So, yesterday was the official kick-off of the Keep Portland Weird festival here in Paris, which meant that I had a reading/screening in the...
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PRAGUE FATALE by Philip Kerr is mystery/thriller-historical fiction. The book’s official synopsis describes a murder investigation at the home of Reinhard Heydrich in 1941 Czechoslovakia. But, it turns out, that’s not where the book begins. Bernie Gunther, the narrator, doesn’t even get there until well after 100 pages.
From page 1, this book is full of details about the people, places, and events in Germany and Czechoslovakia in the early 1940s. That could be why it’s reviews are so good. I take another view because I read this is also a mystery/thriller. But the story is overtaken by all the historical details as Kerr RAMBLES ON AND ON with Gunther’s thoughts about them. As a result, the story gets buried and is slow, not thrilling.
If you’re looking for combination mystery/thriller-historical fiction, better choices are any book by Joseph Kanon.
PRAGUE FATALE is one book in a series. This is the only one I read, though, and there are many reviews that are to the contrary of mine from people who read the series. I won it from the publisher through reviewingtheevidence.com.
I preface my comments with an explanation of my four-out-of-five rating. Ordinarily, the only books I give four-out-of-five ratings are those that absorb me, that are unputdownable. GREAT NEGOTIATIONS by Fredrick Stanton is not that. Rather, I give it four stars for what it is, not an absorbing story but important stories that make up a history book.
These eight stories span the time of colonial America to the Cold War, and each shows how words, negotiations, changed the world. It is not a book I would want to sit and read cover to cover as I would a novel.But it IS a book that I would read two or three times.
It's the kind of book most of us want in our bookcases.
THIS BEAUTIFUL LIFE by Helen Schulman examines a normal family faced with an abnormal problem: the teenaged son, Jake, received by email a pornographic video of an eighth-grade girl he met at a party. The girl made it herself and emailed it to him because she had a crush on him. If it stopped there, no problem. But he forwarded it to his friend. From there, the video went viral; now it is seemingly everywhere. Schulman claims that an email travels at the speed of sound or light, which, of course, is a ridiculous thing to say. But it does go fast.
First, though, Schulman contrasts the said party that Jake and his friends found with the party his mother and little sister attended the same evening. That might have been a good way to begin, but Schulman tells us way more than we need to know before she gets to Jake’s problem. That took up almost half the book, and it was boring.
The second half is better. Now the reader sees how Jake’s problem is the family’s problem. Their problem, as seen from each family member’s perspective: how do we get Jake out of this unscathed?
But it gets silly. For example, every time the parents argue they both think they’re on the brink of divorce.
My copy of THIS BEAUTIFUL LIFE was a giveaway from www.BookClubClassics.com.
Because the first half of ROOM by Emma Donoghue is both maddening and irritating, I would not have read the much better second half if I had not felt guilty about it. I won the book from butterybooks.com and would have felt bad about abandoning it because I know many other people wanted to win that book.
The story begins with a mother and her son imprisoned in the backyard shed of a madman. The child is 5 years old and has never known anything outside that one small room. That, for me, was maddening and difficult to read.
Irritating, though, is the constant baby talk. Constant because the story is narrated by the 5-year-old.Everything the boy says in the first half of the book made me sad as well as irritated. But in the second half of the book, I often enjoyed his view because it’s laugh-out-loud funny.
Although I appreciated the child’s perspective, again, the constant baby talk irritated me. The book loses points for that reason.
THE SNOW CHILD by Eowyn Ivey doesn’t live up to the many reviews of it that I read. It is simply a retelling of a Russian fairy tale.
But I would think that, in doing so, the author would have filled in the blanks, i.e., she would have made the tale seem more realistic by showing how the unrealistic might really have happened. And she does seem to be trying to do that. But the reader still needs a willing suspension of disbelief. The book is full of unanswered questions.
I knew THE SNOW CHILD was based on a fairy tale. I learned that that’s not all�"-it IS a fairy tale.
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techeditor has commented on (43) products.
