Book Reviews

Push

2009-12-27T21:58:00.001-08:00

Author: Sapphire

This is a short read (which inspired the movie Precious) about an African American girl who's suffered physical and sexual abuse and incest and is trying to better herself in a difficult world. Actually kind of reminded me of Flowers for Algernon in it's limited 1st person narrative that develops as the character matures. Not uplifting, but true to life and a quick read.

Ariel

2009-11-03T19:05:00.000-08:00

Author: Steven R. Boyett

What happens when all technology suddenly fails, and magic, however reluctantly, comes to life in the world. Ariel is the tale of a young man and his smart-ass unicorn on a quest to fight the evil Necromancer of the ruins of New York City. Fast and gripping, but touching. The only significant drawback is the pages and pages and pages and … and pages about hang gliding, which are enough to convince you that hang gliding most be a sport accountants pick up when cranking Excel gets too hectic. But, really, focus on the smart-ass unicorn. Her name’s Ariel.

Ariel was recently re-released ahead of Boyett's long awaited sequel (which he swore he'd never write), Elegy Beach.

Bridge of Birds

2009-11-03T18:45:00.000-08:00

Author: Barry Hughart
This story is a watercolor painted on a silk screen, beautiful and simple. Don't know what I mean? Maybe you should read the book.

It is a story of "ancient China that never was," a fairy tell or sorts, but wrapped around a heist, or perhaps a mystery. It's funny, charming, and engaging. You will likely figure out the ending before it's delivered, but seeing the story unfold is no less pleasurable for it.

City of Thieves

2009-07-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

Author: David Benioff

This is a quick, enjoyable read about a boy's personal journey to find some eggs (for a general's party cake) during the siege of Leningrad. There's a great buddy story and some nice themes about coming of age which mix light tones (first crushes, puberty) with a serious backdrop. It's still ultimately about war, but not strictly a war book. And the characters are fun to follow with the narrator and his accomplice serving as a kind of odd couple. One of the better books I've read lately.

Mistborn: The Final Empire

2009-06-27T18:56:00.001-07:00

Author: Brandon Sanderson

Synopsis: In a fantasy world where ash rains from the sky and the majority of people are oppressed by nobles ruling under an immortal god-king, a young girl discovers vast powers within herself and joins a plot to bring justice to the downtrodden.

Brandon Sanderson was recently tapped to complete the Wheel of Time series after the unfortunate death of Robert Jordan. This piqued my interest. When a friend recommended the Mistborn trilogy, I decided to take him up on it.

And I’m glad I did. Epic trilogies are the bread and butter of fantasy, and Sanderson is starting his off with a bang. In the first several pages, I was concerned about the prose – it was a little literal, not highly imaginative. I took this to be a sign of the story to come, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. The story is superb. The characters are rich, but fathomable. That’s an apt word, here, because one actually feels that there are depths to fathom – not de riguer in fantasy circles.

The magic system is sensible, complete, and compelling. One consumes metals to power a handful of effects, including the capacity to Push or Pull on metal objects, but only on the line between the mage and the object. I was most impressed with the physical astuteness Sanderson brought to the magic system. If you Push or Pull on an object much lighter than you, it moves. If it’s much heavier (or attached to something heavier, or Push or Pulled against it), you move instead. This makes for some fantastically imaginative and stirring action scenes.

The final books in the trilogy are already out. I will be picking them up soon, and reporting my thoughts here.

Empire

2009-06-20T08:48:00.001-07:00

Author: Orson Scott Card

This is a story about a short-lived civil war in a contemporary USA. It starts with the assassination of the president and VP by unknown terrorists, followed up by an attempted coup by the military and a rebellion of Liberal Elitists on the coasts, who are supported by a Bill Gates caricature with his army of iPod-like AT-STs ripoffs.

The novel started as a video game project that stalled, so OSC decided to convert the plot into a thriller. While it would have made a decent video game, he never really put the pieces together enough to make a coherent book. Too many holes, too many questions, too many implausibilities hamstring the effort. OSC specifically refers to 24 many times during the book, including in the acknowledgements. I haven't seen the show, but I can only hope it's tighter and better written.

