I'm going to come clean. I've gotten a bit behind on my reading, and I don't have an update for this week. So, because of this, I'll be taking a brief break from posting each week, and will return to the regular schedule during the first week of December. Hopefully, I'll have enough posts queued up to not have to break the schedule again.
In the meantime, if anyone would like to write some guests entries, please let me know. They can be about a new book, or what you thought of a book that I've already written about. It's whatever you like. If I can get a few guest writers, then I will still be able to have updates every week. How awesome would that be? And who would be bringing that awesome? That's right, you!
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
I'm going to start off by saying that I knew basically nothing about this book going into it. I never saw
the musical or any of the movies. So, I can't compare this to any of those
versions. I can, however, say that this book is pretty good.
Like The Three Musketeers, this book is written in the first person by someone who isn't connected to the events at all. In this book, however, the author does note that they're recording a historical record, and have mentioned speaking with some of the characters to gather evidence.
It begins with the changing of management at the opera. The old managers, as part of the hand-off, refer to the "opera ghost" and his instructions for the managers of the opera. Naturally, the new management thinks that they're joking and don't take the instructions seriously. This angers the ghost and he begins to cause mischief and drama in the opera (on and off the stage). The managers still think that it's all a prank that the previous managers have taken too far. Things only escalate from there.
I found the beginning of the book a bit hard to follow. This is due in part to my complete lack of familiarity with opera in general. There is a lot of name-dropping of operas and singers (whether fictitious or real) and it just lost me. The book also goes into several tangents. They're all related to the overall story, or at least necessary to establish the characters. Luckily, later on, the book gets more focused on the main story.
The main story itself, consists of Raoul trying to win the heart of Christine. She refuses to return his affections for unspoken reasons. Raoul works tirelessly to find the reason, and this leads him to learn of The Angel of Music, also known as the opera ghost.
I won't spoil the story from there. It does keep you on your toes. It never answers questions too early and keeps you guessing. I found the whole thing a very interesting story and was happy with the book as a whole.
While reading this book, I noticed several places which marked where an illustration should have been. The problem with getting the free versions of books is that most of them lack the illustrations. I was really curious about them, though, and have tracked them down. As it happens, The University of Virginia Library has the complete text online. Including the illustrations (albeit, the quality isn't great). Hera are links to a couple of them.
One last thing, the opera, as described in the book, sounds like a vast and magnificent place. He describes it in a lot of detail as well. As it happens, it is a real place. It's now known as the Palais Garnier in Paris. Here's a picture of it:
All in all, this book was pretty enjoyable. I recommend it.
Click here to view this book on Amazon.
Like The Three Musketeers, this book is written in the first person by someone who isn't connected to the events at all. In this book, however, the author does note that they're recording a historical record, and have mentioned speaking with some of the characters to gather evidence.
It begins with the changing of management at the opera. The old managers, as part of the hand-off, refer to the "opera ghost" and his instructions for the managers of the opera. Naturally, the new management thinks that they're joking and don't take the instructions seriously. This angers the ghost and he begins to cause mischief and drama in the opera (on and off the stage). The managers still think that it's all a prank that the previous managers have taken too far. Things only escalate from there.
I found the beginning of the book a bit hard to follow. This is due in part to my complete lack of familiarity with opera in general. There is a lot of name-dropping of operas and singers (whether fictitious or real) and it just lost me. The book also goes into several tangents. They're all related to the overall story, or at least necessary to establish the characters. Luckily, later on, the book gets more focused on the main story.
The main story itself, consists of Raoul trying to win the heart of Christine. She refuses to return his affections for unspoken reasons. Raoul works tirelessly to find the reason, and this leads him to learn of The Angel of Music, also known as the opera ghost.
I won't spoil the story from there. It does keep you on your toes. It never answers questions too early and keeps you guessing. I found the whole thing a very interesting story and was happy with the book as a whole.
