The End of the Archers

Honor Among Thieves, Jeffrey Archer, 1993, HarperCollins, Genre: Spy Thriller. 381 pages. Finished 11/3/12.

A Prisoner of Birth, Jeffrey Archer, 2008, St. Martin's Press, Genre: Fiction. 501 pages. Finished 11/13/12.

Paths of Glory, Jeffrey Archer, 2009, St. Martin's Press, Genre: Fictionalized Biography. 372 pages. Finished 11/21/12.

To Cut a Long Story Short, Jeffrey Archer, 2000, HarperCollins, Genre: Collected Short Fiction. 271 pages. Finished 11/24/12.

LesOpinion: I don't care what the other critics say, Jeffrey Archer is not a "storyteller in the class of Alexandre Dumas." Also, he isn't "one of the top ten storytellers in the world." Who pays these people, anyway?

If you're going to slog through pop fiction, you can do worse. But the legal thrillers aren't on par with John Grisham, the spy thrillers don't hold a candle to John LeCarre, and the high finance romps don't even measure up to the remarkably mediocre David Baldacci. So if you're going to read popular fiction, don't waste time on Archer when there are so many other, more productive ways to waste your time.

The final book in my Archer Slog was the collected short fiction.  These works proved that 1) Archer's work is formulaic; and 2) anything he has written that lasts longer than 20 pages shouldn't.

Circumstances under which I recommend these books: There are no other books to read, anywhere.

Four in a Long Stretch of Jeffrey Archers

Sons of Fortune, Jeffrey Archer, 2003, St. Martin's Press, Genre: Fiction. 503 pages. Finished 10/1/12.

False Impression, Jeffrey Archer, 2006, St. Martin's Press, Genre: Fiction. 373 pages. Finished 10/7/12.

The Eleventh Commandment, Jeffrey Archer, 1998, HarperCollins. Genre: Spy Thriller. 359 pages. Finished 10/13/12.

As the Crow Flies, Jeffrey Archer, 1991, HarperCollins, Genre: Fiction. 619 pages. Finished 10/25/12.

LesOpinion: Jeffrey Archer's books are often about financial gamesmanship, epic grudges, or legal wrangling. He is at his most tedious when documenting a hostile takeover by majority shareholders (most assuredly those with epic grudges). He is at his best when he keeps the pace of the book moving briskly along with not completely unbelievable plot twists.

We're only about four novels in to a ten-novel Archer slog, but experience tells me I'm in for more of the same. These four already gone? Pass on the first, read the second or third if you have nothing else going on, and make plenty of time for the weighty fifth.

Good Things I Wish You

Good Things I Wish You, A. Manette Ansay, 2009, HarperCollins. Genre: Fiction. 252 pages. Finished 9/25/12.

LesOpinion: A poetic novel about men, women, love and friendship, Good Things I Wish You alternates between present day suburban south Florida ("...billboards and strip malls, asphalt and road trash, terrible traffic and the sort of heat that begins to feel something like rage.") and mid-19th century Germany where Johannes Brahms is falling in love with Robert Schumann's wife, Clara. Or is he? Can men and women ever just be friends? Ansay lays it all out, speculates, and ultimately lets you be the judge.

Blue Christmas

Blue Christmas, Mary Kay Andrews, 2006, HarperCollins. Genre: Chick Lit. 194 pages (212 with recipes). Finished 9/21/12.

LesOpinion: This is the most forgettable book I've read in years.

Circumstances under which I recommend this book: What book?

Eight for the Birds

Murder with Peacocks, Donna Andrews, 1999, St. Martin’s Press. Genre: Mystery. 332 pages. Finished 8/26/2012.

Murder with Puffins, Donna Andrews, 2000, St. Martin’s Press. Genre: Mystery. 281 pages. Finished 8/31/2012. 

Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos, Donna Andrews, 2001, St. Martin’s Minotaur.Genre: Mystery. 293 pages. Finished 9/2/2012. 

Owls Well that Ends Well, Donna Andrews, 2005, St. Martin’s Minotaur. 293 pages. Finished 9/4/12. 

The Penguin Who Knew Too Much, Donna Andrews, 2007, St. Martin’s Minotaur. Genre: Mystery. 262 pages. Finished 9/8/12. 

Cockatiels at Seven, Donna Andrews, 2008, St. Martin’s Minotaur. Genre: Mystery. 296 pages. Finished 9/9/12.

