Catch up Post

 

Yes, it has been a while since I last posted - not that anyone reads this! ha! I have spent the last 3 months studying harder than I ever have in my life and putting up with one of most obnoxious people I've ever had to put up with my life. So the two things kind of cancelled each other out and my group came first in our Grad Dip group project. So I'm feeling pretty proud of myself at the moment (and the other 3 ladies in my group) and this includes my new job at Penguin that includes more free books than I can poke a stick or physically carry home! (it has also turned me into a freak - I now stand in bookstores, stroking covers and trying to estimate how much this finish or that finish cost) Oh - and if anyone has any spare cash they want to throw at 4 girls wanting to start up a viable publishing company, please get in touch with me ASAP! Anyways, study is OVER for a year and a half at least before I get going on the Masters. For now I just want to read, read, read!

I have actually been reading during this time but haven't had the time to analyse or write about much of it. It's a pity because I find I'm getting a lot more out my books by doing this. So I imagine the next 10 posts or so will be the books I've read in the last 3 months. I'll have to scan over them to refresh my memory, but I'll try to do them justice. Each and every one. The order will probably get completely thrown out too - oh well. I will do what I can.

Just thought I would let you know what's been going on. I don't think I will ever again have to put such an effort into anything than I did during September, this may be a negative in my life, but I know it has made me appreciate my spare time as I never have before.

Adios Amigos.

A.

Charlaine Harris, Dead until Dawn et al. Book 15

Another sinful Kindle purchase. It's books like these that make me appreciate the value of eReaders in concealing one's sordid little book purchases.
Charlaine has been a prolific little Madam for the last 25 years, according to her website.
She is fluent in mystery and ghost writing, giving her a most solid background to the Sookie Stackhouse series. She has put out a couple of books with a main character named Aurora Teagarden, a librarian who solved unsolved murders. She also did a the Shakespeare series.
She is involved with Sisters in Crime, the Mystery Writers of America and American Crime Writers League.
She grew up in the Mississippi River Delta area, and presently resides in Magnolia, Arkansas.
More recently, the everbusy Charlaine has released a series based around Harper Connelly, a woman who can find dead bodies and see their last moments through their eyes.
And on a more interesting note, she has dabbled in weightlifting and karate.
I decided to read the first of the Sookie Stackhouse after an unfortunate week in which I fell in love with Bill Compton. Due to this affliction, I decided a more intimate acquaintance with the character was due.
A Kindle aside here: what do you think the first thing you would search for on the Amazon Kindle site now that the True Blood series is out?? Nothing came up under True Blood. Nothing came up under Sookie Stackhouse. To find the books, you need to search for Charlaine Harris. This, I find, is one of the stupidest marketing strategies EVER. 
Back to the book. This book turned out to be a tad more raunchy than I expected. I assumed a lot of the 'lasciviousness' of the series was due to the HBO factor. (not that I'm against it!) But some of the scenes in the book were enough to make me blush in the lunch room at work. They were actually good sex scenes. I went to an author talk a few years ago and one of them commented that she couldn't write a sex scene unless it turned her on. If the same applies to Charlaine, then all I can say is, whoooo-eeeeh, Sister!
Dead Until Dawn is actually a lot of fun. It's definitely a tome I would place in the pulp genre but the characters are well fleshed out. Sookie is a lot more savvy than she appears in the TV series, giving her more depth.
Bill is decidedly more old fashioned (forgive me if I'm writing in an old-fashioned style myself at the moment - I've been reading some Georgette Heyer and watching a lot of Deadwood) in the book also.
It does run fairly parallel to the first season.
Sookie is a telepathic waitress in a time when vampires have 'come out of the closet' to the world and are beginning to live side by side with humanity. 
I enjoyed the books more than the TV series (except for the delectable presence of a Mr Stephen Moyer) and found Sookie to also be more capable. She does a lot more to fight off the killer and does it admirably.
I have since read a few more in the series (and I'm gonna lump em all in here) and have found them to be enjoyable pulp. Turns out if vampires exist, then a whole lotta other creatures are out there too. Charlaine has a hell of a lot of fun with this idea and I think that in the five or six I've read so far, a new 'creature' has been introduced each time. 
Sookie is a bizarre main character. A lot of the time it feels like Charlaine is trying to instill in her female readers a sense of decorum and propreity via Sookie's sensibilities. Sookie constantly talks about offering guests drinks as 'it's the polite thing to do', or making sure they are comfortable, 'my Gran brought me up right'. I feel as though I'm being taught manners - I don't need a book to show me how to entertain guests...
Regardless of the odd preachiness on how to behave like a decent Southern girl there's a lot to be said for the other 'lessons' on acceptance and tolerance of others. She is spot on in many instances when she relates the reactions to Sookie and other 'unnaturals' by 'humans'. 
The characters are all well-fleshed out (bad pun!) and the vampire characters are done well enough that they do all have something slightly impersonal in their manner that gives them a not-quite-human edge. The relationships Sookie has with Bill and Eric and Sam and Alcide and others are all suitably and satisfyingly intelligent and lusty. Jason Stackhouse is the same as his TV character (but I must say, the guy who plays Jason on TV puts in some of the most convincing and some of the funniest character acting ever. He plays the bimbo to utter perfection.) and is a suitable foil in many scenes that may otherwise become too serious.
These books do that well, they blend humour and the ridiculous just enough to make the supernatural theme a lot of fun. I'm never thinking 'well, that's just ridiculous, a shifter could never do that...' Charlaine pushes us just a little further into the world of the fabulous with each book and does it well.
I am not ashamed to admit I'll probably get through the rest of these in the next month.
Noice work, Ms Harris.