But, Card is a decent historian, and presents us with an intriguing idea. Given the title and the content of the prolog, I don’t think I’m giving away anything when I say that the civil war is a ploy, a first step by a nefarious man to turn the US into an empire. Card’s thesis is this: it is improper to compare the US to the end of the Roman Empire. If the US collapsed right now, the vestiges of our culture worldwide would be shrugged off. He claims it is more proper to compare us to the end of the Roman Republic, having not yet entered the Empire stage. The plot came from Card’s attempt to imagine how the US would transition from the republic stage to the empire stage. It could use some polishing, but it is a thought-provoking idea.

Despite a transparent attempt to appear moderate, the book is politically charged. Strawmen emerge from the left and the right, but the stronger characters are all, let's say, one sided. E.g. all the academic people are froo-froo and treacherous, while only half the military people are gruff, power-hungry bullies.

OSC claims that reviews of Empire break down political lines – low from the left and high from the right. This sort of mine-field tactic is a cheap trick of argument, unworthy of someone as smart as OSC. So, you know. Screw him.

Bonk

2009-06-17T10:18:00.001-07:00

Author: Mary Roach

Mary Roach has established something of a career writing these little non-fiction nuggets. She has a delightful, carefree style with a fine mix of humor and inquisitiveness. This, her third outing, is about sex.

I think, ultimately, that the subject matter knocked her off her game a bit. While her previous books are also about subjects that are, to some extent, equally personal – death for Stiff and the soul for Spook – she appears to struggle more to find a distance here. The book succeeds best when she recovers her playful sense of humor.

The best way to see what I mean is to watch her at the TED conference. Be warned, some of the book’s best gems are here in the presentation, but there’s plenty more to enjoy in the text.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

2009-06-09T16:39:00.000-07:00

Author: Michael Pollan

I enjoyed this book. It takes an incredibly complex subject (namely, our industrial food complex which is a mysterious black box to most people) and attempts to explain it and personalize it and talk about how what we do on a daily basis affects the economy, the environment, our health, etc. And after finishing it, I swore to never eat "industrial" beef ever again. And for two weeks I didn't have McDonalds. That's pretty good.

In summary: "Eat food, not a lot, mostly plants".

Twilight

2009-06-09T16:25:00.000-07:00

Author:
Author: Stephenie Meyer

Girl meets boy. Girl falls for boy. Girl attempts to make out with boy without triggering Vampire bloodlust killing rampage. Talk about adding to the already frustrating sexual tension of young love. These kinds of romances are always about impossible love that might just be possible, because if you wrote a story about a misunderstood high school student who moves to a small town and falls for a grizzly bear it wouldn't fly. But if the grizzly is incredibly good looking and immortal, then it's okay. I hated the first ten pages because it feels like it's written by a 12-year-old for an audience of 12-year-olds. But after awhile I forgot to hate it because I was having mindless fun.

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

2009-05-24T11:11:00.001-07:00

Author: Cory Doctorow

Oh, Cory, Cory, Cory. I try to like your work. I do. But you make it so very hard.

SCtTSLT seems like an experimental piece by a young author. It is his third published book, and, to my mind, is very clearly an attempt to write a fantasy novel with no borrowed mythology. No orcs here, nor wizards. Instead, you get the tale a curious family. The patriarch is a mountain, and the mother is a washing machine (See what I mean?). The children, sons alls, are peculiar – one is normal (ish), one can see the future, one is dead, one is an island, and the last three constitute a set of living Russian dolls. The problem is that the dead one is pissed about being dead, and the normal one isn’t that good at being normal.

This could make for a good story. Indeed, if you cut out a third of the book, it would be a good story.

But then there’s that third.

Cory is obsessed with technology. No problem, I like it too. But the other third of the book is a useless subplot about trying to bring democratic wireless internet to the downtown Toronto. Seriously – there are talks with telecoms, with shop keepers, with city officials. We get to see him lecture over and over to a variety of individuals about how great this would be for the town (Cory, there are some times you should tell instead of showing). The net result? We understand why he feels connected to this one guy, and we get a throw-away plot device near the climax. This in return for hours of your life.

