His Dark Materials #3: The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

Read: 27 December, 2008

Lyra has definitely become more passive since Will entered the story. It's a shame. I had really enjoyed having a strong female main character in book 1. Still, though, there's no lack of strong female characters overall and the story was amazing. The pace throughout the series has been just right to captivate my attention while still presenting many interesting ideas.

The ending worried me. For the longest time, it seemed to be going in the direction of the standard "and then all the loose ends were neatly wrapped up and the children who fell in love would live happily ever after together!" But then the story veered off into a completely satisfying, albeit sad, ending. I was so relieved!

I've really enjoyed this series. It can be a little violent at times, which I do understand some people having issues with. But it's a brilliant story that doesn't treat its young adults like idiots - but rather challenges its readership with "cosmic" ideas. I will definitely be recommending the series.

Saints by Ruth Sanderson

The text was awful. It was written in a very point-by-point fashion that is barely interesting to an adult with a passion for religious tradition - I can imagine how dull it would be for a child who has a smaller tolerance for dullness. Take this sentence from the biography of Saint Lawrence for example, "Valerian hoped that if the flock of Christians had no shepherds, they would hopefully scatter" (emphasis mine).

That being said, the illustrations were beautiful - significantly raising my rating of the book. It's worth it if we intend to use it as a picture book, or if parents fill in their own stories based on the text rather than just reading it out.

Kashtanka by Anton Chekhov

This is a children's book illustrated by Gennady Spirin. The ISBN is 0-15-200539-0. The reason I mention this is that I want to talk about the presentation of the book - something that is obviously very important in a children's book.

Spirin's illustrations are absolutely beautiful. The are detailed and have a great amount of depth and character. Unfortunately, they are also very dark. This wouldn't be a bad thing except that the pages are very glossy, meaning that I had to struggle and essentially read in the dark just so that I could see them at all. It was such a shame and obviously a huge downside if this book is to be shared with kids.

The other big issue I took with the presentation of the book is that the text boxes looked too simplistic. There was no relationship between the illustrations at the text. Rather, half the page would just be white with text or, at best, there would be a thin and undecorated yellow border.

The story itself was so-so. As far as Russian classical authors go, I might be least familiar with with Chekhov. Because of this, it's rather difficult to judge what the story might have been like in the original language. That being said, I think it would have taken more than just changing the choice of wording to save the story. It was just very superficial. For example, when Kashtanka's masters find her again, the man who had taken her in is never mentioned again - despite the fact that he had spent a lot of energy to train her, may well have grown to like her, and would be left without an act once the dog left. In that sense, the story is very much incomplete.

I wouldn't bother buying this book.

Blind Faith by Ben Elton

Read: 19 December, 2008

Throughout my reading of this book, I kept thinking of the classics of dystopian fiction such as Brave New World, 1984, and Fahrenheit 451. In the end, that's exactly where this book lost its points for me. The televisions that cover every wall, the underground railroad for books, the total saturation of society with sex, food, and entertainment, etc. All of it was lifted directly from the exemplars of the genre. The only difference was that when Huxley, Orwell, and Bradbury wrote their novels, their visions were prophetic in a way. Elton's novel, on the other hand, merely took much of the world as it is and changed the names (FaceBook becomes Face Space, YouTube becomes MyTube or just Tube).

All this might have been forgiven if the characters had been better fleshed out. Instead, Trafford is merely a modern man stuck in a totally different world with little explanation for why he thinks as he does. In his conversations with others (particularly Cassius and Sandra Dee), he comes off as either pathetic or overly dramatic. This might have worked had it been clearer that many felt as he did but were, like him, too afraid to show it. It might have worked if we could see him incorporating bits of media into his speech so that we can, at least, know that the reason he makes such dramatic speeches is simply that this is how he has learned to talk. Instead, we just have a thoroughly modern character who regresses into the role of a babbling idiot when he meets like-minded people, and then suddenly takes on this obnoxious and self-important attitude when he decides he has a "mission." It all reeked of Hollywood.

Compare this to Winston Smith who, despite his doubt, remained thoroughly a man of his time. Or compare it to John of Brave New World who at least had a good reason for being an outsider and a throw-back from our time.

All in all, I found it to be a bit of an ego-stroke - a vehicle for ideas that are finding themselves increasingly in poor favour. All the atheist and scientific talking points were puppetted out by the various characters, which is all well and good. I would have liked a better setting for such gems, but this is what I got instead. Worth a read, but don't expect too much.

Marley & Me by John Grogan

Read: 17 December, 2008

Entertaining, funny, sweet, and sad - but with no real substance. Marley & Me gives a nice snapshot into just over a decade of a couple's life, from the time they get a new puppy, through the experience of having children, a new job, and moving to an entirely different part of the country, until the dog's eventual death. It's a sweet story and the writing language is quite good (more on that in a second), but there's no real meat to the story.

The closest Grogan gets to adding a layer to his story is the idea that he could learn from Marley about how to live his own life. However, while this is mentioned a few times throughout the story (yes, he does come to the same epiphany at least twice), it never seems to have any impact on his life. He learns, but he never applies. And as far as epiphanies go, it's not even a really good one. It's fairly standard Hollywood comedy fare ("look, that guy is so crazy, man is he ever crazy! Hey, you know what? He really enjoys his life! Maybe I should be a little crazy too! But not really... not like him, anyway.").

My other complaint is that the book is rather repetitive at times. It's almost as though Grogan thought of two really great ways to say what he wanted to say - so rather than choose the best, he just stuck both in.

And finally, I didn't really approve of the way the Grogan family treated Marley. I think we've all gotten a pet before fully realizing what that pet entails. However, I feel that they dealt with it poorly. The worst example of this would be putting the aged and dying (not to mention terrified of kennels) dog into a kennel while the family goes to Disneyland. It strikes me as unbelievably selfish. If they really considered Marley to be part of the family, they would have either waited until Marley was gone or found some way to accomodate his needs during their absence (especially considering Marley's history with kennels).

The part that really gets to me is that the narrator doesn't seem to have any sense whatsoever that going to Disneyland at such a time might have been selfish or harmful to his dog. The title refers to Marley as the "world's worst dog," and that gets to the heart of the problem: never does Grogan acknowledge that he may have made poor choices in the care of his dog. If Marley rips his nails out and breaks his teeth because he's in a panic about being locked in a garage during a lightening storm, it's because Marley's a bad dog. It's sad, and I think it's indicative of a culture that treats animals as possessions and objects while simultaneously paying lip service to the idea that they are "part of the family."

Other than that, the book is an entertaining read. It's like watching TV - it's a nice way to pass an afternoon, but it leaves me feeling still hungry at the end.

His Dark Materials #2: The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

Read: 16 December, 2008

Awesome book - a complete page-turner. My only issue would be that Lyra seems much more passive than she did in The Golden Compass. She seems to just follow Will around rather than acting for herself. I can understand the idea that she is sacrificing her own desires to help Will accomplish his destiny, but it just seemed a shame to have the female character acting in such a way to a male character.

Reading some of the reviews on Shelfari, I have to agree that this book was more of a page-turner than the first one, but had less substance. Certainly, the action moved along quite quickly and a great deal of information was given out about the subtle knife and the Authority, but I guess that because we already know most of the characters, less time was needed to establish them. The result was a more plot-driven book than the first had been.

Also, Pullman used variations of the word "wary" far too much in the first dozen or so pages. Other than that, it was a fabulous book and I can't wait to read the third instalment!

Lady of Ch'iao Kuo by Laurence Yep

Read: 12 December, 2008

This book is part of Scholastic's Royal Diaries series. I picked this book up at a second-hand sale my University was hosting. Having never heard of the author or the series, I was sold entirely by the cover art (which is absolutely beautiful and quite possibly the best part of the book - maybe I can just frame it?).

Overall, I found it to be an interesting read. The concepts of being forced to grow up and being responsible for many people despite having no experience kept me turning the pages. Unfortunately, they weren't really fleshed out. I also noticed a few continuity errors - for example, Redbird's father decides that she will act as the translator when they talk to the Chinese, but then he goes to the Chinese without taking her along. This seems to happen for no reason other than to be able to kill off the father without having to hurt Redbird (or have her experience battle before the climax).

