Charles Palliser has just gotten too subtle for me. I realize that half the fun of these books is in navigating the obscure social rules of the time, but one thing that’s incredibly helpful in doing that—unless one constantly reads books from this setting—is getting different viewpoints. The si...
Probably more like 3.5; I waffled a lot between giving it 3 and 4.Palliser used the diary format really well. There were none of the usual things that annoy me when authors try this - all dialog was in italics because it was Richard's memory of conversations, not actual conversations; there was ...
When I was a kid, I fell in love with these great big, old, aromatic tomes called "classics". J.F. Cooper was an early favorite. And of course, Charles Dickens was not far behind. I had no friends whatsoever who seemed to be able to enjoy sitting down with a slow, fascinating read like "Barnab...
The title of this book may suggest a horror story complete with zombies and vampires, but The Unburied is actually a scholarly murder mystery which reminded me of The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco or An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. I wanted to read it because a few years ago I rea...