The Man on the Balcony - Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

These Martin Beck books are really enjoyable - they move right along, and they aren't bloated or weighed down with unnecessary nonsense to add 200+ pages. There's a lovely economy of story. We're introduced to the crime and over the course of the book it's solved. What can be better than that? The ending did seem just a little abrupt, to be honest - almost like there should have been one more chapter or something, but that's not a big deal. I do like how the details of the cops' lives are provided without having to have pages of extraneous details. All in all this is an enjoyable series.

The Unit - Ninni Holmqvist (Spoilers?)

So the "elevator pitch" for this book would be "Logan's Run meets Never Let Me Go with a Scandinavian twist." The "twist" I refer to is the sense of calm that pervades this book - this story could certainly be told in a much different way, but I like that there is that feeling of tranquility throughout. I think it makes the story sink in more deeply that if it had been written in a more overtly emotional fashion. Don't get me wrong - there is a lot of emotion here, and a lot of emotional scenes, it's just that they are presented in a way that's ... reflective, I guess.

In some ways, I am not 100% of the message the author expects readers to take away from this book. As someone who is rather close (coughcoughcough) in age to the protagonist of this book, and who is married but childfree, I can identify with a relate the sense of procreation being considered more important than quality of life for single people, older people, etc. - and the idea that there are no adult spaces left, that "families" (ONLY including people who have children, and NEVER referring to a married couple) are taking over every conceivable space and place, literally and figuratively pushing out people who dare to veer off what I see called on the Internet the LifeScriptTM (birth, school, graduate high school, graduate college, get a job with decent pay/benefits, "settle down" by getting married and immediately having kids... you get the idea). This book is definitely food for much thought, and it will stay with me for a long time. Recommended.

November - This Month in Reading

Readers, this has been a memorable month in many ways, not all of them good. One good thing is that I finally read my review book - and it was great! I also met my goals of completing my Back to the Classics Challenge reading, which is good. I am very close to reading the minimal required number of books for the TBR Pile Challenge, which I was hoping to finish in November, but I kind of gave myself a bad start by having too many of the books as series books, which required extra reading that doesn't count for the challenge itself, etc. As of right now, the challenges I need to finish are Alphabet Soup (just need 1 last book!), TBR Pile, Read It Again, Sam, Banned Books, 

Mount TBR, and French Bingo - I think the rest are completed. Hooray! 

My total book count for November was 18 books, which is a nice big number that I am happy with. Because I'm a bit behind on the aforementioned challenges, I will have to read at least that many books in December, but I think I am up to the challenge. Note to self: let's figure out a way to avoid doing this mad dash to the finish line next December! 

How is your reading shaping up for this last month of 2016?

November Reread - The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde (Spoilers?)

Rereading this wonderful series has been a real antidote to some pre-holiday (mid-holiday?) malaise. This is probably my favorite book of the series so far, because it takes place almost entirely within the book world. I love the author's endlessly imaginative explanations for how books are really created, and how they really work. I actually feel guilty now when I have to stop reading right in the middle of a scene and etc., because I can't help thinking about how annoying that would be to the characters acting out the story. I also love the amusing takes on classic book characters like the Wuthering Heights cast - it's so fun to read. It's funny that I first read this series before I had actually read many of the books Fforde references, such as Jane Eyre and Heights, and now I feel like I get even more references that I probably missed before. All in all I would love to visit the WOLP myself, and book jump into this series. Recommended.

Sea of Poppies - Amitav Ghosh

Readers, it's not often that I am truly bowled over by a book. I mean, I enjoy a lot of books, but it's rare that I am really over the moon about a book like I was about this one. All I can say is - WOW. I was immediately drawn in and could not put this book down. The story was completely engrossing, and the writing was so clear and well done that I truly felt like I was on board the Ibis. The author skillfully weaves the story and brings all the story threads together. The last 20 pages or so are a marvel of tension and suspense. All in all I can't say enough good things about this book - the best part is that there are two more volumes in this trilogy. I cannot wait to get my hands on those next books! Highly recommended.

Always - Nicola Griffith

Finally prioritized this book, the third book about one of my favorite characters, Aud Torvingen. I really liked how the books is structured, with two stories woven together. I also appreciate that Aud is on the one hand a clear-thinking self determined person, who on the other hand is human just like the rest of us and sometimes does inexplicable things, or does things with good intentions that don't work out the way she might have planned. It's good to know that even people who are highly competent are not always in control. As the greedy sort, I'm hoping for more stories about Aud, although I think she deserves a nice respite from intrigue for a while. This is a well written, enjoyable series - recommended.

