Catching up

Since we've gotten back to Texas, as you might guess, its been really, really hectic. I haven't stopped reading, but I'm getting farther and farther behind on posted reviews. If there had been a really killer book, I'd have found the time, but the last three were decent, but not great. Here's an update:

Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen
Category: Fiction Grade: B+

A fairly short novel by the Newsweek columnist, Anna Quindlen. I always read her books because she's definitely got a way with putting things together. This is necessary because most of her books are borderline "chick-lit". This one is no exception. Its the story of the Fitzmaurice sisters -- Meghan is the glamour sister pretty much patterned after Katie Couric, while Bridget is the kind of frumpy social worker sister. The stories follows the complete dissolution of Meghan's life after a particularly bad on air faux-pas. The story is engaging, but not too taxing -- great for a beach or vacation read. Quindlen has a very spare writing style - she never takes a paragraph to say what a few words will say perfectly well. You just feel comfortable reading her work.


The Devil's Doctor by Philip Ball
Category: Science history Grade: B

This was actually pretty good I've got no clue who to recommend it to. Its a historical biography of a guy named Paracelsus - somebody I'd never heard of before. He was a 15th century "doctor". What makes the book interesting is that this was era when it was hard to spot the borderlines between doctors, scientists, alchemists and magicians. Ball's premise is essentially that Paracelsus was one of the transition folks who deeply believed in alchemy but also saw the body as a "small world" where chemical alchemy could be used to treat all kinds of diseases. He was really one of the inventors of modern medicine although he never quite separated his work from his religious beliefs. The upheaval of the times was not only scientific -- with Paracelsus, Newton, Galileo, etc. It was also the days of Martin Luther and the Reformation. The Devil's Doctor is a fairly long book that follows the subject's travels all over Europe as he's kicked out of city after city for his beliefs and practices. Almost nobody is going to like this book - Dan, Steve, Ted - not sure who else, so unless you're really in to history, science or medicine (preferably, all three), skip this one.

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon
Category: Fiction Grade: C+

It's really a shame about this one. Haddon's first novel was the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, a strange name for a novel told from the perspective of an autistic child. That one was terrific and showed a lot of promise. When I heard that he had a new one, I headed straight out to get it and moved it to the top of the pile. It wasn't completely awful but it was a major disappointment. His writing skills are still there but, this time, he takes on the story of an English family. I know its chauvinistic but with all the British phrasing and slang that I don't know about, everything felt just a little off the whole way.

The story is about a family that is in the process of falling apart -- husband losing his mind, wife having an affair, daughter getting married to someone the family doesn't approve of and son who can't decide whether to make a commitment to his gay lover. While things happen in the book, it never really feels like anything is happening. If it hadn't been for Haddon's first book, I'd have probably laid this one down. I still highly recommend that one, but this one you can skip.