May Reads

[myrna-nora.livejournal.com]

15. Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in War and Peace 1939-1949 (2011) Virginia Nicholson
I don't know if it's this author's style or what BBC does to it in the abridgement process... but I had a near identical experience with another BBC reading from this same author. I get a sense of the attitudes and events of the time, but I can not for the life of me keep track of any of the "characters."

16. Room (2010) Emma Donoghue
The author wrote the story from five-year old Jack's point of view. The kid has great math and reading skills for his age, but he speaks in almost "baby talk." The voice grated on my nerves for a while. (But at one point I caught myself internally-narrating my grocery shopping experience in the voice of a five year old. Very strange.) At least the voice helps to slightly veil the horrors of the story. But the author's (or Jack's) obsession with breast feeding (or "having some" as Jack says) was weird --yeah, I get it, but why are you mentioning it every other page!?
Basically, the first third of the story is getting into the five year's world, the middle third is quite suspenseful, but in the final third it just fizzles out.

17. Jane Eyre (1847) Charlotte Brontë
Re-read. Loved it and appreciated it even more than when I read it the first time in junior high.

18. Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1961) Mark McShane
A good suspenseful and eerie quick read.

19. The Light of Day (also published as: Topkapi) (1962) Eric Ambler
Just okay heist story, but I liked the voice of the narrator. He wasn't particularly likeable but he kept it interesting and colorful.