Prague Fatale (Bernie Gunther Novels) by Philip Kerr
techeditor, May 24, 2012
PRAGUE FATALE by Philip Kerr is mystery/thriller-historical fiction. The book’s official synopsis describes a murder investigation at the home of Reinhard Heydrich in 1941 Czechoslovakia. But, it turns out, that’s not where the book begins. Bernie Gunther, the narrator, doesn’t even get there until well after 100 pages.From page 1, this book is full of details about the people, places, and events in Germany and Czechoslovakia in the early 1940s. That could be why it’s reviews are so good. I take another view because I read this is also a mystery/thriller. But the story is overtaken by all the historical details as Kerr RAMBLES ON AND ON with Gunther’s thoughts about them. As a result, the story gets buried and is slow, not thrilling.
If you’re looking for combination mystery/thriller-historical fiction, better choices are any book by Joseph Kanon.
PRAGUE FATALE is one book in a series. This is the only one I read, though, and there are many reviews that are to the contrary of mine from people who read the series. I won it from the publisher through reviewingtheevidence.com.
Great Negotiations: Agreements That Changed the Modern World by Fredrik Stanton
techeditor, May 14, 2012
I preface my comments with an explanation of my four-out-of-five rating. Ordinarily, the only books I give four-out-of-five ratings are those that absorb me, that are unputdownable. GREAT NEGOTIATIONS by Fredrick Stanton is not that. Rather, I give it four stars for what it is, not an absorbing story but important stories that make up a history book.These eight stories span the time of colonial America to the Cold War, and each shows how words, negotiations, changed the world. It is not a book I would want to sit and read cover to cover as I would a novel.But it IS a book that I would read two or three times.
It's the kind of book most of us want in our bookcases.
This Beautiful Life (P.S.) by Helen Schulman
techeditor, May 12, 2012
THIS BEAUTIFUL LIFE by Helen Schulman examines a normal family faced with an abnormal problem: the teenaged son, Jake, received by email a pornographic video of an eighth-grade girl he met at a party. The girl made it herself and emailed it to him because she had a crush on him. If it stopped there, no problem. But he forwarded it to his friend. From there, the video went viral; now it is seemingly everywhere. Schulman claims that an email travels at the speed of sound or light, which, of course, is a ridiculous thing to say. But it does go fast.First, though, Schulman contrasts the said party that Jake and his friends found with the party his mother and little sister attended the same evening. That might have been a good way to begin, but Schulman tells us way more than we need to know before she gets to Jake’s problem. That took up almost half the book, and it was boring.
The second half is better. Now the reader sees how Jake’s problem is the family’s problem. Their problem, as seen from each family member’s perspective: how do we get Jake out of this unscathed?
But it gets silly. For example, every time the parents argue they both think they’re on the brink of divorce.
My copy of THIS BEAUTIFUL LIFE was a giveaway from www.BookClubClassics.com.
Room by Emma Donoghue
techeditor, April 25, 2012
Because the first half of ROOM by Emma Donoghue is both maddening and irritating, I would not have read the much better second half if I had not felt guilty about it. I won the book from butterybooks.com and would have felt bad about abandoning it because I know many other people wanted to win that book.The story begins with a mother and her son imprisoned in the backyard shed of a madman. The child is 5 years old and has never known anything outside that one small room. That, for me, was maddening and difficult to read.
Irritating, though, is the constant baby talk. Constant because the story is narrated by the 5-year-old.Everything the boy says in the first half of the book made me sad as well as irritated. But in the second half of the book, I often enjoyed his view because it’s laugh-out-loud funny.
Although I appreciated the child’s perspective, again, the constant baby talk irritated me. The book loses points for that reason.
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
techeditor, April 18, 2012
THE SNOW CHILD by Eowyn Ivey doesn’t live up to the many reviews of it that I read. It is simply a retelling of a Russian fairy tale.But I would think that, in doing so, the author would have filled in the blanks, i.e., she would have made the tale seem more realistic by showing how the unrealistic might really have happened. And she does seem to be trying to do that. But the reader still needs a willing suspension of disbelief. The book is full of unanswered questions.
I knew THE SNOW CHILD was based on a fairy tale. I learned that that’s not all�"-it IS a fairy tale.
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