While we’re at it, the story is told in parallel between three different timelines. Two are okay – flashbacks to the protagonist as a child and then current day. But there’s another one, to make two “current days” – now, and a few months ago. These are not well resolved, and in one irritating case something extremely important happens, and the narrative switches to now-now, several months later, with the protagonist deeply involved in setting up wireless hot-spots and utterly ignoring the Important Thing.

So, I’ve said “the protagonist” a lot. That’s because he doesn’t have a unique name. He responds to any name beginning with A, and his brothers are B – G. This actually was kind of cool for a while.

Anyway, I hope Cory learned a lot while writing this. I hope even more that the publisher learned about publishing something like this. That is – don’t.

BTW, as with most of Cory’s stuff, it is also released for free under Creative Commons.

Water for Elephants

2009-04-16T04:06:00.000-07:00

Author: Sara Gruen

This plot-driven novel classifies as one of those you can't put down. Fortunately, it's also a quick read, so it shouldn't take up more than a weekend of your time. And, while it is plot-driven, the characters and setting are nothing to sneeze at, either.

The main thread of the novel involves the protagonist's adventures in a traveling circus, but is framed within the protagonist's current entombment in a nursing home. I'm not generally a fan of this type of device, but it works very well here, and the two threads are sewn together by the end of the novel.

My only gripe is that the author takes the tactic of revealing one plot point in the prologue. Since this plot point is a scene from the climax of the novel, the author is deliberately misleading, and it just seemed a little like cheating.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

2009-03-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

Author: Ernest Hemingway

Reading Hemingway is almost always an exercise in masochism for the feminist reader, and For Whom the Bell Tolls is no exception, although this effect is somewhat lessened by the appearance of a female guerrilla leader. (Incidentally, I am just now noticing for the first time the guerr- root of guerrilla. Huh.)

Misogynism set aside, I found this an engrossing, but slow, read. I was fascinated with Hemingway's transliteration of Spanish speech patterns: "I obscenity in the milk of thy mother" being a recurrent, memorable example. It gives the book a dreamlike quality which helps reconcile the reader towards the characters' inexorable march towards disaster. At least, it did for me.

Ringworld

2009-01-18T18:26:00.000-08:00

Author: Larry Niven

This here is one of them-thur classics of sci-fi literature. Although written in 1970, it harkens back to the earliest days of science fiction, where men were men, women were things, things were people, and authors considered books mere excuses to explore (admittedly awesome) thought experiments.

Like this one: what if you could build a giant ribbon shaped world, with a radius the same as that of Earth’s orbit. You could get tremendous surface area per mass, and solar power to boot.

The sci-fi elements are pretty sharp – alien races manipulating one another, technological marvels, spaceships, and built planets. The story elements are tepid – one guy goes on this voyage literally because he’s bored. Many plot elements, including all the major turning points, are explained by a woman’s genetic gift of luck – a lazy author’s device, although one that admittedly intrigued me.

The Graveyard Book

2009-01-18T18:19:00.001-08:00

Author: Neil Gaiman

Let me preface this review by stating that I would bear Neil Gaiman’s love child. I know that this would require significant experimental surgery and a long talk with my wife, but, in the end, it would be worth it. I came to this conclusion after reading Sandman, and renewed my decision with American Gods, Neverwhere, and Stardust. And his short stories and poems, some of which are amongst the best I’ve read.

But Anansi Boys was a wiff.

And now the Graveyard Book.

I looked forward to this book for months. It seems a return to Gaiman’s simply delivered and richly textured work that runs through Stardust and many of his short stories. Patterned after the Jungle Book, this is the story of a boy named Nobody who is raised by the shades that inhabit a cemetery, a story told in a series of short-story chapters that gradually develop an over-arching plot which only becomes directly referenced in the last chapter.

I expect to love it. To really love it, as I do Sandman. I expected this to be a book that I would re-read yearly.

I expected too much.

It’s good. I should say that, somewhere. It is – the story is charming and imaginative. There isn’t too much borrowed mythology, and what is borrowed is creatively massaged to fit the world of the story.

I suspect my disappointment is a result of the fact that this is a book for young readers. That is, while Gaiman avowed that it was written for readers of all ages, the syntax and story are ultimately simple. And I guess there just wasn’t enough world and wonder replace that lost stimulation.

