Fiction 2001

 We got this book on a swap for Cold Mountain . It’s not as good as Middlemarch but still the genius is apparent in some of the characters like Lisbeth Bede (Adam’s mother) and Mrs Poyser of the Hall Farm.

Acquired through a book swap that turned out to be rather lucky. Called "Hammer of Eden" in English, we both read and enjoyed this Follet thriller set mainly in California's Napa Valley. Follet does a good job of combining eco-terrorism and suspense to produce a ripping good read — and some good language practice in the process. We both learned for example that the French for a block of houses is "un pâté de maisons"! 

We were reading it about the time of the 9/11 tradegies. If terrorists had no imagination of their own, they sure could get a lot of ideas from books like this.

A very short and very light read about a young student who goes to India for 3 months before starting University. Having ‘done’ India, we found it quite amusing and in most respects true to life, although we both found the language a bit too purple for our tastes.

Another tome acquired in a swap in Ayutthaya, Thailand that turned out to be an awful bore. It read rather like a catalog for war gadgets and the outcome was never really in doubt. Yawn, yawn.

Definitely NOT recommended.

Recommended to us by Jan's friend Jane (Wood) Bartlma, Jan thoroughly enjoyed this best-selling novel set in WWI France and England. A story of human courage amid the carnage of war, the end of the book is a tour de force of suspense.

Highly recommended.

Another wonderful English classic. Beautifully drawn (and overdrawn) characters, wonderful atmospheric descriptions of London and its smog. Perhaps the only tiny complaint I have is the rather saintly character of Esther. She is just too good to be true. Perhaps it is just a fact that good people don’t make interesting characters! Another disappointment is that the famed Mr. Bucket does not manage to save Lady Dedlock. Nonetheless, the suspense of the novel was wonderfully maintained and the neighborhood of the Inns of Court provided some superb characterizations: Mr Guppy, Mrs Jellyby, Mr Turveydrop, Mr Tulkinghorn, Krook, Snagsby, Mr George and on and on! 

The one sad footnote is that we found it hard to find others who wanted to read this wonderful book. Most people seemed put off just by the name Dickens. Such a shame. In the end, Gerry gave our copy of Dickens to Vo Huong Nam, the son of Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap.

The result of another swap deal in which a very nice American family that we met in Khao Yai National Park in Thailand took pity on Jan's bookless plight and gave her a brand new copy of this Atwood novel in exchange for some very dubious swaps which are totally unmemorable. If only it had been worthy of the generosity with which it was given. It was not a bad book, just not terribly exciting. Perhaps Jan just doesn't like books set in the 20th century or later. If you are an Atwood fan, it might be up your street.

No recommendation.

Jan's friend Dinah first recommended this book which was sufficient for Jan to actually and very unusually plunk down full price for the paperback version. Although she was slow to get into the story, she was eventually totally captivated by it. Jan hasn't seen the movie yet, but given the critics views perhaps that is just as well.

Highly recommended.

We got this book on a one-for-one swap at Pepperoni’s Pizza in Hanoi for Sister Carrie. It is a futuristic sci-fi novel, that Jan didn’t really like.

This is one of the books we got at the Love Planet cafe in Hanoi by trading in two others. We traded Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy and an Irving Wallace book that neither of us had read but that we had swapped earlier in the day for the Travels of Marco Polo (which Gerry found so dry that he didn't finish it).

It was a pleasant enough read, but not as good as expected given the press that it got in the US when it appeared. Certainly not a patch on Bleak House or Middlemarch.

We got this book as a swap but it turned out to be a bit of a dud. Written as a murder mystery, it was really a polemic on the supposed evil of large pharmaceutical companies in not giving away their drugs for free. No suspense here as to who the bad guys were.

 Definitely NOT recommended.

Don't remember where we got this book, but we had both heard of it, of course and were looking forward to reading it. Jan was very disappointed and found it sophomoric and downright boring. Gerry had mixed feelings, but thought it was not as good as listening to it on the radio while falling asleep. Co-incidentally the author died just after we finished it and the obituaries explained that the book was an expanded and revised version of the radio show.

