108 posts tagged “books”
I finished Mother Night. It's going to take me a while to remove myself far enough from the book to judge fairly where it ranks in my list of favorite Vonneguts. Because if I were to answer right now I'd without hesitation say that it's my favorite, in no uncertain terms. I loved it. It's a fascinating plot that I could not put down, but had to put down sometimes to scribble quotes and passages down in my notebook. Like the other best novels of Vonnegut, it's a shining example of how the issues he writes about are still relevant today.
Here are my favorite lines:
"Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself - will say that I have never tampered with a single tooth in my thought machine, such as it is. There are teeth missing, God knows - some I was born without, teeth that will never grow. And other teeth have been stripped by the clutchless shifts of history--
But never have I willfully destroyed a tooth on a gear of my thinking machine. Never have I said to myself, "This fact I can do without."
"I had taught myself that a human being might as well look for diamond tiaras in the gutters as for rewards and punishments that were fair."
"There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive."
I'm also still churning along in Mansfield Park. It's getting much more interesting, but I still have over 100 pages to go.
I started Anne of Green Gables on the way home from the Strand yesterday, but I think I'll put it aside until these two are done.
A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman
The Russian Debutante's Handbook by Gary Shteyngart
Snobbery by Joseph Epstein
Night by Elie Wiesel
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
Letters of the Century edited by Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler
Snuff by Chuck PalahniukBooks Read:
The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff (library)
Night by Elie Wiesel
Well, as you can see from the sad "stack" in the lower photo, it was not a good month for reading, for me. For the last two weeks I've been really busy at work, and literally did not read anything. I finished Monsters of Templeton before the madness started, as well as half of A Natural History of the Senses and Mansfield Park. The major work on our project ended friday night, and yesterday I did some major relaxing, and also read all of Night.
I got a lot of great deals on books this month. I got A Natural History of the Senses, Night, The Russian Debutante's Handbook, and Snobbery for $3 each. I found Motherless Brooklyn on clearance at Urban Outfitters for $1.
Well, I hope there's more time for reading in June.
One of the things I anticipate most about summer, besides the start of Summer Fridays at work where we get out at 1, is making a Summer Reading List. I usually try to come up with a list of books I've been meaning to read for a long time, and make it a goal to read them over the summer.
Last year I learned my lesson about making too long of a list. I don't like to stick to lists very well, so the list should be short enough to allow plenty of spontaneous reads over the summer.
This year I decided to go with a list of 7 books, half of what last year's goal was. Last year I read only 6 books from that list, so even going with 7 might be too much. However, I think I picked books I'll actually read this summer. We'll see how this goes:
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Emma by Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
Night by Elie Wiesel
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
Some of these books will also help me with my 2008 reading goals (The Austens and the Vonnegut). I have until the end of Labor Day weekend in September, which is September 1st.
The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff was just what I needed. I had been craving a very interesting, action packed novel, and it certainly delivered. It kept my interest throughout, even though it jumped around from our heroine Willie's story to the stories of her ancestors. In fact, that was part of the charm.
At the heart of the story is a mystery that Willie is trying to solve. Her personal life has gone down the crapper, so the distraction of having a puzzle to throw herself into is just what she needs. The chapters switch from Willie's story to small little first person accounts of her ancestors telling their story. The reader finds out more pieces of the mystery than Willie herself is finding through her research, until the end when it all comes together. It was a very interesting way to structure the mystery, and I loved it.
I've read some criticism that there was too much going on, too much plot and strange happenings, but that didn't bother me, and the story did not get confusing.
I would recommend this book, especially if you're in the mood for a story rich with plot and lovely characters.
I wasn't planning on buying anything, but Symposia bookstore had a booth and all fiction was $3. I found four books, and one of them was The Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman. I've heard wonderful things about this book. My Mom loves it and recommends it highly.
