Tag: Books

Book Review: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction1 Comment

Agatha Christie is one of my go-to authors for audiobooks–I’m not sure how that happened, but there it is.  The only downside to audio is that I can’t really flip back and see just what Dame Agatha said early on after a twist emerged, to decide if she lied to me or not.  Reading (listening to) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was particularly interesting because I happened to know the twist of the ending–it turned out to be fascinating to see how she built it all up.  And she definitely withheld information, but she didn’t actually lie!

This is the third Hercule Poirot mystery, the fussy Belgian detective best known (I think) for The Murder on the Orient Express.  In classic Christie fashion, wealthy Roger Ackroyd is found murdered in his study, rendering everyone else in the house a suspect.  Poirot sifts through the web of motives, alibis and deceptions with the help of Dr. Sheppard, our first person narrator for the story.  Everyone has something to hide, and the final twist truly is magnificent.

This was my favorite kind of mystery–an intricate puzzle with piece after piece gradually fitting together until the entire picture makes sense.  There are many layers of narrative here, as most characters have something going on unrelated (but we don’t always know that) to the central murder.

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Friday Face-Off: Over the Rainbow

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations2 Comments

FFO.jpg

It’s the right day again for the Friday Face-Off meme, created by Books by Proxy, with weekly topics hosted by Lynn’s Book Blog.  The idea is to put up different covers for one book, and select a favorite.

This week’s theme…did not actually speak to me.  So I’m taking advantage of the freebie option to use the Friday Face-Off format but choose my own theme.  In honor of St. Patrick’s Day on Sunday, I decided to do a cover featuring a rainbow.

The first book with an important rainbow to come to mind was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum…though I admit the rainbow was more prominent in the movie than the book.  Which might be why it doesn’t show up on more covers!

This cover with that little smudgy rainbow in the background was the only rainbow I could find!  Which makes the whole idea not so appropriate for the holiday, but by now I’m invested in the Wizard of Oz idea, so…

I like the style of this one, both fun and artsy, though the lion turned out a bit cartoonish…

I like the framing effect here, and the image of the four friends journeying together.  I’ve always had a soft spot for images of people walking off down a road though–there’s such possibility!

I like the high drama of this one!  It’s also quite different from most others, which almost universally show Dorothy and her friends, and/or the yellow brick road.

My favorite cover is…actually the very first one up there!  There’s a funny bit of history to Oz illustrations.  I read all the illustrated editions of the entire series, and the strange thing is that they changed illustrators after the first book.  So all the later books have a particular, very charming art style, which just doesn’t exist for the first book.  So covers of The Wizard of Oz always look wrong to me!  And the first one, while not the same depiction of the characters, seems the closest to “right” in art style.

Along with the notable lack of a rainbow on Oz covers, I also noticed that not a single one I could find actually shows the Wizard of Oz!

Blog Hop: To Buy or Not to Buy

On By cherylmahoneyIn Blog Hop4 Comments

book-blogger-hop-finalToday’s Book Blogger Hop question is: Do you buy all your books? If yes, do you keep them all? If no, where do you source them?

I buy almost none of my books.  Virtually everything I read comes from my local library.  I’ve said for years that I could never afford my book habit if I had to actually pay for my books.  Last year I read around a hundred books, and it was a serious drop-off from most years.

Shall we run some math?  I’d guess at least a third of what I read last year were audiobooks, which are typically more expensive than print ones.  So let’s say I got really good used book deals on the paper books and spent an average of $5 per book.  If I went the ebook route, I think that’s still realistic.  Audiobooks, I think we have to say $15 to be even faintly plausible.  So that’s…[calculator on my phone]…approximately $1,000.  I could buy a signed L. M. Montgomery book for that.  Let’s assume that a decent number of those paper books were new books I had to buy at higher prices, call it a $15 average for the paper books too, and we’re up to $1,500.  And remember, I’ve typically read twice that many books.  Some are coming off of my own shelves, especially when I’m reading at a higher quantity, but I think we can still conservatively say that a typical year of reading, if purchased, would cost me around $2,500.  That’s most of a trip to England, right there.

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Book Review: The Golden Road

On By cherylmahoneyIn ReviewsLeave a comment

I never closed the loop on this one from the January L. M. Montgomery reading challenge.  I reviewed The Story Girl, then went on to reread its sequel, The Golden Road.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the first book…and then got more clarity of my earlier impressions by rereading the second book.

The sequel picks up much where the last book ended, and continues in the same style.  The children of the King family ramble around their family farm and orchard: Dan, Felicity and Cecily, hired boy Peter Craig, neighbor Sara Ray, Toronto cousins Beverly (a boy, despite the name–also the narrator) and Felix, and cousin The Story Girl, so nicknamed because of her telling of stories.

On a surface level this book matches the previous one, but once you scratch said-surface it isn’t really the same after all.  It’s still a lot of light-hearted stories about a group of children in Prince Edward Island, and the stories still centered around Montgomery staples like family gossip, school trials, the local colorful character Peg Bowen (who the children are convinced must be a witch), and the raptures of nature.

Despite all that, I rather think the sequel has been letting its predecessor down.  I’ve always read these books as a unit before, never stopping to analyze them separately, which I think is why I never realized how good The Story Girl is…because The Golden Road doesn’t live up to it.

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Blog Hop: Paper or Pixels?

On By cherylmahoneyIn Blog Hop1 Comment

book-blogger-hop-finalToday’s Book Blogger Hop question is: Have you made the switch from print to e-books? Is either one exclusive?

I am still holding out with paper books.  Too much of my life involves a screen: professionally, in my personal projects (writing, blogging, and so on) and in my entertainment (TV).  I still like looking at paper when I read.

I get it, though.  I understand the appeal of carrying many, many books in a light-weight fashion.  Right now I’m reading an 1,100 page behemoth that even in paperback has some weight to it.  I find myself less likely to wax poetic about the joy of paper and the smell of old books (although it is a nice smell) than I might have done five or ten years ago.  I feel like the big ebook vs. paper book debate has actually settled down.

People got intense when ebooks first arrived.  Now it seems like people have settled into their preferences, and ebooks have not been the death of paper books.  Which is nice.  Because I still like reading on paper instead of looking at a screen.  And I still don’t trust that digital books I buy will remain accessible as long as my paper books.

I have gone over to digital audiobooks.  And that is nice, to just download books from the library onto my phone, instantly, and carry them around.  I may get into ebooks some day, especially borrowed from the library.  But for now?  I still like paper.