:: Searching for Puck... ::

:: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 ::

Well, at least I've enriched myself.

I've read voraciously to get my mind off of everything. I read often anyway, but yesterday I outdid myself. I read these:

Girl With A Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier, 233 pages

This was a pretty good book, very engaging. The artist, according to Time Magazine, "...brings the real {dutch} artist Vermeer and a fictional muse to life in a jewel of a novel."

Historical fiction, which is swiftly becoming a favorite genre of mine, despite my own want for it not to. I've always liked the stories that didn't have much to do with reality, but this is my third book in a month dealing with a female heroine in a historical setting. Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue (384p), and Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur S. Golden (428p) were my other two forays into historical fiction, and I thought both were wonderful, though somewhat depressing. History has a way of being depressing. Up next in historical fiction is When We Were Gods, by Colin Falconer (494p). It's about Cleopatra and I've been dying to read it since I bought it last month.

The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood, 320 pages

When I picked up this book, I was expecting something decidedly different. In fact, I was confused for a few first pages - they were making all sorts of references to modern-day things and I had thought, for some reason, that this was historical or Sci-Fi. What it is, is a sort of 'alternate history' story, in which a biblical patriarchal society comes to power in the wake of a population-reducing conspiracy, and women are reduced to objects while still, ironically, achieving a special status, provided they are fertile. It is a powerful book with a powerful message and I am that much more appreciative of my freedom after finishing it. I think everyone should pick this one up. It'll be a classic next generation.

Faking It, Jennifer Crusie, 412 pages.

This is a happy fluff novel. I loved it. It's a satisfying story - the heroine has believable faults and an even more believable dysfunctional family, the semi-hero's exhasperation is a breed we can all identify with, and the general hijinx of the novel make it very hard to put down. It's about an art forger and a con man, by the way - lest you get dirty ideas. Though there are sex scenes. I like this book because of a certain type of cover - that's why I picked it up, I'm shamed to admit. I've noticed that whenever a color is frosted, whenever a book is a muted, non-glossy finish, and has the heroine (or at least part of her) or part of the story in inanimate objects on the cover, it's usually a great story to read. I cite the book Milkrun by Sarah Mlynowski, (281p). Frosted cover, great story, fantastic, believable heroine. Both stories also spawned terminology that has worked into my repetoire: Milkrun - a routine and often slow journey, taken from the delivery of milk - also the process of dating to no avail. 'Poor Baby' - a ceremony in which all the friends of a recently dumped girl rather round and each give statements about either how lousy the guy was or how wonderful the friend is, ending the statement with a 'poor baby'. Fantastic stuff.


More to come!

~Fox
:: Fox 6/10/2003 10:24:00 AM [Say what?] ::
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