Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris

The Blurb On The Back:

A guys walks into a bar …

From here the story could take many turns. A guy walks into a bar and meets the love of his life. A guy walks into a bar and finds no one else is there. When this guy is David Sedaris, the possibilities are endless. In Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls, Sedaris delights with twists of humour and intelligence, remembering his father’s dinnertime attire (shirtsleeves and underpants), his first colonoscopy (remarkably pleasant) and the time he considered buying the skeleton of a murdered pygmy. By turns hilarious and moving, David Sedaris masterfully looks at life’s absurdities.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

This collection of 19 essays and six monologues contains some material familiar to those who listen to David Sedaris’s successful Radio 4 show, although there was much here that was new to me. I found the collection a little slow to get going and didn’t enjoy the earlier pieces as much as I did the latter ones, while the targets of some of the monologues (specifically included as he’d met a number of teenagers looking for pieces to perform for school) a little too broad for me to really enjoy the humour. That said there were some essays where I genuinely laughed out loud (particularly one where Sedaris finds himself on the verge of buying the skeleton of a murdered pygmy and one where he succumbs to his father’s demand that he get a colonoscopy) and I’ve always enjoyed Sedaris’s willingness to reveal his own foibles and shallowness. For that reason, I will pick up his back catalogue as I eagerly await his next collection.

The Cormorant by Chuck Wendig

The Blurb On The Back:

Miriam Black has gone off the map.

Miriam is on the road again, having transitioned from “thief” to “killer”.

Hired by a wealthy businessman, she heads down to Florida to practice the one thing she’s good at, but in her vision she sees him die by another’s hand and on the wall written in blood is a message just for Miriam.

She’s expected …

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

The third in Chuck Wendig’s MIRIAM BLACK SERIES is another hard-boiled, foul-mouthed noir affair that neatly brings in some of the loose ends left from the earlier books and provides an interesting set up for the concluding volume. Whether you like this series really turns on your attitude to Miriam, a foul-mouthed, self-destructive and at times completely infuriating woman who doesn’t know what she wants or where she’s going. I love the fact that she’s not perfect (and doesn’t care) just as I like the fact that she’s also made some attempts to make herself a better person (but only on her own terms). Louis doesn’t appear in this book but I didn’t miss him and it’s made up for both with the appearance of Miriam’s mother and the depiction of their relationship and the arrival of a figure from Miriam’s past. I would nit pick some of the violence in the book – notably Miriam’s incredible ability to take beating after beating without long term affects – but ultimately, it’s a dark and violent delight that kept me turning the pages from beginning to end and I will definitely check out the next book.

Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire

The Blurb On The Back:

So when the crossroads call and your faith is thin
And you’re afraid you might explode,
Go and talk to the girl in the green silk gown
Who walks on Sparrow Hill Road.

Rose Marshall died in 1952 in Buckley Township, Michigan, run off the road by a man named Bobby Cross – a man who had sold his soul to live forever, and intended to use her death to pay the price of his immortality. Trouble was, he didn’t ask Rose what she thought of the idea.

It’s been more than sixty years since that night, and she’s still sixteen, and she’s still running.

They have names for her all over the country: the Girl in the Diner, the Phantom Prom Date, the Girl in the Green Silk Gown. Mostly she just goes by “Rose”, a hitching ghost girl with her thumb out and her eyes fixed on the horizon, trying to outrace a man who never sleeps, never stops, and never gives up on the idea of claiming what’s his. She’s the angel of the overpass, she’s the darling of the truck stops, and she’s going to figure out a way to win her freedom. After all, it’s not like it can kill her.

You can’t kill what’s already dead.

And when the night hails down and you’re afraid
That you’ll never get what you’re owed,
Go and talk to the girl in the green silk gown
Who died on Sparrow Hill Road.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Seanan McGuire’s ghost story blends horror with dark fantasy in a tightly plotted novel that combines folklore with faerie lore and adds a shot of pure Americana to largely successful effect. The episodic feel to the story as Rose recounts various events from her life and death mostly worked for me and although some of the twists are telegraphed too early, there were still plenty of surprises. I particularly enjoyed the romance between Rose and her prom date Gary, which is sweetly shown without being sentimental and Bobby Cross is a great villain – the ultimate sneering 50s bad boy with a very nasty dark side. I wasn’t that taken with Rose herself who reminded me a little too much of Tobey Daye and Georgia Mason from McGuire’s other work and I found Rose’s bean sidhe friend, Emma, a little two dimensional (although the folklore element she represented fitted in nicely in this world). The book leaves enough loose ends to allow for a sequel, which I would definitely check out.