Reading Is Sexy: Books Part III

[beegee]

I liked it. I actually bought a copy which is something I almost never do because I can always snag a library copy somehow. This time, I just couldn't seem to. I really wanted to read it because I'd read so many reviews.

The scenes of them in the room are written very well. There's a huge difference between Room being all Jack knows and yet it's his mother's personal hell. Of course, Jack has no idea. He's happy and loves it there.

 

[corianderstem]

Cool. Looking forward to it, although I'm number ... oh .... I don't know, something with three digits on the waiting list.

 

[lazarus]

Now that I'm done with my quite satisfying whirlwind revisiting tour of Shakespeare (I think he's good to read in the fall), I am beginning my adventures with Raymond Chandler.

He was my Grandpa's favorite author, so I've heard about him from a young age. I have no idea why I'm only now getting started. I have a really old (but falling apart ) copy of The Big Sleep, which is the only one my Grandpa passed down to me.

I'm close to 60 pages in, and holy shit is this fun. Brilliantly written stuff. It makes me want to write a detective novel. Even though the resulting product would be terrible. Really excited that I'm finally getting into the Philip Marlowe shit, though. It's right up my alley.

Good to hear. My personal favorite is The Long Goodbye, which to me is much more than a detective story. Some people feel the last two or three were far too bitter, but it didn't bother me--liked them all.

If you find yourself becoming a big Chandler fan, I can recommend a couple SF/fantasy authors who count him as a huge influence and put out some very hard-boiled, non-nerdy stuff in the genre.

 

[lazarus]

Also, I think I've asked this before, but am I the only person who has read the works of Canadian writer Robertson Davies? Just finished a fifth book of his and man that guy was so damned good.

 

[anitram]

Most Canadian kids were tortured with Robertson Davies at some point in high school, so I wouldn't think you're the only one.

Actually, I kid, I have liked some of his works, especially Fifth Business. But I really do wish that I'd read them outside of the school setting, there is always some tediousness involved when you have to write a thematic essay on the material that has been beaten like a dead horse by the teacher.

 

[lazarus]

Fifth Business was the first thing I read, and I went ahead and finished the Deptford trilogy, loved the whole thing.

I've now finished the first two books in the Cornish trilogy, but I don't have the third book yet so I think I'm going to move onto something else.

I don't know whether to be saddened or happy that he's so widely read in Canada yet seen as something to slog through by students! I find his writing very funny, but it does seem a little highbrow for high school-level.

 

[lazarus]

Pretty noteworthy news here:

EXCLUSIVE: Judy Blume Adapting 'Tiger Eyes' for Big Screen - The Hollywood Reporter

 

[Saracene]

Linda Himelstein - The King of Vodka: The Story of Pyotr Smirnov and the Upheaval of an Empire

A very enjoyable biography of Pyotr Smirnov, a former serf who became a rich and famous vodka entrepreneur, his less fortunate sons and the rebirth of his brand as Smirnoff later on, set against the turbulent historical background of Russia in the late 19th-early 20th centuries. The only major flaw I could find with this book were the few paragraphs that crossed from facts into historical fiction, with the author trying to guess what Smirnov did or thought in this or that situation. Though she clearly indicated in the footnotes when she was taking dramatic license, it just felt unnecessary and jarring.

 

[corianderstem]

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

I read White Teeth back in the day, having heard so many raves about it, but all I can remember about it was that I felt underwhelmed.

This one, though, I did honestly enjoy.

 

[Total U2 Nut]

Finished One Hundred Years of Solitude yesterday. It was one of those fantastic books that I wanted to flip right back to the beginning and start again, beautifully written, probably one of, if not the best books I've read this year. What with reading so much non-fiction recently, it was so good to be able to slip into this other world, I loved the mystic realism - I can't remember enjoying a book this much for a while

 

[Saracene]

I read White Teeth back in the day, having heard so many raves about it, but all I can remember about it was that I felt underwhelmed.

I liked White Teeth, but thought that the book ran out of steam near the end and that the writer probably bit off more than she could chew.

