Read any of these books?

[telophase]

Opinions? (Some are from a rec list on Ask.Metafilter and looked intriguing, the rest are others I found through link-hopping on Amazon or from someplace else and threw on my wishlist.)

The Shadow of the Wind

Nine Coaches Waiting

The Forgotten Garden: A Novel

The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel

A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889

The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker

Hubbub: Filth, Noise, and Stench in England, 1600-1770

Half World

The Hacienda: A Memoir

Last Rituals

The Floating Book: A Novel of Venice

Carnevale

One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding

Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who's Determined to Kill Me

Comments

[coffeeandink]

I liked The Shadow of the Wind (metaphysical Spanish Civil War thriller) and Half World (Narnia rewritten to star a fat Japanese Canadian girl and be based in pan-Asian philosophical concepts rather than Christianity, plus lots of inventive grotesquerie).

[telophase]

Thanks! (Your description makes me want to read Half World more than the one on the Amazon page does.)

[morineko]

yeah, what she said about Half World except I'm unfamiliar with Narnia. Also Jillian Tamaki's illustrations are cool.

Probably not the best example of Goto's work, but it's probably easier to find than anything else she's done simply by the virtue of this has an actual American publisher and all her previous books have been issued by Canadian small presses.

[ailelie]

The Shadow of the Wind: I started this, but stopped after a few chapters. It is very pretty to read, but it didn't engage me much.

Forgotten Garden: I've not read this, but it is on my library list. If you read it, let me know what it is like?

[telophase]

Thanks, and I will. :)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Nine Coaches Waiting is a super popular Gothic from the mid 20th century. I personally prefer some of Stewart's others, but many love it. I think it was a tad too standard Gothic; it doesn't have the female agency and wry humor and historical niftiness of Madam Will You Talk, or the sheer fun of her Greek ones.

A Nervous Splendour is a nervy, odd look at a nervy, odd time, the 1880s in Vienna, centered around the murder-suicide of Crown Prince Rudolph and his seventeen year old mistress. The research is excellent, though it lacks the emotional insights of today; its style is so very distinctive that wotsname Irving mined huge portions of it for Hotel New Hampshire. (It was also clear to me that Irving didn't do any other research on Vienna outside of that book.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Hmm, it sounds like I might prefer some of her others, then, thanks!

I hadn't run across ANS before, but the opening pages on Amazon sounded interesting.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Agreed. NINE COACHES is good but not outstanding; I'd recommend THIS ROUGH MAGIC or MADAM, WILL YOU TALK first.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Noted, thanks!

[maxineofarc.livejournal.com]

The only one of these I've read is "One Perfect Day." It would like to be a muckraker in the vein of "The American Way of Death," but ultimately there's less outrage in it and so it doesn't hit too hard. It's definitely worth checking out from the library, but I probably wouldn't feel the need to buy it. (The chapter on Disney weddings is really interesting, and so's the author's trip to China with a wedding gown wholesaler.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

edit: Hit post before adding: the American wedding industry fascinates and terrifies me.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I have not read it myself yet, but I've heard good things about Half World from people whose taste I trust.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thanks!

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

The Shadow of the Wind is really, really pretty and even if you don't end up liking it, the Graveyard of Forgotten Books is totally worth reading for.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks! :)

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Half World... hm. On the one hand, it's pretty good. On the other hand, the reason I enjoyed it as deeply as I did was that I went to a reading by the author at Wiscon and she is the best reader-of-her-own-work I ever did see, so that I literally heard the entire rest of the book in her voice. And I could tell I was ignoring some prose and structure issues because her voice was so captivating-- and I don't know how much of that voice is actually in the book, as opposed to my memory. Maybe see if there is video of her reading on Youtube, or something?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Interesting, thanks!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I agree with everyone on Nine Coaches Waiting: fun, but not Stewart's best. I'd recommend Madam, Will you Talk? (jerk hero but gorgeous language and funny) or The Ivy Tree (superbly cracktastic plot) first.

I haven't read Half Life but I've heard positive things about it.

The parrot memoir sounds like the sort of memoir that would make a good feature article.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I like memoirs of living and dealing with animals, probably because I cut my teeth on Born Free while living in Africa as a kid, but you're right - I'm a bit worried that this one might not fill a full book.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

The parrot memoir sounded really interesting, but looking at the Amazon reviewers it seems like there are a LOT of readers complaining that it's much, much more strongly focused on the human family than the title and cover would lead you to believe. :/

[telophase.livejournal.com]

And a quick skim of the reviews sounds like it might be about a family who don't learn how to properly care for a parrot for a long while. Hm. (I know how much attention parrots need, and how long-lived they are! No way would I get one, awesome though they are!)

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it sounds like it'd be a parrot version of Marley and Me, which I really hated* -- autobiographical family memoirs generally don't do much for me, and stories about inept pet owners make me upset, so this is probably Not The Book For Me.

*_{Read in desperate boredom when trapped at the former in-laws over the holidays; I'd have thrown it against the wall after a few chapters if I'd had any better options.}

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

The Thirteenth Tale was good, although since I don't generally read Gothics it's possible it would be less interesting to someone who did. It is, at least, reasonably well-written.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks. I don't usually read them, but I'm curious, as the descriptions I read tend to be full of the sort of thing I gravitate to. :)

[riofriotex.livejournal.com]

I don't read Gothics either but liked "The Thirteenth Tale." Here's my review (http://riofriotex.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Thirteenth%20Tale).

Also read "Shadow of the Wind" and loved it; my book club discusses it on the 20th (my suggestion and I'm leading the discussion). Here's my review (http://riofriotex.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Shadow%20of%20the%20Wind).

BTW I've done both of these as audiobooks - awesome! Thirteenth Tale uses two female British actresses to voice the two main characters. I'm listening to Shadow of the Wind right now. A single male narrator, but he does a fabulous job with the characterizations, especially Fermin!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thanks! :)

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

The Thirteenth Tale. Pretty good, leaves you guessing right to the end.

[fuchsoid.livejournal.com]

Nine Coaches Waiting was the first gothic-type romance I ever read, and I loved it (when I was about eleven), but I'd have to agree that it isn't the best of Mary Stewart, This Rough Magic is much better.

I have read Hubbub; it was interesting, but rather unsatisfying. I'm not entirely convinced by some of it, but it is probably worth a read.

I started to read both The Shadow of the Wind and The Floating Book but didn't finish either. The Shadow of the Wind was strangely un-gripping, despite an excellent translation, but I may give it another go since I heard an interview with the author on the BBC World Service (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p008bc6p). I tried to read The Floating Book a while ago, and just found it annoying, but lately my patience with fiction seems to be decreasing, and I can't quite remember what exactly about it I found annoying. Basically YMMV.

Last Rituals was really enjoyable, mainly because I've never read anything set in Iceland before. I read it after seeing a review that described it as a "comedic horror detective story", but it isn't really all that comedic or horrible. It is an excellent detective story though.