While reading this book, I noticed several places which marked where an illustration should have been. The problem with getting the free versions of books is that most of them lack the illustrations. I was really curious about them, though, and have tracked them down. As it happens, The University of Virginia Library has the complete text online. Including the illustrations (albeit, the quality isn't great). Hera are links to a couple of them.
One last thing, the opera, as described in the book, sounds like a vast and magnificent place. He describes it in a lot of detail as well. As it happens, it is a real place. It's now known as the Palais Garnier in Paris. Here's a picture of it:
 |
| Photo by Peter Rivera (cc-by-2.0) |
All in all, this book was pretty enjoyable. I recommend it.
Click here to view this book on Amazon.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco
I should really know better than to read a kid's book by now. I'm not the target audience for them, and having never read them before, there's no sense of nostalgia when reading them now. I know I'm not going to get the kinds of things I'm looking for in a story.
With all that being said, this book really isn't that bad. It never tries to do anything that it can't accomplish. There's no pretend drama, like in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Nor is it complete random like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This is a just a nice, simple, cute story of a stuffed rabbit and the little boy who owns him. Nursery magic is in full effect here, as are the feelings of children toward their favorite stuffed animals.
I would somewhat recommend this book.
Click here to view this book on Amazon.
With all that being said, this book really isn't that bad. It never tries to do anything that it can't accomplish. There's no pretend drama, like in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Nor is it complete random like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This is a just a nice, simple, cute story of a stuffed rabbit and the little boy who owns him. Nursery magic is in full effect here, as are the feelings of children toward their favorite stuffed animals.
I would somewhat recommend this book.
Click here to view this book on Amazon.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
The Lady of the Shroud by Bram Stoker
I normally try to avoid writing spoilers here. This time, however, I don't think I can provide a decent writeup of this book without some major ones. I will try to give a general overview before heading into spoiler territory. I do recommend the book. If you think you might read it, I think you would enjoy it a lot more without me giving away some of the plot points ahead of time.
Like Dracula, this book is written as a series of journal entries and letters from several characters. It starts off with some notes regarding the will of the writer's uncle. He also goes into his entire family tree which I found really hard to follow. I felt like I had to draw it out in order to understand it all, but without a chart, I could only pretend I knew who everyone was. As it turns out, very few of the family members were relevant to the book, so I'm not sure why so much time was put into it.
I did find reading this section a little annoying because this character is such a douchebag. He is from a very wealthy family and they all act like complete ass hats. For example, the guy's father fired one of the servants because she helped out his cousin, who is considered the black sheep of the family. He just couldn't stand such disrespect in his house or something. Luckily, this character is pretty minor, because I don't think I would have gotten through the whole book if he was a more major character. I think his presence is primarily there to contrast with the main character's personality. I'm not sure his presence was really necessary, though.
The beginning of the book starts off very slow. The end of the book is also slow. I enjoyed the middle of the book sufficiently to not be bothered by the slow bits. I must admit, though, that I considered putting it away because the beginning was bordering on too slow. For some people, it may be.
Let's just cut to the meat of the story. The main character, Rupert, travels to the Land of Blue Mountains in accordance with his uncle's will. While there, he lives in a castle which he, and every other character in the book, fails to describe in any detail. They each made it a point to say that they just couldn't describe it, which I found to be a bit of a cop-out.
The region has been known to have a ghostly woman appear in the sea above a coffin. Before long, she finds her way to Rupert's room, soaking wet and only dressed in a funeral shroud. She's freezing cold, and begs Rupert to help her get warm. At dawn, she runs out in a big hurry. She goes on to visit him a few more times, and he becomes infatuated with her. His infatuation isn't even shaken when he finds her laying in a coffin in the crypt of an old church.
