Susan Hated Literature she'd much prefer to read a good book

Books

The chalk circle man by

Author: Fred Vargas ; trans from the french by Sian Reynolds
An Adamsberg novel

Chief Inspector Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg has recently been transferred to Paris. His police methods aren’t exactly standard procedure and his inspectors have a lot to get used to. But they can have no doubt that he is a born policeman, and while even he is unable to explain how he arrives at his conclusions he is usually correct. In this case he thinks that there is something strange about the blue chalk circles that have been appearing in the Parisian streets. He is convinced that there is something sinister about them.

15 May 2010
Books

Burn me deadly by

Author Alex Bledsoe
An Eddie LaCrosse novel #2

This book takes place around a year, maybe more I can’t recall, after the first one, The sword-edged blonde and since then Eddie and Liz have become a couple. Apart from that nothing much has changed for Eddie. He is still a sword-jockey for hire, and returning one night from a job he almost runs over a blonde woman who is about to mess up his life.

14 May 2010
Moving Pictures / Reviews

Robin Hood dir. by

Directed by Ridley Scott ; Screenplay by Brian Helgeland
You all know the legend of Robin Hood, he stole from the rich and gave to the poor, living in Sherwood Forest with his band of merry men, his main nemesis being the evil Sheriff of Nottingham. And there have been many version of Robin over the years. My personal favourite still remains the tv show from the 80s Robin of Sherwood. It managed to get the balance between myth and reality just about right, in my opinion, of course. But even Kevin Costner’s version was damn fine fun. This is not.

14 May 2010
Books

The sword-edged blonde by

Author: Alex Bledsoe
An Eddie LaCrosse novel #1
Eddie LaCrosse is a sword jockey, or private detectives in this fantasy world. He is also a man with a past. And that past is coming back to haunt him. I really loved parts of this book

14 May 2010
Books

The good man Jesus and the scoundrel Christ by

by Philip Pullman

The back of the edition of this that I read has only the words: This is a story. Interesting. Is that because the publisher’s don’t want to offend the ultra religious in the Christian world. Or is it a message from the author that the life of Jesus is a story. That the bible is a story.

Pullman, of course, is known for his ever so slightly controversial views on religion, he has used them in his fiction before. In that case it involved a worn-out god, and power-hungry angels. Here he revisits the myth:”(is a myth a religion we dont believe in?)”: of Jesus Christ and weaves a new story out of it.

7 May 2010
Books

Black Hills by

Author: Dan Simmons

I’d never read any of Dan Simmons work before picking this one up. I’d heard good things about Drood but that’s about it. So picking this up was a total impulse decision. I hadn’t heard anything about the book, and I don’t really trust blurbs.

In the opening sentence we meet our main protagonist, Paha Sapa, a young Lakota boy who has raced into the middle of the Battle of Little Big Horn in order to go counting coup, there he touches the dying George Custer, the infamous Long Hair, and from then on shares his mind with Custer’s ghost. The book shifts in time, usually within Paha Sapa’s life, but occasionally we get to hear from Custer. He usually talks about his wife, Libby, and the sex they had. To be totally honest this was the one bit I wasn’t that interested in. Okay, so he and his wife have a great sex life, and so…
The rest of the book though, well, it is one I recommend you take a look at.

6 May 2010
Weekly memes

Teaser Tuesday, again

Teaser Tuesday, from Should be reading

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
4 May 2010