This weekend, I read "Midnight's Lair" by Richard Laymon - very creepy! Also, "The Cat Who went Bananas" by Lillian Jackson Braun. This may be the last of hers I read. I kind of remmeber being dissatisfied with the way the last one ended, but this one was terrible. Totally anti-climatic. It basically just ends, with the denounment mentioned almost in passing. I'm currently reading "Burned" a Regan Reilly mystery by Carol Higgins Clark. Oh, I also read "Step-ball-change" by Jeanne Ray. I've really enjoyed her books.
I'm reading Earlene Fowler's "Broken Dishes", one of her Benni Harper mystery books and have started Isabel Allende's "Zorro" which is her take on how this fictional hero came to be. This is my first time to read one of her books and it is truly entertaining! Here are a couple reviews from the Barnes & Noble website:
****************************** FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal - Allende's retelling of Zorro displays her essential belief that the fabric of the story-the making of the man-is as important as the actions. Born to an aristocratic Spanish father and a tamed Shoshone warrior in 18th-century California, Diego de la Vega learns the lessons of injustice early. His mother's Indian blood and the violence perpetrated against the Native Americans by European settlers ignite a slow-burning fire in Diego. When Diego is sent to Barcelona with his "milk" brother Bernardo to be educated in the ways of his forebears, he studies with a fencing master and joins an underground resistance group, where Zorro the romantic revolutionary is truly forged. Allende's Zorro is not quite the violent, swashbuckling rogue that Johnston McCulley created in his serial potboilers, but this Zorro doesn't have to be for his character to be compelling. One does long for a little more swordplay, but Diego's crisis of identity, his relationship with Bernardo, and his love for a woman he cannot have make for enthralling reading. Allende (Daughter of Fortune) is a beguiling storyteller, and Zorro provides a rich palate for her customary embellishments. Recommended for all public libraries. -Misha Stone, Seattle P.L. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews - A graceful imagining of the saber-wielding, justice-dispensing freedom fighter of yore. Children of the '50s may happily remember Guy Williams's TV portrayal of the legendary Zorro, who carved his signature initial into his enemies' flesh with the point of his sword and kept the entire Spanish army in Alta California busily searching for him. Latter-day Californian Allende (Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, 2004, etc.) provides a backstory that brims with modern concerns: In her hands, Zorro is an ever-so-slightly tormented revolutionary whose sense of justice comes from the accident of his birth. The child of a Spanish officer and a Shoshone Indian woman, Diego de la Vega grows up with a profound knowledge of the injustices wrought by Europeans on California's native peoples. He takes his vulpine identity-zorro is Spanish for "fox"-early on, after a fox delivers him from danger; says his grandmother, helpfully, "That zorro is your totemic animal, your spiritual guide. . . . You must cultivate its skill, its cleverness, its intelligence." He does, reaching adolescence "with no great vices or virtues, except for a disproportionate love of justice, though whether that is a vice or a virtue, I am not sure." A Rousseauian child of nature, de la Vega travels to Spain to acquire a continental education. Becoming radicalized in the bargain, he defies the country's Napoleonic rulers and joins an underground alliance to battle them, then takes the fight back to America. But first de la Vega must endure being shanghaied by pirates, who, neatly enough, haul him before the legendary uber-pirate Jean Lafitte for a parlay. He acquires yet more education in the bayous, then makes for California once more tovisit mayhem on corrupt officialdom on behalf of truth, justice and the Spanish way of life. Allende's tale risks but resists descending into melodrama at every turn. The up-to-date, even postmodern ending makes for a nice touch, too, and will gladden the heart of anyone ready in his or her heart to carve a few Zs into the bad guys.
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This weekend, I read "Midnight's Lair" by Richard Laymon - very creepy! Also, "The Cat Who went Bananas" by Lillian Jackson Braun. This may be the last of hers I read. I kind of remmeber being dissatisfied with the way the last one ended, but this one was terrible. Totally anti-climatic. It basically just ends, with the denounment mentioned almost in passing. I'm currently reading "Burned" a Regan Reilly mystery by Carol Higgins Clark. Oh, I also read "Step-ball-change" by Jeanne Ray. I've really enjoyed her books.
Liz
Liz
I'm reading Earlene Fowler's "Broken Dishes", one of her Benni Harper mystery books and have started Isabel Allende's "Zorro" which is her take on how this fictional hero came to be. This is my first time to read one of her books and it is truly entertaining! Here are a couple reviews from the Barnes & Noble website:
******************************
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal -
Allende's retelling of Zorro displays her essential belief that the fabric of the story-the making of the man-is as important as the actions. Born to an aristocratic Spanish father and a tamed Shoshone warrior in 18th-century California, Diego de la Vega learns the lessons of injustice early. His mother's Indian blood and the violence perpetrated against the Native Americans by European settlers ignite a slow-burning fire in Diego. When Diego is sent to Barcelona with his "milk" brother Bernardo to be educated in the ways of his forebears, he studies with a fencing master and joins an underground resistance group, where Zorro the romantic revolutionary is truly forged. Allende's Zorro is not quite the violent, swashbuckling rogue that Johnston McCulley created in his serial potboilers, but this Zorro doesn't have to be for his character to be compelling. One does long for a little more swordplay, but Diego's crisis of identity, his relationship with Bernardo, and his love for a woman he cannot have make for enthralling reading. Allende (Daughter of Fortune) is a beguiling storyteller, and Zorro provides a rich palate for her customary embellishments. Recommended for all public libraries. -Misha Stone, Seattle P.L. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews -
A graceful imagining of the saber-wielding, justice-dispensing freedom fighter of yore. Children of the '50s may happily remember Guy Williams's TV portrayal of the legendary Zorro, who carved his signature initial into his enemies' flesh with the point of his sword and kept the entire Spanish army in Alta California busily searching for him. Latter-day Californian Allende (Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, 2004, etc.) provides a backstory that brims with modern concerns: In her hands, Zorro is an ever-so-slightly tormented revolutionary whose sense of justice comes from the accident of his birth. The child of a Spanish officer and a Shoshone Indian woman, Diego de la Vega grows up with a profound knowledge of the injustices wrought by Europeans on California's native peoples. He takes his vulpine identity-zorro is Spanish for "fox"-early on, after a fox delivers him from danger; says his grandmother, helpfully, "That zorro is your totemic animal, your spiritual guide. . . . You must cultivate its skill, its cleverness, its intelligence." He does, reaching adolescence "with no great vices or virtues, except for a disproportionate love of justice, though whether that is a vice or a virtue, I am not sure." A Rousseauian child of nature, de la Vega travels to Spain to acquire a continental education. Becoming radicalized in the bargain, he defies the country's Napoleonic rulers and joins an underground alliance to battle them, then takes the fight back to America. But first de la Vega must endure being shanghaied by pirates, who, neatly enough, haul him before the legendary uber-pirate Jean Lafitte for a parlay. He acquires yet more education in the bayous, then makes for California once more tovisit mayhem on corrupt officialdom on behalf of truth, justice and the Spanish way of life. Allende's tale risks but resists descending into melodrama at every turn. The up-to-date, even postmodern ending makes for a nice touch, too, and will gladden the heart of anyone ready in his or her heart to carve a few Zs into the bad guys.
Donna
I'm 1/2 way thru a 600 pg non-f "Jung: A Biography" by Dierdre Bair.
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