During this time, Rupert's aunt, who is also living at the castle, has been having some disturbing visions. She believes that dark powers are trying to influence him. He even thinks that his lady is a vampire, even though her visits seemed innocent enough. This got me questioning what was really happening during her visits. In Dracula, the victims didn't remember his attacks, it isn't much of a stretch to think the some vampire victims would think something else was happening. Was what Rupert wrote even close to reality? I found myself wanting to read a journal entry from his aunt to know more about her visions to gain some insight to what might really be happening. As if that weren't interesting enough, a war was also brewing. I got the impression that this lady was somehow involved with that, too.
Before I go on, I want to address the apparent vampire romance angle this book is seeming to take. Unlike in modern vampire romances, the man is not a vampire. Nor is he some desperate, misunderstood "teenager" full of angst (who is actually a really old pedophile). The vampire isn't portrayed as some romantic ideal. Rupert even acknowledges that his soul may be in danger because of his love. He just doesn't care. In short, all the cheesy cliches of modern vampire romances aren't present in this book.
Now I'm going to move on to spoiler territory.
Darth Vader is Luke's father.
I mean...
E.T. goes home.
Errr....
Kevin Bacon secures the right to dance.
There. That should kill enough space for people to not accidentally see something. Rupert's romance with the vampire-lady results in a midnight wedding. There's a lot of strange ritual in a very dark church. It plays out very similar to a vision his aunt had a while back, where she saw death. That really ratchets up the creepy factor in the story.
Shortly after the wedding, word comes to the castle that the daughter of the country's ruler has been kidnapped. Rupert instantly organizes search parties to rescue her, and even leads a party himself. Along the way, he learns more about the kidnapped women. It turns out, that she is the woman he married. So, she isn't a vampire at all. Before the book had started, she had fallen ill, and appeared to die. She awoke during her funeral (dressed in a funeral shroud, of course). It was decided that she had to appear to be deceased as a service to her country (I didn't actually follow the reason why, but was satisfied with that angle). She was kidnapped so the invaders would eventually have a claim to the land.
During her rescue, the book switches to the point of view of another rescuer. I thought this worked well in creating a tension that I don't normally find in books written in the first person. I found myself wondering if something were going to happen to Rupert during the rescue. He faced numerous dangers, and not just from the kidnappers.
Once that rescue is complete, it is discovered that the woman's father has also been kidnapped. He has been taken to a tower, since it is easily defended with few people. This complicates the rescue, but, fortunately, Rupert has an airplane and can rescue the man in that.
When the airplanes were first mentioned, I felt like the book may have been taking a few liberties with technology, since it takes place in the early 1900s and the first Wright Brothers flight wasn't much earlier, in 1903. From the context, though, I think that the airplanes may have actually been blimps, which were invented in 1880.
After that sequence is when the book slows down a lot with a bunch of politics and diplomacy and remains slow until it finishes. I did find myself wanting some sort of conflict or treachery to appear occur. Sadly, it never did. I didn't find it too hard to get through the ending, though.
All in all, I enjoyed it quite a bit. The slow parts were a bit annoying, but not too bad, when looking at the book as a whole.
Click here to view this book on Amazon.
Like Dracula, this book is written as a series of journal entries and letters from several characters. It starts off with some notes regarding the will of the writer's uncle. He also goes into his entire family tree which I found really hard to follow. I felt like I had to draw it out in order to understand it all, but without a chart, I could only pretend I knew who everyone was. As it turns out, very few of the family members were relevant to the book, so I'm not sure why so much time was put into it.
I did find reading this section a little annoying because this character is such a douchebag. He is from a very wealthy family and they all act like complete ass hats. For example, the guy's father fired one of the servants because she helped out his cousin, who is considered the black sheep of the family. He just couldn't stand such disrespect in his house or something. Luckily, this character is pretty minor, because I don't think I would have gotten through the whole book if he was a more major character. I think his presence is primarily there to contrast with the main character's personality. I'm not sure his presence was really necessary, though.
The beginning of the book starts off very slow. The end of the book is also slow. I enjoyed the middle of the book sufficiently to not be bothered by the slow bits. I must admit, though, that I considered putting it away because the beginning was bordering on too slow. For some people, it may be.
