« Flying Spaghetti Monster | Main | Ideal Day - WEbring Assignment #5 »
August 31, 2005
Books I Read in August
The Falcon at the Portal: An Amelia Peabody Mystery
by Elizabeth Peters
Amazon.com: "'Really,' I thought in mounting exasperation, 'there never was a household in which so many people felt free to offer their unsolicited opinions!'" This, of course, is the eminent Egyptologist and dedicated crime solver Amelia Peabody, setting the stage and the tone (an updated Oscar Wildean irony) for Elizabeth Peters's 11th book. And it's true that there are no shrinking violets in this particular household, from the redoubtable Amelia and her hot-tempered archaeologist husband Emerson (his native diggers call him the Father of Curses), to their dashing, unpredictable son Ramses (born Walter). Also, let's not forget their lovely ward, Nefret (rescued from a desert tribe several books back), and their butler, Gargery, "who wields a cudgel as handily as he carves a roast."
As she has so many times before, Peters presents us with this quaint--even campy--little group of people, plops them down in an exotic Egyptian setting, and then surprises us by involving them in a story of great strength and emotion.
My Review: This book just about killed me, ending with a HUGE cliffhanger. I *heart* the Amelia Peabody series. It's a guilty pleasure for which I feel no shame.
----------
He Shall Thunder in the Sky: An Amelia Peabody Mystery
by Elizabeth Peters
Amazon.com: He Shall Thunder in the Sky completes an internal quartet (which also includes Seeing a Large Cat, The Ape Who Guards the Balance, and The Falcon at the Portal) within Elizabeth Peters's legendary series starring Amelia Peabody, the intrepid Edwardian Egyptologist, her husband, Emerson, and her extended family. The quartet comprises not only Amelia's diary of those years but also parts of a mysterious "Manuscript H," an omniscient viewpoint that allows a glimpse into the minds of Amelia's son--the dashing and brilliant Ramses--and her ward, Nefret Forth, as they mature into adults with their own secrets and agendas. The climax and denouement are entirely worth the price of admission--tying up a decade's worth of loose strings and explaining some nagging points so subtle that less observant readers might easily have missed them. It's Peters's great gift that in the grand scheme of things, no clues are wasted. Her plotting is wonderfully complex and intriguing, and it fits seamlessly into the detailed historical background she builds so carefully. It may have taken years for her to complete this four-part dance (she promises more Amelia Peabody mysteries in the future), but she's charmed us right out of our dancing slippers along the way.
My Review: This book was hands down the best one in the series (so far, there are still 6 to go). I double *heart* the Amelia Peabody series, even if it did reinforce my desperately single status by sending me erotic dreams about one of the main characters.
----------
The Birchbark House
by Louise Erdrich
Amazon.com: Nineteenth-century American pioneer life was introduced to thousands of young readers by Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved Little House books. With The Birchbark House, award-winning author Louise Erdrich's first novel for young readers, this same slice of history is seen through the eyes of the spirited, 7-year-old Ojibwa girl Omakayas, or Little Frog, so named because her first step was a hop. The sole survivor of a smallpox epidemic on Spirit Island, Omakayas, then only a baby girl, was rescued by a fearless woman named Tallow and welcomed into an Ojibwa family on Lake Superior's Madeline Island, the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker. We follow Omakayas and her adopted family through a cycle of four seasons in 1847, including the winter, when a historically documented outbreak of smallpox overtook the island.
My Review: Hmm. I had read The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich earlier in the year and loved it. I had read that many of her books were interconnected and so I immediately picked up this one. Little did I know that it was a book for CHILDREN! Sure, it was fine, in a Laura Ingalls Wilder sort of way. But I'm disappointed that I didn't spend that time on another of her adult books.
----------
This Is Not Civilization
by Robert Rosenberg
Booklist: The lives of four people from vastly different backgrounds cross in an antic tale, which starts in Arizona and ends in Istanbul. Jeff, the gormless but likable linchpin of the story, travels from a disastrous job on a Native American reservation in the U.S. to a fruitless spell as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English to factory workers in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. In his travels, Jeff forges connections with an Apache youth and a Kirgiz family. Major characters are strongly depicted, although Jeff's lack of motivation remains a mystery. The basic bleakness of a book set in regions of poverty and hardship is leavened with humor rooted in cultural differences and the misunderstandings that arise from them. Plot and characterization build through the first three sections--set in Arizona and Kyrgyzstan--but fall apart in the last section, set in Istanbul during the destruction of the 1999 earthquake. Despite the overly melodramatic and pat ending, Rosenberg's modern picaresque tour is a well-written, engaging, and promising debut.
My Review: This was the August book club selection, and since we're meeting next week to discuss it, I won't go into detail. Not that I have that much to say. I could take it or leave it--although it was cool to read about Turkey and remember the fun times Jess and I had there in June.