Six Geese A-Slaying, Donna Andrews, 2008, St. Martin’s Minotaur. Genre: Mystery. 279 pages. Finished 9/14/12. 

Swan for the Money, Donna Andrews,  2009, Minotaur Books. Genre: Mystery. 306 pages. Finished 9/19/12. 

LesOpinion: Donna Andrews's reluctant sleuth, Meg Langslow, is a tall, voluptuous, sarcastic artisanal blacksmith plagued with a large and eccentric family in coastal Virginia. Despite the silly bird-themed titles, this series of comedic mysteries won me over with its slapstick style and animal-loving themes. More along the lines of Susan Wittig Albert than Jeffrey Deaver, Andrews's mysteries manage to be smart page-turners without being bloody and terrifying. If you enjoy a lite mystery, these books are for you.

Four by V.C. Andrews

Heart Song, V.C. Andrews, 1997, Pocket Books. Genre: Young Adult. 378 pages. Finished 8/7/12.

Unfinished Symphony, V.C. Andrews, 1997, Pocket Books. Genre: Young Adult. 344 pages. Finished 8/10/12.

Into the Garden, V.C. Andrews, 1999, Pocket Books. Genre: Young Adult, 373 pages. Finished 8/14/12.

Lightning Strikes, V.C. Andrews, 2000, Pocket Books. Genre: Young Adult, 359 pages. Finished 8/21/12.

LesOpinion: I remember when V.C. Andrews made a splash with her debut novel, Flowers in the Attic. All the girls at school were reading it--well, all the girls except me. If it was anything like these four pathetic excuses for novels, I'm glad I spared myself the pain.

Despite the raging mediocrity of her writing, her family knew a gold mine when they had one.  When V.C. died in 1986, the family had her name turned into a registered trademark and hired a ghostwriter to "complete" her "unfinished works." All of these books are exactly the same: a young woman is unmoored from her immediate family, mistreated by relatives, wastes everyone's precious time beating the dead horse of her identity and plight with countless rhetorical questions, and has an incestuous relationship with the nearest brother, uncle, father, first cousin, or other male relative. The whole thing is so creepy that the fact that the novels are aimed at young women makes me want to notify the authorities.

Circumstances under which I recommend any of these books: Run! Run for your life!

The Blood of Flowers

Rest in peace, Grampy

The Blood of Flowers, Anita Amirrezvani, 2007, Little Brown & Co. Genre: Fiction. 368 pages. Finished 8/4/12.

Note: The chair of the LibraryQuest Editorial Board, Grampy, died unexpectedly on August 5, 2012. We dedicate this entry to Grampy's memory and mourn his passing.

LesOpinion:17th Century Iran comes alive in this tale of a young woman from a small village making her way in a bustling city. While in some ways it covers the same ground as Girls of Riyadh--arranged marriages, restrictive Islamic laws for both genders, and tragic romance--The Blood of Flowers manages these topics with art, suspense, and an enormous heart for its heroine. Oh, and we get to learn amazing details about the art of Persian rug-making.

Circumstances under which I recommend this book: You want to read a book.

Goliath

Goliath, Steve Alten, 2002, Forge. Genre: SciFi. 415 pages. Finished 7/31/12.

LesOpinion: Goliath is a fantastical action tale about lethal submarine warfare and a hostile takeover by artificial intelligence. Spare me the modern day warrior angst, Mr. Alten, you know your plot doesn't hold its salt water when anti-nuclear activists and victims of genocide are the villains of your tale.

If you like books that read more like scripts for overblown special effects movies, this book is for you. If you like books with fully developed characters, politics anywhere left of the Tea Party, and a reasonable level of editing, move along, there's nothing here for you.

Moonlight Hotel

Moonlight Hotel, Scott Anderson, 2006, Doubleday. Genre: Fiction. 371 pages. Finished 7/26/12.

LesOpinion: It's a love story, a war story, and a simple book about the choices we make and the people we become when we make them. Moonlight Hotel is a novel about a fictitious war in a fictitious place written by a real war correspondent. It's riveting, oddly romantic, and refreshingly cynical.

Circumstances under which I recommend this book: All.

MEG: Hell's Aquarium

MEG: Hell's Aquarium, Steve Alten, 2009, Variance. Genre: SciFi. 342 pages. Finished 7/22/2012.

