Books I read (for pleasure) in July & August 2006

1. Alex Garland, The Beach

I bought this as some light reading to take overseas. It was ok, but seemed to be a bit of a rip-off of Lord of the Flies, and things got really weird by the end of the book. It's also been made into a movie with Leonardo di Caprio, but I haven't seen that.

2. Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

This was some less light reading I took overseas. I like to take cheap books with me so I can leave them behind, and classics tend to be quite cheap! The book is described as a tragedy, and it took awhile before I could see how it would be tragic. But it really was very sad. Isabel, the heroine, is a free spirit but she ends up making a terrible decision that basically removes all her freedom.

3. Iain Pears, An Instance of the Fingerpost

This was a fantastic book! It was recommended to me by some people I met at the BSHS conference in Canterbury, and it was definitely a worthwhile read. It's a murder mystery set in Restoration Oxford, told in four conflicting accounts. Characters include Robert Boyle and John Locke - people I'm studying for my PhD. And considering I'd just been to Oxford, it was even more exciting! I didn't pick the ending, but that's not unusual. I enjoy getting caught up in novels so I can be surprised by the twists.

4. Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics

This book had the potential to be very special, and it was quite an enjoyable read. It just seemed a little pretentious with all the references, and was a little too close to Donna Tartt's The Secret History, an excellent book. Also, the story unfolded very slowly over 600 or so pages, and the end seemed rather far-fetched.

5. Susanna Gregory, A Wicked Deed

This is the 5th Matthew Bartholomew Chronicle - a series of crime novels set in medieval Cambridge. The main character, Matthew Bartholomew, is a physican with some rather unorthodox ('modern') ideas about how to treat his patients. It can get a little tiring seeing him always opposed by the fanatical friars and monks who view him as heretical, so it was nice to see him in this novel espousing a view that is wrong by modern standards - i.e. that the earth is motionless. These novels are always a good, light read.