Becky's Books –

The Miniaturist
by Jessie Burton
* 2014 / 421 pages
* read by Davina Porter 13h 17m
rating:  7 / historical fiction

I had a very hard time coming up with a review or a rating for this book.  I was way over- annoyed by what I suppose I’ll call “history lite.”  This isn’t really fair because I was a history major and have been a history buff all my life.

Burton featured a character with the same name as an historical person who lived in Amsterdam in the 1680s and this person owned an incredible dollhouse which survives in an Amsterdam museum.  That’s pretty much where the history ends.  (See my Notes 2 page – there are also photos and links there.)  >>>>MORE>>>>

The Son
by Jo Nesbø  (Norway – translated)
2014 / 417 pages
narrated by Gildart Jackson 17h 28m
rating:  B / crime

I’ve upgraded the rating by a grade – on thinking about the book I really did enjoy the character development for its own sake.  Except for the real creeps, the characters were all sympathetic –  good guys but very flawed – and that was done well.   I never did manage to blend Sonny the prisoner (“addict -redeemer -martyr”)  with Sonny the avenger and Sonny the lover.  That was really too complex.   The others were fine,  nicely done even.

The basic premise, that Sonny Luftus took it so much to heart when he learned that his father, a prominent police detective,  was found guilty of corruption,  he (Sonny) turned to heroin.  And he stayed stoned by admitting to crimes he didn’t commit – the heroin provided by the corrupt police department in exchange for a plea of guilty or more information provided by Sonny.   This crime info is provided by other jailed criminals who regard him as a sort of father confessor and absolver of crimes.  There’s a dead crooked priest involved, too. >>>>MORE >>>> 

Manon Lescaut
by Abbe Prévost
1731/ 174 pages (Kindle)
rating 8 / classic French novel

Manon Lescaut was written a full 100 years prior to The Red and the Black by Stendhal (1830),  but only another 50 years prior to The Ladies’ Paradise by Emil Zola.  Oh, the changes in French society and literature during that time!  To say nothing of Madam Bovary (Flaubert – 1856) and Pere Goriot (Balzac – 1835) and The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas – 1836) which were somewhere in between.

They all have to do primarily with money and status along with love.  For what it’s worth, Manon Lescaut was banned in France, read surreptitiously, >>>>MORE>>>> 

We Are All Completely Beside Ouselves
by Karen Joy Fowler
2014 / 320 pages
read by Orlagh Cassidy 8h 57m
rating 7 /  contemp fict.

Rosemary Cooke, the  daughter of a professor and his wife is telling her life story – she is now, at the end of the book,  nearly 40 years old and her life really has been rather different –

Back-story – back when Rosemary was 5 years old,  her mother an emotional mess,  her father, an animal psychologist involved in experiments on chimps,  her life changes dramatically when her sister Fern  goes missing. >>>>MORE>>>> 

Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East
by Scott Anderson
2013/618 pages (Kindle)
rating 8 / history-bio

I knew precious little about T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)  prior to reading the book – I was aware of some scramble for oil-rich territory during and after WWI,  but still,  not much.  I didn’t really connect Lawrence with that mess even.  Yes, there was a Lawrence of Arabia movie many years ago,  but I didn’t see it.

The bits about the Gallipoli incident and the Armenian genocide struck me hard – I know more about the effects of those things – >>>>MORE>>>>

Skippy Dies
by Paul Murray
2010/672 pages
read by a cast – 23h 41m
rating 8.5 / contemp fiction – Australia

Yes,  this book seems silly at first but it contains an incredibly well developed theme  around reality vs history or what can you believe?  And the reader has to plow through doorstop’s worth of  tragi-comic adolescent weirdness,  but somehow,  at least in the recorded version,  the characters are so compelling (in a train-wreck sort of way sometimes)  I kept going – and going – and going –

It really is somewhat too long and Murray uses several rather convoluted plot threads to get where he’s going.  The humor vital  >>>>MORE>>>>

The Sound of One Hand Clapping
by Richard Flanagan
1997 / 425 pages
rating  8.5 / contemp fict – Australia

With this novel I’ve read all of Flanagan’s books except Death of a River Guide – my favorite by far is Gould’s Book of Fish but the others are very good,   especially The Narrow Road to the Deep North which won the Booker Prize this year.

The setting for The Sound of One Hand Clapping is the east coast of New Zealand. somewhere near Hobart but toward the mines where many Czechoslovakians, sometimes with families,  >>>>MORE>>>>

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
by Haruki Murakami
2014/ 402 pages
read by Bruce Locke – 10h 9m
rating: 8 / contemp. fiction – Japan

My old favorite authors have certainly been going for the gusto. David Mitchell, William Gibson and now Haruki Murakami have all released new books recently and all three of them have gone beyond what they’ve written before. Sad to say they went somewhat beyond my most enjoyable reading.