LesOpinion: When the reviewer from the Washington Daily News refers to MEG: Hell's Aquarium as "an instant classic," I suspect he does not mean "an instant classic of contemporary fiction," but rather "an instant classic of contemporary science fiction about giant prehistoric sharks." Because, while this is science fiction about giant prehistoric sharks, it's not classic, instant or otherwise.

It doesn't help that this is the fourth book in a series about giant prehistoric sharks, and by now the author has apparently tired of getting the reader to care about the main characters. Or maybe I identified more with the animal rights activists than the pseudoscientist heroes dedicated to hunting down and wrangling prehistoric creatures from the depths of the ocean (where the creatures have been biding their time without human interaction for millions of years) only to torment them in captivity and then get all surprised and appalled when they kill someone.

Circumstances under which I recommend this book: You idiotically decide to read all the books on the fiction shelves of your local library, and this one is next.

Girls of Riyadh

Girls of Riyadh, Rajaa Alsanea, 2007, Penguin. Genre: Fiction. Finished 7/15/12.

LesOpinion: In 2005, this book was released in its original Arabic to both great scandal and great acclaim. The tale of four female friends navigating contemporary Saudi high society, Girls of Riyadh is interesting, if not artful (or at least not artful in this translation). Love won and love lost under a patriarchy more restrictive than the one under which I live. Meh.

Circumstances under which I recommend this book: You think your society is repressive, and you are looking for a reality check.

Inés of My Soul

Inés of My Soul, Isabel Allende, 2006, Harper Collins. Genre: Historical Fiction. 313 pages. Finished 7/9/12.


And now, a word from the LesBlog Editorial Board: With this novel, we celebrate our 50th book of the Quest.  Happy 50th, Gentle Reader!


LesOpinion: This tale of the Spanish invasion of Chile in 1540 is told from the point of view of the historical figure, Inés Suárez. If you ever sat through a tedious history class memorizing dates and names of dead European men, Allende's romantic, tragic, horrifying, and heartbreaking novel will make up for those lost years of your life.

I regret two things: that this novel came to an end, and that it's the last unread Allende on the shelves of the S. White Dickinson. Onward, Gentle Reader. 

The Girl Who Chased the Moon

The Girl Who Chased the Moon, Sarah Addison Allen, 2010, Bantam Books. Genre: Chick Lit. 269 pages. Finished 7/5/12.

LesOpinion: Sarah Addison Allen mistakes elements of magical realism for weighty insight. While this novel pretends to have Big Things to say, it doesn't quite measure up. Still, it was a fast read and, while aimed at a female audience, is not insulting in the way of the lady novels of Elizabeth Adler or Evelyn Anthony.

Circumstances under which I would recommend this book: It's going to be a long flight, and you want to keep the halitosis-plagued guy next to you from yapping the whole time.

What were the KNOWN thrillers, again?

Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott, Louisa May Alcott with an introduction by Madeleine Stern, 1984, Quill. Genre: Blood and Thunder Tales. 277 pages. Finished 7/4/2012.

LesOpinion: If you thought Louisa May Alcott only ever wrote Little Women, join the club. As it turns out, Alcott was a prolific writer who frequently turned to writing (usually pseudonymously) what she called "blood and thunder tales" for sleazy magazines in order to make a quick buck.

This collection of four novellas is the first time any of these stories appeared in print under Alcott's real name. She'd probably die with embarrassment to have her respectable self associated with such silly tales of romance, intrigue, and what passed for violence in 1865.

Circumstances under which I would recommend these stories: You are assigned them by your Alcott-obsessed English professor, and you aren't the kind of student who turns to Wikipedia or Cliff's Notes. Or are you?

Zorro

Zorro, Isabel Allende, 2005, HarperCollins. Genre: Fiction. 390 pages. Finished 6/26/12.

LesOpinion: If you're a regular here at the LesBlog, Gentle Reader, you know I think Isabel Allende could write a phone book and make it into a work of art. While it's not her finest work, Zorro does not disappoint. Heartbreaking history and heart-stopping action make for a rousing adventure tale you'll not want to put down.

Circumstances under which I would recommend this book: All.

If You Could See Me Now

If You Could See Me Now, Cecelia Ahern, 2006, Hyperion. Genre: Chick Lit. 306 pages. Finished 6/14/2012.

LesOpinion: Cecelia Ahern is that cute little Irish gal who writes books about cute little Irish gals who can't quite get the love thing right. Until they do. Her last two books weren't half bad. In the past, I've accused Ahern of occasional heavy handedness; this book was written with lead gloves.