There were also some descriptions that may have been anachronistic, such as referring to the army as a "machine." I'm sure they had machines of some sort or another back then, but would she have seen them? More importantly, would she have had enough exposure to machines to think of such a description? It's a small detail, one that I might easily have passed over without noticing. It's just that the book is so full with these little things that it bogs the story down.

Finally, I just felt that the author wasn't very good at writing in the diary style. We're never told why she starts writing the diary (something that modern little girls living in an age where paper and ink are both cheap and plentiful might not need a reason for). And then there's the way she describes things... The narrative just feels very objective and detail-oriented, while perhaps missing some of the details that would have been important to her. It didn't feel like a diary, but rather a third person narrative crammed into a first person diary format.

All that being said, I still finished it and I did still enjoy reading it. I just feel disappointed because the story deserved a much better treatment than it received.

Perfume by Patrick Suskind

Read: 3 December, 2008

I was recommended this book by a German foreign-exchange student during my fourth year at University. We were taking a class together on First Nations Literature and I mentioned to her that I wanted to read more continental European books but that I had a hard time finding out which ones would be good. She suggested this one.

I must admit that my immediate curiosity led me to watch the movie before I had the chance to buy the book. The movie was amazing and confirmed the recommendation. In comparison with the book, the movie stands alone. That being said, it isn't as good as the book overall. There was only one part where I felt that it surpassed the book - the scene where Grenouille murders the first girl. In the book version, he just kills her, smells her, and leaves. There's no emotional whatsoever. In the movie version, on the other hand, he kills her, smells her, and then freaks out when her scent starts to dissipate. I found that to be a more likely reaction for a character like Grenouille, and I'm really not sure why he was so calm about the scent leaving the world forever in the book.

Actually, now that I think about it, I think I liked the part where he kills the final girl a bit better in the movie as well. Because it's from Richis's point of view, that scene is played out like a horror movie and really serves to build up the tension. In the book, on the other hand, it's all from Grenouille's point of view, so we just get his cold and methodical thinking. He even tells us over and over again that he can smell the rest of the household sleeping, so there's no suspense.

But these are just small complaints. The book was amazing and absolutely disgusting. I loved the way the world was captured in smells. It was clearly difficult since our language is so visually based. But Suskind managed to avoid simply writing "the room smelled like there was a fire in the corner, and an old woman sitting in a rocking chair." Rather, each of these individual smells would be broken down into their smelling components, like the type of wood being burned, or the old cheesy smell of the woman. Again, I can't emphasize enough how disgusting the book was, but it was a great fun reading!

Marguerite Makes a Book by Bruce Robertson (illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt)

Read: 29 November, 2008

I picked up this book because the concept struck me as such a wonderful idea that I didn't want to pass up the chance and risk not being able to find it (or of forgetting about it) when I have someone age-appropriate in the house to share it with. I'm really glad I did!

The book is superb, from cover to cover. The art is gorgeous. For some reason, a lot of children's books have awful squiggly line art, as though kids wanted to see drawings that were apartment made by people at their artistic level. Maybe that's true for some children, but I never appreciated being talked down to - even artistically. In this book, the illustrations (mostly watercolour, with some shiny gold detailing) are absolutely enchanting. They feature plenty of pictures detailing the process of making a book in the Middle Ages, as well as city streets and even maps of Medieval Paris.

The story itself is quite good, though fairly standard. Marguerite's father makes books, but he's getting too old. The deadline for a new book is coming up, but he's broken his glasses, so Marguerite has to finish the book on her own. She walks around Paris shopping for the ingredients and then goes home to work on the book. The deadline comes and she's finished it and the book is very beautiful and everyone is happy and proud of her.

The book is quite educational: going through several Medieval trades (including tanner and herbalist) and explaining in fairly good detail what goes into making a book. There's an explanation of how each colour is made, how the actual painting is done, what the "paper" is made out of, etc. And then there's all the added information contained in the pictures themselves, such as what a Medieval street might have looked like, how people dressed (depending on class), and so forth.

If I had to pick something negative to say about the book, it would be Marguerite's treatment of the tanner. It only lasts a page, but she just comes off as being rather rude. I suppose it's historically accurate, but it just isn't very nice. Then again, that just opens up a nice time to talk to kids about treating everyone with respect, even if their job makes them very stinky.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Read: 28 November, 2008

Having been a huge fan of the movie version for years, my approach to the book was understandably loaded. I already had an image of what the characters would be like and how the plot would unfold. As I read, I kept referring back to the movie and comparing the two versions - sometimes favourably and sometimes not. Ultimately, however, I realized that the two are entirely different entities, having only some plot elements and names in common.

Overall, I found the characterizations of the movie to be more enjoyable, from a purely emotional stand-point. I don't think any film has ever captured the awkwardness of growing up quite so well as Adso's kitchen scene with the village girl! Sean Connery's William was the familiar figure of the innocent and slightly naive genius. And then there's Ron Pearlman's Salvatore - a character the book version can only be a poor foretelling of.

In the novel version, however, the characters didn't come through as much - perhaps because they were more realistic and didn't draw quite so much on stereotypes and archetypes. On an intellectual level, this worked just fine. On an emotional level, however, I just had too much trouble bonding with any of the characters for it to really work. That being said, I don't know how much of this is because of the movie version's taint.

The novel is long and slow (an intentional feature, if the appended essay is to be believed), but it is never tedious. The rythm is steady and only as slow as it needs to be. Whenever I would feel myself just starting to get bored, something would happen. Eco showed an incredible sense of pace in that sense - every scene is exactly as long as it needs to be.

All in all, it's a great novel. It is, however, very dense. I am glad that I waited until now to pick it up because I think that I would have been turned off by it had I tried any earlier. It's a wonderful novel to read for someone who has been studying Medieval history as a hobby for quite a while and wants a good illustration of the complexities of society/theology.

My recommendation would be to try reading it, but to put it down immediately if it seems to dense or boring. Try it again later. It would be a terrible shame to predispose yourself negatively to the experience simply because you tried to get into it too early.

Kwaidan by Lefcadio Hearn

Read: 27 October, 2008

This is a small, thin book with seventeen short stories (some barely more than a page or two, others a little longer) and three "insect studies." Most of the stories are old supernatural tales, but the author writes from his own experiences sometimes (one short story and two of the insect studies, if memory serves).

It's a short read and an interesting one. Far from an in-depth look at the Japanese supernatural, these are rather short vignettes that provide a beginner's taste. Overall, I found them interesting and thought-provoking.

The insect studies are very different. The Butterfly chapter does still discuss Japanese (and Chinese) mythology, but these are mostly put aside for the chapters on Ants and Mosquitoes. For this reason, these studies may be disappointing for readers who are interested solely in mythology and don't have a taste for idle musings. For my own part, I found them just as interesting as the stories of strange things found in most of the book.

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Read: 20 October, 2008

Ayaan Hirsi Ali's story is one of extraordinary courage. Growing up in a culture that is oppressive to women, Hirsi Ali first tries to find her sense of self in religion - trying to find the freedom she sought through Allah. The tipping point occurs when an arranged marriage sends her out of Africa and into Europe where, like a bird that has suddenly realized its cage door is wide open, she flies to Holland and seeks refugee status and, finally, comes to terms with the atheism that had been growing in her from her earliest days.

The novel is divided into two parts. The first part is devoted to her childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya. I say her "childhood" even though she remained her twenties because the culture as she describes it kept women as children, stiffling their intellectual growth. I think Hirsi Ali would be the first to agree with my use of the term. The second part of her biography opens with her arrival in Europe and subsequent cultivation of her Self.