I know blurbs can overrate things, but this one made me decide to read the book immediately:
An aphrodisiac for the sense receptors. Read a chapter, then step outside and voila: The sky is a deeper blue, the birds sing a sweeter song. How could the world seem otherwise, after feasting on voluptuous prose like this? -Chicago Tribune
Books Purchased*:
A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs
Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon
So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson
The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction edited by Lex Williford and Michael Martone
The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg
A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck
A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck
The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes
I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
The Solitary Vice Against Reading by Mikita Brottman
Not Quite What I Was Planning edited by Smith Magazine
Patience and Fortitude by Nicholas A. Basbanes
The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor edited by Sally Fitzgerald
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Heartburn by Nora Ephron
Nine Horses by Billy Collins
Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut edited by William Rodney Allen
The Best American Short Stories 1998 edited by Garrison Keillor
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The Art of Drowning by Billy Collins
Stories by T. C. Boyle
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc*There is very little excuse for this beast of a pile. Well, maybe there is. I had a lot of visitors in April, who wanted to go to Strand (who could blame them? I do too). So I went to Strand a lot more than normal, as well as dozens of other bookstores. I got excellent deals on most of the books in the stack, but I still need to go much easier in May. Here's hoping.
Books Read:
So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson
I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
The Gathering by Anne Enright
Simply Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs
Patiently Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Including Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart
Heartburn by Nora Ephron
I am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert
Alice on Her Way by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Well, despite the fact that I had company visiting 3 out of the 4 weekends in April, I still managed to read a lot. Absolutely nothing else got done this month.
So Many Books, So Little Time is a book that many members of Rory's Book Club have read and enjoyed. I'm not sure why it took me so long to read it, because I love books about reading. I found a hardcover at Strand for $6, and once I had it I wanted to read it immediately. It was a good book to read while my family was visiting; it was nice and light and did not require too much concentration. If you like reading about reading as well, it's very likely that you'll also enjoy this one. I related to Sara's thoughts about what reading can do for you, and wrote down many titles that I want to read too. (See Heartburn below.)
I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley has been on the receiving end of an incredible amount of buzz lately. This was a book I picked up because of the wonderful title and cover. Flipping through it and reading the first few pages confirmed that it needed to be purchased, taken to my home, and read immediately.
A few links: Sloane's website is pretty great, and includes dioramas. Amazon's book blog has a Q&A with Sloane. (I Was Told There'd Be Cake does not appear in either of my photos this month because it was so good I lent it to my friend right away.)
I read The Gathering for the first meeting of a book club I joined. We had a very spirited discussion about it. I enjoyed Anne Enright's writing, and way the book was structured was impressive and unique. The the plot is about a family that comes together for a funeral, but to me the book is about memory. The reader is inside the narrator's memory, and she can't quite remember if certain things actually happened, or the exact way that they happened. In other words, exactly like real memory. Also, the memories are not in order, much the way certain memories might come randomly back to you in an emotional situation like a funeral. I enjoyed the writing and the structure more than I enjoyed the actual novel, all together.
I decided I wanted to re-read the Alice books, my favorite series when I was younger. Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is still writing the Alice series too, so there are new ones I haven't read yet. I started randomly in the middle, with Simply Alice. I then read Patiently Alice, Including Alice, and Alice on Her Way. You'll see more Alice books on the list next month.
I previously posted about A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs and The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart, so I won't go on about them more here.
I read about Heartburn in So Many Book, So Little Time. I've never read any Nora Ephron, and this one sounded amusing. Sara Nelson said she and her friends read it over and over again when it came out in the 80s. It was interesting to read a book for women that was written before the rise of chick lit. And it's so much better than chick lit too. It's hard to find books like this now because the few good ones that come out probably get slapped with pink covers and a single cover illustration that looks exactly like every other cover of all the hundreds of crappy books. In fact, the latest edition of Heartburn is pink with this very type of illustration on it. I'm glad I found a first edition that has the original artwork. (Here are links to images of the first edition, and the current edition.)