Beware the Bargain Bin

2008-11-02T05:56:00.000-08:00

I've been prone to paying full price for novels in airports lately. In an effort to be more frugal, I stopped at a Borders on the way to my most recent flight and picked up several books from the bargain section. I will never, ever do this again ...

Mad House

Author: Clea Simon

I picked up this one because I have a weird love of first- or second-person accounts of schizophrenia. Coherent ones are a bit hard to come by, so I was excited to see this book purportedly about growing up with schizophrenic siblings. It was disappointing to find out that it was mostly about the author's own psychological issues instead.

I didn't rate it, though, because I imagine it could be quite useful to its intended audience, i.e., someone in a similar situation.

The Memory of Water

Author: Karen White

This book is about two sisters who fall out after the somewhat mysterious death of their mother. It's not really that mysterious. You'll figure it out, just as you will all the other supposed plot twists. What's a little harder to keep straight is who's currently narrating. Both sisters, the main love interest, and the cute kid all have very similar narration voices.

The author is also convinced similes are a marker of good writing, so expect lots of them. White is markedly less concerned with consistency, however. She brings up several times that the main character lost interest in sailing after her mother died at age 12. At other points in the book, she is mentioned as having sailed in high school. There are a few other, less significant, inconsistencies, but that was the most irritating.

MVP

Author: James Boice

A book about a sports star with a terrible personality, who does terrible things, and the terrible family that is implied to have driven him to it. I only got about a hundred pages in. It's utterly unrewarding.

Lisey's Story

2008-10-12T06:44:00.000-07:00

Author: Stephen King

I haven't read much Stephen King, and I'm not sure why. His works that I have read have been really, really good: Different Season, Dolores Claiborne. Lisey's Story continues this streak of very good-ness.

One of the reasons I like it so much is that it persuades me to suspend my disbelief so easily. Although it begins, seemingly, in this universe and only later progresses into fantasyland, at no point did I hesitate to follow said progression.

If I had any complaint about the book, it would be about the characters. They're all right, but I find them a bit colorless. And this despite the fact that King said he was "a fool for Lisey; I kind of fell in love with her," in this interview. Odd.

Haunted

2008-10-12T06:38:00.000-07:00

Author: Chuck Palahniuk

After Rant, this was rather disappointing. And disgusting. Palahniuk has a penchant for the really gross and disturbing, which works pretty well as part of a story. When it forms the basis of an entire book, it's kind of wearing.

I'd try to explain the plot, but it's really just easier to point you to the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haunted_(novel).

The Known World

2008-10-12T06:30:00.000-07:00

Author: Edward P. Jones

I decided not to give this book a star rating because I just could not get through it. It follows a bunch of characters who are connected to each other in various ways through the pre-civil war era, with an emphasis on exploring the relationships that arise in the institution of slavery.

It's also narrated in a very nonlinear fashion, with the author throwing random spoilers out there, like, "She would indeed see her sister again, twenty years later, in New York." (Not an actual quote from the book, as I got rid of it.) At first, you think Jones is going to explore these little asides, but he doesn't.

So, I read about a third of it. Nothing really happens, nothing seems to be in the works for happening, and I was just really, really bored.

World Made By Hand

2008-08-13T19:31:00.000-07:00

Author: James Howard Kunstler

A near-future genre-bending story of a fairly optimistic post-apocalyptic world. Oil has run dry, war has distracted the government, electricity and transportation are severely disrupted. All the worse, a virulent flu has devastated the population, particularly culling the very young.

Suburbia is dead, and the world returns to local community structures where power is divided between those who can get things done, and those who can have things done to others. In this world Robert Earle must contend with a mysterious new cult and the lawless interruption of the well-being of his town.

It's a well written story, with solidly intriguing characters and a fairly tight plot. The "genre-bending" element jumps in abruptly two-thirds of the way through, though- this will disrupt the less dedicated readers. Keep it up, though - there's plenty to enjoy.

Little Brother

2008-08-06T17:26:00.000-07:00

Author: Cory Doctorow

While this is technically a Young Adult novel, I think I can confidently recommend it to an older audience as well. Not too old, mind.