These two parts are different in more than just content. The first shows a vulnerable girl, a child ruled over by her parents, culture, and religion. Though she does defy the authorities of her life at times, she is by and large kept as a victim. In the second part, we see her as an active participant in her life (despite the regression she suffers after the death of Theo van Gogh). Because of this, these two parts feel very differently. I found the first to be intensely powerful and emotional, frequently reducing me to tears and causing me to sleep quite poorly for a few nights! I think this is the first book that has affected me quite so deeply since childhood. The second part is far more intellectual, an exposé of the conclusions Hirsi Ali has drawn from her experiences. The reading was much slower from that point on, but no less satisfying.

Though I can't say that I agree with every idea Hirsi Ali espouses, she certainly manages to provide a convincing and rational case for them. My mind was certainly changed on a number of issues. This is a book that satisfies on a great many levels. Though I feel that many (of all faiths and from every end of the political spectrum) may be offended by Hirsi Ali's writings, Infidel is well worth reading. Hirsi Ali is unguarded as she speaks her mind and this is a rare quality. I recommend that everyone read it and digest it slowly. You may not agree with her conclusions, but you can only benefit from having read them.

Wild Animals in Captivity by Rob Laidlaw

Read: 17 September, 2008

I read this recently as part of my job and I must say that it was really quite interesting. It's a quick read with lots of good pictures (some cute, some heartbreaking) and I feel that I did learn quite a bit reading it.

Wild Animals is written with a young (tween to early teen) audience in mind. Unlike most reference book authors for that age bracket, Laidlaw never comes off as condescending and certainly never minimizes the role children have to play in animal welfare. Quite the opposite, he challenges young readers to examine zoos for themselves and determine whether they are animal-friendly or not. If not, he provides a list of steps even the youngest animal welfare advocate can take to fix the situation, which includes such "grown-up" things as writing to their local newspapers.

I think my favourite part of the book comes near the end where he juxtaposes good conditions with bad ones. Rather than just say that zoos are bad or complain about everything that can go wrong, he actually cites examples where zoos (or parks) have had the right idea and improved conditions.

Because the book avoids talking down to the reader, it is certainly appropriate for adults. I recommend it for anyone, of any age, with a budding interest in animal welfare issues.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Read: 2 October, 2008

Amazing. Just, amazing. It hurt to read Atonement because I didn't want anything to change or for the characters to be hurt. But at the same time, I had to read on and find out how it would end. I had a couple late nights because I just couldn't put the book down.

The major strength is the characterisation. Even background characters were given enough detail and depth that they feel like living people. By the end of the first chapter, I felt that I knew these people, that they were my neighbours or possibly even friends.

The other major strength was in the realism of the plot. Everything that happens is set up so that the reader knows that there is no possible way that a consequence can be avoided. Yet at the same time, I found myself hoping so much that something wouldn't happen that I would almost convince myself that it couldn't, making it not only surprising but also heartbreaking when the inevitable caught up to the characters.

If pressed to find a flaw, I would say that the exposition of the second, third, and fourth parts could have used some work. McEwan seems to want to plunge his readers into a story without a map or compass, making the first couple pages of each part a confusing and difficult read as I tried to figure out who the characters are, where they are, what's going on, etc. This is acceptable at the very start of a novel, but going through it four times was three times too many. It isn't terribly difficult to answer the whos, whats, and wheres in an interesting way and it would certainly help to ease the transition into each portion. As it stood, the start of Part Two had me put the book down until I had the courage to go through all the work of figuring out where the story was. By Part Three, I was more accustomed to McEwan's trick, so I stuck it through. By Part Four, it was still unpleasant, but I was so close to the end and I just had to find out what happened to everyone.

It's a fairly quick read, but not a superficial one. Be prepared to devote all your attention to Atonement until the final page is reached. I highly recommend it to anyone, regardless of their interests (though if you love psychology, writing, or history, especially World War II, that would be a bonus).

The Foretelling by Alice Hoffman

Read: 25 September, 2008

I bought this book on a whim. I had never heard of it or of the author, but Chapters was selling it for pennies, so I figured it was worth the risk.

I'm glad I took the chance. It's a great book. It breaks several of the cardinal rules of writing (telling instead of showing, for an obvious example), but it does it well. The story is interesting and fast-paced, making it a quick read. It would have had to have been hundreds of pages long had Hoffman tried to cover the same amount of ground by "showing," and I do believe that she made the right choice.

This is obviously a Young Adult novel, but it deals with several mature themes such as sex (both consensual and non-) and war. However, Hoffman treats these subjects as "facts," without dwelling on them graphically as some authors do. These are just part of Rain's world. This is not to mention the tough concepts of love, responsibility, compassion, being one's self, feminism/patriarchy, etc. that are brought up. They are handled in a way that would be acceptable for a young teen or tween to read, while also serving the purpose of opening discourse on such subjects.

This isn't to say that the book was perfect. There are times when I would have liked certain areas to be explored more deeply. The ending, for example, tells of several important and life-altering events taking place without, I felt, giving them due consideration. The book works, but I feel that it might have been improved a little by slowing down the narrative pace at certain moments and describing certain events in more detail. I also would have liked a context: as the novel is written in the first person, it would have been nice to know who Rain is telling her story to.

Still, these are very minor complaints to a book that, overall, was a very enjoyable rainy-afternoon read with an uplifting message.

Hygiène de l'Assassin by Amélie Nothomb

Read: 24 September, 2008

This is my second Nothomb book. My mother joined a French reading club a while back that read this and Stupeur et Tremblements. Once done, she sent me these two books to read. I read the first right away and then waited an eternity before getting to Hygiène.

It's a great book. I love Nothomb's writing style. She uses almost no narrative, the vast majority of the story revealed through dialogue. It reads almost like a play, except that the speakers are not named. Yet, because her characters stand out so strongly and so uniquely, I was never confused as to who was speaking. It's amazing, also, that so much drama comes through in a story with next to no action. It's like reading a battle narrative, on the edge of my seat, watching a sparring match in which one seems to be the winner, then the underdog turns the tables, then the initial winner gains an advantage, etc.

It's a strange book. The first half introduce us to Prétextat Tach, a dying author being interviewed by a series of journalists. The second half is entirely different as one journalist is able to work her way beyond all Tach's masks and reaches the dark past and insanity he hides. It's sad, hilarious, and completely ridiculous all at once.

I don't know if there are any English translations of this book. If there are, I highly recommend giving it a read.

I am at a complete loss as to how to label this book. I apologize for the absurdly poor choice I've made, but I see none better.

Justin de Quincy Mysteries #4: Prince of Darkness by Sharon Kay Penman

Read: 10 September, 2008

This is the fourth in Penman's Justin de Quincy mystery series, but the first of her novels that I've read. In some ways, it was a shame because it gave me the feeling of falling into the story mid-way. The novel is definitely readable without having read any of the previous books, but since a lot of the characters are reappearances, I fear that I might know too much should I ever decide to read the previous novels in the collection. For those terribly curious, I started with this book because I found it for $2 at a Chapters inventory liquidation sale.

The fact that the order in which fate had me pick up the series is the biggest complaint that I can make about Prince of Darkness is quite telling. It was a fantastic novel with great characters. It was definitely one of those "can't put it down" books - so much so that I missed my bus stop by about 20 minutes today while finishing it up. Justin is a delightful character - believable yet naive - making his relationship with his daughter heartbreaking.

The only weakness of the novel is how it deals with climactic scenes. There are a few parts where potential action is skipped over entirely and the final "catch the bad guy" scene felt somewhat limp compared to the build up it received. Certainly, Penman's strength is in character, exposition, and presenting a living and utterly plausible world. It was an added bonus I felt that I recognized some of the Gieses' books in her descriptions.

It was interesting the way Penman skips travel narration altogether. Justin will say that he wants to go to X location and the chapter ends. When the next chapter begins, he's in X already. I don't think I've ever seen travel handled quite so abruptly and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it yet. When the novel first opened, I found it confusing. I didn't know if this was a flashback, a different set of characters, if I'd missed something. A couple times, I found myself having to read nearly a full page before I could confidently situate myself in the narrative. After the first couple chapters, though, I became accustomed to it and it no longer confused me. Once this happened, I somewhat enjoyed not having to let go of the action every time an exposition scene would have been found.

