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Wednesday, July 02, 2008
books for -- ah, heck, nevermind.
I am SO SO FAR BEHIND on books posts. I do feel bad about this. In April I actually reviewed two books right after I read them, and had the reviews (but only those two reviews) all ready to post in a "Books for April" post that never materialized, but since then I've just kind of given up and dealt with the guilt.
Maybe I'll try to do better for the second half of the year. But don't hold your breath. I'll rack my brain a bit, and dig around in my Library Elf emails, and pull out those two reviews from April, and overall just see if I can remember the more noteworthy books I've read in the past few months.
On vacation last week, I read The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper. Tropper is, like Nick Hornby, kind of a male Marian Keyes -- he writes about issues that are not-so-light, with a light touch and a lot of humor. On that score, The Book of Joe did not disappoint. It's about a man who has to go back to his New England hometown when his father has a stroke, which wouldn't be so bad except that the guy had, after shaking the small-town dust from his feet, written a bestselling novel that seriously trashed the people in it. They deserved it, mostly, but the author did a great job of having the reader and the character realize together that he could have handled the whole thing a leetle bit more maturely. Also, the story is structured carefully and well, with explanatory flashbacks getting closer and closer to the crux of the matter that caused the main character to feel so very bitter about the town where he grew up. However, this book did come VERY near to becoming a Very Special Episode about homosexuality and homophobia. Subject matter aside, Very Special Episodes bother me. A lot. Very well-written, and there's certainly a lot more to the story than that, so if you think you might like it anyway, dig in. (Also, that whole scene at the end? Was kind of freaky. You'll know which one I mean. Like a snowflake on his tongue? Eew.)
Sometime back in there I read The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, which was not at all what I expected it to be, but it was really readable and I liked it. It concerned a culture about which I knew almost nothing at all, so it was interesting from that perspective as well. I recommend it.
Oh, I also read Amsterdam by Ian McEwan. I actually don't remember a whole lot of detail about this novella, just that it was an enjoyable read with a moderately annoying (but not too surprising) dark twist at the end. I don't even remember what the source of the characters' conflict was. Oh, now that I make a serious effort it's beginning to come back, but still not completely. Whether that says more about my Swiss-cheese memory or about the quality of the story is anyone's guess. If you like McEwan, give this one a try.
Oh. I read a really strange -- but also memorable -- novel called His Illegal Self, which I picked up purely on the strength of the cover photograph and the title. It was set mostly in a commune in Australia. I liked the main character (a little boy, the son of permanently absent Communist revolutionary hippie types who is sort of accidentally abducted by another Communist revolutionary hippie type who he thinks is his mother) a lot, but I didn't like much else about the book, and the pretentiously unorthodox punctuation -- or, more specifically, the lack of it around quotations -- drove me bananas.
Hmm. Also in the Strange category -- Jenn, this is the book whose title I couldn't think of the other day, when we were talking about memoirs of people with crazy mothers or something like that -- was Her Last Death by Susannah Sonnenberg. Here's the review I put on Visual Bookshelf (which I no longer update, by the way) for that one: "Left me feeling dirty, somehow, and very glad for my ordinary humdrum wonderful relationship with my normal mother. Very well-written, but I still kind of wish I hadn't read it."
Aaaand back in April I read The Pajama Girls of Lambert Square, by Rosina Lippi. Lippi's writing and dialogue always crackle, and her characters are fresh and interesting as always. Maybe a little too fresh and interesting -- I found the agoraphobic, constantly pajama-clad female lead just that little bit too unrealistic for my suspension of disbelief to take (especially when someone so careful about her privacy hops into bed with the new guy in town practically the second she sees him. But then I guess in today's moral climate that's not unrealistic. Ahem.). Still, it's worth a read for the excellent writing, as Lippi's/Donati's books always are.
Here's the other of my April reviews -- I even formatted this one!
