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Books 2009 (#2 - #4)
A series of quickie reviews. This is all stuff before I went to Burkina, so there's a big pile of books I've yet to review still sitting about!
Title: The Luxe
Author: Anna Godbersen
Page count: 433 pages
This book suffers quite a bit from mis-marketing. It was marketed quite aggressively at young women reading fashion magazines, from mid-teens to mid-thirties, say. The blurb from Elle likens it to a fin de siecle version of The O.C.. Unfortunately, this book is actually written for the pre-teen crowd - oops. The dresses are big, the parties bigger, but it's a simple story with minimal interest for me.
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Title: On Beauty
Author: Zadie Smith
Page count: 443 pages
Oh, I liked this book a lot. I really got into the lives of the different characters, even when I wanted to beat them upside the head. we got to follow two different families and their very different politics through the world of east coast American academia, and it's a fascinating ride. It had a lot of thoughtful things to say on both race and gender relations. Sometimes a little cloying, sometimes a little too eager to be 'authentic', but nonetheless a good, interesting read.
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Title: The Interpretation of Murder
Author: Jed Rubenfeld
Page count: 522 pages
Freud comes to the US for a series of lectures, and accidentally stumbles across a series of assaults and murders. He and his entourage - including Jung - must apply the new technique of psychoanalysis to find the culprit. Which sounds... awful. I wouldn't have read this book if the opening wasn't immediately gripping. The story unwinds gradually, with plenty of twists and double-bluffs, and is convincing as a thriller and as a mystery. The use of Freud and Jung and other historical figures isn't disconcerting, as I'd first feared; their use is minimal, confined to interactions with the main character, who is trying to use the new technique of psychoanalysis to get some sense from the surviving victim of the assaults. An interesting historical thriller, convincingly told.
Title: The Luxe
Author: Anna Godbersen
Page count: 433 pages
This book suffers quite a bit from mis-marketing. It was marketed quite aggressively at young women reading fashion magazines, from mid-teens to mid-thirties, say. The blurb from Elle likens it to a fin de siecle version of The O.C.. Unfortunately, this book is actually written for the pre-teen crowd - oops. The dresses are big, the parties bigger, but it's a simple story with minimal interest for me.
*
Title: On Beauty
Author: Zadie Smith
Page count: 443 pages
Oh, I liked this book a lot. I really got into the lives of the different characters, even when I wanted to beat them upside the head. we got to follow two different families and their very different politics through the world of east coast American academia, and it's a fascinating ride. It had a lot of thoughtful things to say on both race and gender relations. Sometimes a little cloying, sometimes a little too eager to be 'authentic', but nonetheless a good, interesting read.
*
Title: The Interpretation of Murder
Author: Jed Rubenfeld
Page count: 522 pages
Freud comes to the US for a series of lectures, and accidentally stumbles across a series of assaults and murders. He and his entourage - including Jung - must apply the new technique of psychoanalysis to find the culprit. Which sounds... awful. I wouldn't have read this book if the opening wasn't immediately gripping. The story unwinds gradually, with plenty of twists and double-bluffs, and is convincing as a thriller and as a mystery. The use of Freud and Jung and other historical figures isn't disconcerting, as I'd first feared; their use is minimal, confined to interactions with the main character, who is trying to use the new technique of psychoanalysis to get some sense from the surviving victim of the assaults. An interesting historical thriller, convincingly told.