The mystery wasn't as good as I would have hoped. There certainly was one, but there was no discernible method to the gathering of clues and the thinking out of the whoddunnits. It really didn't matter all that much. I found myself so interested in the characters that I forgot about the mystery entirely.

In any case, it was a great novel. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in Medieval historical novels, character driven novels, or political intrigue. Mystery lovers may be disappointed, however.

Better Baby Food by Daina Kalnins & Joanne Saab

Read: 5 September, 2008

Overall, I'd say that this book is fine if you are reading it among a whole bunch of books - in which case it may provide a few extra ideas or inspirations (though, even there, I found it to be lacking). If, on the other hand, you are thinking of reading this as your first book on baby nutrition, choose something else. It's written from a very biased perspective and has quite a bit of advice that simply does not reflect contemporary understandings. It also, surprisingly, seems to show an irrational distrust of medical advice.

Firstly, there's an entire section on breastfeeding that never mentions that some women cannot produce milk properly. It explains that women shouldn't worry about whether or not they are producing enough milk for their infants. Okay, fair enough. It's not something that one should be worried about. But nowhere does it say "if you are concerned, ask your doctor." It just flat out dismisses it as a non-issue.

The book also says that if your newborn is "not demanding to be fed at least every 4 hours, they should be awakened to feed." This is the kind of advice my mother's generation was given. If a child is getting enough nutrition, is growing at an appropriate pace, and is a healthy weight, why make him cranky by waking him up all the time? This advice is bad, not just because it isn't true and because it never takes the family's doctor into consideration, but also because it could make relationships between the parents and their newborn even more strained than they may already be. What if the newborn doesn't want to eat yet and resists, but the parents (panicking because of the "feed every four hours or your child will STARVE!" advice) keep trying to force him? He's already cranky and now he keeps getting nipples shoved in his face. Yeah, great advice.

Another example of this comes later with a blurb that explains that parents must start their infants on solids at 4 months or the baby won't accept textures later on. Never mind that an individual baby may not be ready for solids that early. Again, no mention that a mother should consult with her doctor about her individual child's needs before taking such a big dietary step.

That's the tone this book carries most of the way through. It rarely has the more sensible advice of "don't panic, trust yourself, trust your baby - but if it's concerning you, double check with your doctor." Instead, it just provides instructions as though a baby could actually come with a manual. Any book that doesn't allow for an individual infant's needs is not to be trusted.

There are also some strange additions, such as a note in a margin that reads "(Authors - Correct???)". I can only assume that this is from an editor. In either case, this is the sort of sloppiness a good book might get away with, but points a much larger issue in Better Baby Food.

And finally, the recipes leave a lot to be desired. Some looked interesting, but they were few and far between. For one thing, many of them contain eggs or sugar - both of which are fine in moderation, but probably shouldn't be consumed for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every single day. I also found pages and pages devoted to overly simplistic recipes. For example, the first four pages of the Lunches section talk about making purées - that's seven different recipes of "take [fruit/vegetable] and boil. When soft, mash into a purée. Serve." I can understand including one to go through the process (though even this would be borderline since it is just so incredibly simple), but to actually include seven such recipes, each with a different fruit or vegetable, is just ridiculous. Not to mention the almost identical apple sauce recipe in the Breakfast section. I got about half-way through the Lunch recipes when I gave up and put the book down. There just weren't enough interesting recipes to warrant reading through.

My closing thought on this book is that if you've read a lot about baby care and nutrition and feel that your knowledge base is already fairly solid, this book isn't an entirely wasteful way to spend an afternoon. That being said, don't buy it and don't follow any new advice that strikes you as odd without first consulting with your doctor. I would have expected much better from two registered dietitians.

Cadfael Chronicles Prequel: A Rare Benedictine by Ellis Peters

Read: 30 August, 2008

Overall, I didn't like it quite as much as A Morbid Taste for Bones. I think that Ellis Peters might just be one of those authors who is better suited for the longer narrative format. That being said, these stories were still great fun to read.

I love that Brother Cadfael doesn't always wrap up his cases by catching the perpetrator and turning him/her over to the authorities. Sometimes, he decides that the crime is legitimate and helps the criminal escape. Sometimes, he doesn't reveal who did it at all. In other words, he solves the mystery and makes things right, even if that means being on the wrong side of the power structure (and, sometimes, especially if it means going against the power structure). He's a great character and far more complex than the usual detective who just wants to restore order, whatever the moral situation.

I had expected stories that showed Cadfael before he joined the monastic order. Instead, only one story fits that, and I found that the Cadfael character didn't come through very clearly until the end of that story - once he had decided that he would join Shrewsbury Abbey. The rest of the short stories are like the novels, following an already established brother of the abbey. So we never get a good look at Cadfael in his previous life (in fact, I got more of a sense of that life by reading A Morbid Taste for Bones!) and we never get to see him learning about the abbey and trying to fit in. It's a whole area that would have been great to read, so it's a shame that it was skipped over.

Either way, these were great stories and I highly recommend them for any Brother Cadfael fan. I would also like to say that the illustrations in my copy are absolutely beautiful. They are drawn in the medieval style, but have something of the modern to them - it's hard to describe. But they did add a great deal to my enjoyment of the book.

Vampire Chronicles #3: The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice

Read: 26 August, 2008

In some ways, I'd say this was the worst of the three. In other ways, I think it was better than The Vampire Lestat. The story was more interesting, certainly, but the writing style was fragmented and annoying.

I think that Rice is much better at writing in the third person. That being said, the whole multiple narrators thing was infuriating. Every time I'd get really into one narrative, she'd rip me away and into a story I wasn't all that interested in. This was especially true near the end where novel kept bouncing back and forth between Lestat's experiences with Akasha and Marahet's legend of the twins. I desperately wanted to hear more about the twins and I would read those bits ravaneously. Then, I'd be thrust into Lestat's whining: "I love Akasha, she's evil, I love her, she's evil, I'm tempted by blood, I love her, she's evil, mmmm, she's so tasty!" Booooring.

This was made doubly frustrating because it was a good opportunity to explore whether or not Akasha was right. Lestat is never tempted by her plan. He is only tempted by her - even then, though, I never really got the feel that he loved her (beyond how tasty her blood was) until after she had died and he had to mourn. In fact, most of the arguments characters brought up against her plan were as irrational as the plan itself! "But but... it's so mean!" No one mentioned the simple fact that Akasha's world wouldn't work and that she herself was proof! As a female, while still human, she had ordered the torture of Mekare and Maharet. So why does she think that all other women would be all nice and friendly? As a vampire, she was commanding the mass slaughter of all men - proof in and of itself that women would be just as capable of genocide, if they had the chance, as men! But does anyone bring this up? Of course not.

Rice also seemed to experience with syntax in a really annoying way. "With leather straps they'd been bound [...] Naked to the waist they were." It breaks up the flow and is just a pain to read.

There were also inconsistencies between this book and The Vampire Lestat. For example, the final portion of Lestat describes the concert, which would have meant it was written after the book it was included in was published. If we assume this was added later, that would have meant that it had to be written right about the same time as The Queen of the Damned. Despite this, Lestat never mentions Jesse at the concert (instead, it has an anonymous biker jumping on stage). Considering how important this becomes, it should have been mentioned - if only as "and then a really nice looking red-head jumped on stage!"

And, finally, the names annoy me. Why would two women with names as Egyptian-sounding as Mekare and Maharet name their daughter something as Semitic-sounding as Miriam? Why would someone from Sumeria be named Akasha, which clearly has Indian roots? Why does Enkil's name not fit phonetically with Egyptian names? If names had been chosen a little more carefully, it would have made this whole series a great deal more readable.

I did enjoy it, though. I know I'm complaining a lot, but it was an okay read. I thought the climax was very well handled - or, at least, the resolution was worth trudging through all of the novel's flaws. I do think Jesse should have gotten a whole lot more page time, though. In fact, I would have liked to have had it all written just from her perspective and put as a "secret file from the Talamasca vault" or something like that. It would have made the multiple narratives more credible since she would have had her reason to collect data, while Lestat seems far too concerned with his own problems to have cared enough even to have bothered with the others.

