I thought I’d follow up The Dark is Rising with a new Susan Cooper book. I don’t think I’ve read anything else besides The Dark is Rising series by her, and figured it was about time.

And… it was okay.

Nothing spectacular, though maybe my expectations were a bit high. I mean it’s Susan Cooper after all. (I have the same expectations when I read Robin McKinley books: they need to be good.) But this was just okay. The basic story: Molly, an English girl in 2006, is having a rough time because her mom married an American who relocated the family to the States. Sam, an English boy in 1803, has been pressed into Naval service and ended up on the HMS Victory, with Vice-Admiral Nelson in the battle of Trafalgar. There’s a connection between the two, and between flashbacks from Sam, Molly figures out what it is.

I liked the flashback sections immensely. The detail about being pressed into service by the Press Gangs and life on the ship was incredible. However, I think Cooper fell short with the modern character. She just didn’t seem to fit. And her journey wasn’t nearly as interesting as Sam’s was. I found myself skimming the Molly chapters just to get to the next Sam chapter. And he dropped out of the story way too early.

The best part of the book, though, was the Afterword. (I love Afterwords. I often read them before reading the book.) In it Cooper writes this: ” Perhaps I wrote this book only for the change of meeting one of my greatest heroes, just as I was lucky enough to meet Shakespeare in a book called in King of Shadows and Merlin, long ago, in a sequence called The Dark is Rising. Writers are fortunate people.”

Indeed.

I read two Christmas books this year (plus assorted picture books). We finally got an illustrated copy of Christmas Day in the Morning, by Pearl S. Buck. It’s beautiful. But A’s favorite picture book this year is The Last Straw by Frederick H. Thury. All our Nativity camels are now named Hoshmakaka, in honor of this book. (It’s about a camel chosen to carry gifts to the Baby Jesus. It’s very sweet.)

I read The Trees Kneel at Christmas by Maud Hart Lovelace, and Skipping Christmas by John Grisham. Trees is a very slim, very sweet book set in 1950s Brooklyn. Two Lebanese children — Afify and Hanna, ages 7 and 5 — are told a story by their Grandmother about how the trees kneel in Lebanon on the night of Christ’s birth. Their grandmother didn’t think the trees kneel in America, but Afify is determined to see if they do. They end up sneaking out just before midnight on Christmas Eve (when their family is all gone to Mass), and sure enough, through the faith of the children, they see the trees in Prospect Park kneel. It’s quite charming.

Skipping Christmas, on the other hand, is, well, obnoxious. At least I found it so. I know it was supposed to be funny — at some points I managed a weak smile — but I just found it annoying. The Kranks, who the previous Christmas spent $6,000 on Christmas (something that I can’t even imagine), and in the even that their only child isn’t going to be home for Christmas, they decide to skip it entirely. Which seems a bit extreme to me.Yeah, spend the money on a cruise. That’s a bit much to spend on Christmas, anyway. But, for heaven’s sake, don’t be a superior grump about it all. I think that’s what drove me nuts. The way Luther Krank felt so superior about his decision to forgo Christmas. And, yes, he did get his comeuppance in the end. Still, it made me annoyed. And that’s no way to feel at Christmas.

Happy Holidays, everyone. May you get many good books!

More than a year ago, I re-read Jackaroo by Cynthia Voigt and discovered that she’d turned it into a series. And I’d mentioned that I’d wanted to read the others. See: I do finally get around to things on my to-do list, even if it takes me a year. Honestly, though, I’d forgotten about my desire of a year ago, and checked this one out because everyone over at Sequestered Nook was raving about it. And not wanting to be left out, I felt I needed to read it.

I really enjoyed this one. I can’t compare it to Jackaroo (it took me most of the book to get the connection between the two); I really don’t remember much about the books after a while. (That’s why I keep the blog!) But, this one was interesting. I enjoyed the adventure. I enjoyed the subtle transformation of Birle from impetuous girl to a calm, assured one. I really enjoyed the ending. (Okay, I’m a sucker for happy endings!) Voigt is such a talented writer: in all her stories, the characters ring true, and the world doesn’t get in the way of the story. And that’s the case here. I loved Birle, Orien and Yul. I even felt sympathy for Joaquin the Philosopher. Her “bad guys” are complex as is her conflict. And it’s just a pleasure to read.

Belladonna asked a good question in her comment on my last post. And it got me thinking: what are the worst books I’ve ever read?

I could come up with two right off the top of my head: Zel by Donna Jo Napoli and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. I don’t remember why I had such a loathesome reaction to Zel. But I did. I hated it. And because of that, I’ve never read another book by Napoli becasue of it. The Sparrow I enjoyed for most of the book, but the end turned overly disturbing and explicit. I just felt nasty after finishing it. There are ways to do provocative that doesn’t have to be gross.

There are books I don’t like because of the language and/or explicit sexual content: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffengger and Neuromancer by William Gibson (though I didn’t finish this one) are three that come to mind in this category. Often I can look past the language, if the story or characters are sufficiently compelling. But in both of these cases, the language overtook the story and ruined it for me.

Interesting side note: much adult science fiction/fantasy falls into the worst book category. I love fantasy books, but too often the author spends too much time on the world and not enough on the story.

There are those chick-lit books I didn’t like because I just thought they were dumb: Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants by Ann Brashares, The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot, and The Monk Downstairs by Tim Farrington. I know “dumb” is a subjective thing. What I find “dumb” might be really compelling to another person. And, admittedly, it might be compelling to me on another day. It took me years to get through Pride and Prejudice. I always thought it was “dumb”. Likewise, I found Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley to be really compelling the first time through, but by the third, it was pretty dumb.

Notice all those were chick lit. Hmm…

I could go on. But I won’t. What’s your worst book ever that you finished?