These are it! The last reviews for books read in 2012. I’ve only got a few so I’m just sticking them all in one post. Then it’s on to new things. Huzzah!
203. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (read by Ralph Cosham) 
a
audiobook / freebie / read Dec. 3-11, 2012 / Audible
I’ve watched various Sherlock Holmes TV shows so many times I can’t remember whether or not I’ve actually read the stories, so I think I’ll review the audiobook production instead. I got this version free for Amazon’s Whispersync promo thing; it’s produced by Blackstone Audio, who tend to do very good audibooks. On the whole I have no complaints except that Watson and Holmes’ voices tended to blend together during long dialogues. And the women, of course, all sounded the same. However! The actual reading was terrific. Sometimes readers put emphasis in weird places, or they tone down exciting bits for whatever reason (Three Musketeers! Augh.) and that ruins the experience of the book. Ralph Cosham, however, did it perfectly: the exciting bits were actually exciting, the scary bits were scary, etc.
204. Olof the Eskimo Lady – Inga Dora Bjornsdottir
hardcover / contest win / read Dec. 9-16, 2012 / Amazon
I won this book in a contest a few years ago, so VERY long ago that I can’t remember who I actually won it from. (Sorry! But thank you, whoever you are.) I like biographies of unusual people, and a biography of an Icelandic little person who gained fame and fortune (for a while, anyway) through pretending to be an Eskimo and giving talks on her totally fake Eskimo life is gonna be a good read no matter what. It’s not a perfect biography: the author does a lot of that “this is what she may have been thinking/feeling” thing that happens when you only have secondhand info about your subject, and then she kept re-summarizing what she JUST wrote as if it were a term paper and she needed to boost her wordcount or something. Annoying! Other than that, though, it was an entertaining read.
206. Mister Monday – Garth Nix e 
ebook / bought / read Dec. 22-23, 2012 / Amazon
I was previously disappointed with A Confusion of Princes for (basically) not being Sabriel (my favorite Garth Nix book to date); Mister Monday is like it enough to be exactly what I wanted, while DIFFERENT enough to not be repetitive or boring. (Make sense?) It’s aimed at a slightly younger readership than Sabriel, and there’s less flowery language. Good for those who didn’t like Sabriel, bad for those who REALLY LOVED Sabriel, I guess? Myself, I liked the balance between non-flowery and flowery, and the action/mystery/exciting bits kept the pace up nicely. Can’t wait to read the next book!
207. Ask Jackie: Food Storage – Jackie
ebook / freebie / read Dec. 25, 2012 / Amazon
Jackie Clay-Atkinson writes a column for Backwoods Home Magazine1 and this book is a compendium of relevant “Ask Jackie” answers re:food storage. Well, duh. Anyway, if you ever wanted to know how to keep your potatoes, apples, and flour safe from bugs and decay, this book might be useful to read. It’s completely in ask-answer format, though, which is a tiny bit boring to read. Luckily(?) it’s short.
208. The Prince Commands – Andre Norton
ebook / freebie / read Dec. 30, 2012 / Amazon
Apparently this is the first book Andre Norton ever published, and it’s NOT a sci-fi one! There’s no sci-fi at all; instead it’s a YA adventure novel with princes and conspiracies and some really over-the-top HoYay, like a 1930′s version of The Prisoner of Zenda or something. Kinda simple plot, and there’s barely any female characters, but I had fun reading it anyway. Princes + conspiracies = YAY!
Footnotes
- which is way too gun-friendly but otherwise nice to read if you like fantasizing about living in THE COUNTRY and having a few goats and a garden and satellite internet like I do. What? ↩
About Anastasia
Anastasia is 25-year-old lady who is now an Official Californian! She loves books, wasting time on the internet, and collecting Sherlock Holmes things.
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I have about 4 of these cleaning up posts coming – and still a handful of books to write about. I *will* start 2013 with a clean slate, I WILL. Or, at least February.
I still haven’t read any Sherlock Holmes books, either, even though I’ve definitely seen my share of adaptations. Glad to hear you enjoyed the audio – I really need to get around to them soon!
Alita recently posted..Oh hey, it’s 2013. How about that.
I guess the good thing about SH is that the stories are relatively short? You can get through a ton of them really fast, even in audio format!