Before you decide to disregard my advice to disregard this book, it's about an adult woman with an invisible friend. And did I mention that it's also heavy handed?

Leave it on the shelf, next to the Elizabeth Adler, where it belongs.

Two by Susan Wittig Albert

Nightshade, Susan Wittig Albert, 2008 Berkley Prime Crime. Genre: Mystery. 289 pages (including recipes). Finished 6/3/12.

Wormwood, Susan Wittig Albert, 2009, Berkley Prime Crime. Genre: Mystery. 307 pages (including recipes). Finished 6/7/12.

LesOpinion: Remember back when I reviewed a dill-themed mystery from the shelves of the old Field Memorial? Yeah, me neither. Susan Wittig Albert writes plant-themed mysteries featuring her fanny-pack wearing lawyer-turned-herb shop owner, China Bayles. The mysteries are fairly tame, bloodless affairs with little real suspense, but plenty of interesting tidbits about things like, well, nightshade and wormwood. These books are probably your cup of tea if you are the kind of person who thinks there's really nothing better than a cup of tea.

The River Wife

The River Wife, Jonis Agee, 2007, Random House. Genre: Fiction. 393 pages. Finished 5/29/12.

LesOpinion: Beginning with the New Madrid earthquake of 1811 and ending with Prohibition-era gangsters, Agee's The River Wife is a sweeping, literate, epic adventure replete with an array of powerful women, dangerous men, and vice versa. It is also jam-packed with a few more of my favorite topics: natural history, horses, and ghosts.

Well-written and suspenseful, this is the kind of book that makes the Quest worthwhile.

The Last Two Elizabeth Adler Novels I'll Ever Read

Now or Never, Elizabeth Adler, 1997, Delacorte. Genre: Romantic Suspense. 346 pages. Finished 5/18/2012.

Sooner or Later, Elizabeth Adler, 1998, Delacorte. Genre: Romantic Suspense. 358 pages. 5/21/2012.

Recipe for Elizabeth Adler suspense novel

1 c. grey-eyed, dark haired hero with a lean, yet muscular, physique

Pinch of masculine name (Jack, Jake, Dan)

1 c. spirited heroine (not so spirited as to overripen into assertive, bossy, or shrewish)

1 T. something French (wine, villages, crusty bread)

Stir well.  When plot thickens, add one psychopath.

Barely edit, whip off to Delacorte Press.

Cha ching!

(serves: no purpose)

The White Tiger

The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga, 2008, Free Press. Genre: Fiction. 276 pages. Finished 5/15/2012.

LesOpinion: I've not read many books about India by Indian writers, but this is certainly the first that didn't make it sound romantic, floral, and exotic. The India of Aravind Adiga is absurd, squalid, and plagued with the injustices of a contemporary caste system.

Told in the form of an epistolary confession, The White Tiger manages to be suspenseful, funny, and heartbreaking all at once.

Circumstances under which I recommend this book: You are demoralized from reading too many crappy books, and you need reminding that good literature has both the power to entertain and something important to say.

Invitation to Provence

Porch + Hammock + Dogs make Adler more palatable.

Invitation to Provence, Elizabeth Adler, 2004, St. Martin's Press. Genre: Romance. 321 pages. Finished 5/13/2012.

LesOpinion: One of the drawbacks of resuming the Quest is that clearing the Elizabeth Adler hurdle at the Field Memorial Library did not excuse me from having to read the Adler novels on the shelves of the S. White Dickinson.  Dammit to hell, Gentle Reader, dammit to hell.

Invitation to Provence is classic Adler, by which I mean stupid, implausible, lowest-common-denominator writing. It's not Official Roll-of-Toilet-Paper bad; it's more like "Your Vagina Makes You an Idiot" bad.

Best Moment Reading this Book: In sharing some of the craptastic language out loud with my dear Ms. Al, I learned that she thinks I share one quality with the hero, Jake Bronson.  Apparently, we both have "a large hand that knew how to punch out a man as well as how to gentle a nervous horse."

Or maybe it's the other way around?

The Alexander Cipher

The Alexander Cipher, Will Adams, 2009, Grand Central. Genre: Suspense. 320 pages. Finished 5/10/2012.

