Books and Books in Brief

Again, I've read too many books since my last books and books to put them all in one post. There are four that I want to talk about at length, so I'll do that . . . let's say tomorrow? And the rest I'll try to put in nutshells here.

An Accomplished Woman, by Jude Morgan
This is a modern book written in the vein of Jane Austen, and it's very well done. It started kind of slow--it's one of those things where the protagonist keeps insisting and insisting she's not going to do a particular thing, when OF COURSE she's going to do it, because the narrative demands it, and I hate it when the author delays the start of their real plot that way--but once things get going, it's very entertaining. Not surprising, but entertaining.

She Looks Just Like You: A Memoir of (Nonbiological Lesbian) Motherhood, by Amie Klempnauer Miller
So boring. Not only is she fairly repetitive, but she focuses on the really standard problems and issues of parenthood--which would be fine if she had an interesting spin or style to put on it, but she just doesn't. She frets a lot over being the "other" mother, but in a dull way. To add insult to injury, she sometimes hints at interesting topics and deliberately skirts them (fleeting glimpses of her own possibly crazy mother go nowhere; there was apparently some drama when she and her partner first got together but she doesn't get into it). She doesn't even have any good stories about people looking at her weird because the baby has two mommies. Once you've read the title, you've gotten as much out of this book as I have.

Under Heaven, by Guy Gavriel Kay
This is a kind of fantasy/historical fiction work about 8th Century China, and I was bowled over by how good it was. Even though it was a little uneven, I thought it was, overall, beautifully and masterfully written. I feel like I can't describe it much more without giving things away, so I'll leave it at I loved it, and I'm definitely going to seek out more of his books.

The Tea Enthusiast's Handbook: A Guide to the World's Best Teas, by Mary Lou and Robert J. Heiss
This was the most pretentious book I've ever read, and I used to be in academia. Yeah. It's one-third pretentious instruction about tea (tea bags are evil, find a trusted tea dealer who imports directly from China, use the purest water possible BUT NO DISTILLED!) and two-thirds reference material about different types of tea. Admittedly, I found it a little useful when Neal and I visited a real-live tea shop, but mostly I thought it was inadvertently hilarious.

SuperFreakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Even better than Freakonomics. The first one starts strong and then gets weaker as it goes along; this one is really solid and really interesting all the way through. It's great.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks, by Ree Drummond
I've been visiting her website for a while, and I adapted/adopted her pot roast recipe, but once I brought this cookbook home, Neal has overtaken me as a Pioneer Woman recipe fan. A very few minutes of looking at the book convinced him that we needed to buy it, so we did. It's been a big success.

Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout
Oh man, such a bummer. It's more like a collection of short stories than a novel, but the character Olive Kitteridge--who is a mean, depressed, rather horrible old woman from Maine--ties them together. Some people really like this book, because it is well-written and original. One of my co-workers recommended it to me, and I recommended it to my friend who likes depressing books. She's going to love it.

Ocho Cinco: What Football and Life Have Thrown My Way, by Chad "Ochocinco" Ochocinco
Prepare to be shocked: this book is pointless. It's written as if Chad is talking to you, so it's not very organized or purposeful. Also, Chad "Ochocinco" Ochocinco is a ridiculous manchild, as the book does not hesitate to inform you. I finished it, although I couldn't really tell you why.

Books I tried to read but gave up on:
A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick
The most painfully dated vision of a dystopian future I've ever read or seen.

The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake
I picked this one up out of morbid curiosity because a friend of mine hated it (and resented that all the critics who liked The Help also liked this). I got maybe 10 pages into it before I realized she was right--it just came off as stupid. All the dialogue and inner monologues were ickily unrealistic, and then there was a line about the new moon shining and that's where I stopped.

Up next time: two books I really liked, and two in series that I used to like that are now almost unbearably disappointing!