Thursday, February 21, 2013

Tinker, tailor, engineer, spy.

Cause for Alarm is a very neatly written little spy novel.  The basic plot of the book concerns a British engineer who takes a job in Italy for a company that makes machines that make artillery shells.  The engineer gets into trouble with certain agents who want him to do different things for various governments.

It is a classic spy novel - lots of cloak and dagger stuff.  I really enjoyed it - it moved quickly and I loved finding out what happened next.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Awkward!

Before I embarked upon my current path of staying at home with my kids and cleaning up food from the floor, I had a different job. And that different job periodically had meetings in very cool places. Once I skipped a morning seminar to do something interesting...only to run smack into my boss leaving the seminar as I reentered the hotel! Awkward!

Things are also awkward in Caught, which takes place in World War Two London .  The main characters are upper class Richard Roe, and not upper class Pye, who is Roe's superior at the auxiliary fire department. It turns out that Pye's sister kidnapped Roe's son. That's not a great way to start off a working relationship!

I liked this book less than Back, the other Henry Green book I have read. It was kind of slow. I definitely missed nuances. I would benefit from someone who knows literature explaining their take on it, I think.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

I love Margaret Atwood's writing!

I love Margaret Atwood's books.  I really do.  I can't believe that I never heard of her until about 5 years ago, when someone recommended I read The Handmaid's Tale.  I thought it was a fantastic book and then with this project I've also had the opportunity to read Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin, both of which I really enjoyed as well.

So I had high hopes for Cat's Eye.  It did not disappoint one bit.  Like all of Atwood's writing, it is a complex, multilayered tale.  This story is about an artist who returns to her hometown for a show of her art and the return brings up a whole bunch of childhood memories for her to deal with.  It is really thoughtful and deliberate but at the same time is an intense story.  I really loved it.