The Encyclopedia of Witches & Witchcraft by Rosemary Ellen Guiley

Read: 17 August, 2008

Overall, I'd say that this book is fine if taken as fiction and read for pleasure. If you are interested in serious scholarship regarding the history of the occult, this book would really only serve to help you with modern/Wiccan perceptions of witchcraft. While it does touch on a number of older subjects, the articles are clearly written from a Wiccan perspective.

For example, "altar" is almost entirely defined in the context of goddess worship, never mind that plenty of patriarchal religions made use of altars in their devotion to male gods (Christianity being an obvious example). The book takes the theory that goddess worship was the norm before it was suddenly replaced by male-centred religion as a given.

Even the entries that don't display an obvious Wiccan/feminist perspective show dubious scholarship. For example, the entire entry for Patricia C. Crowther talks about her relationship with woman she had been in a previous life - Polly. Polly teaches her some spells. The book says that "Patricia had no knowledge of such spells, which experts determined were authentic." Well, that's just sloppy. Who were these experts? Were they experts of Elizabethan magical theory and could therefore say that the spells Crowther had learned did match up with what we know of what Elizabethan witches may have practised? Or were these experts in magic who could tell that the spells were true spells with real magical power? We are never told the type of expert and in what way the spells were deemed authentic, which would change the interpretation of the article a great deal.

And then there were some entries that I just have no way of explaining. For example, the entry on "Gypsies" explains that "their language, Romany, is related to Sanskrit," but it never says that the people themselves are not called "Gypsies." They are Romani. This is never mentioned in the entire entry - a very unusual little bit of bigotry for a book published in 1999.

This book isn't a waste in the sense that I did get quite a few story ideas from it. But if you are doing research for any purpose other than the writing of fiction, don't bother looking here. And, honestly, even if you are writing fiction, use it only as inspiration, not as an information source.

How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card

Read: 18 August, 2008

Overall, I'd say this book isn't terribly useful. It didn't present very much new information and I felt that I had read much of his advice before in a better form. In fact, the only part I was truly pleased with was his explanation of MICE. I also enjoyed the final chapter that brought down the all-too-common sense many amateur writers have that they can just sit around doing nothing and inspiration will come to them and make them great.

If you are considering writing for the first time (and, really, this book applies to any writing, not just Science Fiction and Fantasy) and have never before tried to learn anything about the craft, this book would probably make for a reasonably good starting point. If, on the other hand, you've been writing and reading about writing for a while, this book will largely be a waste of time.

That being said, it is a very short read (it took me about two hours to plough through) and something may resonate for you, so why not? Also, I really enjoyed the portion about MICE (found a little more than half way through the third chapter) and I would say the book is worth checking out from the library just for that part.

A Three Pipe Problem by Julian Symons

Read: 8 August, 2008

Nothing special. It's a fairly short read, so I suppose it's fine for a rainy day - that's assuming you can get through all the racism, sexism, and anti-modernism without bursting a blood vessel. Someone really needs to inform Mr. Sheridan Haynes (the main character) that the Victorian era was only wholesome and lovely if you were rich and male.

As far as the plot itself goes, there's not much to it. About 95% of the novel is an introduction to the character of Sheridan Haynes, a jerk who completely ignores his wife (she leaves him, but by the end she's realized that she loves him and comes back, finally learning to accept all the "quirks" that had made her leave), bullies and ridicules his colleagues, and thinks altogether too highly of himself. He's a bore to read about, especially since most of his lines consist either of "I hate cars! I wish the combustion engine had never been invented!" or "Sherlock Holmes is god. Anyone who doesn't worship The Master is a moron!"

There's no character development. Sher (as he is called) learns absolutely nothing. He loses his job because of the way he acts, but is immediately offered another. He loses his wife, but she comes back with no compromises. Everything is just handed to him and he learns nothing.

The mystery itself is almost in the background. There's an overview of the murders in the first few pages and then a description of how they had happened at the end. Everything in the middle is just repetitive character exposition. Quite frankly, the resolution wasn't entirely satisfying either. "I kill people because my dog got run over, then I will help an actor solve my own crimes for no reason whatsoever" just doesn't do it for me. Cassidy could have at least made an attempt to throw Sher in the wrong direction or, if he really felt all that guilty about what he'd done, he might have tried hinting at it. But no, he plays out like a perfectly ordinary innocent character right up until his confession.

The writing style is really the only redeeming quality of the book. It's simplistic, but it gets the job done and at no point was it confusing. It makes A Three Pipe Problem a very easy and quick read.

Overall, I'd say the whole novel was just a 192-page excuse to use the term "nig-nog."

His Dark Materials #1: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

Read: 3 August, 2008

Absolutely fantastic book! While I do think it would be fabulous for children to read (I don't think it would be appropriate for anyone younger than 10, though), it has more than enough content for adults as well. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I found it more complex and "intellectual" (quotes used because I hate that word) than most grown-up books I've read. And now for a lengthy list of some of the things I especially liked:

Lyra feels like a real kid. I've read many kids' books where we are told that the main character is a tomboy and so forth, but then the character never acts like that once the introduction of the story is over with. Lyra, on the other hand, wants to play and be a child throughout the story. She also thinks like a child. While most stories with children will pay some lip service to the idea of childhood, Lyra actually feels genuine. She is also afraid, she doubts herself, she moans and wishes that it could all be happening to someone else instead. She has real character flaws, not just insignificant details tacked on as an afterthought to make the main character seem like less of a super-human.

That level of characterization doesn't end with the main character. The other important characters were ambiguous. They had motives of their own that went far beyond "I'm, like, totally evil! MUAHAHA!" Right from the beginning, we think the master of Jordan College is evil because he's trying to poison Lord Asriel only to find out a few pages later that he was only doing so because he was trying to protect Lyra. This continues on throughout the story so that the characters feel real and can never really be pegged as either "good" or "evil."

Often, when I read children's novels, there will be bits that make me uncomfortable. A perfect example that comes from a grown-up novel is Lucky You by Carl Hiaason. The main characters are obviously supposed to be Good and they do their whole speech about how murder is wrong, then they leave the main Evil character to die on the island without any guilt whatsoever. Had an Evil character done something like that, it would be thought of as horrible - but because a Good character did it, it's no big deal. These sorts of things make me feel very uncomfortable when found in any novel, but most especially in a kid's book. I hate the thought of exposing my own hypothetical children to that sort of corrupt value system. The Golden Compass had no such moments. There were times when Lyra had to do things that, under ordinary circumstances, I would consider bad, but she always feels guilt about them. They are always acknowledged as being bad, though necessary. At no point did this novel offend my personal morality, and that's saying a whole lot.

I also liked all the positive lessons of the story - the triumph of Iorek among the bears tells kids that it's better to be yourself than to weaken yourself trying to be something else; Lyra is afraid, but she masters herself and perseveres anyway, showing kids that it's okay and legitimate to feel afraid, but that they, too, can master their fears. Lyra is also a very active protagonist. She initiates much of the plot in a way that is woefully rare for characters, female ones especially.

And finally, Pullman writes with a perfect balance of ideas and action, allowing me to enjoy my reading of the book immensely (I must say, I found myself holding my breath several times while reading) while also giving me plenty to think about once I put the book down. This is an all-over fantastic book that I can't possibly praise enough. I've now ordered the next two books in the series and here's hoping they come soon!

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Ships, Boats, Vessels and Other Water-Borne Craft by Graham Blackburn

Read: 3 August, 2008

This is a huge reference work that covers most time periods and geographical locations. The edition I read used a handwritten style that made it look like someone's notebook. I found this done in a tasteful and practical way (the writing was perfectly legible) and it added a certain amount of charm to the book.

There were many illustrations, all done in the same style as the handwriting. They were detailed, but still had that hand-drawn look to them. Again, I found it charming as well as useful. They were well labelled so that the areas they were supposed to show were quite clear.

