May 2013 Book Report part 2

The Baker’s Daughter by D.E. Stevenson

This story takes place in Scotland, and Ms. Stevenson does a marvelous job of getting the reader to see the wild beauty of the moors. Sue is a young woman who chooses to go to work as a cook for an eccentric artist, to get away from her angry father and contentious stepmother. And Mr. Darnay is VERY eccentric. When his wife leaves him, Sue stays on, taking over as maid as well as cook. Of course she falls in love with him. There is great angst all around involving the wife (so to be ex-wife), town opinion, Sue’s wayward brother and assorted unhappiness. But it all works out in the end. And I was glad that the ending wasn’t contrived. Too much. It felt like a natural turn of events.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Late, Late at Night by Rick Springfield

I had SUCH a crush on him in my younger years! What a gorgeous guy! And I loved his music too. This was a really unexpected book. Unlike a lot of celebrity “autobiographies” that have an acknowledged helper to write it, or the ones that you KNOW are ghostwritten, this seemed to be entirely written by Mr. Springfield himself. The language alone would go a long way to confirm that. He is VERY free with his language! So be warned. Aside from that, it was very well written and engaging. I enjoyed reading it, aside from the language. I have a great sympathy for him and his battle with depression. I know that demon very well, unfortunately. All in all, I would say this was a good book. Very honest.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

The Revolving Boy by Gertrude Friedberg

Odd little sci-fi book written in the 60s. It’s always amusing to read early sci-fi and see how the author treats the unknown “future” with all the handy gadgets and technology. The story concerns a boy who was part of an experiment that was shut down shortly thereafter. He was the first and only baby to be born in zero gravity in space. It turned out later that he had Absolute Direction; he always knew where he was. As a result of just going through a normal day, with all the twists and turns one makes, he would have to literally unwind at night. He would go through all the movements from the day in reverse order to center himself. It turned out this was all caused by a signal from another life form that he intercepted when he was born in space. The ending was a bit anticlimactic, but I really enjoyed the futuristic gadgets and lifestyle descriptions. I looked for info on Ms. Friedberg to see what else she’d written and found out that this was her only novel and her only work of sci-fi. She was mainly a playwright.