This is the tale of the aftermath of a terrorist attack in San Francisco, of how the Department of Homeland Security came in and did more damage to the people of the city than the terrorists ever did. The protagonist, "I", (actually, his name is Marcus and/or M1k3y, but of course it is written in first person, as required by the 2005 SciFi POV Disarmament Treaty with the UK...) Anyway, Marcus and pals respond by undermining the DHS and "jamming" their procedures. And by covertly recording DHS excesses (hence the term Little Brother). And by, er, occasionally by kind of being terrorists, just not the kind that actually cause death. Directly.

The book at times virtually becomes a manual for hacking and subversive activities. I would have killed with my bare hands and/or teeth to get this book when I was 14. The afterword points to more primary sources, too.

Let me pull no punches: This is propaganda. The opposing viewpoint - that security can and should be achieved by sacrificing personal freedoms - is made only poorly and by despicable or pitiable individuals. But it is propaganda that I agree with, mostly, and who loves a sermon better than the choir?

Little Brother does not patronize its target audience. Indeed, some parents may be uncomfortable with the alcohol, drugs, and sex mentioned in the text. And, you know, the overthrowing the government thing. But, aside from the last one, these are presented in a calm, straightforward, non-sensationalized way. That is, alcohol shows up, but it's never the point.

Why do I keep putting this book down? I don't know. I liked it (except when the protagonist temporarily becomes a tool), but it makes me a little uncomfortable. Maybe I'm getting old.

Now get off my lawn.

P.S. Like much of Doctorow's work, LB can be found for free via Creative Commons licensing.

The Handmaid's Tale

2008-08-05T17:17:00.000-07:00

Author: Margaret Atwood

I did not realize, until after I had read it, that this book was over twenty years old. Atwood's concerns about the rise of religious fundamentalism and the decay of feminism in America are still applicable today. It is, in my opinion, the most convincing fictional dystopia I've encountered.

Lamb

2008-08-05T08:35:00.000-07:00

Author: Christopher Moore

Chris Moore is a very capable writer who skillfully mixes humor, fantasy, and truly deep emotional elements into very compelling novels.

Lamb is perhaps his most famous (notorious?) work, a story of Jesus’s childhood as related by his buddy, Biff. Biff tells us of their travels, their travails, and the growth of Jesus’s understanding of his role.

Some may have a reaction against such a premise, but despite Moore’s generally irreverent humor, Jesus comes off very sympathetic. Essentially, Jesus plays the straight-man to Biff’s goofy, lewd, or numskulled comedy.

The book in genuinely hilarious, yes. But interestingly, it explores some interesting philosophical terrain with a shocking depth. There are a few lines that I’ve added to my own personal worldview as a result.

There are scenes that made me squirm – sexualized young teens, for instance – but these are few, and can be defended as appropriate for the book, both in terms of history and plot.

The Road

2008-08-04T14:53:00.000-07:00

Author: Cormac McCarthy

If some afternoon you're sitting around thinking to yourself, "I'm feeling cheerful and optimistic today. What can I possibly do to relieve myself of these pleasant emotions?" then this book is for you.

It's set in a nuclear winter landscape, in an environment devoid of light, life, and apostrophes. It follows the journey of a father and son to the coast, detailing their attempts to not starve or be cannibalized. Holnists, move over; we've got newer, meaner, quasi-Reaver survivalist baddies. Enjoy.

Watership Down

2008-08-04T14:45:00.000-07:00

Author: Richard Adams

I just re-read this book, which tells you I like it enough to own it. I have not, however, figured out what genre it is? Fantasy? Speculative fiction?

It's rather misogynistic, and a tool for the political indoctrination of children less subtly than The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a tool for religious indoctrination. I also feel the the author wastes time inventing a rabbit language, but the plot is good and it's fun to read about bunnies.

Old Man's War

2008-07-31T08:46:00.000-07:00

Author: John Scalzi

It’s been a while since I’ve read hard sci-fi, and perhaps as long since I’ve read military sci-fi. Old Man's War is both, and succeeds as both, at least as far as I can tell.

It is the story of a man who, on his 75th birthday, joins a galaxy-spanning military service. This is standard practice, and those who join: a) don’t know why only the old are recruited and b) know they can never again return to Earth. Indeed, no one on Earth knows any details about human extra-solar colonization, except that it is occurring.

