ramtops

... wizards he knew about sold curses and told fortunes. They did not crawl about inside one's heart and talk from other people's mouths and compel them... [loc. 2560]

Reread: I first read this in the 1990s, I think, and recall liking it: this was before I reviewed everything I read, so I don't know what I thought about it then. This time around, without having reread the two preceding novels of the 'Rusalka' trilogy, I was confused and unengaged.

“... they began to exhibit afflictions.”
“Apophenia being the worst, and most notable,” said Ghrelin. “An uncontrollable, debilitating impulse to spy patterns in everything.”
I glanced at Ana, but she only smiled and wryly said, “Oh, I’m familiar with that one..." [loc. 3361]

Sequel to The Tainted Cup, and second in Bennett's 'Shadow of the Leviathan' trilogy. While this didn't wow me quite as much as the first book -- which was so utterly novel in setting and ambience -- it's still a marvellous read. Bennett continues to explore the Empire of Khanum, in this case by venturing outside it. ( Read more... )

...that’s the problem with rich people in the UK – not only are half of them clinically evil, they’re clinically evil bastards who all went to school together and still haven’t grown up. [loc. 2457]

Maisie Baxter works for Novum, a boutique ethical assassination agency. Her boss is the charismatic Gabby Hawthorne (played, in my head, by Helen Mirren); she shares a flat with Beth, who knows nothing about Maisie's job; she's been single for a while, because she can't have a relationship without revealing her secret double life.

But when a man named Will shows up at two of her jobs, and the target is killed before she can take care of business, she becomes suspicious ( Read more... )

I do know the look of a ruby, in the same way that I know sable and ermine and mink. One always knows where one is going, even if one doesn't quite know how to get there. [loc. 2096]

Reread of a novel first read in the 1990s, which I don't think I've revisited since. Certainly I had forgotten all but a few details: melon balls, a corpse on a horse, boring brother.

Ibiza Surprise is set in the late Sixties. Sarah Cassells is twenty years old, the daughter of impecunious Lord Forsey, and (possibly) 'the swingiest chick this side of Chelsea'. She has trained as a cook, lives in London in a flatshare, and makes a living by catering extravagant dinner parties. Her primary aim in life is to find someone 'decent' (i.e. rich) to marry. ( Read more... )

Adults can draw what they see, the real thing, in their pictures. Children, though, draw the “idea” of what appears in their heads. [p. 82]

Translated from the Japanese by Jim Rion, this short illustrated novel seems at first to be three tenuously-connected novellas. The first begins with a blog on which a man posts some pictures drawn by his wife, who died in childbirth. Each picture has a number... The second story is about a small boy who draws a picture of the apartment block where he lives, and scribbles out the windows of his home. And the third pertains to a grisly unsolved murder mystery, and the implications of the sketch found with the corpse. Gradually, it becomes clear that these are all the same story, or at least all revolve around the same individual.