A Study in Scarlet

 
The title: A Study in Scarlet
The author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Publication: 1887
Got it from: MC

I am deeply in love with the BBC series of Sherlock, and while I read The Hound of the Baskervilles last year, until now I have not read any of the other Sherlock Holmes stories.  I decided to start at the beginning and work my way through the Sherlock canon.  

I tend to be wary of Victorian literature as it can be quite wordy, so I was surprised at how utterly readable this novella was.  I don't think anybody reading it today would find it difficult or foreign.  Much has been said elsewhere about how modern and ahead-of-his-time Conan Doyle's creation was, so I'll skip that and just say it was a cracking good story.

The first part of the novella deals with Watson and Holmes' meeting and is hilarious in the way it portrayes Watson's bafflement over his new roommate.  (A list Watson makes of Sherlock's knowledge of various subjects is a highlight).  The majority of the middle portion of the book involves the back story of the murder case Holmes and Watson are trying to solve, and involves a nail-biting tale of fanatic Mormons, a love affair, a daring escape and a plot for revenge.  I can see why the Victorians went crazy over this.  Whether or not you actually believe Holmes could possibly know what he knows from the clues he's given, he certainly makes you want to pay more attention to the world around you.

Passion

The title: Passion
The author: Louise Bagshawe
Publication:  Headline Publishing, 2009
Got it from:  The library

After reading so many heavy books for book club, I wanted something light and easy and page-turning.  This book appealed to me because its premise is based on Jane Austen's novel Persuasion.  When Melissa and Will were young, they were in love and wanted to get married.  But Melissa's father, an ambitious Oxford professor, convinced Melissa to break it off.  Heartbroken, Will goes into the army and gets recruited by MI6.  Almost twenty years later, Melissa is an academic with a rather dull life, and Will is a billionaire banker living in Manhatten.  When she becomes the target of a ruthless assassin, Will has to come back into her life to protect her.

I liked this novel quite a bit, and enjoyed it more than the average chick lit fare I've read.  I zipped through the 500 pages of this novel, wanting to see how Melissa and Will were going to escape some pretty harrowing situations.  Although I thought Will's meteoric rise to billionairedom was pretty far-fetched, I could see how the author needed to include it to make their escape from internationally trained killers believable.  I liked that Melissa isn't drop-dead gorgeous and that Will falls in love with her again because of her passion and determination.  The reason for Melissa being targeted (it has to do with her father's research) is kept somewhat vague, but that's obviously not the focus of the story.  This was definitely a fun diversion for a fall evening.

The Tiger's Wife

The title: The Tiger's Wife
The author: Tea Obreht
Publication:  Random House, 2011
Got it from:  The library

Whoa.  I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted a book review.  For some reason, I have been really struggling to finish a book recently.  It may be because I've been running two book clubs and the books we've been reading have been super huge.  I don't normally write about my book club books, but I'll make an exception this time.

Describing the plot of The Tiger's Wife is rather difficult.  It starts out in the present-day Balkans, with a young doctor traveling to rural communities to distribute medical care to children.  Her grandfather has just died, and in flashbacks she tells the story of her life growing up with him and the tales he told her about his childhood in a remote mountain village.  The stories he tells have a tinge of fantasy to them, and the two main ones involve a "deathless man" who the grandfather encounters throughout his life, and the tiger's wife.

What I like about this book is that the fantasy element has been left ambiguous.  Certainly the peasants in her grandfather's village growing up were superstitious and believed in folk tales.  What I took from it was that real events occurred (such as a tiger escaping from a zoo and running into the mountains) which later grew to mythic proportions.  There's a lot of push and pull between the folk beliefs of the villagers and the more rational, modern beliefs of the narrator and her grandfather (who was also a doctor).  One of the grandfather's most prized possessions was his copy of The Jungle Book, which he carried with him everywhere, and allowed him to identify the tiger when it showed up in his village (as opposed to everyone else thinking it was a demon, not having seen one before).  The grandfather's stories seem to say that legends make life more interesting, but ignorance has its consequences, as when people turn to folk rather than modern medicine or make a scapegoat out of an innocent bystander (the tiger's wife).

I'm not much of a description person so I struggled with some of the detail of the book, but overall I liked the dream-like, strange atmosphere of the book.  It's almost like reading a modern-day Grimm's fairy tale where you have to prepare for the unexpected.

Entwined

The title: Entwined
The author: Heather Dixon
Publication:  Greenwillow Books, 2011
Got it from:  The library

This YA story is based on one of my favourite childhood fairy tales, The Twelve Dancing Princesses.  It takes the theme of the story about twelve princesses who disappear into a magic realm under the castle each night to dance, and adds new twists.  

