Book Reviews

Quick reviews, because I'm behind:

The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin. Very readable. Good insights, not only into the Austrailian songlings the book is ostensibly about, but about the human nature to wander and how people have to turn their enemies into beasts -- animals -- in order to fight them.

The Soup Peddler's Slow and Difficult Soups, Recipes and Reveries, by David Ansel. This made me miss college towns I have known. Lots of anecdotes about living in a strange little suburby place off Austin. The guy delivers soup to your door...Wah! Why not in Colorado, too?!? The soups look delicious, but I didn't make any before I took the book back. Has a website.

Perfume, The Story of a Murderer, by Patrick Suskind. This has been made into a movie; I haven't seen it. The story of a madman with a golden nose, and I'll say no more of the plot. Wonderfully written. "In eighteenth-century France, there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages."

Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. Don't read this book in large doses unless you have an incredible talent for digesting rich food (or like that guy who eats planes). One of the great comic novels of all time -- A Tom Jones of New Orleans. I read it at work and must say it was a great comfort, especially the parts about Levy Pants, to read while enduring the various nonsenses that go on there. The main character has a statue in New Orleans.

The Eight, b y Katherine Neville. Better than The Da Vinci Code by an order or magnatude or two, but I'm an Illuminatus! Trilogy girl. I loved Lily and her dog. I was hoping for a different ending, but the one written made a lot more sense.

Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot, Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country, by Patricia C. Wrede and Carolyn Stevermeyer. Romance, magic, intrigue. Jane Austin meets Stephen Brust. Two pinkies gracefully extended!