It’s a good story, fairly well told. Data dump expositions are inevitable, I suppose, and are handled with only modest awkwardness. Plus, the data dumps contain new (to me; see warning above) sci-fi elements, so that makes them all the more bearable. The rest is fresh and exciting, with at least two characters you care about.

It is told in first person, which gets to me because almost all sci-fi seems to be so, now-a-days (except when it’s in an even more annoying second person; I’m looking at you, Charles Stross). But I'm sure you can get over that.

Plain Truth

2008-07-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

Author: Jodi Picoult

This book sucks. It consists entirely of an Amish girl going, "No, I didn't have a baby, no baby, nope ... okay, I had the baby, but I didn't kill it, no way ... maybe I did kill it ... no, really, I didn't ... okay, I did ... but not really." Also, the author tries to convince you that Amish people are awesome. Perhaps they are, but Picoult overdoes it.

The last quarter of the book describes the trial of said Amish girl in great detail. However, since every single piece of evidence and witness has already been introduced by that point, the author spends a hundred pages simply restating things that she's already told you.

Carom Shot

2008-07-30T08:29:00.000-07:00

Author: J. J. Partridge

This book's protagonist is a total Mary Sue. The plot is not so much as plot as it is a device for the author to imagine himself in various situations. The title reflects the protagonist's skill at pool, which has absolutely nothing to do with the plot.

This book will mainly appeal to residents of Providence, who may enjoy recognizing various parts of the town in the text, and aging college professors who like to imagine themselves very fit and wealthy, solving crimes and sleeping with a much younger woman of exotic origins.

Rant

2008-07-26T14:34:00.000-07:00

Author: Chuck Palahniuk

This was the first Chuck Palahniuk novel I read, and it was much less graphic than I expected it to be. However, it was indeed as confusing as I expected it to be. I had heard that he has a thing for unreliable narrators, and this proved to be the case (I think) in this novel as well.

It was an excellent book for a flight -- not overly long, with a gripping plot and stuff to puzzle over afterwards.

Pudd'nhead Wilson

2008-07-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

Author: Mark Twain

I've been a bit remiss about updating this blog in a while, partly because I haven't been reading much, and partly because I don't know what to say about a Mark Twain book. Of course it's a good book.

Perhaps I can comment that the book is, in fact, not very much about the title character at all. It containes, as do most of MT's books, quite a lot of social commentary; in this case, not only about social inequality, but on why it has so much inertia.

So ends my attempt to comment intelligently on a classic. Read it if you like.

Iron Kissed

2008-05-07T06:41:00.000-07:00

Author: Patricia Briggs

Decent, if cheesy. The best part about this book is that the author refrains from making the protagonist the most awesome fill-in-the-blank ever, as many fantasy writers are wont to do. Though surrounded by werewolves, vampires, and fairies, the sum total of the protagonist's powers are that she can turn into a coyote and back, has a heightened sense of smell, and some resistance to magic. As a result, we are spared the main-character-realizes-full-extent-of-powers-and-blasts-enemies-to-smithereens scene that seems to be so prevalent in fantasy fiction. Yay.

Bel Canto

2008-05-07T06:32:00.000-07:00

After a bit of a hiatus, I'm back. While travel interferes with your blogging, it also gives you time to read.

Author: Ann Patchett

Possible spoiler: The ending would pack more of a punch if it weren't so inevitable. Hostage situations are just not long-term stable.

Other than that, this book was reasonably good. From reading the back cover, I knew the hostage situation spanned the length of the book, and at first I wondered how on earth it could make a whole book. Kudos to the author, though; it does.

A Year in Provence

2008-04-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

Author: Peter Mayle

A fun travelog of an Englishman who moves to Provence, France with his wife. Lots of great food and wine talk and a humorous description of life in provincial France. Easy reading also, so a good vacation book.

Retroactive Ratings: Bill Bryson

2008-04-01T12:14:00.000-07:00

I usually rate books as I read them, but, what the heck, let's go ahead and throw in all the Bill Bryson books I've read:

A Walk in the Woods

Like I said, funniest book ever. I particularly like the bits about bears.

In a Sunburned Country

Also excellent, also funny. Here he tours Australia, giving the reader the lowdown on all the poisonous animals and quirky tourist attractions.