Let's just cut to the meat of the story. The main character, Rupert, travels to the Land of Blue Mountains in accordance with his uncle's will. While there, he lives in a castle which he, and every other character in the book, fails to describe in any detail. They each made it a point to say that they just couldn't describe it, which I found to be a bit of a cop-out.
The region has been known to have a ghostly woman appear in the sea above a coffin. Before long, she finds her way to Rupert's room, soaking wet and only dressed in a funeral shroud. She's freezing cold, and begs Rupert to help her get warm. At dawn, she runs out in a big hurry. She goes on to visit him a few more times, and he becomes infatuated with her. His infatuation isn't even shaken when he finds her laying in a coffin in the crypt of an old church.
During this time, Rupert's aunt, who is also living at the castle, has been having some disturbing visions. She believes that dark powers are trying to influence him. He even thinks that his lady is a vampire, even though her visits seemed innocent enough. This got me questioning what was really happening during her visits. In Dracula, the victims didn't remember his attacks, it isn't much of a stretch to think the some vampire victims would think something else was happening. Was what Rupert wrote even close to reality? I found myself wanting to read a journal entry from his aunt to know more about her visions to gain some insight to what might really be happening. As if that weren't interesting enough, a war was also brewing. I got the impression that this lady was somehow involved with that, too.
Before I go on, I want to address the apparent vampire romance angle this book is seeming to take. Unlike in modern vampire romances, the man is not a vampire. Nor is he some desperate, misunderstood "teenager" full of angst (who is actually a really old pedophile). The vampire isn't portrayed as some romantic ideal. Rupert even acknowledges that his soul may be in danger because of his love. He just doesn't care. In short, all the cheesy cliches of modern vampire romances aren't present in this book.
Now I'm going to move on to spoiler territory.
Darth Vader is Luke's father.
I mean...
E.T. goes home.
Errr....
Kevin Bacon secures the right to dance.
There. That should kill enough space for people to not accidentally see something. Rupert's romance with the vampire-lady results in a midnight wedding. There's a lot of strange ritual in a very dark church. It plays out very similar to a vision his aunt had a while back, where she saw death. That really ratchets up the creepy factor in the story.
Shortly after the wedding, word comes to the castle that the daughter of the country's ruler has been kidnapped. Rupert instantly organizes search parties to rescue her, and even leads a party himself. Along the way, he learns more about the kidnapped women. It turns out, that she is the woman he married. So, she isn't a vampire at all. Before the book had started, she had fallen ill, and appeared to die. She awoke during her funeral (dressed in a funeral shroud, of course). It was decided that she had to appear to be deceased as a service to her country (I didn't actually follow the reason why, but was satisfied with that angle). She was kidnapped so the invaders would eventually have a claim to the land.
During her rescue, the book switches to the point of view of another rescuer. I thought this worked well in creating a tension that I don't normally find in books written in the first person. I found myself wondering if something were going to happen to Rupert during the rescue. He faced numerous dangers, and not just from the kidnappers.
Once that rescue is complete, it is discovered that the woman's father has also been kidnapped. He has been taken to a tower, since it is easily defended with few people. This complicates the rescue, but, fortunately, Rupert has an airplane and can rescue the man in that.
When the airplanes were first mentioned, I felt like the book may have been taking a few liberties with technology, since it takes place in the early 1900s and the first Wright Brothers flight wasn't much earlier, in 1903. From the context, though, I think that the airplanes may have actually been blimps, which were invented in 1880.
After that sequence is when the book slows down a lot with a bunch of politics and diplomacy and remains slow until it finishes. I did find myself wanting some sort of conflict or treachery to appear occur. Sadly, it never did. I didn't find it too hard to get through the ending, though.
All in all, I enjoyed it quite a bit. The slow parts were a bit annoying, but not too bad, when looking at the book as a whole.
Click here to view this book on Amazon.
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