Monday, March 29, 2010

Books to be reviewed

I haven't completed a book review since sometime in November. While my reading did dramatically decrease with my return to full time employment, I have been reading some. Thus I have a long list of books to write about, most of which I have something to say about. Since I am probably never going to sit down and fully discuss each of them, I'll let you, my blog readers, partially decide which I write about. If you are interested in my thoughts on one of these books, please so note in the comments.

Joan Fry How to Cook A Tapir; A Memoir of Belize Whiny blond American discovering herself and that her new husband is a twit while in Belize, allegedly with recipes despite the fact that she doesn't cook. Thanks BiL.

A. J. Jacobs The Year of Living Biblically Great. See raych's review. New York Jew seeks spirituality by following rules in the Bible. Far more thoughtful, respectful and sincerely funny than the premise would suggest.

Wilkie Collins The Moonstone Also great, also see raych's review. A very Victorian detective story.

Diana Gabaldon Outlander Amazing that I had never read it before considering that the series contains well written time travelling adventures with a strong modern woman thrust into clan battles and lots of hot sex in the Highlands of Scotland. Gabaldon is a PhD ecologist too!

Dodie Smith I Capture the Castle Part of my discussion of Jane Austen's influence. A book that made me sad that "gay" is no longer usable for light-hearted and joyful. Thanks SiL.

Elusive Swan Smutty with pirates and good guys pretending to be pirates and a plot twist that kept me reading when the sex was fairly boring. Thanks, Irene.

Karen Joy Fowler The Jane Austen Book Club Lots of fun, but the best part was the fantasy reader beating the Jane Austen snobs at their own game. Obviously someday to be part of the Jane Austen discussion.

Ann Vileisis Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get It Back Actually, I'm still mired in the losing knowledge part. A well-documented historical account. Thanks Mister.

The Nature of Plants I'm using this as the text for my Plant Anatomy and Morphology class. I'm of mixed opinion about using a beautiful (and relatively inexpensive) coffee table book from a natural history specialist publisher as a text book.

Sandra Hill A Tale of Two Vikings Viking Twins! By the author of The Last Viking. No time travel buy just as deliberately cheesey. Thanks, Irene.

Michael Pollan Food Rules A much abbreviated (and thus very funny) version of In Defense of Food.

Let me know what you want to learn more about.

6 comments:

janet said...

I'm voting for Food Rules and the coffee table book....the Nature of Plants. But those may not be fun to review. I think I might want to hear MORE about the Joan Fry book...merely because your "tease" was so great! :)Well...I also really enjoyed your tease for the Swan one.

Sparkling Squirrel said...

Thanks Janet. There's nothing more to say about Elusive Swan-- it's a historical romance with pirates that aren't pirates and fairly uninteresting sex, but a plot twist (the leads are actually married to each other but don't know it while they are pretending to be pirates) that leads to a more interesting resolution.

I thought of you lots while reading How to Cook a Tapir, and might even send it to you, although their are issues.

Marieke said...

I also wanted to hear more (possibly scathing sarcasm?) about How to Cook a Tapir. Amazing you missed Outlander thus far. Will you be going on to the next ones?

Beth said...

The outlander sounds like a great series to motivate me to get work done. I'm much more in the mood for fluff than real reading at the moment :-)

salsis said...

I like your short synopses. What's that book about DNA you had at my house? I knew I'd remember the name but alas I don't.

Irene said...

I think we already talked about Outlander, which I should read. But I'd still like to hear more about it. Also I'd like to hear more about Food Rules and the Nature of Plants.