You CAN enjoy it on its own merits and could probably read it and then go on to read the earlier books .
But given the opportunity I’d read them in order as I recollect that the earlier ones give you the background of the secret department he works for.(plus pads out the characters of his assistants a little more)
Personally I’ve found them all bloody good reads.
His other stuff is generally of a very high standard as well but as I said some of the genres he writes in just aren’t my cup of tea.
I finished it yesterday, and really liked it! I thought it was going to be mostly a collection of bad customer stories, and while there was some of that, it was an interesting look at the life of career waiter.
Ah thank you thats interesting to know!I’ve got Five Quarters of the Orange and was going to leave reading it for a bit because Chocolat put me off, but I’ll take it on holiday with me now! Is it a lot better?
Well, I thought it was good, but I just bogged down and decided not to finish it. Now I’m reading Looks: Why They Matter More Than You Ever Imagined, by Gordon L. Patzer. It’s okay, but really…a lot of studies support what we all already knew.
Well, it’s considerably better, and the others are better still. It’s a period piece, as is Chocolat; maybe I identified more because one of the main characters suffers from debilitating migraines. I think it is worth reading, and I certainly don’t think you should be turned off Harris by* Chocolat*, which I think is among her weakest. I agree; if I had read that one first, I probably would not have read the others, thinking her a lightweight. I’m now working my way through *Coastliners *because I bought it secondhand for a couple of bucks. You probably shouldn’t bother with Blackberry Wine, but *Holy Fools *and Gentlemen and Players are really excellent.
About 220 pages deep into Stephen Erikson’s Memories of Ice. I’m still enjoying the series but wish I could fast forward through the next 3000 pages or so to see what happens. I’m very interested, but damn I’ve got a lot of pages ahead of me without a lot of free time to commit to them.
I’ve actually started another book now - When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures by Richard D. Lewis.
Even though I work in computing, working in a different culture (Yemen) kind of requires me, at least in my opinion (I wish more expats here would think it as important), to get as much info as I can so that I can recognize cultural issues vs. management issues before they can cause problems. It seems like a pretty good read from the little I’ve read of it.
I am reading ** Aching for Beauty; Footbinding in China** by Wang Ping. This is the book that is answering all my questions about foot binding. My curiosity started with Lisa See’s fictional account of a melancholy bride to be in Peony in Love, which lead me to read Splendid Slippers; A Thousand years of an erotic tradition. WHile Beverly Jackson’s book has loads of photos and interviews it never really delved into why footbinding and what for. Ping’s book is answering those questions for me. THough how anyone could find “hooked and deformed” feet alluring is beyond me, no toes to nibble, no lovely slim ankles to admire. Just tiny shoes covering stinky fleshy mashed up feet.
I may have to get that. I’d read Dorothy Ko’s Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet several years ago, and was troubled that Ms. Ko labored hard to make it sem as if bound feet was some sort of empowering choice that these women deliberately made. Nobody who has undergone such a life-altering and permanent change would want to thinkl that it’s pointless and useless and victimizing (and Ms. Ko seems to identify striongly with those foot-bound women), but it’s very difficult for me to think of it as a positive thing, and her rationalizations don’t ring true. I’d be very interested in another take on the topic.
Just finished The House of Seven Gables by Hawthorne. I bought it last November when I visited Salem and toured the house. It was dreadfully dreary and that’s why it took me so long.
Currently reading:
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
and
An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England by Venetia Murray
Recently finished Resistance: A Frenchwoman’s Journal of the War by Agnes Humbert which was a really great read.
Also just finished Circus Queen and Tinker Bell by Tiny Kline. This had some fascinating behind-the-scenes look at circus life in the 1920’s.
The book that’s sucking me in now is Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar. This was an impulse buy that’s paying off very well. Lots of drama, intrigue and backstabbing while one werewolf tries to make do on the streets of London, another tries to design clothes for a fire elemental and the Thaneship of werewolves is the prize of a family battle. It’s all I can do to close the door of my office and dive back into this book.
Since this sounded interesting, I picked it up from the library and read it. Heartbreaking is a good word for it.
It also made me feel grateful. I had so much knowledge available to me – my mother, my school, my library. I know a **ton **about sex. It makes you appreciate how things change in just a few decades.
I just finished a great book called For the Thrill of It, which is about the Leopold & Loeb case. It covers the whole thing, from the background of the murderers, what drove them to it, how they did it, how the lawyers became involved & their backgrounds, the trial, and the aftermath. Probably the most interesting part to me was learning about Clarence Darrow, the politcal climate at the time, and how he used the case to fight the death penalty. Fascinating.