Feb 2-8, 2014

Last Rituals by Yrsa Siguroardottir - a rather uninspired telling of a murder with possible ritualistic overtones. Set in Iceland. Even though I didn't care for this book, I'll probably read the next in the series to see if it gets better.

2 stars
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The Apartment by Greg Baxter - one long introspective talking to himself ramble by a man in an unidentified European city looking for an apartment. There are no chapter breaks. I started off thinking I was going to like this but at the end I was just "huh?"

2 stars
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The Wind is Not a River by Brian Payton - WWII and a newspaper correspondent is shot down over the Aleutian Islands. While he is trying to survive on an island held by the Japanese, his wife decides to begin trying to find him. While I vaguely knew about this part of history, I didn't know what happened to the natives at the time. That's just a small part of the story, though.

4 stars
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Hunting Shadows by Charles Todd - an Ian Rutledge mystery. Two seemingly unrelated men are shot down a few weeks apart and Inspector Rutledge is sent to discover the cause. Set in the Fens, with lots of atmospheric weather. For some reason I had trouble keeping up with all the characters and I thought the solution was somewhat of a cheat.

3 stars
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Amelia Peabody;s Egypt by Elizabeth Peters - a non-fiction book with fictional characters from the Amelia Peabody books inserted. All the stuff about Egypt is true. Includes chapters about the Victorian attitude  toward Egypt. Probably only interesting is you've read the Amelia Peabody series - which I recommend.

3 stars
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The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton - 834 pages, a LOT of talking. I'm still not really sure how I feel about this book. It's a contemporary novel set in the 1860's and written in that style. The first half of the book is spent introducing all the characters and the situation. Once that was over is when it started to get pretty good. But then near the end the book changes again and I thought that was a weak point. All the chapters are introduced with astrological symbols and I think the author was trying to tie the story into that but I just ignored that part. Mostly because I don't understand it and don't care enough to try. At times I hated the book and at times I really enjoyed it. I did have to put it down two different times to read something else. I guess I'll average it out and give it

3 stars