March Books

I lived without a Kindle for 2.5 weeks recently. Oh, the drama! All back to normal now. Thank apostrophes.

Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
Atwood is brilliant for so many reasons. I love her groundbreaking and vivid prose style, and I love her ideas. She makes me think about my own life on every page. The premise of this novel was nothing spectacular: a woman remembers things in her past that shaped her. Yet it was engaging from beginning to end. Her way of presenting small events as relevant and interesting keeps me reading and makes the story and characters stay with me long after. Cordelia!

Animal Farm by George Orwell
Talking pigs! Comedy and tragedy! I love this book.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The story is a murder mystery at its heart. A man is hired to look into an entire family history to figure out what happened to one of the women twenty years earlier. He hires a computer hacker to help him. The forensics are cool and the clues surprising. It works really well as a crime novel, comparable to Lippman’s What the Dead Know, which was one of my fave’s of last year.

What Larsson did really well was building a whole world in this novel. He brought a really large family to life, members past and present, and even made the world of corporate takeovers and computer hackers interesting and real. I enjoyed reading this one, but when I got to the end I felt a little let down. The writing was really excellent and the characters fascinating and original, but in the end, the plot felt a little familiar to me.

I loved the girl with the dragon tattoo (the actual girl in the story). She was tough and smart.

When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
It’s probably a little unfair to read an author’s best works first! The Remains of the Day was funny, tragic and ironic, The Unconsoled was strange and eerie and beautiful and Never Let Me Go was a stunningly brilliant literary sci-fi I try to get all my friends to read, but this one‚ Well, I’m still a fan, but I liked the others better, I guess.

In this one, a detective sets out to discover the truth about his parents’ disappearance many years after it happens. He searches his memory for clues, but his memory is not terribly reliable. It’s vintage Ishiguro, but I’d recommend reading his others first. If you absolutely love his stuff, this one is worth a look.

Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
I’ve been reading a lot of Atwood lately. Because I love her. This was one of her first published novels and is really short. It’s about a woman sort of finding herself while searching for her missing father. It’s got all the good Atwood stuff (feminist ideas, fabulous writing) but not as much plot holding it together as her later stuff.

Tripping to Somewhere by Kristopher Reisz
This is a really cool YA horror novel about two girls who pursue a witches carnival. It deals with the search for beauty and adventure. I loved the characters; they’re authentic and they’re searching. The relationship between Sam and Gilly is really well done. The story is full of weird magic and fascinating people.

Fave Authors

Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride was excellent. It’s full of feminist ideas plus, of course, brilliant storytelling. She’s my hero!! The villain is Zenia, a “man-eater,” who destroys women’s lives just because she can. Looks like Atwood has a new book coming out in 2009. *glee* Looks like sci-fi, similar to Oryx and Crake, which I loved.

So, who is my favorite? Saramago or Atwood? I dunno! *head explodes* I’m just glad I still have several books of theirs to read…

More January Books

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago
So, you know how I’m always like “omg Saramago rules!”? Well, this is his VERY BEST BOOK ever. It’s truly amazing. It begins with Mary and Joseph and follows through Jesus’ life. It follows the Biblical gospels pretty closely, but Saramago has imagined really fascinating motivations and reactions for the things the characters do. There’s a conversation Jesus has with God at the end that is full of complexity and ideas. This is the sort of book I wish everyone would read so we could all discuss it. Endlessly awesome!

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
It’s just as brilliantly written as her Pulitzer book, Gilead, but this one is about women rather than men. It’s the story of two girls who are orphaned by a suicide and taken in by their wanderer aunt. The aunt’s influence affects each of the girls differently. There’s not as much historical grounding in this book as in Gilead, but the setting is just as enchanting. It reminded me a little of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which I also loved. I definitely recommend this book. Robinson’s writing is luscious and rich and the characters are beautifully flawed.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
This is a fun book! Doctorow’s got some cool sci fi ideas (people extending their lives through memory downloads into clones and people receiving food/shelter/material things based on popularity and accomplishment meters) and is set in a future DisneyWorld.

Reading some really cool stuff next…

And you? What are you reading these days?

January Books

Sputnik Sweetheart Haruki Murakami
Not my favorite Murakami, but still a really cool book. A woman disappears (like smoke!) in Greece, and her two best friends delve into their own past experiences to discover why. There’s a metaphysical reason, of course. I love the way Murakami draws out the significance of small life events.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
The writing in this was sparkly, fabulous and engaging, but the story felt… well, I don’t read much YA, so it’s possible I just missed the point (very possible), but it just didn’t seem to go anywhere for me. Also, the anti-feminist worldview made me twitch. I mean, this is about modern teenagers… aren’t teenage girls these days supposed to be more informed and empowered than the previous generation? *twitch* The writing was still was pretty fabo.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
I read this because I *loved* We Have Always Lived In the Castle (which someone on my flist recommended, though I can’t remember who). This one is fun, creepy and charming with well-drawn (albeit strange) characters. There’s irony along with the suspense. It’s a true gothic–a young woman with no past to define her finds an affinity with a haunted house.

The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo is my hero!! *dreamy sigh* This is a truly perfect and beautiful book. It took my breath away, especially the ending. It’s full of irony and subtext (oh, the glorious subtext!!) and yearning. The romance was tragic and melty. The writing… wow. Ishiguro is my fave author now. I’m so in love. Note: I watched the movie after reading, and it didn’t in any way capture the humor (the humor!!) or the hopeful sadness of the story. The book is a bajillion times better. I only have 3 more Ishiguro books to read. How sad for me.

The History of the Siege of Lisbon by Jose Saramago
Beauuuutiful book. An unassuming proof-reader changes one important word in a history book then rewrites said story, and his brazen irreverence and creative twisting of history wins him love and happiness. There’s a lot of cool history here about, er, the siege of Lisbon, but the love story is the coolest part.

Anyone else read any of these? Thoughts?

December Books

A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter Miller)
This book was fabulous. It’s a grand, epic, literary sci-fi that provides a unique perspective on the conflict between faith and science. (Faith is necessary to sustain science, he says.) It’s also a post-apocalyptic dystopia… and *very* funny.

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
This one was also fabulous, of course. It’s written from the POV of a Nazi war criminal who’s soon to be on trial for crimes against humanity. You end up rooting for this guy, which is bizarre, and also seeing the war and morality and good-versus-evil in a completely twisted way.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
I discovered a cool new author this month: Kazuo Ishiguro (who wrote The Remains of the Day, which I plan to read soon). This was the first of his books I tried and was, like the Miller book, literary sci-fi. It’s about science and love. *happy sigh* The scenes go deeply into the characters’ inner selves, but the premise is, well, I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll just say it’s a hot sci-fi-ish topic. The structure is one where you learn what’s going on little by little as you read, getting the full picture at the climax. The characters were so beautifully drawn (and flawed, especially unhappy Ruth) that I didn’t want the story to end. It’s a page-turner but also emotionally wrenching.

How to be Good by Nick Hornby
I didn’t like this one as much as the last Hornby book I read. I found myself unable to sympathize with the characters and kinda wanting to smack them around. I respect what Hornby tried to do, and his idea was interesting (how to be non-materialistic in the modern world and whether that equates to being moral), but the book wasn’t for me. I might try High Fidelity at some point anyway.

Joy
Glorious news: my husband bought me SIX JOSE SARAMAGO BOOKS for my birthday! *glee* I glanced at the first few pages of Baltasar and Blimunda tonight and am already super excited to read. I’ve also got some Jonathan Letham coming. Yay!