- Conversations with the Fat Girl -- Liza Palmer -- 4
- I liked this so much more than I thought I might. Maggie and Olivia have been best friends since they were the two designated Fat Girls in their class at school, but as the newly-thin Olivia's wedding approaches, the problems with their relationship are becoming increasingly apparent. Meanwhile, Maggie's been evicted and has a master's degree, a dead-end job, and a crush on a man she thinks is unapproachable. At first glance this seems like a typical fluffy best-friends-gone-wrong, girl-with-issues-meets-boy story, but there's a lot more to the book than that. For one thing, the writing is terrific, with believable dialogue, a steadily moving plot, and frequent sly little zingers of humor that catch you off-guard; even the chapter titles are clever. Also, in a rawther Marian-Keyesish fashion, there are some Deep Issues here, and they're deftly handled without the slightest bit of treacle or preaching or any tired clichés. The supporting cast, Maggie's mother and sister especially, crackle with life; Maggie herself is a woman who makes me root for her. The only way I could bring myself to put this down and stop reading long enough to get anything done for the past two days was to remind myself that I didn't really want to get to the end and have no more to look forward to. (So it's not perfect -- the best-friend's Bridezilla tendencies are a bit over-the-top at times. But it's still very, very good.)
OK. I know I read other stuff (besides all the reading I was doing for school up until mid-May) but that's all I'll torture you with. Now here's a meme. I keep seeing it around and hoping someone will tag me with it, but nobody has, so I'm just going to do it anyway. (Blog-tagging reminds me of waiting to be picked for teams in junior high.)
1. Do you remember how you developed a love of reading?
I just remember being really enthusiastic about the fact that letters made words and words made stories and stories made pictures in my head -- that, in short, all it took was the alphabet correctly arranged to create entire worlds out of nothing. (Although I wouldn't put it into those words until I was considerably older. I may have been an avid reader at three but I wasn't that precocious.) Also, my brother taught me to read, or at least I remember him teaching me the sounds the letters made -- I was stung by the injustice that while C could make a K sound, K couldn't make a C sound. And anything my big brother did had to be just wonderful.
2. What are some books you loved as a child?
The first ones I remember reading independently were the Frog and Toad books, and I still love those. Also, I was nuts about the Little House books, and Narnia, and the Oz books and Beverly Cleary and Doris Gates, and Trixie Belden and the Hardy Boys (not so much Nancy Drew although I read a lot of those books the way you eat a lot of gummy bears, without thinking much), and books of horse stories. As an older child I especially loved the Anne series. I enjoyed anything I could check out of the library and devour non-stop, really, but these were a few special favorites.
3. What is your favorite genre?
Overall, probably classic fiction. But it's hard to choose.
4. Do you have a favorite novel?
Talk about hard to choose! Maybe Persuasion. Maybe Jane Eyre. Maybe Anne of Green Gables. I love a lot of modern novels too (Never Let Me Go, A Thread of Grace, Into the Wilderness). Man, I hate this question. I could go on all day with answers. Moving on.
5. Where do you usually read?
These days, in bed. I read elsewhere too, but I always have so much else to do during the day -- school in season, working in the garden, house stuff, cooking, cleaning, hanging laundry -- that I just don't have the leisure to sit down without guilt as often as I used to, and when I do, I usually end up knitting because, I reason, I can read in bed at night, but knitting doesn't lend itself as well to that, and I have projects I actually want to finish before I die.
6. When do you usually read?
I think I just answered that pretty well.
7. Do you usually have more than one book you are reading at a time?
Yes. Usually I'll go through several lighter fiction books in the amount of time it takes me to finish a more serious classic (usually a reread), although sometimes I get so caught up in one book that I don't read anything else until that one is done.
