http://www.goodreads.com/review/list_rss/96888 en-US Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:16:32 -0700 60 http://www.goodreads.com/ 200 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo.gif 29949003 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:16:32 -0700
I don't understand why Tyler doesn't get the same level of praise as some contemporary authors. ]]>
author: Anne Tyler
name: Mary
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at: 08/08
date added: 08/12/08
shelves:
review:
Quiet and methodical with a dark, yet ordinary, undercurrent of chaos--on every level, from mood to writing, this is a textbook example of what fiction should be.

I don't understand why Tyler doesn't get the same level of praise as some contemporary authors.
]]> 14177107 Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:31:23 -0700
"Dennis couldn't help himself. He just began to sob aloud in front of Geraldo."

The issue that I'm left arguing after this book is one that shouldn't have overshadowed those of the death penalty and prison "rehabilitation" in the U.S.--instead, I'm debating whether it's right to consider this fiction.

The New York Times addressed this point soon after the book was published, and Mailer, his publisher, the Association of American Publishers, and others all felt that the author has the right to say how a book should be categorized. Mailer, however, was vague about its definition--I'm sure purposefully.

In the afterword in the book, he writes, "This book does its best to be a factual account of the activities of Gary Gilmore...the story is as accurate as one can make it." Then, in an interview, he explains, "To me, non-fiction provides answers and novels illumine questions. I think my book does the latter. The decision on 'The Executioner's Song' was an independent one. I called it a novel because it reads like one." Surely not all non-fiction provides answers. Anyone handling the story of Gary Gilmore would present more questions, because with that sort of life and those sorts of crimes, there are no answers; Gilmore himself realized as much.

Though, he goes on to say, "The source of the novel is traditionally imaginative, and I wouldn't pretend for a moment that my book is that. But I think it has a better story than any one I could ever have invented. One spends one's life looking for a plot like this."

The Times did list the book in its best-selling fiction list, but it did so with a notation about how the book is that of true events, but listed by the publisher and booksellers as fiction, so they decided to treat it as such.

But what about Mailer's other Pulitzer Prize winning book, Armies of the Night? Another genre-bending work, but this one categorized as non-fiction.

Who's to say what's right? Apparently, the author. Too bad for Philip Roth and William Wharton, the two other finalists for the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Not to say their books were more deserving, but I'll bet they had their own bitter questions about this issue as well.

That said, this book is a crazy achievement in documentation, and either journalism or creative writing, depending on your view of that previous argument. How this was written in just over two years is hard to imagine. In fact, that alone must have been an interesting plot.


Joan Didion's review for the NYT in 1979 (ignore the 1996 date):
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/10...

]]>
author: Norman Mailer
name: Mary
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1979
rating: 4
read at: 08/08
date added: 08/01/08
shelves: read-pulitzer
review:
Probably the only novel to feature Geraldo Rivera as a character:

"Dennis couldn't help himself. He just began to sob aloud in front of Geraldo."

The issue that I'm left arguing after this book is one that shouldn't have overshadowed those of the death penalty and prison "rehabilitation" in the U.S.--instead, I'm debating whether it's right to consider this fiction.

The New York Times addressed this point soon after the book was published, and Mailer, his publisher, the Association of American Publishers, and others all felt that the author has the right to say how a book should be categorized. Mailer, however, was vague about its definition--I'm sure purposefully.

In the afterword in the book, he writes, "This book does its best to be a factual account of the activities of Gary Gilmore...the story is as accurate as one can make it." Then, in an interview, he explains, "To me, non-fiction provides answers and novels illumine questions. I think my book does the latter. The decision on 'The Executioner's Song' was an independent one. I called it a novel because it reads like one." Surely not all non-fiction provides answers. Anyone handling the story of Gary Gilmore would present more questions, because with that sort of life and those sorts of crimes, there are no answers; Gilmore himself realized as much.

Though, he goes on to say, "The source of the novel is traditionally imaginative, and I wouldn't pretend for a moment that my book is that. But I think it has a better story than any one I could ever have invented. One spends one's life looking for a plot like this."

