Book Reviews – Page 79

Love, love, love

tequiero

For some reason, a bunch of books I’ve read recently has been about love. So in an attempt to hack off a chunk of the reading backlog, this post will tackle four books that revolve around this theme, namely: Aspects of Love by David Garnett; Oliver’s Story by Erich Segal; Forever by Judy Blume; and Shakespeare in Love: The Love Poetry of William Shakespeare (books # 91-94 of 2009).

Aspects of Love is the novella on which the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical of the same title is based. I’ve never seen the musical, but I remember reading about it when it was staged by a local production here in the Philippines, so I was curious about the book.

Aspects of Love deals with different forms of love, involving the web of relationships that involve the sultry actress Rose Vibert; her young admirer Alexis Dillingham; his uncle, the wealthy gentleman George Dillingham; George’s mistress, the fiery artist Giuletta Trappani; and Rose and George’s daughter, Jenny.

It was a quick read for me, but I wasn’t fully invested in it because I felt that it was merely narrating a story and didn’t really break the surface of what the characters were supposedly feeling. It was hard to empathize with the characters because the brevity of the novella (which spans 17 years) didn’t really give you much to work with, and it really reads as if it were meant for another medium, such as the stage, or even film.

I imagine it works better as a musical, as the characters can break out into song and act out their feelings. My officemates seem to love it though, as the book is currently making the rounds at work.

The next two books are two I’ve wanted to read for some time now, both mooched from Tina.

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Falling in love again

cover image from Carlos Ruiz Zafon's site — cover image from http://www.carlosruizzafon.co.uk/

Reading a good novel is like falling in love. There is that first contact, where you sample the first few pages with some reserve, testing the waters to see if the book has potential. You get drawn in and you savor the book with reckless abandon, pouring your heart out in the experience, wanting it to never end.

It does end, inevitably. But unlike most love affairs,whether the novel offers a happy ending or not, your heart doesn’t get broken, and you get to bask in the afterglow of having read a damn good book.

That is exactly how I felt when I read Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind (let’s call it SOTW for short) last year, which I count as one of the best novels I have ever read. Thus when I heard Zafon was releasing The Angel’s Game (Book #90 of 2009), I was a bit apprehensive as I wondered how it would live up to SOTW.

Of course, that didn’t stop me from calling Fully Booked and reserving a copy (as if people were shipping out to the nearest book stores and buying it in panic) as soon as I got the alert that it was in stock already (June 4th). And that didn’t stop me from braving the rain to get my hands on the book that very same day.

Tonight I finally finished the book, and I am bumping it up the review list (ugh, major backlog) because I know a lot of people are waiting to hear about the book, especially my American readers who will get their copies on the 16th (they’re selling the UK edition here, but I heard Zafon is touring the US – 10 bookmooch points for a signed tpb or hardcover of SOTW? *groveling* and you can send it to my aunt in California, too!)

And because I know these people will read the book too, I promise to keep it spoiler free. Review after the cut.

You can read the first chapter at the Orion website.

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Peter Rabbit and company (Picture Book Roundup #6)

I haven’t done a picture book roundup in nearly a month, so here’s one on my Beatrix Potter books (books 86-88 for 2009), because I recently found a great Peter Rabbit gift set at Book Sale

I didn’t really grow up on Beatrix Potter; I was familiar with her books (well, who wouldn’t be, they’re the best selling picture books of all time!) but I didn’t really pay attention to them until later on, I think when I was in high school, when my sister got The Tailor of Gloucester as a Christmas present and it became my favorite Beatrix Potter story.

The Tailor of Gloucester is similar to The Elves and the Shoemaker story, but in Beatrix Potter style, it involves a cat named Simpkin and a band of mice. The tailor needs to sew a coat for the Mayor of Gloucester, and has all the pieces cut out and laid out at his shop, but he is lacking one skein of cherry-colored silk.

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The Three Investigators

Three Investigators endpapers, photo from www.empireonline.com

I just finished reading a 3-in-1 Three Investigators book containing The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints, The Mystery of the Coughing Dragon and The Mystery of the Singing Serpent (books 86-88 of 2009)

Before I even started reading Nancy Drew, I was hooked on the The Three Investigators series, because it was my older sister’s (Tattie’s) favorite series when she was in grade school and she always talked about it.

As soon as I had access to the bigger library (4th grade), I found a whole shelf of the books and I didn’t even have any competition – nobody was checking them out! Nobody my age had even heard about them – the last borrowers were a good five years or so back – and so I was able to read them in order.

I was hooked, and I ended up checking out two or three of them at a time (three was the maximum number we could check out at one time at the library, and I was one of the few girls who were pushing the limit and filling up back to back blue borrower’s cards).

In fact, I ended up reading so many them that my mom had to curtail my reading time to half an hour a night (depending on her mood) and only after I did my homework (and then eventually I was limited to reading ONLY during the weekends; I had a reading ban on weeknights while the rest of my siblings got TV ban and I couldn’t have cared less about the TV). This is, I think, the reason I learned to read fast (and read on a moving vehicle on the way to and from school), to maximize reading time.

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Frenching it up

Setting is one of the important factors that draw me to reading a book, especially when I’m trying out an author for the first time. I find that there are certain settings that appeal to me more than others, and sometimes, the setting alone influences my decision to purchase a book that I’ve never even heard of.

I’m particular about setting because by nature, I’m an escapist reader – I like getting lost in the imagery of the words, transported to the very heart of the story, forgetting for the moment the never-ending to do lists, looming deadlines, and the general chaos of daily life. The setting just makes everything so much more real for the imagination, bringing the plot and characters to life.

: the escapist reader

I like the centers of art: Florence (as in Sarah Dunant’s Birth of Venus, Diane Haeger’s The Ruby Ring) and Delft (Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring); the musical city of Vienna (Eva Ibbotson’s A Song for Summer and Star of Kazan); Spain, rife with mystery (Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind and Arturo Perez-Reverte’s The Club Dumas and The Fencing Master); the English countryside, sometimes romantic, other times forbidding (Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, Eva Ibbotson’s The Morning Gift, Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale); the vibrant Venice (Sarah Dunant’s In the Company of the Courtesan, Zizou Corder’s Lionboy, Donna Jo Napoli’s Daughter of Venice); and the exotic Morrocco (Barbara Hodgson’s The Tattooed Map, Zizou Corder’s Lionboy) or Greece (Eugene Trivizas’ The Last Black Cat).

The Italian countryside can be quite charming (Under the Tuscan Sun, Every Boy’s Got One), but for a rustic gastronomic adventure, books set in the French countryside always hit the spot for me, providing a heady experience of sights, sounds, tastes, and textures, as in Peter Mayle’s Chasing Cezanne and A Year in Provence; or Joanne Harris’ Chocolat.

Today’s books are non-fiction, but also set against the backdrop of pastoral France: Champagne: The Spirit of Celebration by Sara Slavin and Karl Petzke; and Sara Midda’s South of France: A Sketchbook (books #84-85 of 2009), both rummaged at Book Sale for P20 ($0.40) and P40 ($0.80) each, respectively (squee!).
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