Tag: American

Books

Book 75: Eragon – Christopher Paolini

Geoff W

Just a warning, this is more of a rant about other readers than a review of the story. It is hard to review a continuous series with very little break in action between books especially if you’ve read them as many times as I have. Let’s just say I’ve loved these novels since I first read them and I’m excited (and sad) for the final novel’s release, but it will be a fitting 50th book this year!

When I went to Goodreads to mark I was re-reading this book, some of the vitriolic responses to the book and the author truly surprised me. It quite upset me how rude and caustic people were being with their claims of copying other stories.

Has Paolini borrowed from other fantasy authors? Yes, but haven’t they all? Is his writing perfect or on par with the HG Wells and JRR Tolkien? No, but what were they doing when they were 19-years old? Does Paolini stretch to far and occasionally end up with awkward dialogue and too much description, yes of course he does – but did you read The Two Towers? I’m fairly certain Tolkien tells you how many leaves are on every bush in the swampland. Is The Inheritance Cycle story worth reading and does he bring something new to the fiction/fantasy genre? Yes.

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Books

Book 74: Babycakes – Armistead Maupin

Geoff W

Babycakes takes place two years after Further Tales of the City and of the four books I’ve read in the series this is my least favorite. I understand characters have to grow and evolve, but sometimes you just don’t want them to.

In comparison to the other novels in this series, the novel seems angst ridden and is darker than the previous novels. I’m not sure if this is a direct response to Maupin’s mindset at the time or the general feeling of gloom and doom of San Francisco and the LGBT community at the time. Originally published in 1984, Maupin wrote the tales in Babycakes while Reagan was President of the US and Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the UK and the AIDS crisis was on the horizon (although the Reagan administration didn’t acknowledge it until 1987).

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Books

Book 73: Further Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin

Geoff W

Are you sick of the Tales of the City reviews yet? I hope not! I’m just finishing up Babycakes and should have a post for Monday. Then you get a brief break while I reread Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle in time for the November 8th release of the fourth and final novel, Inheritance.

I read Further Tales of the City before deciding to go back and restart the series. Thus, I’m posting out-of-order, which is a big hypothetical no-no in my blog mind, but I didn’t want to start posting with book three so I made an exception as I enjoyed this novel so much! It didn’t hurt that a very dapper older gentleman on the bus one morning told me that he loves these novels and that they’re well worth the read. When I told him I was reading them out-of-order he looked shocked and told me I HAD to read/re-read all of them.

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Books

Book 72: More Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin

Geoff W

More Tales of the City picks up where Tales of the City ends and is just as entertaining and difficult to put down!

As the story opens, we find that Mary Ann has inherited money from her former boss Edgar Halcyon (Dede’s father) and she decides to take herself and Michael on a cruise to Mexico. While on the cruise, Mary Ann meets a lovely young man (Burke) and they hit it off. Michael meanwhile meets a former lover and they fall madly back in love.

While Mary Ann and Michael are out cruising, yes that is a double entendre, Brian becomes obsessed with a phantom of love, Mrs. Madrigal and Mona both find family in each other after Mona runs away and discovers her past, and Dede and Beauchamp continue to struggle in their marriage with their impeding children and their marriage.

Click here to continue reading (there are spoilers).

Books

Book 71: Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin

Geoff W

I first read Tales of the City for a class my final year of undergrad. It was for a course on the History of Sexuality. I clearly didn’t pay too much attention, as Maupin apparently grew up in North Carolina and attended my university (UNC Chapel Hill).*

The tales originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle as a serialization and this makes them incredibly readable. And although this is a great thing, it’s also a bad thing. If you read this series you will constantly keep telling yourself, one more section (most sections are at most three pages), and next thing you know the book is almost finished and it’s 1:00am.

Tales of the City serves as the introduction to the core characters of the series (the first three novels at least) and they are a varied bunch of characters. From Mary Ann Singleton and Michael Tolliver leaving their small town lives in Cleveland and Florida, respectively, to Anna Madrigal and her secret, to Dede (Halcyon) Day and her not-so-straight husband Beauchamp Day, all of the characters of these tales are unique and well written. You always want to know more, but Maupin is a master of only revealing so much and intertwining all of the stories to engage the reader.

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