The Times did list the book in its best-selling fiction list, but it did so with a notation about how the book is that of true events, but listed by the publisher and booksellers as fiction, so they decided to treat it as such.

But what about Mailer's other Pulitzer Prize winning book, Armies of the Night? Another genre-bending work, but this one categorized as non-fiction.

Who's to say what's right? Apparently, the author. Too bad for Philip Roth and William Wharton, the two other finalists for the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Not to say their books were more deserving, but I'll bet they had their own bitter questions about this issue as well.

That said, this book is a crazy achievement in documentation, and either journalism or creative writing, depending on your view of that previous argument. How this was written in just over two years is hard to imagine. In fact, that alone must have been an interesting plot.


Joan Didion's review for the NYT in 1979 (ignore the 1996 date):
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/10...


]]> 14175967 Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:12:46 -0700
author: Anne Tyler
name: Mary
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/15/08
shelves: read-pulitzer
review:
What seems really simple at first glance is often deeper than you realize.
]]> 14157955 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:28:07 -0700
author: Robert Olen Butler
name: Mary
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 07/08
date added: 07/06/08
shelves: read-pulitzer
review:
Awesome. Strangely, I began almost every story being really irritated by the style or voice of the narrator, but I got sucked in every time anyway. Some of the stories are a little overly sentimental, but the imagery and details are so good that it doesn't matter. I loved these stories.
]]> 14156289 Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:23:29 -0700 Housekeeping. The writing is lovely, but it's slow. Philosophical meandering. I rarely wanted to continue to uncover more story--more often, I just kept pushing through to get to the end. ]]>
author: Marilynne Robinson
name: Mary
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 06/08
date added: 06/26/08
shelves: read-pulitzer
review:
I feel the same way about this as I did after finishing Housekeeping. The writing is lovely, but it's slow. Philosophical meandering. I rarely wanted to continue to uncover more story--more often, I just kept pushing through to get to the end.
]]> 18845478 Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:08:59 -0700
author: Paul Auster
name: Mary
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1987
rating: 3
read at: 06/08
date added: 06/09/08
shelves:
review:
Every time I read another book by Paul Auster, I'm always disappointed when it's not as good as "City of Glass", but now I'm wondering if maybe I was wrong about that too, and that if I re-read that story now, I won't like that very much anymore, either.
]]> 14175712 Mon, 02 Jun 2008 10:59:06 -0700
Okay, finally re-read/finished it. So it wasn't "sexist". It was just saucy--so saucy that I was probably beet-red the entire time I was reading it in public. This is the kind of book where I'm reading it on the train and half the time I'm trying to make sure nobody is reading it over my shoulder and then looking at me and winking.

The book is very readable, and the first section is engrossing, but after that the meandering nature of Cesar's thoughts is a little too much to bear. Each memory is bright and full of life, but wandering down memory lane with a broken old man in a failing hotel is something that you only want to do for a few pages--you get the idea fairly quickly, and then you're just uncomfortable until the end.

Turns out the thing I was most fascinated by in this book was the ephemera tucked into its pages, probably by Aaron's dad so many years ago. A bookmark from a bookstore that sold only mystery novels, and which closed a long time ago. A very plain and inexpensive ticket, compared to tickets now, for the Long Island Railroad. Two ticket stubs from a flight that had a choice of smoking or non-smoking. I like to leave things like that in all the books that I read, so someone reading it later, maybe even me again, can wonder about the book as an object, in addition to the story within.

]]>
author: Oscar Hijuelos
name: Mary
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1990
rating: 3
read at: 05/08
date added: 06/02/08
shelves: read-pulitzer
review:
I started this a long time ago and stopped because I thought it was too sexist. I should try again. Sorry I haven't returned this Aaron. Ha. It must be about ten years I've had it.

Okay, finally re-read/finished it. So it wasn't "sexist". It was just saucy--so saucy that I was probably beet-red the entire time I was reading it in public. This is the kind of book where I'm reading it on the train and half the time I'm trying to make sure nobody is reading it over my shoulder and then looking at me and winking.

The book is very readable, and the first section is engrossing, but after that the meandering nature of Cesar's thoughts is a little too much to bear. Each memory is bright and full of life, but wandering down memory lane with a broken old man in a failing hotel is something that you only want to do for a few pages--you get the idea fairly quickly, and then you're just uncomfortable until the end.