I have been putting off writing a review of this book, I think because I had mixed feelings about it.  Some parts were clever, like the part about the enchanted sugar teeth and the young men who attempt to solve the riddle (thankfully in this version they are not executed by the king if they fail).  But the book took me such a long, long time to get into.  And I'm not sure if they payoff was worth it.  I felt like there was a lot of unnecessary exposition (Princess A did this, Princess B said that, etc.) that the book could have been cut in half and still retained its essence.  I never really got a feel for the characters of the princesses, especially the eldest daughter Azalea, who is the heroine of the story.  Ultimately I finished this book feeling unsatisfied.

Anne of Green Gables

The title: Anne of Green Gables
The author: L.M. Montgomery
Publication:  LC Page & Company, 1908 (100th anniversary edition: Penguin, 2008)
Got it from:Cavendish, PEI, August 2012

It certainly hadn't been my intention to re-read Anne of Green Gables this year, as it wasn't on my "to-read" list and besides, I read it so many times in childhood.  But I just came back from a holiday on the Island, and we went to the musical and Green Gables, and then I caved in and bought the 100th anniversary edition as I've been meaning to, and there I was reading it again, along with my husband who is also reading it.

I love it, of course.  I don't think I ever will stop loving it.  I first saw the Anne musical when I was seven and read the book then, and I've read it (and its sequels) at several different times during my life.  Each time I read it, I do so from an altered perspective.  The last time I think I read it cover-to-cover was for a children's literature class ten years ago.  

This time when I read it, I laughed a whole lot more.  As a child reading it, I identified so much with Anne and would cringe in sympanthy every time she got into a "scrape."  Now I see the humour much more in the situations and can laugh without feeling the old wince of pity.  The parts I loved the most this time around were Anne's interactions with the people of Avonlea, particularly with her schoolfriends in their various rivalries and friendships.  You can almost hear the townsfolk singing "she's nothing like the rest of us" right out of Beauty and the Beast.  And of course, one can't help feeling wistful for all the nature in the book, especially when one is enduring a hot, dry summer in a particularly ugly part of the country. 

The Ancient Guide to Modern Life

The title: The Ancient Guide to Modern Life
The author: Natalie Haynes
Publication:  Profile Books, 2012
Got it from: DC, Xmas 2011

I loved this book from comedian Natalie Haynes about the correlations between ancient times and today.  I've been interested in the classical world ever since my university classics courses, but haven't read much about it since.  I usually read things about the 19th century, so this was a nice change of pace.  The book is divided into chapters dealing with aspects of ancient Greek and Roman society (law, politics, entertainment, etc.) and shows the similarities and differences between then and now, with some observations on how we can learn from our predecessors.  For instance, there is a bit about how much more involved the people of ancient Greece were in politics and maintaining their democracy, and how we as a society can learn from their example.  I liked the comparison of ancient entertainment to ours - how we still love stories of dysfunctional families, for example, only instead of Medea we watch The Sopranos.  I highly recommend this funny, thought-provoking title.

Beguiling the Beauty

The title: Beguiling the Beauty
The author: Sherry Thomas
Publication:  Berkley, 2012
Got it from: La library


Sherry Thomas is a relatively new author on the scene, but she's been steamrolling her way to the romance hall of fame, being compared to rising superstar Courtney Milan.  When I read the description for this book, I was intrigued to try it out.  Christian, the Duke of Lexington, has been haunted for ten years by the memory of a beautiful woman he once saw.  He has since become a scientist, interested in paleontology and evolutionary theory (it is 1898, so Darwin's theories weren't anywhere near universally accepted).  One fortuitous night, the widow Venetia Easterbrook attends one of his lectures and gets to hear Christian railing against the dangers of a beauty he believes has driven her two husbands to an early grave.  Venetia quickly realizes he is talking about her, and is infuriated - Christian has gotten his "information" from her vicious (now dead) husband.  What she doesn't realize is that she's been haunting Christian's dream for years and he's bitter about being so susceptible to her charms.  Venetia hatches a scheme to get back at Christian by disguising herself as a German countess, seducing him and breaking his heart.


I wasn't sure if I was going to like this book at first.  For the first three chapters, a lot of characters were dropped in my lap and I was like, "Wha?  -wha? -wha?"  But then Christian and Venetia got on the transatlantic ship back to England, and things picked up.  The author of course was introducing the other characters to set up the romances for the whole trilogy.  And darn her, she intrigued me to want to read the other two.  Venetia's brother and his estranged wife who is in love with him (does he return her love?) and her sister, who is in love with a married man but pined after by her childhood friend.  Normally those sorts of romances don't interest me but somehow she made me want to read them.  But back to this story - I think Sherry Thomas has some serious writing skills, and I liked the way she kept the suspense going right up until  the bitter end, with no long-winded happily-ever-after (I guess we get to see that in the sequels).  I liked that I didn't find Venetia annoying even though she's one of those beauties who have men falling all over themselves, and I like that both characters are obsessed with fossils.  A most enjoyable read.