What's a holiday without books? Nothing I tell you - so in the spirit of the season I donate a few reviews of the books I have read recently. Most of them are fiction - shock horreur.
The Southern Vampire Series 1 - 9, Charlaine Harris
This series spawned True Blood but I prefer the books, always have prefered book characters they are better developed. Based around Sookie "the telepathic" barmaid and her relationships with vampires, shapeshifters, werewolves, goblins and faeries, also with the fellowship of the sun. They are never going to be "literature" with a capital L but I like them I like Sookie and I like Eric and I like how she develops the relationships. Read them.
An Echo in the Bone - Diana Gabaldon
I like Diana Gabaldon. I dont like that it takes her around four years to write one of her tomes. I didnt really enjoy the two previous to this one - but I feel like she has gone back to the writing of the first four novels in the Cross stitch series. I loved Cross stitch (which I went back and read after getting my hands on this one), Voyager and Drums in Autumn. Didn't love Dragonfly in Amber. An Echo in the Bone continues the Fraser whanau story and I liked the twists she put in there :) and as always left me wanting to read the next one right now - sigh. I will be ancient before the next one is out.
Cross Stitch, Voyager - Diana Gabaldon
Book 1 and 3 in the Cross stitch series. Jamie is just hot and time travel and smelly highland scots - what's not to love. Read them.
The Nazi Officer's Wife - Edith Hahn
True and compelling story. This book just goes to show really when there's a homicidal dictator on the loose in Europe it's luck of the draw as to whether you survive and tbh I think this woman had one rather large jewish fairy godmother looking out for her. It is the autobiographical story of Edith Hahn, Viennese Jew, who managed to avoid being sent to polish concentration camps by "borrowing" her friends details, hi tailing it into Munich (which at the time was the deep dark opposite of where you would expect to find any Jews - given it was Hitler's stomping ground). She then met and married a Nazi officer (well he was a pleb that became an officer during her marriage to him) and had a child with him. She told him before they were married that she was a Jew and because he was of a perverse nature decided not to turn her in. The man, even by her account was a few sandwiches short of a picnic - but he never gave her away. After the war she became a judge in east germany but couldnt deal with another oppressive regime and skipped out with her daughter to England.
There was an interesting part in the book where she describes how she went looking for her mother after the war and was accosted because she wasnt anorexic, therefore had to have been a collaborator. Which for me was one of the interesting bits of the book - her story was one of the most interesting ones I have read. I have read a lot of books on the Jewish experiences during WWII and while the stories are horrific and compelling they tend to follow the same line - segregated, deprived of rights, isolated, shipped off to camps where one of two things happened they survived or they didnt. Very few of them step away from this. This book does - she must have had balls of steel to step up and walk into Munich (the heart of Hitler's groundswell) being a Jew. The sheer luck or good fortune that came her way during that time is amazing - she found the one Nazi officer who was just a little bit loco enough to ignore that she was a Jew and marry her anyway.
I like this book you should read it.
I have read more than these few books - but I will leave the rest for later. Also going to do my to read list for 2010 - well January anyway :)
S.
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