Other books I read lately

And what have I been reading lately? The usually junk- well, Orson Scott Card isn’t junk exactly, but he’s not exactly deep philosophy wither- but his book ‘Magic Street' was pretty good (actually, all his books are pretty good). On the one hand boy finds out he has special powers, massive villain to destroy, Fairy Queen to win (same old, same old) … on the other, some lovely supporting characters (and the hero kid's not bad either)

Then, there was “The Magicians and Mrs. Quent’ . It’s a weird cross of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and fantasy. The cross from p&p to Jane Eyre is quite jarring, and there were a couple of things that honestly annoyed me- the first being the inability of women to do magic, and the magic of women being the basic equivalent of the dark arts. There were some interesting parts to it though – although (spoilers here) personally, I would have picked Mr. Darcy over Mr. Rochester- though the equivalents are not quite exact – in the case of this book, I wouldn’t have picked either of the ‘heroes’.

I’m now reading 'The Starter Wife' – yes, just like in the show. It’s satirical without being foolish or fluffy and it does deal with quite real stuff- I’m enjoying it very much- I’m just not sure I should be reading so much about marriages gone bad right now (not that I have any illusions to be dispelled).

I also finished another book by Diana Wynne Jones. I didn’t realize it at first, but it is a sequel (of sorts) to Howl’s Moving Castle, called ‘Castle in the Air’. I really liked the way it started off, the new characters were whimsical and quirky… they just didn’t gel with the original Howl cast. It was a bit annoying when they all met, and it would have been really annoying to anyone reading the book without knowing the back story.

Next on my list is ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ … I seem to do writers in phases… I had the Rushdie phase, the Heinlen phase and I had a Robin Cook phase (and Sheldon phase a Jeffrey Archer phase, a Mary Higgins Clarke phase) ... and now it’s the Gabriel Garcia Marquez phase. One thing I do need to mention is that Marquez’s books (Is that right? Should it be Garcia Marquez, as it was filed in the library), are translated – and you can tell (though it takes nothing away from the quality of the book) . There are phrases that are stilted sometimes, and then, there are ones that are so lyrical, it should be poetry. Maybe its because of the translation, maybe its just him, but these aren’t books you can just skim through. Every word demands your attention- The story is not in the events that happen, it is in the progress of emotions of the characters- and a single word can define or destroy the mood.