Sometimes the choices I make are as simple as what book to read next....
The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus
Margaret Atwood
If you remove elements of divine intervention and the supernatural from The Iliad or The Odyssey, you're left with men behaving badly. Atwood applies this treatment to the tale of Penelope. We are left with a woman's life, a woman who dedicated her time on earth to being an ideal daughter, wife, and mother. She speaks to us now from her timeless existence in the underworld, and her voice is bitter and lonely. I thought this was brilliantly done, the social commentary as sharp as that of The Handmaid's Tale when it was published 25 years ago.
Winterton Blue: A Novel
Trezza Azzopardi
Highly recommended! The themes are as old as any story we have shared with each other: boy meets girl, the quest. The writing is beautiful. Here's a taste: "It was a most particular cruelty that he would remember the look on his mother's face when she saw which son was spared." To all of my DClin friends who are looking for another way to treat yourselves after getting those theses finished, let this be one of them.
Wild Inferno (A WILD Mystery)
Sandi Ault
Too much dialog about fighting wildfires that should have been narrative. Much like the debut, descriptions of emotional scenes were flat, trite, and should have been deleted if she can't make them better. I read this book because it was on the Best Books of 2008 for both Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. Shame on them.