Since the book is about types of ships, entries were quickly bogged down with nautical terms that sometimes made them a little confusing. There was a glossary at the back, but I found the entries to be somewhat short and didn't always answer my question. Really, this is the major flaw in the book - entries are short and don't provide a good level of detail. However, as a reference work, it functions well as an overview and jumping off point. Overall, well worth the time for anyone with a passing interest in ships, boats, etc.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Read: 26 July, 2008

Overall, I loved this book. Dawkins is a wonderful writer and I think I would have enjoyed his style regardless of the subject matter. The only major flaw that irked me was his habit of veering off into tangents, but even this was made bare-able by not only his writing style, but also by the fact that most of his tangents were just plain interesting. Dawkins makes his case even stronger, in my opinion, by fulling admitting to and even going out of his way to point out the limits of his own personal knowledge. At several times during the book, he will say that he suspects one thing but does not know for certain, showing an inquisitive and flexible mind, both humble and confident. It's a refreshing break from the average writer who seems all too sure of her/his omniscience.

With all that out of the way, I'd like to address a couple of issues with the book. The first is with Chapter Four or "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God." I found the whole chapter to be a disappointment. Dawkins takes the question of "if there isn't a god, how did everything fall into place so perfectly to produce us?" and tries to answer it with science. This points him in an awkward and unnecessarily defensive position because the question itself is not a legitimate one (something he never once says outright). It's like asking "how did my parents know to have sex at just the perfect time to conceive me?" It assumes that we are an end result, a goal that the universe has been working towards - rather than the more accurate assumption that the universe is merely ambling along in one of billions (to pick an unrealistically small number) of possible ways and we just happen to be a bi-product (one of many possibilities) that happened to emerge. There is nothing special about the production of us, whether as individuals or as a species.

Another quibble I had with the book is that Dawkins repeats multiple times that natural selection gets rid of negatives and keeps positives, which is just sloppy. What about the vast majority of mutations, which are just neutral? Or mutations that have both positive and negative expressions?I understand the need for brevity and keeping things simple, but this is a major point and something that a lot of Dawkins's opposition can't seem to grasp.

And the final detail that I took issue with is his statement that "[monogamy] is what we expect, and it is what we set out to achieve." Is it? Maybe he's right, I don't know. Maybe monogamy really is the default. But that's not what even the quickest glance around the diversity of human societies in the world today will tell me. Many societies involve one man and several women, some even involve one woman and several men. If monogamy truly is the natural default, why isn't this expression universal? Like I said, maybe he's right - but because his statement was counter-intuitive, the existence of polygamous societies should have been addressed.

With all that said, this was a fabulous book and I am very glad that I've read it. It ought to have stayed on topic a little better, but that's okay. There were no parts of the book that I felt weren't worth reading and that's more than I can say for most books.

100 Books Meme

Stolen from Lost Fort, just cause I love these sorts of things...

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own blog

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling (Just The Prisoner of Azkaban)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible (the New Testament, but only bits and pieces of the Old)
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles– Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (not *all* of them, but a fairly sizeable number)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
47 Far From the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón
57 A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary – Helen Fielding (no, but I've read the sequel!)
69 Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From a Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce (I started and then gave up. Dubliners ruled, but this was just kinda boring)
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – A.S. Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web – E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Vampire Chronicles #2: The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

Read: 14 July, 2008

Overall, I'd say that this was a good book. It wasn't fabulous, but it passed the time in an entertaining way. It didn't provide all that much food for thought. Despite the near-constant philosophical ramblings, I found that most of them contradicted with my own observations far too much to be thought-provoking (for example, one character explains that mortals will believe just about anything other than a supernatural explanation, preferring even the most ridiculous natural explanation - never mind all the talk about finding a good parking space being a "gift from god" or all the "real haunting" TV shows one sees on television). I do think that I liked it better than Interview With a Vampire, but that might just be because Interview was a bit of a disappointment after having seen and loved its movie.

The writing itself was fairly strong - not great, but better than average. There were some parts where present tense was used, despite the bulk of the novel being in the past tense. This wasn't done for any discernible purpose and it made those passages seem awkward.

I did take some issue with the narrative voice. For one thing, the start of the novel had a completely different tone to the rest. There's some half-hearted attempt to explain this, that Lestat is so old and has lived through so many linguistic eras that he switches between them from time to time. All well and good except that the voice of the first couple pages is never used again. All that explanation stuffed into the story when Rice could have just as easily re-written the first few pages to match the tone of the rest. Not to mention the fact that the voice of the first few pages was incredibly annoying, to the point that I considered not reading on.

My other major issue with the narrative voice is that it is very similar to the one used in Interview With a Vampire. There was no distinct personality showing through as I have seen in so many other novels. The Vampire Lestat was a novel best written in first person, and that was a good choice, but in terms of skill, Rice ought to have stuck to third person instead. This became even clearer during Armand and Marius' narratives. If I put the book down and picked it up again later, I could easily forget who was telling that part of the story. It's forgiveable in this case because of the plot - that Lestat is re-telling the stories he'd been told in the past. So it's conceivable that he is re-telling them in his own way. But this doesn't excuse the likeness of Louis's and Lestat's stories.

There was also a bit of sexism present, as in Interview With a Vampire. Female characters are given very little page time. In this book, there is the added discussion about how female vampires are unpredictable or mad. That being said, however, the narrators of Interview With a Vampire and The Vampire Lestat are both male and it is a character who makes the statement about female vampires. I am willing to accept that the sexism of these novels is from the characters and not the novel itself, especially since Claudia and Gabrielle both seem to be strong and independent (in mind, though Claudia, of course, is completely dependent in other ways) woman with clear and consistent goals. In many ways, I've found those two (with the possible addition of Eleni) to be more interesting than Louis, Lestat, Armand, or Marius. It's a shame they don't get their own stories (or maybe they do? If anyone reading this review knows of a Rice book where any of these three gets their own story, I'd love to know which one).

And my final complaint is with the names. I've never heard a French name like "Lestat." Just saying it, it doesn't sound French at all, even if the final T is pronounced (which would be a no-no in modern French). I don't know where Rice got it from, but I personally think it was a very poor choice. It killed my suspension of disbelief every time it came up because I would try to say it in French, as I do with Louis's name, and it just wouldn't work.

I loved the inconsistencies between Interview With a Vampire and the Vampire Lestat. I also liked that the explanations in the Vampire Lestat for questions that had been left unanswered fit well into a separate narrative of their own. This was something that had bothered be in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The subsequent novels attempted to explain away a lot of what had happened in the first, and this killed the jokes and made the subsequent novels feel like they were mostly there as additional material rather than stand-alone books. This was something Rice successfully avoided.

P.S.: What's the deal with Typhon? Why is the name Set never mentioned? If anyone knows, I'd love to hear it!

Cairo by G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker

Read: 10 July, 2008

This is the first actual full-length graphic novel I've ever read, so I don't have all that much to compare it to. That being said, I enjoyed it immensely. It's a short read. I went through it in about five hours while at work, so I had a whole lot of distractions.

I loved the way mythology was used in the story. The result was an urban fantasy injected with just enough realism to make it all seem possible. The use of Arabic in the story was also well done - just enough to give the story an exotic flavour while not enough to confuse a non-Arabic speaking reader.

The illustrations are beautiful, both realistic and stylized with just enough shadow to give it a gritty feel. There were a few chronological errors (in one part, for example, a character is wearing glasses, and then taking his glasses out of his pocket and putting them on), but these are few and truly unimportant in the face of the work as a whole.

The characters themselves were fairly two-dimensional (the wide-eyed blonde American who wants to change the world, the censored journalist, the Israeli special ops soldier, the American teen who wants to do a suicide bombing in the hopes that it would teach all the kids who teased him in High School a lesson, etc.), but I do understand that it's probably unavoidable in this sort of medium where the space available in which to tell the story is so limited. Even so, strong writing made these stock characters pop and made me hold my breath hoping that they would all come out all right.

In conclusion, I think this is a great book, perfect for anyone interested in world mythology or the middle east.

