You may have noticed that I have
been taking a break from reviewing books.
It doesn’t mean that I haven’t been reading – certainly not, but just
not writing about it. I was traveling a
lot in August so I found it hard to sit down and get the mental space to
write. In addition, some of the books I
read didn’t really warrant a review. Not
that they were bad, some were very good, they were just not that compelling or
rich in texture. They were summer books
– ones that could be read poolside or on an airplane or with your toes in the
sand.
I started thinking about summer
reading. What makes a book summer
reading material for you? In the summer,
I like a book that transports me to a new place. Something with a straightforward plot line
that doesn’t make me think too much. I
often read funny books in the summer. I
catch up on my Carl Hiassen or Christopher Moore. I also like to read mysteries in the
summer. They are simple and, if written
well, easy to lose yourself in. Many a
summer night is spent reading just that last few pages before the end of the
chapter.
My husband likes to read on
vacation. He doesn’t read all the time
like I do, but if he’s on vacation, he will slam through a book faster than
anyone. He looses lots of sleep when he
reads and will sit up until the wee hours to finish a good one. He is truly on vacation if he’s reading.
So my question is, what is summer
reading like for you? What did you read
this summer? Why? Where is your favorite place to read? I thought we could have a quick exchange of
book ideas that we all read the past few months. Just leave your suggestions in the comments
section so we can all see them. Title,
author and a sentence or two about the book.
Let’s see what we get?
In the mean time…
Sacre Bleu: a Comedy d’Art
By Christopher Moore
If you have never read Christopher
Moore, you really should give him a try.
His books are usually really irreverent and silly. I love them.
My husband and I have read almost all of them and are never disappointed.
This one is about the
Impressionists in 19th century Paris . We follow a fictional painter/baker named
Lucent who is friends with the likes of Toulouse Lautrec, Monet, Pissaro, Van
Gogh and others. All of these painters
have been dogged by a shape shifter “muse” who is able to turn herself into
models who are the romantic ideal of each of these men and who inspire them to
do their best work using blue paint. The
paintings are then stolen and the paint is recovered and made new by her cohort
“The Color Man” who then sells it back
to the painters, thus keeping them under a spell that drives them insane or
kills them. The book begins just after
Van Gogh died and his friends think that he didn’t actually kill himself, but
was murdered. Lucent and Toulouse
Lautrec go on the hunt for the killer.
The book is illustrated by famous
impressionist paintings to which Moore
has given humorous alternative captions that support his story. He uses them to augment the plot and is
extremely creative with the results.
Using historical stories and personalities as a jumping off point for
his books is not a new trick for Moore . In “Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s
Childhood Pal, Moore takes on Jesus and imagines what it was like to be the Son
of God’s best buddy. They are all
hilarious. What keeps you from slamming the book shut for its over-the-top plot
is that it’s obvious that Moore has
done a ton of really detailed research in order to make his characters be able
to stand in history without wavering. Sacre Bleu flags a little in the middle,
nothing that some humane editing couldn’t have helped, but it is a great beach
book.
Here’s one of my summer reads…What about
yours?
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