Yeah, I read the jacket copy too. It was enough to make me hope, but not enough to make me drop $20 based solely on its recommendation. I also wonder if I just might not like her style as much as I used to. I should reread The Passion (definitely my favorite of hers) and see how it holds up before buying this one.

So instead, I bought The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and Affinity by Sarah Waters. Very much looking forward to both of these.

I like Sarah Waters, although I felt her last book, Fingersmith, wasn't as interesting and engaging as her first two. Let me know what you think.

So instead, I bought The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Finally got around to that, eh? ;-}

Mrs. Jack O'Neill? Cool.

Not sure what you mean by that, but yes, this is the actress who is now a writer. I only wish I liked the book more.(The main character got on my nerves, and there seemed to be too much "wackiness" for my tastes.)

She played Jack O'Neill's (Richard Dean Anderson) ex-wife on Stargate SG-1.

Finally got around to that, eh? ;-}

Ha! Yes, and probably for more than I would have paid for it at the Strand, alas.

So instead, I bought The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and Affinity by Sarah Waters.

I loved "The Namesake." Lahri is an amazing writer. I'm not sure how to put this, but sometimes I find family sagas covering decades to be really boring and long-winded, and I lose track of who is who and why I should care. None of those things happened in this book.

I did not like "Affinity" as much as either "Tipping the Velvet" or "Fingersmith."

Lahiri grew up in the next town over from me. She went to high school with several of my friends.

I picked up "the Namesake" when someone left it on a plane I was on...I got on, and there was a book waiting for me like a present! Except then it wasn't...plotty enough for me. Or something. Also, I kinda wanted to smack the main character.

Anyone feel like making fun of LKH?

[link]

Choice excerpts:

Is this what some of you want, my pain? Not happy that I don't share my innermost torment? Books not enough? Blog not enough? 99 percent of my fans are some of the nicest, niftiest people on the face of the planet, but to that other 1 percent I say this. No I won't say it.

***

One, you wanted less sex in the books. Two, you wanted Richard to win. You differed on other stuff, but that was your main desires.

Cerulean Sins was the next book, then Incubus Dreams. Did you, of the vocal minority, notice a trend in these books? Richard was almost non-existent in CS, and I had to fight with my subconscious to get him into ID. And the sexual content? Is it going up or down? I think up, definitely up.

I did not do it on purpose, it wasn't in the front of my head, but my subconscious has always been contrary.

***

You tell me that there's too much sex, and part of me thinks, you ain't seen nothing yet. You advocate Richard, and it makes it hard to write him as a character, because every time I deal with him, I hear the ugly echoes in my head of you.

***

The arduer is a major metaphysical ability, and curse/blessing. It cannot be brought into the series and then fixed just like that. Anything this powerful should have consequences, and a learning curve. I've always planned on Anita getting to the point where she can control the arduer and not have to have sex every few hours.

***

But a few of you, a small, but vocal minority, have forgotten that the guest book was a privaledge not a right. So, like any privaledge that gets abused, it goes away.