![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gervase_fenI don't really want to write about work at the moment, so here's some book-related bits and pieces.
The new Richard Dawkins book arrived today, and very sweetly he begins the introduction with an anecdote about his wife (she was unhappy at school but felt she couldn't tell her parents) and ends the introduction by recommending that authors should have their books read aloud to them (but only if it's by a professionally trained actress!).
I'm reading a free copy of Gregory Maguire's Oz-prequel, and what a terrific book it is. It's the best feat of world-building I've encountered since reading "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell", with some very Harry Potter-esque school scenes (the book pre-dates "Philosopher's Stone" by three or four years, I think).
Tess Gerritsen's latest crime potboiler, the sixth in the Jane Rizzoli series, is a disaster. Her last, "Vanish", was short listed as one of the best of the year by the Mystery Writers of America, and had a hard political edge to it (East European women being sex-trafficked for the executives of a organisation which is thinly disguised Enron/Halliburton.) However, in "The Mephisto Club" the bad guys are half-human, half-demon Nephilim, undermining the credibility and reality of the previous five novels at a stroke. Dan Brown has a lot to answer for.
The new Richard Dawkins book arrived today, and very sweetly he begins the introduction with an anecdote about his wife (she was unhappy at school but felt she couldn't tell her parents) and ends the introduction by recommending that authors should have their books read aloud to them (but only if it's by a professionally trained actress!).
I'm reading a free copy of Gregory Maguire's Oz-prequel, and what a terrific book it is. It's the best feat of world-building I've encountered since reading "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell", with some very Harry Potter-esque school scenes (the book pre-dates "Philosopher's Stone" by three or four years, I think).
Tess Gerritsen's latest crime potboiler, the sixth in the Jane Rizzoli series, is a disaster. Her last, "Vanish", was short listed as one of the best of the year by the Mystery Writers of America, and had a hard political edge to it (East European women being sex-trafficked for the executives of a organisation which is thinly disguised Enron/Halliburton.) However, in "The Mephisto Club" the bad guys are half-human, half-demon Nephilim, undermining the credibility and reality of the previous five novels at a stroke. Dan Brown has a lot to answer for.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 06:27 pm (UTC)