Vampire Chronicles #1: Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice

Read: 26 June, 2008

Overall, I did enjoy the book. I just found it disappointing in several ways. My first complaint is that the timeline was rather fuzzy. We are told at the beginning that the story starts in the 1790s. He then says that two hundred years pass before going to Paris, which really doesn't make all that much sense. I know that part of the whole point is that Louis survives by being so self-absorbed that he doesn't really notice the time flying by, but it would have been nice to have some indication of how much time has been passing. I would have liked a better sense of the change in eras rather than the "and everything was the same because my life sucks, boohoo" that we ended up getting.

The book was definitely a page-turner, but I felt vaguely disappointed whenever I did turn the page - especially in the first fifty or so pages. I think it's mostly because I enjoyed the movie so much and people have been telling me for years about how wonderful the book is. So I came to it with such high expectations that it couldn't possibly have lived up to them.

Louis's whining got on my nerves a bit. Most of the time, it was overshadowed by my interest in the plot so I didn't notice it. But there were passages that just went on and on about how terrible it is to be a vampire and how damned he is and how he doesn't know if God exists and so forth and it made me just want to smack him and tell him to get over it. I think that Lestat says it best at the end of the movie where he tells the interiewer that Louis always did whine a lot.

Speaking of the interviewer, I was very disappointed by that part of the book. Having an interviewer was a great opportunity for a dialogue between the reader (using the boy as a surrogate) and Louis - an opportunity that Rice misses. Instead, the boy is just an annoying disruption in the first portion of the story, completely non-existent for the second portion, and only came back at the very end for the punchline. It's as if the entire set up of an interview was just so that the boy could deliver the "final lesson" to the reader or something. Don't get me wrong, the punchline was good and I'm glad it was there, but it shouldn't have been the only reason for the boy's presence. There was wasted opportunity there and I can't help but feel let down.

Other than that, though, I did enjoy it. I liked the abusive boyfriend kind of angle to it. Claudia was a great character. All in all, I'd say that it's a great page-turner for a lazy afternoon, but not much more than that.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Read: 17 June, 2008

The edition I have has The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything, and So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish all bundled up into one book, so I just read that straight through and I'll be reviewing all four together.

Firstly, I loved Hitchhiker's. It was by far the best of the four. It was the most solid in the sense that I could just relax and go with the story without ever having to put the book down and think "okay, now how does that make sense?" I know it seems strange when reading Douglas Adams, but Hitchhiker's had good internal logic or verisimilitude, something the other three novels didn't quite achieve to the same degree. I also found this first novel to be the most densely packed with humour.

I found The Restaurant at the End of the Universe to be a little dull, honestly. There were good moments, but the whole bit that followed Zaphod as the main character just didn't work for me. I love Zaphod, he's a great character, but most of his appeal comes from how he appears to others. Taken alone, he lost much of his individuality because we saw him having to do non-Zaphody things out of necessity. This was made all the worse because I had an image of who Zaphod was that the real Zaphod, with the story seen from his perspective, couldn't live up to. I found him dull and tiresome.

Life, the Universe and Everything and So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish were better, but didn't have that "embarass myself by laughing out loud in public" quality that Hitchhiker's had. Taken separately from the first novel, I liked them quite a bit (loved the ending, by the way). I just didn't feel that they measured up to the first novel.

I think that most of what put me off the three novels after Hitchhiker's is that they spent a lot of their time trying to explain or expand upon the jokes made in the first novel. These were jokes that had worked beautifully on their own. It felt like, when at a party, you tell a joke and some guy comes along while everyone else is laughing and tries to explain the punchline. He might do it in a funny way, but it's still a little annoying. Don't get me wrong, I did like all four novels. My complaints are more about saying how wonderful Hitchhiker's was, rather than saying that the other three weren't.

Arthur Dent was by far my favourite character. He was just fabulous. I found Trillian well handled - she's not a major part of the story and she isn't described in any great detail, but what is said aboput her hints at a character with a lot of depth. Zaphod was great, but, as I said earlier, works best when seen through others as an extravagant character rather than as an actual human with his own mundane life. I felt that Ford Prefect was rather unmemorable. All the details the narrator tells us about him were interesting and funny, I just didn't find that he jumped off the pages when he spoke or acted in the same way that the other characters did. And why does everyone call him Ford when that's just the name he used while on earth? That bugged be a bit! Marvin was good. He was funny and, thankfully, wasn't around enough to get annoying.

All in all, a good read that I would highly recommend.

Quality Paperback Book Club

WARNING: Really long post ahead! It's essentially about why DoubleDay sucks and you should never EVER shop with them. Must-read if you love books and have ever considered ordering from a company that claims to offer cheaper books in exchange for a membership!

I'm a sucker for good deals on books. Dangle a marked down book in front of my face and you can get me to sign almost anything. Unfortunately, that's exactly what the Quality Paperback Book Club (QPB) counted on.

They have this deal going that if you agree to purchase at least 4 books at full price over the next two years, you get five books for $5. Sounds awesome, right? Well, that's what I thought. So I ordered those five books and I paid $5 (plus shipping and handling). They got here, everything was awesome, so I looked at some of the other book clubs owned by the same company. There's a Crafter's Choice Book Club that I signed up for. I ordered my five books from them as well (it counts as a separate account, in case you were wondering, so the sign up deal still applies).

Instead of the five books I ordered, however, Crafter's Choice sent me only two books and charged me full price for both. I wrote back to them explaining the situation and, while I waited, QPB sent me four books that I never ordered (apparently, I am supposed to call every month and tell them that I don't want to buy the "books of the month" - an awful feature that, to my understanding, has been cancelled). Since their boxes aren't marked and, since I was expecting some other packages, I opened the box. At the time, I didn't know how to return them (since I didn't want to pay for postage) with the box already opened. So I wrote them a letter explaining that situation as well and asking them what I should do.

Now, it all gets a little complicated from this point on, so I will deal with the Crafter's Choice issue first and then with QPB. They sent me a letter back saying that I could order my first five books using a card that they sent me. In the same letter, they sent me another copy of my bill that still charged me full price for the two books I had already ordered. It had taken them several months to reply, by the way. I wrote back that same day explaining that the issue is that I am being asked to pay full price for two books that I never agreed to pay full price on - they were overcharging me by about $30.

Again, it took them several months to respond. This time, they said that I could order just three books for $3 instead. In the same envelope was another copy of the bill that still charged me full price for the two books I received and had added a late fee onto it! That's right, I got charged with a $5 late fee because they failed to answer me in a timely manner. By this time, I had found out that if I just package something and mail it, I don't have to pay postage. They will just have to pay it on their end. So I found an old Chapters box, put the two books in with a letter explaining that, since they aren't willing to fix my issue, I am returning all books I've ordered and asking that they close the account. I also explained that I have a late fee only because the issue involved my billing (I was being overcharged) and it had taken them so long to address the issue (which they, in fact, never really did) that I was charged a late fee.

The next letter I got wasn't from them, but rather from their lawyers. It explained that if I didn't pay the $5 late fee, they would ruin my credit and pursue "serious legal action." I wrote them another letter explaining why I hadn't paid and never received a response. Instead, I just got a series of letters from the lawyer threatening me. Finally, I decided that $5 wasn't worth all the stress it was causing me, so I just paid (along with a very nasty letter, I readily admit).

Back to QPB - So I had written them a letter asking them how I should return the books since the box had already been opened. It took about three months for me to receive a response and it was one of those copy/paste jobs that essentially told me that I can return any books I am not satisfied and they hope this addresses my issue. Thanks. I decided that their snail-mail customer service department was obviously on vacation, so I found their e-mail address (which, by the way, is NOT easy to find) and wrote them an e-mail explaining the whole situation. I sent it on September 7, 2007 (yes, actual dates! All my e-mails are saved on Gmail, so I can actually look up precise dates for this part).

On Septemer 11, 2007, I received a response from a woman telling me, again, that I could return any books I wasn't satisfied with. This time, however, she also explained to me that those books had been sent to me as part of a "special membership feature" and told me that she had cancelled any future mailings of that sort for me. So I wrote back that same day and explained (again) the issue.

