book reports

[mamajoan]

I finished reading The Da Vinci Code and, as many of you predicted, I hated the rest of it just as much as I hated the first 75 pages or so. I could go on and on at great length about how much this book sucked, but I'll sum it up thusly: The author is a terrible writer and the plot was full of holes. I do think there's merit to educating the general mainstream public about the history of the Catholic Church, particularly its offenses against the goddess-worshipping religions that it subsumed, and there was a mildly interesting story buried in there somewhere, but at base it was just bad. And it's not nearly as ground-breakingly feminist as the author apparently thinks it is.

Ahem. Like I said, I could go on at length, but I won't. Really. Well, not now, anyway. ;)

So then I read Kill Two Birds And Get Stoned by Kinky Friedman, which was another disappointment. I usually love the Kinkster's stuff, albeit in a politically-incorrect guilty pleasure sort of way, but this one was just pointless and unpleasant. Alas.

And now, to take those two bad tastes out of my literary mouth, I'm reading Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde, which is the sequel to his The Eyre Affair, which I read last year and really enjoyed. If you liked Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog (which I LOVE), you'll like Fforde's stuff, and vice versa.

Comments

[lasayla.livejournal.com]

I love Jasper Fforde! I bought 'The Eyre Affair' in a charity shop last year. I was in a hurry for something to read on the train, so I picked it out solely based on the title. Once I was on the train, I read the description on the back and started to regret my choice. (I think my exact thoughts based on the description of Thursday were "Ugh! The Mariest Sue that ever sued!") Fortunately I was stuck on the train until past Banbury and decided that a bad book was better than no book. I promptly got so sucked into his bizarro AU Britain that I nearly missed my stop.

I hadn't heard of Connie Willis till now, but I just looked her up on Amazon and think I'll be buying her book as well.


Also, we still need to meet up! I know this probably isn't the best time, with a sick baby and financial annoyances. Let me know when you're up for getting dinner though. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays would be best for me and 00smut. Those are the days we she finishes work early.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

OMG! Never heard of Connie Willis?! Get thee to a bookstore! She RULES!!!! And she is ever so nice in person. If you come to Worldcon this year (hint, hint) you could meet her.

Re us meeting -- that reminds me that I wanted to invite you and 00smut to my housewarming party. This Saturday from 2pm till the cows come home. Sorry for the short notice! Alternatively, I do work from home Thursdays so maybe we can get together sometime. How about Thursday next? LOL!! :)

[lasayla.livejournal.com]

00smut finishes work at five on Saturdays, but if you're up for stragglers, we'd love to come. This is the addy, right?

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's the addy. And I feel fairly confident that we'll still be going at 5. My co-homeowner said he expects the thing to go well into the evening. If it's raining, though, we'll try Sunday instead.

[azurelunatic]

You very much need Willis. To Say Nothing of the Dog resembles the Crackfic, gone Victorian, with a salting of cyberpunk, in a way.

Having read Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat is useful, but may be delayed until after laughing oneself sick on To Say Nothing of the Dog.

[lasayla.livejournal.com]

No problem there. Three Men was a childhood favourite of mine. I can still quote quite a lot of it verbatim.

And we've acually written more crackfic! It needs editing, but there's a whole new chapter and a half.

[azurelunatic]

Ooo, crackfic.

[ladyvyola.livejournal.com]

Thursday, dear Thursday, how I love thee! I'm with you -- the write-ups on the books do her no favor. She's compared to Bridget Jones, of all things!

The Well of Lost Plots is absolutely fantastic. The Three Witches^TM are business competitors of The Judgment of Solomon^TM! And Something Rotten comes out a just a couple of weeks. I'm impressed at how Fforde manages to stay on the good side of "I wish I'd thought of that!" without slipping over into precious and twee.

[lasayla.livejournal.com]

Yay, for new releases. Although George R. R. Martin's publishers have messed me about so much over the past year, that I no longer believe in forthcoming books until they are actually in my hands.

If you need another good book...

[lightningrose.livejournal.com]

I just finished "Dogs of Babel" and it was excellent. But then, I didn't find the Da Vinci Code as offensive as you did, so who knows if a recommenation be my holds any weight... I do have a soft spot for anyone putting that much of a twist in the tail of the Catholic hierarchy. I'm still spitting and hissing over the fact that they think Catholic politicians who support a woman's right to choose should not recieve communion -- but priests accused of being pedophiles can still _GIVE_ communion. *seethes*

Re: If you need another good book...

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say I found Da Vinci Code offensive. I just thought it was *bad*, in the "mechanics" sense -- bad writing, bad plotting, bad characterization.

Re: If you need another good book...

[lightningrose.livejournal.com]

I meant offending your artistic sensibilities, actually. I think the "bad writing" idea falls under that. I didn't get tripped up by the style, but I''m willing to put up with a lot -- only Ann Rice (and it was Exit to Eden, which was hah-rible) and Danielle Steel have ever managed to turn me off so horribly with their writing style that I couldn't finish them.

[azurelunatic]

So I read the thing and went to the writing group's sister club the book club, and my reaction was, "Meh, not a bad yarn," while the rest of the group was getting all worked up with enthusiasm about how great it was.

I've really got to read Fforde, then, as I loved To Say Nothing of the Dog enough to make Willis one of my buy-on-sight authors.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Yep, I went on a Connie-Willis-buying spree :) and now I think I own everything she ever wrote. I still feel that To Say Nothing of the Dog is her best work, but the others are well worth reading too, particularly her collection of Christmas-themed short stories, the title of which I'm too lazy to go look up at the moment.

Phew

[jrosehale.livejournal.com]

I've been waiting for you to finish before I said anything. I was invited to join a book group, and this was the first book I read for that group. I found it just painful to read--mainly because it was so poorly written. If I want a million pages of factual exposition with a couple of sentences of dialogue thrown in, I'm better off sticking with Michael Crichton.

My friend Alan and I still act out the "'It's phi!' 'No way!'" exchange b/t the professor and the students. So ... very ... cheesy.

I was especially miffed because, after slogging through the book, I went to the club meeting, and we basically talked about the book for 10 minutes (and everyone else loved it!), and then went on to other things. It just wasn't worth it.