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Wednesday Reading Meme
Apr. 30th, 2014 09:17 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
More Benjamin January mysteries. I’m not sure why I find these books so enthralling, because as mysteries go I don’t think they’re very well constructed: I have trouble keeping track of who all the suspects are, let alone their supposed motives. But I really enjoy the denseness of Hambly’s 1830s New Orleans setting - it’s not just that the physical descriptions and social intricacies are vividly described, although they are, but that over the course of the books she’s really succeeded in building the closed, somewhat claustrophobic world of the New Orleans demimonde and the little clique of upper-class French Creole planters who support them.
The one world-building flaw, IMO, is that January is, supposedly, chronically short on money - except he always has all the money he needs for his investigations, even though it's not like he's being reimbursed or sometimes even paid. This is probably a good decision from a plotting perspective (who wants to read about the long pauses in an investigation as the poverty-stricken detective tries to drum up enough cash to continue?), but it reminds me that there's a reason (aside from sheer class bias) that amateur detectives are generally affluent. Who else has the time or the money?
I was thinking about this because I also just read Suzanne Supplee's Somebody Everybody Listens To, about small-town high school graduate Retta Lee Jones, who goes to Nashville to make it big in country music, and she really does have money problems - to the extent that she ends up sleeping in her car for a few weeks.
I rarely feel that a book ought to be longer than it is, but I really did feel that this book wanted to be about twice as long as it is, or possibly the first in the series. It cuts off just when Retta sets up a meeting that might be her big break, and while I can see why Supplee made that decision - it gives the book a happy ending without catapulting Retta to superstardom with perhaps unrealistic speed - well, I wanted to follow Retta's career a bit longer. I wanted to get to know Retta's friend Brenda better, and learn if Brenda decides to try to medical school; and to see if Retta ends up rooming with her new buddy Em, and how that works out...
In short I wanted more of everything. Sadly there isn't a sequel, but I'll probably read Supplee's other book, Artichoke Heart.
I've also finished Gloria Whelan's Listening for Lions, which I picked up on a whim and quite enjoyed. Young Rachel Sheridan grew up on her parents' mission hospital in Africa. But when her parents die of the Spanish influenza, Rachel's grasping neighbors bully her into impersonating their daughter - also dead of influenza - on a trip to England, to convince an elderly relative to write them back into the will...
The plot summary makes it sound like a rather different book than it is. The impersonation only takes up the middle third of the book or so. The first third is a description of Rachel's life in Africa, and the final third about Rachel becoming a doctor so she can return to Africa and reopen the hospital. The setting description in both Africa and England are wonderful: lots of loving descriptions of nature and animals and especially birds.
What I'm Reading Now
I've just started Dorothy Sayers' Whose Body?. Not far enough in to have any sort of opinion about it yet, but yay, at last I'm reading Sayers!
What I Plan to Read Next
Arika Oakrent's In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language. Doesn't that sound delightful and fascinating? I hope it lives up to its subtitle.
More Benjamin January mysteries. I’m not sure why I find these books so enthralling, because as mysteries go I don’t think they’re very well constructed: I have trouble keeping track of who all the suspects are, let alone their supposed motives. But I really enjoy the denseness of Hambly’s 1830s New Orleans setting - it’s not just that the physical descriptions and social intricacies are vividly described, although they are, but that over the course of the books she’s really succeeded in building the closed, somewhat claustrophobic world of the New Orleans demimonde and the little clique of upper-class French Creole planters who support them.
The one world-building flaw, IMO, is that January is, supposedly, chronically short on money - except he always has all the money he needs for his investigations, even though it's not like he's being reimbursed or sometimes even paid. This is probably a good decision from a plotting perspective (who wants to read about the long pauses in an investigation as the poverty-stricken detective tries to drum up enough cash to continue?), but it reminds me that there's a reason (aside from sheer class bias) that amateur detectives are generally affluent. Who else has the time or the money?
I was thinking about this because I also just read Suzanne Supplee's Somebody Everybody Listens To, about small-town high school graduate Retta Lee Jones, who goes to Nashville to make it big in country music, and she really does have money problems - to the extent that she ends up sleeping in her car for a few weeks.
I rarely feel that a book ought to be longer than it is, but I really did feel that this book wanted to be about twice as long as it is, or possibly the first in the series. It cuts off just when Retta sets up a meeting that might be her big break, and while I can see why Supplee made that decision - it gives the book a happy ending without catapulting Retta to superstardom with perhaps unrealistic speed - well, I wanted to follow Retta's career a bit longer. I wanted to get to know Retta's friend Brenda better, and learn if Brenda decides to try to medical school; and to see if Retta ends up rooming with her new buddy Em, and how that works out...
In short I wanted more of everything. Sadly there isn't a sequel, but I'll probably read Supplee's other book, Artichoke Heart.
I've also finished Gloria Whelan's Listening for Lions, which I picked up on a whim and quite enjoyed. Young Rachel Sheridan grew up on her parents' mission hospital in Africa. But when her parents die of the Spanish influenza, Rachel's grasping neighbors bully her into impersonating their daughter - also dead of influenza - on a trip to England, to convince an elderly relative to write them back into the will...
The plot summary makes it sound like a rather different book than it is. The impersonation only takes up the middle third of the book or so. The first third is a description of Rachel's life in Africa, and the final third about Rachel becoming a doctor so she can return to Africa and reopen the hospital. The setting description in both Africa and England are wonderful: lots of loving descriptions of nature and animals and especially birds.
What I'm Reading Now
I've just started Dorothy Sayers' Whose Body?. Not far enough in to have any sort of opinion about it yet, but yay, at last I'm reading Sayers!
What I Plan to Read Next
Arika Oakrent's In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language. Doesn't that sound delightful and fascinating? I hope it lives up to its subtitle.
