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todayiamadaisyI have a second round interview tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
February books read
* Just My Type: A book about fonts - Simon Garfield (2010) ★ ★ ★
This starts out well as a beginner's guide to typefaces and their history: conversational, accessible and enjoyable. About halfway through it becomes more disorganised: shorter, messier chapters that jumped around, sometimes confusingly. So this rating is really four stars for the really good first half less one for dropping off in quality (and needing more illustrations).
* See What I Have Done - Sarah Schmidt (2017) ★ ★
A fictionalised telling of Lizzie Borden and her famous axe. A frustrating book, chronologically disjointed, with four viewpoints that all sound the same (except for the Irish maid's phonetically spelled accent). Reading more about the case online, it seems the book actually makes the case less interesting than it really was.
Also, there is a lot of pear-eating in this book. A LOT. These characters really liked pears.
* Even the Dead - Benjamin Black (2015) ★ ★ ★
I picked this up at a second-hand book fair, not realising it's the seventh (and final?) book in a series. That didn't seem to matter until the very end, which refers back to events that apparently occurred in the first book. It didn't affect my understanding of the story, but probably did affect the emotional impact of it.
Anyway, this is a beautifully written, rather melancholy investigation into the suspicious death of a young man in 1950s Dublin. Recommended, but only if you read the other books first.
* A Perfect Crime - A Yi (2012) (trans. Anna Holmwood, 2014) ★ ★ ★
A disaffected teenager somewhere in China decides to kill someone; this book takes us through his preparation, escape and trial. The teenager is lonely, bored and angry, and it certainly isn't fun being in his head, but he is depressingly believable. I can't say I enjoyed this, exactly, but it maintained my interest enough for me to read it in an afternoon.
* A Southwold Mystery - Suzette A. Hill (2015) ★ ★
A society matron is poisoned while giving out prizes at a flower show; a few days later, a publisher is found shot. On the case(s) are two reasonably competent local policemen who don't actually solve anything, and four friends from London, each travelling in pairs, who rarely talk to each other, each uncover separate parts of the mystery, who end by deciding never to reveal what they've found. Two of the friends are, I think, meant to be sort of charming comic relief, but they are instead quite irritating; the other two are sensible but boring. There's an interesting murder mystery buried deep in this book, but it's not well executed (pardon the pun). If it were a loaf of bread, I'd say it needed longer in the proving drawer.
* The Zig Zag Girl - Elly Griffiths (2014) ★ ★ ★
A policeman has to solve a murder in 1950s Brighton with the help of a famous magician. This is the first in a series, so it has to spend a lot of time setting up the characters, and it has one of my pet literary peeves, the case that's personal for the detective. In brief: a bland but serviceable cosy mystery.
Something I learnt: (some) people in the 1950s had their umbrellas professionally furled. Imagine that.
* Mr Iyer Goes to War - Ryan Lobo (2016) ★ ★ ★
Lalgudi Iyer, whose family has placed him in a rest home by the Ganges, slips and hits his head, realising that he is the reincarnation of the hero Bhīma. He escapes from the home with the help of his friend Bencho, and the two of them go on the run down the river, fighting injustices. Eventually, they return home, only to make another escape and go on a second adventure involving a politician.
So yes, it's Don Quixote set in India. I found it wildly improbable that all the people they met separately in the first half turned out to be connected in the second half, but once I decided to treat it as a sort of dreamscape, it all seemed to flow better. (I still found the political plot a bit confusing.)
February books read
* Just My Type: A book about fonts - Simon Garfield (2010) ★ ★ ★
This starts out well as a beginner's guide to typefaces and their history: conversational, accessible and enjoyable. About halfway through it becomes more disorganised: shorter, messier chapters that jumped around, sometimes confusingly. So this rating is really four stars for the really good first half less one for dropping off in quality (and needing more illustrations).
* See What I Have Done - Sarah Schmidt (2017) ★ ★
A fictionalised telling of Lizzie Borden and her famous axe. A frustrating book, chronologically disjointed, with four viewpoints that all sound the same (except for the Irish maid's phonetically spelled accent). Reading more about the case online, it seems the book actually makes the case less interesting than it really was.
Also, there is a lot of pear-eating in this book. A LOT. These characters really liked pears.
* Even the Dead - Benjamin Black (2015) ★ ★ ★
I picked this up at a second-hand book fair, not realising it's the seventh (and final?) book in a series. That didn't seem to matter until the very end, which refers back to events that apparently occurred in the first book. It didn't affect my understanding of the story, but probably did affect the emotional impact of it.
Anyway, this is a beautifully written, rather melancholy investigation into the suspicious death of a young man in 1950s Dublin. Recommended, but only if you read the other books first.
* A Perfect Crime - A Yi (2012) (trans. Anna Holmwood, 2014) ★ ★ ★
A disaffected teenager somewhere in China decides to kill someone; this book takes us through his preparation, escape and trial. The teenager is lonely, bored and angry, and it certainly isn't fun being in his head, but he is depressingly believable. I can't say I enjoyed this, exactly, but it maintained my interest enough for me to read it in an afternoon.
* A Southwold Mystery - Suzette A. Hill (2015) ★ ★
A society matron is poisoned while giving out prizes at a flower show; a few days later, a publisher is found shot. On the case(s) are two reasonably competent local policemen who don't actually solve anything, and four friends from London, each travelling in pairs, who rarely talk to each other, each uncover separate parts of the mystery, who end by deciding never to reveal what they've found. Two of the friends are, I think, meant to be sort of charming comic relief, but they are instead quite irritating; the other two are sensible but boring. There's an interesting murder mystery buried deep in this book, but it's not well executed (pardon the pun). If it were a loaf of bread, I'd say it needed longer in the proving drawer.
* The Zig Zag Girl - Elly Griffiths (2014) ★ ★ ★
A policeman has to solve a murder in 1950s Brighton with the help of a famous magician. This is the first in a series, so it has to spend a lot of time setting up the characters, and it has one of my pet literary peeves, the case that's personal for the detective. In brief: a bland but serviceable cosy mystery.
Something I learnt: (some) people in the 1950s had their umbrellas professionally furled. Imagine that.
* Mr Iyer Goes to War - Ryan Lobo (2016) ★ ★ ★
Lalgudi Iyer, whose family has placed him in a rest home by the Ganges, slips and hits his head, realising that he is the reincarnation of the hero Bhīma. He escapes from the home with the help of his friend Bencho, and the two of them go on the run down the river, fighting injustices. Eventually, they return home, only to make another escape and go on a second adventure involving a politician.
So yes, it's Don Quixote set in India. I found it wildly improbable that all the people they met separately in the first half turned out to be connected in the second half, but once I decided to treat it as a sort of dreamscape, it all seemed to flow better. (I still found the political plot a bit confusing.)