Turns out the thing I was most fascinated by in this book was the ephemera tucked into its pages, probably by Aaron's dad so many years ago. A bookmark from a bookstore that sold only mystery novels, and which closed a long time ago. A very plain and inexpensive ticket, compared to tickets now, for the Long Island Railroad. Two ticket stubs from a flight that had a choice of smoking or non-smoking. I like to leave things like that in all the books that I read, so someone reading it later, maybe even me again, can wonder about the book as an object, in addition to the story within.


]]> 22992986 Mon, 26 May 2008 13:34:00 -0700
author: Steve Almond
name: Mary
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 05/26/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 22873538 Sat, 24 May 2008 10:38:36 -0700
author: Mary Gilligan Wong
name: Mary
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 05/24/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 22869717 Sat, 24 May 2008 08:58:24 -0700
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Mary
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 05/24/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 14156858 Wed, 14 May 2008 14:29:35 -0700
author: Michael Cunningham
name: Mary
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/14/08
shelves: read-pulitzer
review:
Early in the film "Wayne's World", Ed O'Neill's character begins directly addressing the camera, much to Wayne's dismay. "Only me and Garth get to talk to the camera," he says. More writers should follow that example, so to speak, when their narration is in third-person limited omniscient. If, deep into the book, a new point of view is suddenly and needlessly presented, some of your readers will become distracted and start wondering about the reasons for it. They'll want to know more about how your Ed O'Neill went from killing a man or two to selling donuts, and they'll care a little less, even momentarily, about your Wayne and your Garth. There must be a better way to introduce the information that you want your Ed O'Neill to present, and if you're really a smart writer, you'll find it.
]]> 21189547 Tue, 06 May 2008 13:03:53 -0700
author: Pete Jordan
name: Mary
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 05/08
date added: 05/06/08
shelves:
review:
Fun, quick read, even though he comes across a little jerky sometimes.
]]> 20522675 Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:33:09 -0700
author: Daniel Woodrell
name: Mary
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2006
rating: 2
read at: 04/08
date added: 04/28/08
shelves:
review:
This missed the mark with me. The narrating voice was grating and felt dumb--it felt like Ree was the narrator instead of an omniscient third person, so instead of the narrator supporting and enforcing her thoughts to show her as tough and smart, it came across the same way Ree's dialog did, which was simple and ultra-defensive. Also, the suspense was DOA. If there was supposed to be a mystery about the father, I didn't feel that at all, so sticking around until the end was not particularly revelatory.
]]> 9068785 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:30:33 -0700
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Mary
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1928
rating: 4
read at: 04/08
date added: 04/19/08
shelves:
review:
I know I haven't read a lot of fiction about war, but this is one of the best pieces of fiction about war that I've ever read.
]]> 14175626 Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:35:23 -0700
]]>
author: John Updike
name: Mary
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 03/08
date added: 04/11/08
shelves:
review:
This left me with a pretty bleak outlook on life and my own sorry prospects. I hope I'll be inspired to continue on with the series, but after this, it'll be hard.


]]> 14182154 Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:22:41 -0700
author: Edna Ferber
name: Mary
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1924
rating: 3
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/20/08
shelves: read-pulitzer
review:
I really wanted to say "So Big was so good!", but I can only say that So Big was so-so good.
]]> 14181947 Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:50:31 -0800
author: Thornton Wilder
name: Mary
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1927
rating: 3
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/03/08
shelves: read-pulitzer
review:
A philosophical moral fable. Great if you like that sort of thing. Not so great if you prefer good stories instead.
]]> 14157982 Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:58:32 -0800
There is so much going on, so many layers of characterization and revelation and development, of time and place, of relationships and all sorts of struggles, of complementation to that Shakespeare play, that this book is incredibly close to a perfect novel.]]>
author: Jane Smiley
name: Mary
average rating: 3.58
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at: 02/08
date added: 03/03/08
shelves: read-pulitzer
review:
Really, really, really good. Even the parts that were slightly implausible and somewhat predictable (is it possible for the narrator to really forget a certain thing), or maybe out of character for the narrator but faithful to the plot of King Lear (sausages), even these things I could overlook because this was so engaging.

