a brilliant, brilliant writer.  I just wouldn't want to meet these people in real life.

 

This website has more details of the actual murder.

 

 

9/10

[bobblybear]

Nice review of The Black Dahlia. Another one I'm going to have to add to my wishlist! 

[Karsa Orlong]

Thanks bobbly!

 

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - finished 13/06/13

Emperor: The Gates of Rome by Conn Iggulden

Prophecy by S. J. Parris - finished 18/06/13

The Mauritius Command by Patrick O'Brian

The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy - finished 27/06/13

The Odyssey by Homer

Something by David Gemmell, to be decided (probably either Hero in the Shadows or The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend)

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge

The Technician by Neal Asher

Pompeii by Robert Harris

The Silver Spike by Glen Cook - finished 22/06/13

 

The one no-one saw coming: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

 

 

I'm going off-plan for my next read, as I'm at home so can dig into the big Jules Verne hardback and read From the Earth to the Moon

[Athena]

That one's on my shelf (unread) so I look forward to hear what you think! I have a paperback version that contains From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon.

[Little Pixie]

Book #35:  The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy

 

What I can say for sure is that The Black Dahlia is not for the faint-hearted or easily offended. 

 

And yet I realised last night that it`s hiding in my TBR list. Uh-oh.... 

[Karsa Orlong]

And yet I realised last night that it`s hiding in my TBR list. Uh-oh.... 

 

Oh you'll hate it, for sure, you're such a sensitive thing.  I think you should read it immediately

[Little Pixie]

Oh you'll hate it, for sure, you're such a sensitive thing.  I think you should read it immediately

 

Perhaps if I tell myself it happened long ago in a far away land, I`ll have enough distance not to think eeeek! all the time ?

[Karsa Orlong]

Book #36:  From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne

 

 

From Amazon:

 

Written almost a century before the daring flights of the astronauts, Jules Verne’s prophetic novel of man’s race to the stars is a classic adventure tale enlivened by broad satire and scientific acumen.

When the members of the elite Baltimore Gun Club find themselves lacking any urgent assignments at the close of the Civil War, their president, Impey Barbicane, proposes that they build a gun big enough to launch a rocket to the moon.

A story of rip-roaring action, humor, and wild imagination, From the Earth to the Moon is as uncanny in its accuracy and as filled with authentic detail and startling immediacy as Verne’s timeless masterpieces 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days.

 

 

Thoughts:

 

I guess, with a book written so long ago (1865), you have to get into the right frame of mind and admire it for the vision it had at the time, and I continue to have a problem doing so when reading Verne.  I found that his omniscient writing style in this story left me at a distance from the characters and their actions.  His way of talking directly to the reader, rather than getting inside the characters' heads, is something I always find uninvolving, no matter who the author is.  Also, this story is so absorbed with facts and figures and explaining the methods used to achieve the ends, that it becomes more like reading a textbook rather than a novel.  It's all very interesting, for sure, but I've read a fair amount of hard SF and have found none of it as dry and remote as this.

 

As such, Barbicane never really came alive for me - he's just a hook on which to hang the detail.  I found it impossible to get a handle on him as a character and his secretary Maston, whilst more likeable, seems nothing more than an hyper-active child on a sugar rush.  It wasn't until two thirds of the way through the book that, finally, a decent character entered the fray and I did, at that point, start to find the whole enterprise more likeable. 

 

It occurs to me that I also found Wells's The First Men in the Moon disappointing as well, so the fault is probably with me.  Perhaps, because I have been so interested in the Apollo era since I was a kid, I find it harder to switch off and go along with the outlandish descriptions of a satellite we now know so much more about.  Generally, though, I much prefer Wells's approach of character, action and adventure over sterile numbers and facts.  I greatly admire Verne's vision, but not so much the execution.  I think that, at the end of the day, perhaps Verne just isn't for me.

 

This book is followed by a sequel, Around the Moon, which I will read sooner or later.

 

 

3/10

Edited June 29, 2013 by Karsa Orlong

[Michelle]

Do you have that actual book? It's gorgeous!

[Karsa Orlong]

Yes, I do - it was a Christmas present last year

[pontalba]

Yes, I do - it was a Christmas present last year

It's gorgeous!

 

You've made me want to pull out the Ellroy.  /sigh/  So many books, not enough time.      

[Athena]

Beautiful edition!

 

Sorry to hear you didn't really like the book, though.

[Karsa Orlong]

 

Sorry to hear you didn't really like the book, though.

 

Yeah, my patience wore pretty thin with that one.  Thankfully it was pretty short

 

Haven't quite decided what to read from the plan next.  It's looking like Neal Asher's The Technician at the moment <<ponders>>

[poppyshake]

The one no-one saw coming: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Yes .. but is it coming though? .. it seems to be taking its time    

Edited June 30, 2013 by poppyshake

[Karsa Orlong]

Yes .. but is it coming though? .. it seems to be taking its time    

 

 

<<moves it further down list>>

 

 

 

Nah, priority at the moment is getting the TBR list down, so it will be the last one from the plan that I read, I expect

[poppyshake]

Nah, priority at the moment is getting the TBR list down, so it will be the last one from the plan that I read, I expect

Ahhh .. saving the best eh? .. very wise

[Karsa Orlong]

Ahhh .. saving the best eh? .. very wise

 

I'll hold you to that

[Karsa Orlong]

I was planning on not buying any books until I'd got the TBR list under 60, but I've taken a punt on this.  It was originally self-published last year, but has since been snapped up by publishers.  Don't know anyone who's read it, but I read the first few pages on Amazon's 'Look Inside' and liked it, then read comments comparing it to David Gemmell, so thought it was worth a go 

 

Of course, after buying it I noticed a comment later on comparing it to Brandon Sanderson, which is worrying