Luna - Julie Anne Peters

Seeing as how this book was published in 2004, I can't believe I hadn't heard about this book ages ago - apparently, I am way out of the loop with good YA fiction! This author has a real ear for dialogue; everything rings true and the characters sounded like real people talking. Speaking of the characters, I found them to be nicely multi-dimensional, and the author does a great job of helping us with their motivations and feelings. The family dynamics on display here rang true to me too; I know all families are different, but the story unfolds in a very realistic way. All in all, this was a great book, and I will definitely have to check out more by the same author. Recommended.

V for Vendetta - Alan Moore, David Lloyd

I've been meaning to read this for ages, but it has never seemed more timely so I decided to stop putting it off. What can I say; this is a really powerful book. I think I have mentioned before that I am not a huge fan of graphic novels, just because I like reading and graphic novels don't require a lot of reading, but in this case, I don't think there was a better way to tell this story. The images really set up the creepy dystopian dictatorship and give it an immediacy that might not be as strong in writing. If you've seen the movie, I can tell you that the film adheres to the book as far as I can remember. As the world begins the 21st century with unrest and upheaval and lots and lots of angry people, books like this one seem eerily prescient. Remember the 5th of November indeed. Recommended.

Becoming Nicole - Amy Ellis Nutt

Another book summed up by its subtitle: "The Transformation of an American Family." As a slight change from the other books I have recently read about trans people, which were all written in the first person, this book is written in the third person, so it provides information from multiple people's points of view, and also adds some interesting scientific information. It's well written and is a fast read, and would be a great resource for anyone who wants to know more about being trans.

I must say, that although I did appreciate Nicole's parents eventually coming around, it took them long enough! Parents, please, listen to your children and open your hearts sooner rather than later. <3

As a side note, Nicole herself is going to be on an HBO documentary called "The Trans List" in December - I have already set my DVR!

The Children's Book - A.S. Byatt (Spoilers)

I am not sure how I came by my copy of this book - I'm guessing it was a long-ago library book sale - ? In any case, it's been gathering dust on my TBR pile for many years now, even though I have enjoyed a couple of the author's other books, so I have no idea why I didn't immediately read this book.

As it happens, now that I have read it, I don't know what to think. The word that kept coming to my mind while I was reading was "self-indulgent." My heavy paperback copy is 675 pages and I just feel that the same story could have been told in less than half the pages. Page-long paragraphs ramble endlessly, but amount to nothing more than lists and overly wordy descriptions we don't need. There are so many characters it's hard to keep track of them all, especially once we find out that two of the men in the book are basically the fathers of more than half the characters, since their chief pastime seems to be seducing anything female that walks within 3 feet of their trousers. This book had more extramarital pregnancies and childbirth scenes than the last several hundred books I've read combined.

Most of the characters are enigmatic and seem to do things for no particular reason, as we are never allowed to find out what makes them tick. Characters are surly and unlikeable and then they walk into the sea and their dead bodies wash up on shore a bit later. There is no character development, no relation to the plot, it just happens and then we are on to the next inconvenient pregnancy.

The most frustrating part of the book is that I have a great interest in the time period (late 1800s - World War I). So much happened in those years, including women's suffrage, but the author seems to simultaneously ramble on about and gloss over these events in favor of yet another scene of someone confessing to being pregnant yet again. It's clear that the author did research, but I feel like it wasn't really put into play as much as it could have been. For example, one of the characters does go to prison for being a suffragette who is halfheartedly attempting to sabotage a museum to gain attention for the cause. We hear about how she tries to resist eating, and is force fed, and spends hours walking around her jail cell, but to be honest these are all things I read about in books when I was a kid - no deep research was needed to produce these scenes, I could have written them. We've now seen so many WW I scenes in movies and in other books that it wouldn't take ages of research to produce a few scenes set in that conflict either. It seems like such a wasted opportunity.

To be fair, some parts of the book were interesting. The puppets and the plays were intriguing, and the stories Olive writes for the children were obviously tied in to their lives (even if that was heavy handed and obvious). I feel like there was a cool story buried in here somewhere but it never materialized. I can't recommend this one I'm afraid.