There is so much going on, so many layers of characterization and revelation and development, of time and place, of relationships and all sorts of struggles, of complementation to that Shakespeare play, that this book is incredibly close to a perfect novel.
]]> 9070045 Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:19:05 -0800
This is like the most sincere review I've ever written here. Hardly any snark!]]>
author: Richard Russo
name: Mary
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at: 02/08
date added: 02/22/08
shelves:
review:
Great writing. So funny. It may irritate people who don't like stories where nothing really happens, but some stuff does sort of happen. The writing's so lively for me, that for once, lack of a real precise plot didn't matter too much. I can't wait to read more of his stuff!

This is like the most sincere review I've ever written here. Hardly any snark!
]]> 14178694 Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:33:27 -0800
author: Harper Lee
name: Mary
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1960
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 01/31/08
shelves: read-pulitzer
review:

]]> 14156822 Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:41:23 -0800
author: Jhumpa Lahiri
name: Mary
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 01/31/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 14156555 Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:39:14 -0800
author: Michael Chabon
name: Mary
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 01/31/08
shelves: read-pulitzer
review:

]]> 14156398 Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:38:05 -0800
author: Jeffrey Eugenides
name: Mary
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 01/31/08
shelves: read-pulitzer
review:

]]> 4634311 Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:03:22 -0800 -fruit tart
-linzer cookies
-honey nut brownies
-pie crusts (great essential recipe)
-fruit tarts
-lots more, this book is a monster!]]>
author: Dorie Greenspan
name: Mary
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 01/24/08
shelves:
review:
This is such a handy book to have around--these recipes are great. So far, I've made:
-fruit tart
-linzer cookies
-honey nut brownies
-pie crusts (great essential recipe)
-fruit tarts
-lots more, this book is a monster!
]]> 5768226 Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:02:01 -0800
author: Peter Reinhart
name: Mary
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 01/24/08
shelves:
review:
Holy fucking bread! Great book! I don't have the counter space to make nearly as much as I'd like to, but I'm trying.
]]> 1422098 Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:01:37 -0800
http://www.newyorker.com/repor...

and the version of that story that's also included that is supposedly Carver's preferred draft. The relationship between him and his editor is awfully unsettling to me, and I'd like to decide which version of the story I actually prefer. I just finished up the longer one from the magazine, and even though I haven't read it in so many years, I already think I prefer the version that was so worked over by the editor.

He edited out 40% of the story. Here's a link to the edits:
http://www.newyorker.com/onlin...
]]>
author: Raymond Carver
name: Mary
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 01/24/08
shelves:
review:
I read most of the stories in here about six years ago, but I'm rereading "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" right now, and then maybe some others. It's because of this article from the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/repor...

and the version of that story that's also included that is supposedly Carver's preferred draft. The relationship between him and his editor is awfully unsettling to me, and I'd like to decide which version of the story I actually prefer. I just finished up the longer one from the magazine, and even though I haven't read it in so many years, I already think I prefer the version that was so worked over by the editor.

He edited out 40% of the story. Here's a link to the edits:
http://www.newyorker.com/onlin...

]]> 12585989 Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:00:35 -0800
I read half of it, and felt really impatient the whole time, skipping whole pages, and then I realized that I didn't have to keep going, which is as spiritual a moment as I could hope to get from this book. ]]>
author: Yann Martel
name: Mary
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2001
rating: 2
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/24/08
shelves: gave-up
review:
It's not that it was bad, it's just that I wish the tiger had eaten him so the story wouldn't exist.

I read half of it, and felt really impatient the whole time, skipping whole pages, and then I realized that I didn't have to keep going, which is as spiritual a moment as I could hope to get from this book.
]]> 11622279 Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:55:20 -0800
Sometimes I realize I may be too low-brow for everything. Oh well. Bring on the football in the crotch!]]>
author: John Lanchester
name: Mary
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 01/08
date added: 01/15/08
shelves:
review:
Good narrator. Lemony Snicket is similar and a pretty good comparison for the occasional coy, dark humor in this. I figured out what the dark side was incredibly early, however, and so any mystery that was supposed to be there was lost. I can't decide if that's supposed to matter or not, though.

