49 posts tagged “reading”
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.
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.
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.
I'm enjoying it, even though it's incredibly dark. I wasn't exactly in the mood for a dark novel when I started, but it's working for me now. How much I enjoy the book overall will be largely dependent on what happens in the second half. For now I'm impressed with Anne Enright's style. Her writing is very sharp and unique. It feels like it's getting into my bones and messing with me.
Here are some passages that struck me as so vivid and honest that I've marked my paperback all up with circles and lines:
"And what amazes me as I hit the motorway is not the fact that everyone loses someone, but that everyone loves someone. It seems like such a massive waste of energy - and we all do it, all the people beetling along between the white lines, merging, converging, overtaking. We each love someone, even though they will die. And we keep loving them, even when they are not there to love any more. And there is no logic or use to any of this, that I can see." page 28
"But it is not just the sex, or remembered sex, that makes me think I love Michael Weiss from Brooklyn, now, seventeen years too late. It is the way he refused to own me, no matter how much I tried to be owned. It was the way he would not take me, he would only meet me, and that only ever halfway.
I think I am ready for that now. I think I am ready to be met." page 82
"He handed it to Ada and pressed her forearm, like they had lived too much, each of them, to have anything left to say." page 86
"'Oh, he treated her like a queen,' as they would say over the funeral cooked meats. They had a story, Ada and Charlie, that is for sure, in which they each played the most important roles, and when she walked across the room to him, you could tell how fated they felt, as if their love was a great burden to them as well as a joy." page 103
My favorite essay is Fever Faker, which is about health problems. Hypochondriac-me read it in delight and easily related to the entire ordeal.
From Publisher's Weekly:
“This
debut essay collection is full of sardonic wit and charm, and Crosley
effortlessly transforms what could have been stereotypical tales of
mid-20s life into a breezy series of vignettes with uproariously unpredictable
outcomes....Fans of Sarah Vowell’s razor-sharp tongue will love this
original new voice.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
http://www.sloanecrosley.com/
Here's the book description from Amazon:
"I don’t believe in God, but I miss him." So begins Julian Barnes’s brilliant new book that is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on mortality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and a homage to the writer Jules Renard. Barnes also draws poignant portraits of the last days of his parents, recalled with great detail, affection and exasperation. Other examples he takes up include writers, "most of them dead and quite a few of them French," as well as some composers, for good measure.
The grace with which Barnes weaves together all of these threads makes the experience of reading the book nothing less than exhilarating. Although he cautions us that "this is not my autobiography," the book nonetheless reveals much about Barnes the man and the novelist: how he thinks and how he writes and how he lives. At once deadly serious and dazzlingly playful, Nothing to Be Frightened Of is a wise, funny and constantly surprising tour of the human condition.
I've been in a major Jane Austen mood lately. Before this year I'd only read Pride and Prejudice. I've always intended to read all six, and watching The Jane Austen Book Club made me realize I want to read all six (re-reading Pride and Prejudice with my new annotated edition) as soon as possible. I started with Persuasion, which I loved. Anne Elliot is a great heroine. I'm now watching the Masterpiece Theater version of Persuasion, and reading Sense and Sensibility.
