I cannot believe I actually finished this book. I thought I was going to die.
I think I kept reading just to see if anything actually ever happened. About ¾ of the way into the book, a young man kills himself. This happens across town and he never meets Mrs. Dalloway, but it later turns out that the psychiatrist he had been seeing comes to Mrs. Dalloway’s party, so I guess that’s the connection.
I’m a little conflicted as to how I feel about this book. Although the story and the characters are memorable enough, in that I can still recall them a month after finishing the book, I found that neither really engaged me fully. I never really felt the emotional attachment to this book that I had expected, based on what other readers had told me they had experienced.
Minette Walters is one of my favourite writers of psychological thrillers, in my eyes ranking right up there with the other great dames of the genre – Ruth Rendell and PD James. One of her strengths is the ability to tap into the zeitgeist, while simultaneously retaining a timelessness to her writing. The Chameleon’s Shadow is set against the backdrop of the Iraq war, from which Lieutenant Charles Acland has just returned, horribly injured with a disabling head injury that has left him both facially disfigured and subject to episodes of rage, particularly against women. He has been transformed from an outgoing and personable man to an increasingly paranoid and aggressive force.
But is he also a murderer? After a confrontation with a patron in a bar, whom he comes near to killing, he becomes a suspect in a series of brutal murders which have been deemed “the gay murders”. When his ex-fiancé, a woman with an unhealthy self-obsession and an inability to accept that their relationship is over, brings allegations of brutal sexual assault against him, and when he begins to disappear for days at a time, only to reappear at the most inopportune moments, it seems more and more likely that he is living a double existence.
My most recent book is Deep Storm by Lincoln Child, one half of the very popular Preston and Child writing duo. Don't know who they are? Hmm, perhaps they're not that popular after all... The pair are responsible for Relic, Mimic (both of which have been made into forgettable movies) and a host of other novels, some of which were incredibly horrible. However, they occasionally score a winner such as they did with Riptide which I reviewed on my personal book blog earlier this year. Rather than bore you with my poor attempt at summarizing the plot, here is the write up from the back of the paperback version:
I had a devil of a time getting a copy of Kristen Britain's Green Rider. For some reason, the mass market paperback appeared to be out of print on Amazon, and I've looked for it in various second-hand bookstores over the last few years to no avail. Eventually, a trade paperback version was published this fall, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the original release. I snapped it up as soon as it became available.
Blog buddy Jess Wundrun let me borrow this book and it's a very good read. It goes in depth into the wasteful ways coal is mined in this country and it also gives some of the history of mining. Overall it's very good but towards the end Mr. Goodell gets a too technical for me and I skimmed it. I do recommend this book though, especially to anyone who wants to pursue solar or other types of ways to power their home or business.
I saw this on Captain Karen's blog side bar and it looked interesting so I checked it out of my local library. I've read books about maritime stuff from this time period and they were always very good and this book was no exception. As a historian and writer Mr. Bown does himself proud with this fine history of how scurvy was beaten. It's a sometimes harrowing book, especially when you find out that hundreds of thousands died needlessly because the British government at that time did not want to spend the money needed to procure citrus fruit for it's ships. During the two weeks it took me to finish this book my vitamin C intake increased dramatically. I highly recommend this book.
Thunderbolt Kid is a funny fast read. Bryson was born about ten years before me so what was new and novel to him was old hat to me, i.e. TV, processed foods, other modern amenities. But despite that there was enough shared experience in his book to hook me. I may not have grown up in Iowa where he did but I went through a lot of what he writes about and I recognized places I lived when I was his age in this book. It's a very funny entertaining read. 
The main things I learned form this book is that Mario Batali is a huge douchebag and that the author is a glutton for punishment. This one did not live up to it's hype at all and I say give it a pass if you are tempted to read it. 
I was blown away by this graphic novel that was recommended to me by my buddy at the library, and not to brag or anything but my buddy is the big cheese at our local library, and by big cheese I mean he's the library director. So when a graphic novel lovin' dude like him recommends something to me, I jumped all over it. This graphic novel is a bout what happened to all those fairy tale characters you read about as a little kid. In this imaginative tale they've all been run out of their former kingdoms and dwellings and they've taken up residence in NYC. I'm not going to delve too much into the plot because to do so would spoil it for you but trust me when I say it's a good read. What I liked most about it is how the writer and artists brought the stale old fairy tale characters to not only life, but to a new and decidedly unfairy tale like life. There's more in this series and I may just have to look them up someday soon. I highly recommend this fine piece of literature.