Sometimes I realize I may be too low-brow for everything. Oh well. Bring on the football in the crotch!
]]> 10234135 Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:18:48 -0800
author: Max Brooks
name: Mary
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 12/07
date added: 12/21/07
shelves:
review:
It turns out you cannot read a book while covering your eyes with your hands, like you can do with a scary movie.
]]> 9056385 Mon, 10 Dec 2007 14:50:28 -0800
author: Jhumpa Lahiri
name: Mary
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 12/07
date added: 12/10/07
shelves:
review:
This was pretty good, but somehow it just missed with me. There is a lot of telling instead of showing, that's the best I can describe it. Though I did cry in public on the subway at one point because of it. (Weird that nobody will say anything to you if you start crying on the subway. I guess I wouldn't either. Unless the person was right next to me, and I had a tissue to offer. But even then, you never know what they're upset about, and you sort of don't want to get involved or punched or anything like that. So I understand.) There was a lot of stuff going on in my week right then so I was sort of worked up anyway, but it was indeed a sad part--however, I saw it coming because the narration shifted suddenly, which happened again later in the book when another bad thing was about to happen.
]]> 9566687 Wed, 28 Nov 2007 08:30:11 -0800 The Catcher in the Rye, while we were reading Bang the Drum Slowly--blech. I began to hate reading (and baseball), because all the books I had to read were not my taste at all.

For one assignment he told us we could choose any book we wanted to read and then write a report on it and present it to the class. Finally, I was reinvigorated. I went to the school's library and browsed forever. The librarian helped me out and recommended a few books, and I picked Lord of the Flies.

We had to clear our choices with Mr. Gober before we began to read, and when I told him what I had picked, he told me I couldn't read it. "You'll read that in another class, definitely," he said. "So you can't read it now, in mine."

After I realized he wasn't joking, I was furious. What a stupid thing to say to a girl who was clearly excited about something! He said I could pick anything else, just not that, and that I didn't have to clear it with him. My passive aggressive reaction was a personal, silent refusal to read anything.

The night before the report and presentation were due, I casually asked my mom for a book to read, and she handed me Turtle Moon by Alice Hoffman. "The author's from Long Island, so she's good," she insisted. That night, I wrote a report based on the summary on the book jacket, and the next day made my presentation, filled with the same fiction from the report. I got an A, and I didn't start reading books for real again until college.

Also, Lord of the Flies was never assigned to me in any other class.

Local Girls is a book by Alice Hoffman that I swear I just actually read, and it was pretty good--maybe even as good as I once swore her other book was.]]>
author: Alice Hoffman
name: Mary
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at: 11/07
date added: 11/28/07
shelves:
review:
I had Mr. Gober as my English teacher in the ninth grade. He was a very strange man, too strange really to document in this tiny little space, but this isn't about how strange he was. This is about how he assigned us the worst books to read, and very few of them at that. Everyone else was reading The Catcher in the Rye, while we were reading Bang the Drum Slowly--blech. I began to hate reading (and baseball), because all the books I had to read were not my taste at all.

For one assignment he told us we could choose any book we wanted to read and then write a report on it and present it to the class. Finally, I was reinvigorated. I went to the school's library and browsed forever. The librarian helped me out and recommended a few books, and I picked Lord of the Flies.

We had to clear our choices with Mr. Gober before we began to read, and when I told him what I had picked, he told me I couldn't read it. "You'll read that in another class, definitely," he said. "So you can't read it now, in mine."

After I realized he wasn't joking, I was furious. What a stupid thing to say to a girl who was clearly excited about something! He said I could pick anything else, just not that, and that I didn't have to clear it with him. My passive aggressive reaction was a personal, silent refusal to read anything.

The night before the report and presentation were due, I casually asked my mom for a book to read, and she handed me Turtle Moon by Alice Hoffman. "The author's from Long Island, so she's good," she insisted. That night, I wrote a report based on the summary on the book jacket, and the next day made my presentation, filled with the same fiction from the report. I got an A, and I didn't start reading books for real again until college.