 

[Catman]

Finished One Hundred Years of Solitude yesterday. It was one of those fantastic books that I wanted to flip right back to the beginning and start again, beautifully written, probably one of, if not the best books I've read this year. What with reading so much non-fiction recently, it was so good to be able to slip into this other world, I loved the mystic realism - I can't remember enjoying a book this much for a while

Definitely one of my favorites

 

[martha]

It takes me forevar to read a book when I'm working.

But, here are the last few I've read:

Floating on the Missouri: 100 Years After Lewis & Clark by James Willard Schultz. I really liked this. Schultz and his Blackfeet wife took regular float trips down the Montana part of the Missouri 100+ years ago. This was their last one before she took ill and died, soon after this trip. Schultz talks about the disappearing Indians and reminisces about friends of his on the river and his youth at a trading post on the river. They took this trip in November, so his descriptions of the river during autumn were lovely.

Down the Great Unknown: The Conquest of the Grand Canyon by Edward Dolnick. This was really fun. Dolnick used the diaries of other members of Powell's first expedition to tell a clear story about it. He included detailed descriptions of the rapids and river conditions, getting information from modern Colorado boatmen, many of who are Powell scholars themselves. If he had used traditional footnote form, I would have had a little more patience with him, and I didn't really need a whole graphic chapter on Shiloh. An extended footnote would have been fine.

Dexter the Tough by Margaret Peterson Haddix. This arrived in the book order at school last week, and it looked interesting, so I read it at school. It was alright. Dexter's dad is undergoing treatment for cancer, so Dexter stays with his grandma and goes to a new school. He has problems and makes a new friend. We know how these things end.

A Canyon Voyage: The Narrative of the Second Powell Expedition by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh. This was written in 1908 by Fred Dellenbaugh, who was 17 in 1871 when he started a two-year expedition with Powell back down the Green and the Colorado Rivers. I really enjoyed this one as well. They did some land work as well as river work, mostly in and around southern Utah, and Dellenbaugh can turn a nice phrase and tell a good story.

 

[corianderstem]

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown



That seems to be all I can bring myself to say about it.

 

[Catman]

Looking for Alaska

great book, I'm tired, goodnight

 

[lazarus]

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown



That seems to be all I can bring myself to say about it.

I had to put this down after a bit because it was so damned depressing.

This book should be required reading for all high school students.

 

[corianderstem]

Yeah, I'm now reading something extremely light and silly after that one.

 

[martha]

Louisa May Alcott: Her Girlhood Diary, by Cary Ryan. I picked this up in the library at school the other day. It looked interesting. I like diaries and journals. Apparently Louisa destroyed much of her childhood diary when she was a woman, but a few pages survive. Ryan manages to tell an interesting story with what few entries of the diary remain, along with some letters. She arranges the book thematically, which works, but I would have preferred a more linear story. I'm linear, though, to a fault.

 

[corianderstem]

Star Island by Carl Hiaasen

Reading about paparazzi and spoiled, drunken pop stars run amok in South Beach is exactly what I needed to clear my mind of the Native American holocaust.

God bless America.

 

[Saracene]

The Passage by Justin Cronin

Fantastic book, in fact I felt like I've just read a few books; it was so densely packed and it makes a drastic turn at one point which turns it into another story altogether. I'd have thought I'd be all vampired out by now after Twilight, True Blood etc., but this was definitely a different take, and quite moving in places too. My only major complaint was that the book's most compelling characters were in the first section, and after that only a few really registered with me, and some just never really took shape even after I've been following them for a few hundreds of pages.

I've read on wikipedia that the author plans to write a trilogy, which is exciting and rather makes sense, as the book just sort of ends.

 

[corianderstem]

Loooooved that book.

I preferred the first half as well, but once I got over the shock and disappointment that the first section just ended and switched gears into the future time, I did get into the new section. But yeah, agreed about the characters.

 

[corianderstem]

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

Parts of this made me feel like I was really loving the book, and other parts made it feel like a total slog.

My favorite parts were the chapters written from the perspective of Rusty, troubled twelve-year-old misfit son of Golden, the polygamist in question.

Overall, I can't decide how much I liked it.