Not recommended.

See the Pathfinder.

I have long wanted to read Dumas in the original and have several times turned down the opportunity to read him in translation. I’m very glad I waited. The book is wonderfully exciting to read and in spite of the vocabulary problems (I don’t have a French-English dictionary with me), I am thoroughly enchanted by it. I hope I don’t have to wait too long to find the second volume.

We bought the book in Hanoi, Vietnam in a small bookshop on Tran Hung Dao near our favorite restaurant Cau Cau. The shop had only a small collection of foreign language books, mostly Vietnamese travel, history, etc. translated intoEnglish and French and sold at what seemed to us very high prices. Jan noticed a single Livre de Poche on a nearby shelf and could hardly believe her luck when she saw the title. The price was right too, at VND 30,000 or $2.00, it was a good price even for a second-hand paperback. In other shops, Love Planet for example, they swap second hand books only two-for-one and charge $3.00 if you only have one book to trade and $5.00 if you have none!

Very Highly Recommended

A "coming of age" story, told in the French fashion. A new boy comes to school, invokes the ire of the others and acts in mysterious fashion. Then he disappears and reappears and only gradually does his story of the enchantments, worthy of Don Quixote, come out.

Recommended

A mystery, well presented by a master.

Recommended 

Recommended 

A classic that we have all read in English. It's a great read in French too. And like Robinson Crusoe, there is lots there to surprise you when you think you know the story.

We discovered this book on the shelf of the Adima Guesthouse near Muang Sing in northern Laos, just a couple of kilometers from the Chinese border and swapped the Dumas for it. A paperback, it had suffered greatly from the ambient humidity and so was in terrible condition, but it nonetheless was read quite avidly by both of us.

Gerry had read the book before in his misspent youth and had often recalled it to Jan with great pleasure. She read the first three quarters of the book with great pleasure which only diminished when the coup de grace, which should have taken maybe ten pages, lasted fifty. Still a worthy read because of the auto-biographical aspect. Gerry was surprised by how many things had not made an impact on him when he was much younger; it shows that you get out what you take in.

Recommended

We both read this while in Southern China, Gerry for the first time, Jan for the second and agreed that it was a fantastic read. We discussed it lots once Gerry started reading it which added to the pleasure. It is perhaps the closest there is to the perfect novel. It has good and evil, multiple plots, great characterization, humor, in short it’s a masterpiece.

Very Highly Recommended

This is a book Gerry carried around, determined to read. Unusually Gerry read it before Jan. Like so many other classics, e.g. Robinson Crusoe, that you think you know, this has lots of surprises in it. The opening, in which the narrator arrives in New Salem and seeks a place on a ship, is so evocative that you have to stop and marvel. There is no writing, anywhere, that equals this part. The rest is a very good tale, but tedious at times.

Recommend highly .

This is the first time that we have read the original. It is a great story, even if we can't agree with its politics. Odysseus goes around stealing and killing where he likes, etc! Gerry liked this translation and Jan found it too stilted.

Recommend highly .

Jan would call this a 'quaint' book. It is interesting for the picture it paints of the American northeast in Colonial days, but the characters are pretty one-dimensional and the plot ever-so predictable. Gerry says, true, but the language and philosophical speculations make up for it. And, as a guide to places in New York State where we have roamed, it had an interest of its own.

Reommended

Gerry got this out with a purpose in mind: to see how Robinson planned for his retirement on his deserted isle. To learn the answer to that and other mysteries you'll have to read it your self, or wait until Gerry writes his book (or letter to the editor) on funding retirement systems. To his surprise, the book starts in North East England, an area of great interest to us. More than half takes place before Robinson is ship wrecked for the final time. Was Defoe inspired by Cervantes? 

An interesting study of a young girl who is musically talented and who is helped by various friends and admirers to leave her Colorado home to go to the big city of Chicago and become a successful artist. The best part of the book is the description of the small Colorado town where the girl is brought up. On the whole the novel seems to lack something, perhaps depth, perhaps drama. We got this book from the Love Planet cafe by swapping the Sutcliffe book and one other.