sienamystic: (dodo emporium)
[personal profile] sienamystic
Currently reading book four in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, by Alexander McCall Smith. I have the third, and yesterday picked up the fourth and the fifth, and will make my way back to the first and the second eventually. These are charming, light but not at all fluffy books, with great characterization and an excellence sense of place, which is why I enjoy them so.

Also just recovered my copy of Time and Again by Jack Finney. It's a book I love very much, although I don't have strong feelings about the main character at all. I don't dislike him, and we get his first-person viewpoint throughout the book, but he still feels detatched from me. It's a book where plot trumps character, and while those books usually don't work at all for me, I do like this one very much. It helps that it's total wish-fulfilment for me.

Yesterday, I mailed off a Very Important Envelope. What response I may get from that is currently in the lap of the gods.


The weather, and consequently my mood, is much improved. Huzzah!

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-18 05:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] graygirl.livejournal.com
I'm reading the Smith books too! :) I've read the first three and have four and five here waiting. Currently though, I'm reading A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-18 06:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sienamystic.livejournal.com
Is it good? What's it about?

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-18 09:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] graygirl.livejournal.com
It's good so far. A young girl has terrible visions, which she doesn't understand, and is shipped off to a girl's school where she learns Many Important Things. Gothic.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-18 05:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dichroic.livejournal.com
I forget the name of the collection (possibly Time after Time) but I like Finney's short stories even better.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-18 06:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sienamystic.livejournal.com
I think From Time to Time is the sequel he did to Time and Again - I've been warned strenously *not* to read it, as it was written many years after the first one and apparently suffers greatly in quality. There's also About Time - the other titles in the front of the book don't have any "time" references, so I'm not sure if they're part of the set or not.

Are his short stories in the same universe, or standalones?

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-18 07:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dichroic.livejournal.com
About Time sounds right. They're standalones, but all about time shifting in one way or another.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-09-01 02:14 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dichroic.livejournal.com
My copy jumped out at me today, from a bookstore I swear it wasn't on before. (Which is pretty much consistent with what happens in the stories therein.) THe title is in fact About Time.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-19 12:24 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shaoliang.livejournal.com
Ack, no, don't read the sequel. It's awful and maudlin and ugh.

I think you're right about the characterization vs plot in that book, too -- I'm much more interested in the descriptions and the sequence of events than the character, who never is very interesting to me. Huh, I'd not really thought of it that way before.

I read the short stories some time ago and enjoyed them, but don't remember much about them now.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-18 06:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] swooop.livejournal.com
I love the Alexander McCall Smith books :-) And good luck with the Very Important Envelope!

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-18 08:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eccentricartist.livejournal.com
If you're interested in time-themed books, _Einstein's Dreams_ was excellent. (Even if it was given to me by my ex *shudder* - he did have good taste in books, whatever else might be said about him)

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-18 08:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] max-und-moritz.livejournal.com
Oho, Mabotswe is priceless, if you like book one, the second one is twice as fun :)

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