Book Reviews of 2012

2012 was a skimpy year for me in the reading department and I am not really sure why that was.  But the books I did read were interesting and for the most part well written.

       I particularly enjoy Geraldine Brooks and this year I read both “March” and “Caleb’s Crossing” having already read “Year of Wonders” and “People of the Book”.  Her subject matter is interesting and the characters are engaging while her writing is fluid pulling the reader into the story from the first page.  She has rapidly become one of my current favorite authors along with Kaye Gibbons and Alice Hoffman.

       Another book was “The Gods of Gotham” by Lyndsay Faye which is a mystery novel set in 1840’s New York City.  She has developed an interesting set of characters in the NYC police force and I anticipate there will be a series of stories coming out with the hero.  The actual plot had a disappointing ending for me but I am particular that way.  It was a little too predictable and sordid but I still liked the book.  I would certainly pick up a second book by Ms. Faye even though she has not yet thrilled me the way Thomas H. Cook does.

       Alison Weir has written a fine historical biography of Katherine Swynford, so titled.  She was inspired by the old novel “Katherine” written by Anya Seton which I had read when I was fifteen years old.  This old novel got me hooked on the whole Plantagenet story which lead me over to Thomas Costain’s books.  Without realizing it I had already read one of his books “The Black Rose” when I was 15 (about the only thing I learned thoroughly well in my Montreal grade 10 high school experience was going through their whole history section in the library) but soon I had gone through his whole Plantagenet series.

       I took another adventure into a Jane Austen spinoff by way of P.D. James’ “Death Comes to Pemberly” which I found much more to my liking than Colleen McCullough’s “The Independence of Mary Bennet”.  I did not care for McCullough’s rendition of making our Lizzie a downtrodden dull wife and reinventing Mary as the new Elizabeth Bennet.  I preferred the clever working of James’ murder mystery using beloved characters from Pride & Prejudice. 

       I used my Kindle to get some free oldies, Mary Roberts Rinehart’s “Kings, Queens & Pawns” is a very interesting account of her work with the government during WWI where she actually went to the frontlines and experienced the fighting from a woman’s perspective.  I vastly enjoyed Edna Ferber’s “Fanny Herself”.  I believe Ferber is a much undervalued American treasure.  She had a very penetrating insight into the growth of America at it’s peak in the early 20^th century.

       These are some of the few books which I read during 2012.  I have hopes for a bigger year in 2013 with the revitalization of The Awesome Chicks Book Club.