On the Nightstand

I haven't discussed any books here lately, and perhaps it is time to remedy that since I've done a boatload of reading lately.

Commencement was just terrible.  It's of The Group genre (remember how good that was?) and I could barely get through it.  It had received some good reviews in Bookmarks so I persisted.  Four vastly different young women, none of them credible in the least, meet on moving-in day at Smith College, become inseparable, and then reconoiter four years after graduation at the first of their weddings.  Not only were the women charicatures and ridiculous, the author didn't make Smith seem like a place I wish I'd sent my daughter to!  I just saw today in the Times that it is now available in paperback. 

Save your money, friends.  Save your money.

Having liked Girl with a Pearl Earring and loved Fallen Angels, I was happy to see Tracy had a new book out and I thought the cover of Remarkable Creatures was terrific.

The inside was less so.  A fictional account built on a real relationship between two female paleontologists who did their thing long before such activities were acceptable for women, the story was written well, but just wasn't very interesting or captivating.  Again, I stayed with it because I hoped for improvement.  Better than Commencement by far, but still way short of the earlier Chevalier books that I've read.

Katharine Weber's a new author to me, and I really liked this first book.  The last known survivor of the Triangle Waist Factory fire has died, and her granddaughter is accosted by a relentless investigative reporter who believes there is far more to the story than had ever been revealed.  She just might be right.  What's most interesting is the way the book is written -- you see, the granddaughter's man friend is a composer who writes his music based on elements of science, and this is evident in the refrains that meander through the story. 

I liked Triangle enough to pick up Weber's newest book, True Confections, which I put right back down, lickety split.  Couldn't get past the second chapter.

On the nightstand presently are Galileo's Daughter and Gail Godwin's Unfinished Desires.  Neither has been opened as yet.

But that won't be the case for long