I started reading I Am American (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert when it came out back in October 2007. I read most of it, but got distracted and never read the last 50 or so pages. I finished them this month. It's a very funny book, and I highly recommend it to fans of Stephen Colbert. (This book also has a great site.)
As always, my complete Polysyllabic Spree list can be found here.
Perilous Journey is much more action packed than the first book. I guess that's what happens after your enemies know you. You get chased while you're trying to do the chasing. Very intense. I had to read a few pages of a different book before going to bed because I was afraid I would have crazy dreams.
But it's the good kind of intense. It's exciting, and the puzzles and clues keep you on your toes. The four children are learning more about their own gifts. As in the first book, it's amusing to see how each problem is solved with a combination of their extraordinary gifts. Constance is my favorite of the four in this book.
I recommend this duo, for young adult readers and for adults. Definitely start with the first one.
The Mysterious Benedict Society also has a great website.
I was tagged by a couple people for the Eight Random Things meme. I was also tagged forever ago by Slow Learner for a book blog. I will post both of them now. (And apologies to Slow Learner for the delay!)
Eight Random Things
The rules:
- Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
- People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
- At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
- Don’t forget to leave them a comment on their blog and tell them they’ve been tagged, and to come back and read your blog for the whole story.
My Eight Things:
1. Many people know this (especially the book club girls, and also especially my mom and dad), but for those who don't: I have a little brother who is 7 years old. His name is Benjamin and he is the cutest, smartest kid in the world.
2. When I was a senior in high school I was on a weekend retreat and went tubing down a hill onto a frozen pond. I went down on a tube with a girl named Rose, and we hit a bump about 20 feet from the bottom of the hill. I flew from the tube down to the ice below and landed on my back, smacking my head on the ice. I was taken to the emergency room and came back with 17 staples holding together two large cuts on the back of my head.
3. I am unable to keep up with the media that I wish to consume. I have too many interests, it seems. Despite how much I read/listen/watch, I still have: a million unread google reader items; two large stacks of magazines that need to be read/flipped through; a DVR that's full of Conan Dave, Jon, and Stephen; a long Netflix queue; and an ungodly number of unread books on my shelves.
4. I've recently discovered a love of baking. It's a very fun hobby; I love making everything from scratch. Recently I've found wonderful recipes for brownies, chocolate chip cookies, cream biscuits, and cupcakes and frosting. (A post about the cupcakes will be forthcoming.)
5. Today Ryan and I are going to buy Mario Kart Wii and I'm super excited.
6. I am allergic to lettuce.
7. My favorite holiday is Christmas.
8. My favorite food is mashed potatoes.
- Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
- Open the book to page 123.
- Find the fifth sentence.
- Post the next three sentences.
- Tag five people.
The book is Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc.
When he returned to his mother's, after a summer at Rikers, Serena had gone to Robert's, and her welfare benefits had gone with her. Lourdes hadn't paid the rent in months. She was using more than ever and had been spotted hanging out in the abandoned building on Mount Hope.
A Wolf at the Table is Augusten's also his darkest memoir yet. Which seems unlikely, since Dry covered drug addiction, alcoholism, and a friend who died of AIDs. But Dry was full of humor despite its subject matter, whereas it quickly becomes apparent that Augusten's troubled relationship with his father probably had a deeper impact on him than his other childhood drama (Running With Scissors) and his substance abuse problems as an adult (Dry).
Despite it being less humorous than the previous four, A Wolf at the Table is still classic Augusten, and everything is described to the reader with Augusten's pleasant description and spot-on comparisons. It is also his most affecting memoir. I want to talk more about how heartbreaking certain parts are, but I really don't want to spoil it for anyone.
I like what the amazon review says about it best: "It is profoundly sad, remarkably tender, and fueled by a sense of love and reverence that only a child knows."
If you're interested, head to http://www.augusten.com/ for lots of neat content about A Wolf at the Table. A free chapter is posted there, as well as a sample from the audio book (sort of scary) and really cool photos of Augusten as a child and his family.
A Wolf at the Table will be out on 4/29.
