Infectious
Nov. 16th, 2004 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I finished the post-9/11 spy thriller Due Preparations for the Plague by Janette Turner Hospital last night, and it depressed me and gave me slight nightmares. I was really very impressed with it - particularly the pace of it and its ambitions - although I was left uncertain about the fate of two characters (intentionally ambivalent, I think), and also I thought the end was a bit artificial. But very effective despite this; I have had to read some Alexander McCall Smith No 1. Ladies' Detective Agency books to get me back out of the rather bleak mental place it put me into.
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Date: 2004-11-16 11:15 am (UTC)*hugs* for your nightmares - I hope they don't come back tonight.
What are the McCall Smith books like? I've been slightly put off them by the fact that they're in huge piles everywhere.
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Date: 2004-11-16 11:35 am (UTC)The McCall books are perfectly amiable pieces of entertainment. Not too much in the way of detection. Actually, they're structurally very like the Amanda Cross books (the Kate Fansler books - did you borrow them?). I can read one in a couple of hours, it would probably take you twenty minutes, and certainly not the duration of, say, a train trip between Cambridge and Edinburgh :-D You're very welcome to borrow them if you like.
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Date: 2004-11-17 02:26 pm (UTC)Hmm, sounds like I'd have to be in a strong frame of mind to read the Janette Turner Hospital book.
Mulch away!
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Date: 2004-11-17 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 05:48 am (UTC)I think I've managed to get away without spoiling anything here, should you ever choose to read it...!
Pestilence... *shivers*
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Date: 2004-11-17 07:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 08:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 01:40 pm (UTC)Last Magician starts with a line from Dante and never lets up. It's one of my all-time greats. And if you need a break from Hospital: Marina Warner's The Leto Bundle is utter genius.
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Date: 2004-11-18 01:23 am (UTC)Heh, just like me and Tolkien in 2003! Enjoy the last O'Brians. When you pick up Due Preparations you won't be able to put it down. It took me three sittings, and that was only because I had to stop and sleep.
And if you need a break from Hospital: Marina Warner's The Leto Bundle is utter genius.
I haven't read any of her fiction, although I loved Alone of All Her Sex. Thank you for the rec!