The books I read recently:

[avrelia]

Theoretically I like the kind of books that are dubbed “chick lit” in bookstores. I hate that title, but I tend to gravitate to those books with cartoonish girls in cheerful colours on them. So I go there and look, and more often than not I got disappointed.

I don’t buy these books, I take them from library, so the disappointment isn’t heavy.

So, the last week disappointment – Sophie Kinsella “Confessions of the Shopaholic”. After all that hype I was quite curious about it, I placed the hold on it in the wonderful Toronto Public Library. While I was waiting I picked up the newer book by S. Kinsella – “Can you keep a secret?” I liked it – I read in one day, and the next day I couldn’t remember anything about it, but it was a nice reading. So, I got this one, and halfway into second chapter I got to the description of the future love interest – which was exactly the same as in the first book. Not word by word same, but the same pattern – so I lost interest momentarily.

What else have I read? Arbitrage Procedure Code of Russian Federation.

Jo Walton (papersky) “Tooth and Claw” – a wonderful, very original fantasy, I wouldn’t ever known about if not for LJ.
It is about the dragons and their world – which is strange and different, and amazing, and makes the kind of sense that is not our sense. It also has a beautiful flow and is a comfort read – in the same way as comfort food. I would gladly buy it if I could find it in a bookstore. On the other hand, I haven’t look in the bookstore for the lack of money.

Now I am reading a book I cannot recommend you – though I’d love to. It is in Russian, a very fine fantasy – I am enjoying every minute of it, especially since I haven’t read any Russian fantasy – good or bad in a while. But this one is very good, a chain of interwoven stories about a guy - witch-doctor I guess the right translation who wanders in the Central Europe – Carpathian, Balkans for no more clear purpose than to find himself; there were old legends, historical events, familiar and unfamiliar tropes and the nice slow rhythm of the story where the words are luring me in the world as no book in English can so far.