11
Followers
23
Following
Reading Slothfully
I was told in elementary school that I only could read at half the speed for success in college. Oh well, one benefit of slow reading is you get to live with the characters a longer period of time. I read in a vain attempt to better understand people. At my other homes, I'm known as a spouse, pop, guy in the choir, physical chemist, computer/web dilettante and child-care provider. In theory, I'm a published author, if you consider stuff like Quenching Cross Sections for Electronic Energy Transfer Reactions Between Metastable Argon Atoms and Noble Gases and Small Molecules to count as publications. I've strewn dozens of such fascinating things to the winds.
Currently reading
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
The Spirit of the Border
Ramona the Brave (Ramona, #3)
The Underground Man (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
Delilah of the Snows
Mrs. Miniver
Betsy-Tacy Treasury (P.S.)
A Christmas Carol
The Way Some People Die
Envy of Angels
The Warlord
I thought this might be an interesting book. After all, a historical novel set in China during the 1920s and 1930s could be rather interesting. The writing style was so horrible that I gave up after about 5 pages. It was written in present tense, which is a valid approach, but this was so stilted as to seem false. I gave the book another chance a week or so later, jumping into its middle. Again the horrible writing style turned me off so much that I dropped out after only a page or two.
This book claims to be an addition to the canon of Asian-saga novels such as those of James Clavell (three or four of whose books I've read and enjoyed thoroughly), but given the horrible writing style, that bit of flack is very much *not even remotely* true. It saddens me that marketing charlatans get paid to write such crap on book covers. Like all professional liars, they deserve public flogging.