8. Do you read nonfiction in a different way or place than you read fiction?
As much as I wish I were the type of person who read a lot of nonfiction -- seems so much steadier and more important than preferring novels -- I probably read maybe one or two nonfiction books per year outside of school requirements. I do like a good biography every now and then, and I'll check out nonfiction that sounds interesting when I hear about it, but I frequently turn those books in without reading them all the way through. Now you know my deep dark secret: I'm terribly shallow. I hope you can still be my friend.
9. Do you buy most of the books you read, or borrow them, or check them out of the library? Mostly I check them out of the library. Classics I'll buy.
10. Do you keep most of the books you buy?
Yes, the vast majority of them, because I almost never buy a book unless I know I want to own it for one reason or another. (One exception is library book sales, where I'll sometimes be less discriminate and end up with stuff I'll never read, which I then give away.)
11. If you have children, what are some of the favorite books you have shared with them?
Mostly, it's the list of books in question 2. But add a few: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, the inevitable Goodnight Moon. My daughter is just now flying through the Little House books, and it gives me so much pleasure to discuss them with her. My son's rereading the Narnia series (actually, he'd only listened to those really good audiobooks of most of them before), so that's fun too. Both my kids loved Beverly Cleary and read just about everything she wrote for young children. One of the greatest joys of being a parent is sharing books with my kids.
12. What are you reading now?
I just finished North and South -- the Elizabeth Gaskell novel, not the one about the American Civil War. I'd listened to the Librivox version before -- back when I was doing the painting in our house, actually, so it was funny to be reading along and then suddenly flash to the mental vision of myself covered with yellow paint standing in what is now my living room painting cupboard doors. Now I'm slowly going through The Mill on the Floss -- is it just me, or is most Eliot not as accessible as Silas Marner? -- and also reading While I Was Gone by Sue Miller. Funny about this book: As I was reading along, parts of the story started sounding creepily familiar to me, but other parts were (and are) not familiar at all. I'm still not sure if I've read this book before, or if I read part of it, or if I read something else that bore a lot of similarity to parts of the story.
13. Do you keep a To Be Read list?
Not really.
14. What’s next?
I'm having a hankering to read some Gabaldon and Donati. Also some Dickens, and I'm going to try to make myself strike out and read something new of his, rather than falling back on David Copperfield. Again.
15. What books would you like to reread?
I reread so, so many books.
16. Who are your favorite authors?
YOU CAN'T MAKE ME CHOOSE. Seriously, if you've read this blog for five minutes you could probably come up with a pretty accurate list.
Whew! And that's all. Wow, that got long. Now I don't have to post for a long time, right?
Comments
I have been wanting to go through the Donati books again!!
Posted by: debi at July 3, 2008 07:38 AM
OH , I LOVED the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency! And great take on the book meme.
Posted by: Beck at July 3, 2008 11:05 AM
Love your reviews. Always. You should get paid for it. I like this meme. I'll steal it later.
Posted by: jennifer at July 3, 2008 07:22 PM
Debi: She's almost done with book six. Usually when she finishes one, it's about six months until it's available. So I'll probably start rereading this fall, in anticipation of the new (last) book in the late winter.
Beck: Have you read any of the sequels to the #1LDA?
Posted by: Rachel at July 3, 2008 07:32 PM
I love your bookposts and am sorry I didn't tag you for the meme :) I agree with you on The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and funnily enough also find myself wanting to reread some Gabaldon. Can't wait for the next book to come out :)
I just finished The Yada-Yada Prayer Group and was incredibly impressed by it. It's much better than I had expected. Have you read it? If not, I think you'd like it.
Posted by: Maria at July 5, 2008 01:19 AM
I am so with you on your answer to #8...glad I'm not the only one with such a shameful secret. :)
Have you read Adam Bede? I am so in love with that book. I liked it 1,000 times better than TMOTF (though I did like the latter). And I remember having a hard time getting into Silas Marner, but that was a decade ago. I should try again.
I just finished Wives and Daughters...I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I was so bummed to learn the author died before writing the ending! What did you think of North and South?
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