Notes from a Small Island

Bill Bryson lived in the U.K. for a number of years (roughly 20, I think) and this book recreates both his first experiences of the country as well as his adventures touring around it.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

2008-04-01T07:05:00.000-07:00

Author: Bill Bryson

This book mainly focuses on the first 10 years of the author's life and what it was like to be a kid in the 1950s. It's by Bill Bryson, so of course it's funny with a slight predilection for lists of facts. Unfortunately, I feel compelled to compare every Bryson book with A Walk in the Woods, which is the funniest book ever. This book is not quite as funny, but that's like saying someone is less tall than Shaquille O'Neal.

Bryson waxes nostalgic for his early childhood and carries the peculiar Iowan reverence for their own, boring-to-anyone-else, state. He tries to convince the reader that the 50s were an age of innocence and happiness, the likes of which we have not since experienced. I'm not buying it, but it is interesting to be reminded of how our outlook has changed over time regarding space travel, warfare, and civil rights.

Free Food for Millionaires

2008-03-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

Author: Min Jin Lee

This book started out as an enjoyable read, but it's too long and I don't really care about most of the characters. Additionally, it's in 3rd person omniscient, jumping into everyones head in every scene and that just seemed lazy on the part of the author.

The Land of Spices

2008-03-26T06:49:00.000-07:00

Author: Kate O'Brien

Phew! This is really a week of dense reading for me, and this book is no exception. For instance: do not read this version if you, like myself, know no French. The author expects you to, and the book is seeded with bits of French ranging in length from phrases to several long paragraphs in a row (usually when the character receives a letter.) There are no footnotes or endnotes.

I decided to read it anyway, ignoring the French bits. The book divides its time between the English Mother Superior of an Irish convent/school and one of its pupils, a loner with academic talents and literary inclinations. (Anyone smell an autobiographical element?)

My immediate reaction to a book switching protagonists on me is usually negative, but this approach worked well for Spices. We look at these two characters because they have so many parallels: talent, personality, important life events. The interesting thing, though, is that these two characters are acquainted, but other than that, don't really know each other. It's a neat device.

Chance Acquaintances and Julie de Carneilhan

2008-03-19T20:31:00.000-07:00

Author: Colette

This is the first that I've read anything by Colette, and the first thing I noticed was the tone; it reminded me a bit of Camus. Maybe it's just because they're both early 20th century French writers, but I certainly did not expect the writer of Gigi to display similarities to the writer of The Stranger and The Plague. Don't get me wrong; this was a pleasant surprise, as Camus is one of my favorite authors.

Chance Acquaintances is written in first person, and the description of the character's thoughts made me immediately identify with the main character. The plot is a little meandering, though.

Julie de Carneilhan was, I thought, even better, although Colette's third person descriptions of the main character's thoughts were sometimes confusing and distracting. The plot of this novella is more interesting than that of Acquaintances, and so it was able to hold my attention better throughout its length, twice that of Acquaintances.

The cover tells you nothing about the book, by the way. I dislike these random-art-on-the-cover budget classics. Well, I like that they're cheap trade paperbacks, but I'd rather they left the cover blank than to put something so meaningless on it.

The Secret Life of Bees

2008-03-14T16:13:00.000-07:00

Author: Sue Monk Kidd

First, let me share with you the text from the back cover: "Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black 'stand-in-mother,' Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free from jail. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina -- a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna."

If you think this sounds intriguing, it is; the book starts off strong with an original plot and two likable but believable characters. However, once the main character meets the aforementioned sisters, having run away from her moderately abusive father, the book drifts gradually downhill. The sisters, in contrast to Lily and Rosaleen, are rather flat; the character of August in particular is sweet, smart, knowledgeable, understanding, loving, etc., without a single flaw to balance her out. The book is only 300 pages long, but I was getting rather tired of it by the end.

The Golden Compass

2008-03-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

Author: Philip Pullman

As an atheist, it's nice to occasionally come across a book that is anti-religion and anti-god. The problem is that atheists tend not to think magic is real, either. So, as usual, it is necessary to put aside any philosophical considerations and enjoy the book as a work of fiction only.

As a work of fiction, this book did not particularly impress me. It served as light reading, but I wouldn't recommend it over other books of its kind.