Instead of confining the sci-fi aspect to a central chapter >>>>MORE>>>>

My Son’s Story
by Nadine Gordimer
1990 / 272 pages
rating 8.5 / contemp fiction (South Africa)

At first I was thinking this might be an easier book to read than either The Burgher’s Daughter (about a white woman joining the anti-apartheid movement) or The Conservationist (about a white land-owner in rural apartheid South Africa).  The writing style is somewhat clearer with a 15 year-old boy narrating,  but it might very well not be easier in terms of  theme and symbolism.  >>>>MORE>>>>

The Peripheral
by William Gibson
2014 / 486 pages
read by Lorelei King 14h 5m
rating: 4/10 / sci-fi

This book is very disappointing in general and at close to 500 pages it’s way too long.   I love Gibson’s “cutting edge” books, especially  the “Bigend Trilogy,” and too bad, so sad, this is NOT the same.   The Peripheral is much more old school science fiction partially set in a dystopian fantasy with gadgets and lingo galore.  It’s typical Gibson in that there are several plot threads which come together late in the book and a few of the characters are compelling. >>>>MORE>>>>

The Handsome Man’s Deluxe Café
by Alexander McCall Smith
2014 / 257 pages
read by Lisette Lecat / 9h 55m
rating A++ (for enjoyment) / contemp fiction / Botswana

Aaaaahhhh!   A fix from the war-filled, depressing books I’ve been reading lately –  whew!  I needed this!   (Big old smile on my face.)

This is the 15th book in the Ladies #1 Detective series which Alexander McCall Smith began back in 1998.  I read about it back then in some magazine or review and promptly got the book.  Yup –  I was hooked.  And here I am 16 years later still gobbling them up the day they are released.  I have had paperbacks (at first)  and hardcovers (for a few years  before ebooks) and now (for the last 10 or so years)  I prefer listening because Lissette Lecat is the perfect reader for this series.  >>>>MORE>>>>

The Bone Clocks
by David Mitchell
2014 / 640 pages
read by Jessica Ball, Leon Williams, Colin Mace, Steven Crossley, Laurel Lefkow, Anna Bentinck – 24h 30m
rating: 7  / sci-fi- fantasy

Oh what can I say about a genius author whose latest book does not live up to the expectations of  the last?

I loved reading Cloud Atlas – loved it – both times – text and audio versions – the whole thing.  I also loved The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (with a small exception) , but I wasn’t so crazy about Mitchell’s earlier Black Swan Green.

I think  I expected “great things” from The Bone Clocks and,  well,  for the most part it’s very good  – but when the plot devolves into body-snatchers and zombie-like activities including a war between the semi-immortal good guys (the Horologists)  and their equivalent bad guys (The Anchorites) – well … >>> MORE>>>>

Guilt
by John Lescroart
1996/ 656 pages
read by David Colacci 18h 10m
rating: A / crime

I think I’m finishing up novels of John Lescroart – the ones which are available in audio format and read by Colacci, anyway.  I’m going slowly – this is comfort reading/listening.   “Guilt” is a stand-alone featuring Abe Glitzky, the Black and Jewish,  very married-with-children San Francisco detective.  This is Dismas Hardy’s old buddy from the days Hardy was on the police force but Hardy isn’t involved in this one.

In “Guilt,”   the smooth, handsome, rich, powerful >>>>MORE>>>>

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
by Ishmael Beah
2007 / 229 pages
read by Ishmael Beah – 7h 48m
rating 7 / memoir

Beah’s book is a memoir,  but it appears that discrepancies have been found and that’s always a problem for some when good sales are involved.

Well … imo…. EXCUSE me???  Consider the source, huh?  This is NOT James Frey for whom I have zero tolerance.   This is the story of what happens when  a 12 to 16-year old boy in a war zone  loses his family to the brutality, then wanders around the countryside with his friends for awhile, snagging food, sleeping as he might.  He finally gets “conscripted” into the government forces to fight the rebels who decimated his village. Then he’s suddenly rescued by UNICEF and guess what …  Beah’s got post-traumatic syndrome to the max,  but he’s rehabilitated and a decade later writes a memoir.  Let’s see … >>>>MORE>>>>

The Luminaries
by Eleanor Catton
2013  / 834 pages
read by Mark Meadows 29h 14m
rating – 9 / historical fiction
>>>>NOTES>>>>

I read this first right after it won the Man Booker Prize in 2013 and loved it.  (The review is here.)  The history, the Victorian-type language, Dickensian plot, etc.  everything was right.  But it is a plot-driven novel (pretty much) so I really didn’t think it would hold up to a 2nd reading.  But the Booker Prize Group chose it so I thought maybe I’d give it a try.
>>>>MORE>>>> 

The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps
by Michael Blanding
2014 – 320 pages
read by Sean Runnette – 8h 35m
rating – 7.5  – history/crime

I’d never heard of Forbes Smiley or the case of the map thief prior to seeing this on Audible so I listened to the sample, found myself intrigued, purchased, downloaded and listened – all in less than 24 hours.

If you’re interested in maps (as I am, having been a map-maker in the distant past), or rare books (and I love those, too)  this is a great book – although I don’t know as I’d call it “gripping.”  >>>>MORE>>>>