 

[Saracene]

William Goldman - Adventures in the Screen Trade

I loved Goldman's Which Lie Did I Tell?, which was a follow-up to Adventures, and thought that this earlier book was just as entertaining and insightful, full of anecdotes, behind-the-scenes-drama, stories of success and disappointments, and some shrewd observations on what does or does not work in movies/storytelling. Since it was first published nearly 30 years ago, the movie business has obviously changed quite a bit, so it also serves as an interesting snapshot of the era. Some bits were repeats of what I've already read in the second book - Goldman's dismissal of the idea of a director as an auteur, going on and on about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but that didn't detract from my overall enjoyment.

 

[beegee]

Half a Life by Darin Strauss

A memoir by an author in his forties who accidentally struck and killed a high school classmate with his car when he was eighteen.

I wanted to read this book for two reasons: when I was nineteen I rolled my father's truck across a California freeway, nearly killing my teenage passenger, and this past summer, my daughter lost a friend in a car accident in which the teenage driver survived while her nineteen year old passenger was killed. This event had a huge impact on our local kids and watching them process it all has been heartbreaking. I think of the driver often. I think about all of them, all the time.

I don't know what I expected from this book but it certainly wasn't what I got. The author is embarrassingly self-absorbed to the point that I almost didn't finish reading it and while I understand that the book is about how the accident affected the author and his life, using phrases like, "My thoughts kept flying head-first into the pane of glass that kept me outside of everyone else" was just offensive.

The author also somehow manages to make the victim's parents seem like assholes which was unbelieveable to me. They tried to sue him and he apparently found this outrageous. He also spent a lot of time speculating whether the girl had deliberately placed herself in front of his car, trying to convince himself that it was a suicide. I kept wondering if the victim's parent's are still alive and how they would feel while reading the book and it made me incredibly uncomfortable, like I'd stepped into a room during an old family argument I shouldn't be hearing.

At first I thought the subject matter simply hit too close to home but by the end of the book I realized I just didn't like the author. On the final full-page of acknowledgments he goes so far as to thank the officer on the scene the day of the accident by name but fails to mention either the victim or her family.

Also, footnotes throughout? Really?

 

[martha]

The last two were:

Lohengrin and Parsifal: Described and Interpreted in Accordance with Wagner's Own Writings by Alice Leighton Cleather and Basil Crump. We're going to see Lohengrin in December, so I thought I should read this. It was really fun and interesting. It was written in 1908,and revised in '14, but still retains that Victorian love of long-winded sentences which may take rereading to completely comprehend. The authors not only explained Wagner's thinking behind the two operas, but gave a history of the myth of the Holy Grail in Europe, which is key to understanding the opera. This edition was printed in England in 1932, and I got it for $1 at a library bookstore.

The Land of Little Rain by Mary Austin. Since we go up to the Owens Valley area and Western Nevada every Thanksgiving weekend, I thought I should get around to reading this. I see Mary Austin's house all the time in Independence. The book was alright. She too writes in a nearly Victorian cadence (It was written in 1903.) which can make her hard to follow at times. She uses the Indian names for places, only occasionally using familiar names, which makes it tricky to figure out just where she's writing about, and I'm familiar with the area. Those who are not familiar with the Owens Valley might find it very difficult going. There were moments of poetry in her descriptions, and her subtle and gentle personifications of animals, plants, and natural events were quite lovely. But she writes in an almost "locals only" style, which is less generous than nature writers should be, I think. Muir is much more generous with his nature writing.

 

[corianderstem]

beegee - WOW. Guess I'll be taking that book off reserve at my library.

 

[anitram]

Half a Life by Darin Strauss

V.S. Naipaul's book which has the same title, on the other hand, is pretty good.

My latest book was Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures. It's a fast and entertaining read, very plot-driven to the point where it's somewhat detrimental to character development. But it's an interesting collection of 12 interrelated short stories about a group of medical students/doctors, their jobs, relationships with each other, etc.

 

[beegee]

beegee - WOW. Guess I'll be taking that book off reserve at my library.

I'd actually like to hear what someone else thinks of it and you'd be a good someone

 

[corianderstem]

I'd wanted to read it out of mild curiosity more than a deep interest in his experience, but your comments just pushed it over into "okay, just not that interested."

 

[beegee]

I understand.

Maybe anitram? martha?

Anyone?