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Author Topic: Official Book Recs Thread
Olivet
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Heh, my first 'official' thread. I did do about ten searches for an existing thread like this and didn't come up with one that fit.

Tell me what you've read recently and why you liked it. We can skip the Harry Potter stuff, or whatever has recently had it's own thread (in my case that means I won't pimp Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell here, mores's the pity).

I just finished Lord John and the Private Matter, optimistically subtitled, "The First Lord John Grey Novel" by Diana Gabaldon. I first picked up Gabaldon on the loud reccommendation of many, many Wenches whom I adore, and the Outlander books have been a pleasure to read (for the most part, anyway- I find it hard to give a rat's behind about Briana and her situation).

Lord John was one of my favorite characters in the series, and I loved following him around London in this tight little mystery novel. It's not, you know, Agatha Christie, and that's why I liked it. In the end you know what happened, but the guilty aren't necessarily punished, at least not by any human authority. This one is set during the time Jamie was serving his parole at Hellwater (sp?), making it well before he adopted Jamie's son.

Maybe not a book for those who love typical mysteries, and probably not for those who object to books with homosexual characters (though there isn't any sex). Lord John has had the misfortune of losing his first love to war and to fall for another who, while kindly disposed to him, will never return his love.

Gabaldon always writes with humor and a deft hand with characters walking fine lines between their private and public selves. I love Lord John, and I'd follow him anywhere, even through the grittier bits of London looking for a spy and a murderer or two.

I'm not big on mysteries, but if the Second Lord John Grey Novel ever comes about, I am SO there.

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ketchupqueen
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Can I plug my favorite series here? Lindsey Davis' Marcus Didius Falco books are teh awesome! They're detective stories set in ancient Rome and the ancient Roman Emperor. Wonderful characterization, wonderful stories, wonderful writing in general. And she has a new U.S. publisher, who will be re-issuing the older books and publishing her newest one next year! w00t!
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kojabu
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I highly recommend The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It's about the story of Dracula and sort of fits into the type of book as Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code, but much better written. It's on the bestseller list I think.
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Rico
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I just read A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O'toole. It was an ok read but nothing too amazing for me. It's suppossed to be humor but it didn't really tickle my funny-bone more than once. It's an ok read though and the characters are certainly very odd. The book is critically acclaimed so maybe someone will find it more enjoyable than I did.
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Zalmoxis
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OSC recommended David Liss's _A Conspiracy of Paper_ a while back. It sounded like my kind of thing so I picked it up.

It didn't disappoint.

It's a very good, exciting mystery/action novel. But it's even more interesting because Liss really draws on his knowledge of the period for fascinating details and sociological perspectives.

Here's how OSC describes it:

quote:
Mark my words, though, this is far more than a whodunnit or a detective novel. It is set in the early 1700s in London, where Benjamin Weaver is a semi-lapsed Jew who, after a broken leg ended his career as a pugilist, is now working as a "thief-taker."
This was before London had any police. Not that police were unknown -- the French had had them for years. But the independent-minded British had no desire for any of the trappings of the absolute monarchy that was France -- especially since in those days the French and British relationship ranged between mere rivalry and bitter enmity.
So laws were enforced by citizens -- either the mob that gave chase when someone cried out, Stop! Thief! or the thief-taker, who gathered his witnesses and brought an action before a magistrate.
In fact, while Robert Peel is given credit for creating the first official London police force (which is why they were nicknamed "bobbies"), the first unofficial police were organized by Henry Fielding, who, besides writing Tom Jones and other pivotal works of fiction, was also a magistrate; and in order to help make the streets of London safe enough for decent citizens to walk abroad without having to wield a sword or pistol just to get back home with their wallets and their lives, he organized the Bow Street Runners, men he sent out to bring in reluctant witnesses and defendants.
A Conspiracy of Paper takes place at the time of the great South Sea Bubble, an era when the South Sea Company tried to horn in on the Bank of England's business of brokering what we would now call government bonds. It was the era when the British stock exchange was first being developed, and its workings were a mystery even to most of the people who invested in the market.
Benjamin's father was a stockbroker, and when he dies under circumstances that might have been murder, there are hundreds of people who blamed him for the money they lost in the market -- especially because he was a Jew and a foreigner. Of course, no one credited him with the money they gained ...
Benjamin finds that his puglistic past is as useful as his family connections in the financial markets -- not to mention his connections from the time in his life when he made his living as a thief and highwayman, occupations that were hanging offenses in England at the time.
Best of all, the entire novel is written in a modified 18th-century style. I say this is "best of all" because the modification consists of moving the story forward at the breakneck pace modern readers expect, instead of meandering off in whatever direction strikes the author's fancy, as writers of the time were wont to do. So we have the flavor and wit of the language of the era of great raconteurs in glittering salons, and yet all the makings of a thriller and a mystery and a rather lovely romance in the bargain.


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ladyday
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Olivia, this is such a freakish coincidence! I just ordered a bunch of books online and two of them are Lord John Grey and the Private Matter and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Crazy.

Actually, a friend of mine sent Diana Gabaldon an email asking if there would be more Lord John Grey novels and she got a response! There are two more in the works [Smile] .

I will bellow if the other books I got were any good imo (A Scanner Darkly and The Time Travel's Wife) but for now I'll go ahead and rec The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. -Very- touching mystery of sorts and you can knock it out in an afternoon.

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Olivet
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Cool! This coincidence brought to you by Rufus Wainwright, Vampires and the letter D.

[Big Grin]

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