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Book reviews: The Abstinence Teacher; Cold Granite; Rethinking Thin;
Title: The Abstinence Teacher
Author: Tom Perrotta
Info: Tom Perrotta 2007; Pub Harper Collins 2008; ISBN: 978-0007261017
Reasons for reading it: I started browsing this book in the English book section of La Feltrinelli. Piqued my interest, but I could tell already it was not worth spending 13 € for. So, I put it on my BM wishlist and mooched it when it became available.
How I got it: BookMooch.
Review: Ruth is a forty-something sex education teacher. Pressure from the right-wing, religious families of some pupils force her school to enforce an abstinence-only curriculum, while she starts to become attracted to her daughter's soccer team coach, a recovering alcoholic and new-born Christian. The premises are intriguing enough and the main topics (sexuality, religion and how they intersect in our lives and in the school education system) should make for an interesting rear. Too bad poor characterisation (everyone is badly stereotyped) and a predictable plot make the book completely unmemorable. I suggest using your library card if you want to read this one.
***
Title: Cold Granite.
Author: Stuart MacBride.
Info: Stuart MacBride 2005; Pub St. Martin's Minotaur Ed 2005; ISBN: 978-0312339951.
Reasons for reading it: I love police procedurals. My fave of the genre is Rankin's excellent Inspector Rebus series. Unfortunately, Rankin has just retired Rebus, so I needed something new to get my Scottish crime novel fix. MacBride's Aberdeen-set series seemed to be just what I was looking for.
How I got it: BookMooch.
Review: DS Logan McRae is back on the job after a year-long sick leave. He must deal with a gruesome serial killer of little boys, a feisty WPC who has the ungrateful job of babysitting him, a grumpy boss and his ex-girlfriend, who also happens to be the chief medical pathologist.
The setting feels very real, the characters are sympathetic and interesting enough, the multiple storylines are gripping and interwoven seamlessly. Everything sprinkled with typical Scottish black humour and some good old, nitty-gritty hard-boiled realism.
It's definitely at the high-quality end of the genre. My only complaint is that DS McRae, whilst being a nice fellow - easy to identify with and root for, is a bit bland. I'd have liked a bit more psychological depth to him. On the other hand, this was MacBride's first novel, so maybe this aspect of his writing will have improved in the meantime.
All in all, I'm looking forward to reading the other McRae novels.
***
Title: Rethinking Thin: The new science of weight loss - and the myths and realities of dieting.
Author: Gina Kolata.
Info: Gina Kolata 2007; Pub Picador 2008; ISBN: 978-0140294231.
Reasons for reading it: In the past six months I've been reading Kate Harding's Shapely Prose blog. The Health At Every Size movement interests me a lot, also because I realised I have a lot of work to do on my own prejudices against overweight people. I think Gina Kolata's book was mentioned somewhere on Shapely Prose.
How I got it: BookMooch.
Review: Gina Kolata's book is an exhaustive, well-written and well-researched book (as far as I could tell) on the dieting industry and, most specifically, on why diets always fail. Her main argument is that, when it comes to weight, genetics plays a bigger role than nutrition, exercise, or even will power.
I must say that reading all the scientific data backing up her thesis, I thought she made a really good case for it. This books is most definitely worth reading and pondering over.Resists temptation to make a 'food for thought' pun.
Author: Tom Perrotta
Info: Tom Perrotta 2007; Pub Harper Collins 2008; ISBN: 978-0007261017
Reasons for reading it: I started browsing this book in the English book section of La Feltrinelli. Piqued my interest, but I could tell already it was not worth spending 13 € for. So, I put it on my BM wishlist and mooched it when it became available.
How I got it: BookMooch.
Review: Ruth is a forty-something sex education teacher. Pressure from the right-wing, religious families of some pupils force her school to enforce an abstinence-only curriculum, while she starts to become attracted to her daughter's soccer team coach, a recovering alcoholic and new-born Christian. The premises are intriguing enough and the main topics (sexuality, religion and how they intersect in our lives and in the school education system) should make for an interesting rear. Too bad poor characterisation (everyone is badly stereotyped) and a predictable plot make the book completely unmemorable. I suggest using your library card if you want to read this one.
***
Title: Cold Granite.
Author: Stuart MacBride.
Info: Stuart MacBride 2005; Pub St. Martin's Minotaur Ed 2005; ISBN: 978-0312339951.
Reasons for reading it: I love police procedurals. My fave of the genre is Rankin's excellent Inspector Rebus series. Unfortunately, Rankin has just retired Rebus, so I needed something new to get my Scottish crime novel fix. MacBride's Aberdeen-set series seemed to be just what I was looking for.
How I got it: BookMooch.
Review: DS Logan McRae is back on the job after a year-long sick leave. He must deal with a gruesome serial killer of little boys, a feisty WPC who has the ungrateful job of babysitting him, a grumpy boss and his ex-girlfriend, who also happens to be the chief medical pathologist.
The setting feels very real, the characters are sympathetic and interesting enough, the multiple storylines are gripping and interwoven seamlessly. Everything sprinkled with typical Scottish black humour and some good old, nitty-gritty hard-boiled realism.
It's definitely at the high-quality end of the genre. My only complaint is that DS McRae, whilst being a nice fellow - easy to identify with and root for, is a bit bland. I'd have liked a bit more psychological depth to him. On the other hand, this was MacBride's first novel, so maybe this aspect of his writing will have improved in the meantime.
All in all, I'm looking forward to reading the other McRae novels.
***
Title: Rethinking Thin: The new science of weight loss - and the myths and realities of dieting.
Author: Gina Kolata.
Info: Gina Kolata 2007; Pub Picador 2008; ISBN: 978-0140294231.
Reasons for reading it: In the past six months I've been reading Kate Harding's Shapely Prose blog. The Health At Every Size movement interests me a lot, also because I realised I have a lot of work to do on my own prejudices against overweight people. I think Gina Kolata's book was mentioned somewhere on Shapely Prose.
How I got it: BookMooch.
Review: Gina Kolata's book is an exhaustive, well-written and well-researched book (as far as I could tell) on the dieting industry and, most specifically, on why diets always fail. Her main argument is that, when it comes to weight, genetics plays a bigger role than nutrition, exercise, or even will power.
I must say that reading all the scientific data backing up her thesis, I thought she made a really good case for it. This books is most definitely worth reading and pondering over.
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