Also, Lord of the Flies was never assigned to me in any other class.

Local Girls is a book by Alice Hoffman that I swear I just actually read, and it was pretty good--maybe even as good as I once swore her other book was.
]]> 4643540 Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:26:33 -0800
It was fine, if kinda horrifying and frustrating. I'm not sure what purpose a memoir like this satisfies, except to show that there are lots of crazy people in the world--which I already know because I ride the subway.]]>
author: Jeannette Walls
name: Mary
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 11/07
date added: 11/26/07
shelves:
review:
I kept reading parts of this book out loud to Dave, who kept insisting that I was reading him fiction, cause it was all too crazy to be real.

It was fine, if kinda horrifying and frustrating. I'm not sure what purpose a memoir like this satisfies, except to show that there are lots of crazy people in the world--which I already know because I ride the subway.
]]> 8494023 Wed, 14 Nov 2007 09:31:56 -0800
The passages from the book that's at the center of the story were understandably necessary--it would have been horribly unsatisfying if you never got to peak at the book they're all obsessed with--but they leaned back into that dangerous area that makes me groan a little. They were a little silly and sometimes over-the-top, wistfully romantic.

I also don't love that the brother is added as an extra narrator towards the end (even though he'd been vaguely introduced as a narrator earlier on when his sister read his journal).

The ending is very good.

This was like Paul Auster without the chauvinism that sometimes ruins his books for me. ]]>
author: Nicole Krauss
name: Mary
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 11/07
date added: 11/14/07
shelves:
review:
I judged this book by its cover, and its title. I'm, um, a little cynical, so those both made me gag a little. It's hard to use the word 'love' like that and not sounds like an icky tool. I was put off for the first chapter, but all the quirky details were thankfully important to some degree to the rest of the story. The book isn't sappy, it runs with coincidences well without being trite or obvious, and it's a fun, sweet read.

The passages from the book that's at the center of the story were understandably necessary--it would have been horribly unsatisfying if you never got to peak at the book they're all obsessed with--but they leaned back into that dangerous area that makes me groan a little. They were a little silly and sometimes over-the-top, wistfully romantic.

I also don't love that the brother is added as an extra narrator towards the end (even though he'd been vaguely introduced as a narrator earlier on when his sister read his journal).

The ending is very good.

This was like Paul Auster without the chauvinism that sometimes ruins his books for me.
]]> 9056408 Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:31:15 -0800
author: Bill Bryson
name: Mary
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 11/13/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 7844062 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:43:27 -0700
I read an interview in which Cormier was asked if he thought the lesson is too dark, and he said that it's just the truth. The world is evil and there's nothing you can do about it, but he thought that trying to fight against it is the most important thing you can do, even though you're going to fail anyway.

On a side note, I met him once before he passed away, and he was not what I expected. For someone who writes such dark stuff, it was shocking to meet someone who may have actually been Santa Claus! He was the sort of guy who must have been someone's favorite grandpa.]]>
author: Robert Cormier
name: Mary
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1974
rating: 5
read at: 10/07
date added: 10/31/07
shelves:
review:
This is one of my favorite books. I never read it as a kid, but I've read it several times now as an adult and it's still so beautiful. The writing is stark and concise, and so is the story, which is one of the most difficult plots to describe. This is one of those where you talk about the theme more than the actual story: "It's the best book about good and evil that exists," you tell someone, after trying to outline a chocolate sale at a religious boy's school that ends in a sadistic boxing fight.

I read an interview in which Cormier was asked if he thought the lesson is too dark, and he said that it's just the truth. The world is evil and there's nothing you can do about it, but he thought that trying to fight against it is the most important thing you can do, even though you're going to fail anyway.