She did not respond to that e-mail until January 28, 2008. That's right, about four and a half months later. All she said was that she has no record of me every trying to contact by mail, and didn't even bother to answer the part about the issue I was having. So I sent back another e-mail (again, on the same day - hey, maybe I should go into customer service!) and asked (again) how to solve my issue. She never answered. So I sent another e-mail on February 27 explaining my issue again and asking why my e-mail had gone unanswered. Again, she never answered. That ought to put a little perspective on the quality of the company's customer service. Finally, I called and got through to a woman who told me that I could just repackage the books and mail them and I wouldn't have to pay shipping. PERFECT!

Unfortunately, all this had taken so long that I now owed them a $5 late fee as well (that would be for not paying for books that I hadn't ordered in the first place, I might add). I sent the books back the same day that she told me how and included a letter explaining that the only reason I hadn't paid for the books in a timely manner is that I was trying to deal with their customer service representative and that's just how long it took.

A few weeks later, I received a letter from QPB's lawyer (the same company that did the attack-dog work for Crafter's Choice) telling me that I had to pay the late fee immediately or serious legal action would be taken. Great. Bear in mind that I received NO RESPONSE regarding the letter I had sent explaining the situation. So I finally decided to call them. It took me a while to find the phone number (the company certainly doesn't advertise how to get in touch with them). I explained the whole situation to the phone representative and she seemed very sympathetic. She told me that she was very sorry that my experience had been so poor and that she would take care of my account immediately. She assured me that it would all be settled and that I wouldn't have to pay the late fee.

A few weeks later, I got another letter from their lawyer asking why I didn't pay and threatening legal action. So I called again. Granted, I was rather angry by this point, but I tried very hard to maintain my composure. I calmly explained that I had mailed them and received no response and that I had called and a phone representative had told me that my account was cleared. This representative told me that she had no records of any previous phone calls, letters, or e-mails from me (this was, by the way, something the e-mail lady had told me as well - that there was no records of any letters from me despite my frequent attempts to contact the company). When I asked her if the previous representative had lied to me when she told me that the late fee had been taken off, the representative hung up on me.

So I called again. I explained everything once more (omitting my question about lying) and, again, was told that there were no records of my every contacting the company. They didn't even have a record of the call I had made not five minutes previously! This representative was nice enough, apologized "if you have had poor experiences previously" (even if it was in one of those tones that just screamed "yeah, whatever, if you say so... liar"). She agreed with me that it was unfair that I should be charged a late fee and told me that she had cleared my account of that obligation.

Then I got another letter from the lawyer. Yes, that's right. I was lied to TWICE, right into my ear. I attempted to e-mail the same address I had used previously several more times, but they either went unanswered or I only got copy/paste responses back.

It was at about this point that a friend recommended that I report QPB to the Better Business Bureau (BBB). I did this. My compensation request was simply that my account be closed (without the obligation of fulfilling my contract) and that my late fee be waved. Time went on and I received several more threatening letters from QPB's lawyers. Finally, I gave in. I have perfect credit and it just wasn't worth jeopardizing that on the off chance that the BBB would actually be able to resolve anything. So I sent them a $5 cheque, informed them that I had contacted the BBB, and requested that my account be terminated immediately.

A few weeks later, I received a bill indicating that I needed to pay $43 to be able to cancel my account (since I hadn't ordered four books at full price). Well, I'll be damned if I'm to simply part with $43 without getting anything for it, so I went on the website and ordered the four cheapest books that I would like to own.

A few days after that, I finally received an e-mail from the customer service representative dealing with the BBB report. The letter goes on about how "contrary to the BBB report," QPB had received a membership request in my name (something that I never mentioned in the BBB statement I wrote since I know perfectly well that I'm the one who signed up) and that they still haven't received the introductory package that I had been advised to return. There's two major things wrong with that statement: 1) The introductory package was fine. My complaint had to do with the membership "books of the month" package. 2) The customer service representatives I had spoken to on the phone had claimed that they had no record of any attempts on my part to contact QPB, while this guy is just admitting that my e-mails are on file.

So anyways, he goes on about how QPB has made several attempts to assist me in resolving my problems but that I haven't followed instructions. He then finishes up his implications with the statement that "In fact, our records further show a 2nd account in your name that was also closed under similar circumstances" (referring to the Crafter's Choice account, obviously). So maybe I am too emotionally invested in this to think objectively, but that sounds a whole lot like he just accused me of trying to scam the company. Now, I realize that he probably has to put up a lot of this bravado to paint me as the bad guy since BBB is involved, but this is just incredible!

But let's look at the actual statement, shall we? What qualifies as "similar circumstances"? In the one case, I returned the initial package and asked that my account be completely closed as though I had never signed up in the first place. In the second case, I received the initial package, paid for it, and then ordered the books needed to complete the contract (which he mentioned in his e-mail). How are those similar? The only similarity I can find is that, in both cases, I was forced to pay a late fee because something had gone wrong and I couldn't get hold of them for so long. In both cases, I cancelled my accounts due to gross incompetence on the part of their customer service department. Is that the "similar circumstances" he's referring to? Should I interpret all of this as a coded admission of guilt? Or is it more likely that the "similar circumstances" refers to his stance that I tried to scam the company and was thwarted?

And finally, the end of his letter said that my account will be closed as soon as I pay the remaining balance of $49.56 (the final price of the four books I ordered. Well, I did get the books, but the bill charged me $54.55 instead. I would assume that this was because he credited the wrongfully-charged late fee to my account (after the books were sent? which wouldn't make sense because they were sent several days after I received his e-mail), but he certainly made no mention of it. It's like he knew he was wrong, but he couldn't admit any part of it - even just to tell me that I've received a refund! Either way, I paid the amount on the bill lest I get another letter in three month's time telling me that I didn't pay the full amount and will be charged another $5 late fee!

Just to close up this (lengthy) complaint, I would like to say that I have no idea whether DoubleDay (QPB and Crafter's Choice's parent company) is a deliberate scam or if they are just completely incompetent. The fact that they have made mistakes with almost every order I placed with them and that NONE of them have been resolved to my satisfaction in a timely manner despite repeated attempts on my part to contact that (not to mention a costly phone bill as they are located in Toronto) tells me that it could be either. Then again, I've looked them up on wikipedia and they seem to be an old and established company, so it could just be that they have a really terrible customer service department.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter. Whether a scam or just a hopelessly incompetent company, the end result is a lot of headache and a lot of money for the consumer (it does add up - $10 in late fees, another $10 in phone calls, at least $20 in postage, not to mention the extra $5 added to my final bill). If you ever see an advertisement for any of the DoubleDay book clubs, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you just forget about it and go to amazon, chapters, or whatever book provider you prefer instead. The deals may seem good, but they just aren't worth it in the long run.

EDIT: Right after writing this, I checked out the status of my BBB report. Apparently, they sent the first notice to DoubleDay on 15 May and received no response, so they had to send a second notice on 2 June before a reply was made. At least it's not just me they don't respond to!

EDIT 2: Well, I certainly wish that I'd checked this or this out before signing anything!

EDIT 3: So I got another letter from this guy. He's now claiming that he has communicated with me in a "timely manner" and gives me dates that directly contradict not only my own e-mail records, but also the Better Business Bureau's records. However, he did finally apologize. Here's the apology: "Nevertheless, though our versions of events differ substantially, we apologize for the problems you have had with your memberships."

Translation: "We don't believe a word you've said, but if we have to apologize - fine." Well, I e-mailed him copies of all the e-mails I received back in 2007 and early 2006 (which directly contradict his "version of events," I might add) and pointed out to him how insincere his apology was. I then informed him that it was an apology, such as it was, and that since this had been my terms when I contacted the BBB, I would close my complaint with them. I then informed him that I made this post and that I also posted on ripoffreport.com, and closed with the hope that my treatment has been a fluke and that they haven't put anyone else through this. So there you have it. I'm hopefully done with these cretins.