Books 2011: Here, there, everywhere
Jun. 23rd, 2011 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbBooks 2011: 76-79
76. Malinda Lo, Huntress.
I'd heard so many good things about Lo's Ash and Huntress that I walked into this book expecting it to be a tour de force. The problem with having high expectations comes when the material doesn't live up to your image of what to expect. Huntress is a good book, with some interesting characters, but it's not the Stunning Work of Fascinating Genius I'd expected.
But all in all, good book.
77. Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon.
I read this in the Everyman's Library edition, and I kept getting distracted by the texture of the pages. Everyman's Library editions are just beautifully put together books - comparatively, they feel like luxury, though I got this one in the bargain basement.
It's an interesting book. Hammett is a brutally elegant prose stylist, but I'm not sure I actually enjoyed the story.
nonfiction
78. Usama ibn Munqidh, The Book of Contemplation: Islam and the Crusades. Penguin Classics, London and New York, 2008. Translated with an introduction and notes by Paul M. Cobb.
A fascinating book by the 12th-century soldier, writer, and sometime schemer, Usama ibn Manqidh. It's a series of anecdotes, and very interesting ones they are.
79. Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. Schocken Books, New York, 1984. Translated by Jon Rothschild.
An interesting perspective on the history of the Crusades.
I am implausibly tired. I wonder why this is?
76. Malinda Lo, Huntress.
I'd heard so many good things about Lo's Ash and Huntress that I walked into this book expecting it to be a tour de force. The problem with having high expectations comes when the material doesn't live up to your image of what to expect. Huntress is a good book, with some interesting characters, but it's not the Stunning Work of Fascinating Genius I'd expected.
But all in all, good book.
77. Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon.
I read this in the Everyman's Library edition, and I kept getting distracted by the texture of the pages. Everyman's Library editions are just beautifully put together books - comparatively, they feel like luxury, though I got this one in the bargain basement.
It's an interesting book. Hammett is a brutally elegant prose stylist, but I'm not sure I actually enjoyed the story.
nonfiction
78. Usama ibn Munqidh, The Book of Contemplation: Islam and the Crusades. Penguin Classics, London and New York, 2008. Translated with an introduction and notes by Paul M. Cobb.
A fascinating book by the 12th-century soldier, writer, and sometime schemer, Usama ibn Manqidh. It's a series of anecdotes, and very interesting ones they are.
79. Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. Schocken Books, New York, 1984. Translated by Jon Rothschild.
An interesting perspective on the history of the Crusades.
I am implausibly tired. I wonder why this is?
