Okay, first things first. I promised a final opinion on A Discovery
of Witches by Deborah Harkness. My honest opinion is mixed. First of all it
took me a lonnnggg time to finish which is not a good sign. That being said, I
did actually enjoy most of it. I truly love fantasy and it was a very original
story about fairly well market-glutted character types. This is an
accomplishment for the author in itself. She is an excellent, literate writer,
which I mentioned in a previous post. However, though I consider myself pretty
solidly inured to shock, I found some scenes rather gruesome and hard to take.
I was very invested in the welfare of minor characters, while not so much in
the main characters. There are two more books in this series, Shadow of Night and The Book of Life. I may read them in the future because of the
author’s skill but am not in a hurry to do so. If this is your cup of tea, you
may well be entranced.
My book selection for January is a collection of short
stories by Elizabeth Gilbert called Pilgrims.
Gilbert is most well-known for Eat, Pray, Love. Looking for more to read by her, I found Stern Men and fell in love with it
because of the unusual story and quirky characters. It was a finalist for the
PEN/Hemingway Award among other awards.
Pilgrims is
wonderful for the same reason plus gives the added gift of enjoying a master
writer at work. Each story in the collection features at least one strong
female character. These are tough and not-so-tough women dealing with everyday
life in interesting, memorable ways. Each story left me wanting more.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
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