LesOpinion:  I was about 12 years old when I read my first suspense novel. I had wandered out of my usual sections of Upper Sandusky, Ohio's Carnegie Public Library--the horse tales, the Art Buchwald screeds, the Agatha Christie mysteries--and into the daunting "Adult Fiction" section. The novel was about a guy who accidentally witnesses some bikers kill an endangered California condor. Thus began my love affair with fast-paced books brimming with American-style violence.

Despite its English author and Egyptian setting, The Alexander Cipher is one of these books.  It is well-written, energetic, and has just enough cliffhangers to keep a reader turning the pages. Best yet, it was one of those books that made me look up Things I Don't Know Much About.

Great literature?  No.  Great fun?  Absolutely.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams, 1987, Simon & Schuster.  Genre:  SciFi.  247 pages.  Finished 5/7/2012.

LesOpinion:  What do Schrodinger's Cat, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and electric monks have in common? According to Douglas Adams, everything. This silly novel, a blend of science fiction and detective genres, is geared more to the adult reader than Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  And while the anti-science fiction reader in me kicked and screamed through the first fifty pages, I was eventually charmed by Adams's easygoing sense of humor, quick pace, and ridiculous characters.

Circumstances under which I recommend this book:  You're sitting in the doctor's office and the choice is between this and a ratty copy of Good Housekeeping.

The Room and the Chair

The Room and the Chair, Lorraine Adams, 2010, Knopf. Genre: Literary suspense.  315 pages.  Finished 5/1/2012.

LesOpinion:  This isn't your cubicle-mate's international suspense thriller.  This is Don DeLillo does Robert Ludlum via Toni Morrison.  It's part stream of consciousness, part spy tale, and part investigative journalism that takes us for a fast ride on a slow horse through the evils of contemporary war culture.  If you like your political thrillers to be tidy whodunnits, this isn't for you.  If you appreciate an author who can put two words together, has something to say about how we're all victims of (and complicit in the manufacture of) the same crazy machine, and builds suspense only to end it with a big, fat "what did you expect?" then read this book.  It is among the best of the Quest.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

No animals were harmed in the reading of this novel.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams, 1979, Harmony Books.  Genre: SciFi. 215 pages.  Finished 4/25/2012.

LesOpinion: I graduated with a degree in English Literature without ever having read Moby Dick.*  This fact is perhaps less surprising than the fact that, as an avid teenage reader, I never read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Which is too bad.  Because I would have liked it then.  I would have thought it clever.  Now I read it and think that it's trying to be clever, which isn't the same thing as actually being that way.  It is also possible that this spoof on science fiction didn't appeal to me simply because I haven't read enough science fiction to make spoofing sporting. 


*I rectified my Moby Dick-lessness in 2006.

I'm No Stranger to Mediocrity: Two by Peter Abrahams

Hard Rain, Peter Abrahams, 1988, E.P. Dutton. Genre: Crime. 374 pages. Finished 4/14/2012.

A Perfect Crime, Peter Abrahams, 1998, Ballantine Books. Genre: Crime. 322 pages.  Finished 4/19/2012.

LesOpinion: Remember back when we had big hair and hated the Russians?  Peter Abrahams manages to make one of his early novels, Hard Rain, contain every 80's icon he could get his hands on:  big hair, burned out hippies, coke-snorting rockers, Russian spies, CIA agents, and snobbish college students.  The whole thing is a ridiculous, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink mystery that I figured out on about page 2.  Which meant that reading all the way to page 374 for the big reveal was a bit of a slog.  I kept wanting to shout to the heroine, "No! He's the other guy!"  But that just goes to show that shouting at books is no more useful than shouting at the TV.

Fast forward ten years for A Perfect Crime, and we find that Abrahams has joined the rest of us in giving up on hating Russians.  Instead, he has settled down to pen a thriller about a cuckolded man who wants to kill his wife.

Abrahams wants to write about strong women who overcome difficulties.  Note to Mr. Abrahams: If the men your heroines marry or carry on with weren't such one-dimensional, pathetic plot-devices it wouldn't reduce the ladies to self-flagellating idiots.

I'm Back. And I'm Better than Ever.

S. White Dickinson Memorial Library, Whately, Massachusetts

I think it's time, Gentle Reader, that I resume the Library Quest.  Because I no longer frequent Conway's Field Memorial Library, we're switching the Quest's rules to apply to the shelves of the S. White Dickinson Memorial Library in downtown Whately, Massachusetts.  The same rules apply to the quest, this time around.  And, yes, I'm starting back at the beginning of the fiction shelves and reading any books that weren't on the shelves in Conway.