On a side note, I met him once before he passed away, and he was not what I expected. For someone who writes such dark stuff, it was shocking to meet someone who may have actually been Santa Claus! He was the sort of guy who must have been someone's favorite grandpa.
]]> 8491858 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:31:05 -0700
author: Nick Hornby
name: Mary
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2001
rating: 2
read at: 10/07
date added: 10/31/07
shelves:
review:
I started reading this on the subway ride home after I'd had several drinks and very little food, and I thought it was pretty funny. Unfortunately, my sober reading of it was much less enthusiastic. It was depressing and odd, instead of whimsical and quirky which I think was the intention. I read High Fidelity a long time ago, it was fine, cute, sweet, and as in this book, I like Hornby's scenes, which can be almost perfectly set: a chicken dinner with a miserable family and its two outcast guests can glow. But it's the story around these lovely scenes that drags, and the confused narrator who steps out of the scenes that mars them with aimless commentary. Humor is subjective, and this just didn't hit the mark with me.
]]> 7843880 Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:50:42 -0700
author: Junot Díaz
name: Mary
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 10/17/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 7270105 Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:49:28 -0700 Drown.]]>
author: Michael Jaime-Becerra
name: Mary
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 10/07
date added: 10/17/07
shelves:
review:
This is a really terrific collection of interconnected stories, very engrossing and lovely. It's sort of like a West Coast Mexican/Californian version of Junot Diaz' East Coast Dominican/New Jersey Drown.
]]> 5373117 Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:15:45 -0700
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Mary
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 09/07
date added: 10/04/07
shelves:
review:
Though exciting and fun at times, this was a little too macho and uneven for me. Most of it will translate so easily into a movie, which is due out soon, and I will probably enjoy that (especially since it's by the Coen brothers)--depending on how they deal with the last 50 or so pages of the book. Once the action ends, it turns into moral exposition time, which perhaps should have been built better into the action. The world is evil, I get it.
]]> 7267383 Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:30:10 -0700
author: Bill Bryson
name: Mary
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 10/04/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 6195747 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:52:03 -0700
author: Shirley Hazzard
name: Mary
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at: 09/07
date added: 09/18/07
shelves: gave-up
review:
I got about a third of the way in, which was a generous trial. Too dull for me. Of the little that was happening, there wasn't enough of a fire lit for me to care what happened next. There is some beautiful writing, some lovely little parts, but...eh. I gave up!
]]> 5988523 Fri, 14 Sep 2007 08:16:17 -0700
Icky Sean Penn is making this into a movie that's coming out next week supposedly, so please go read this first! I'm sure it will remain better than whatever Mr. Spicoli (where did THAT version of S. Penn go?) comes up with.
]]>
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Mary
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 09/07
date added: 09/14/07
shelves:
review:
Though I liked Into Thin Air and Under the Banner of Heaven better, Into the Wild is still a fun read. The subject, Chris McCandless, was a complicated, engaging, and some might say completely bonkers character who left a scattered bunch of impressions but not a lot of insight on his inner thoughts in the last few years of his life. Krakauer does a great job trying to form a complete portrait of this mysterious guy, and he goes a long way to alleviate blame from McCadnless for his death, despite what so many people, especially Alaskans, seem to believe.

Icky Sean Penn is making this into a movie that's coming out next week supposedly, so please go read this first! I'm sure it will remain better than whatever Mr. Spicoli (where did THAT version of S. Penn go?) comes up with.

]]> 1458315 Thu, 06 Sep 2007 08:17:08 -0700
author: Tom Colicchio
name: Mary
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 01/07
date added: 09/06/07
shelves:
review:
This is a great way to look at cooking--not through recipes, but at the whole picture. Though, his whole picture includes a lot more lobster and foie gras than mine.
]]> 5368888 Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:23:00 -0700
So this was my reintroduction to Hemingway, and I feel more or less the same as I did at 12. This may not be the thing to read if you haven't read some of his stories before, and I feel like it's been almost off-putting enough to keep you from trying anything else, unfortunately. So read his stories first, then come back to this. Then, when you're reading this, skip everything until the section with Fitzgerald, which is pretty comedic, and the most fleshed out. That's what I wish I'd done, anyway.]]>
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Mary
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1964
rating: 3
read at: 08/07
date added: 08/31/07
shelves:
review:
When I was 12, I was supposed to read The Old Man and the Sea for a school project, but I didn't get past the first few pages. Ever since, I've figured that I hate Hemingway. Too macho. Too chauvinistic. Too choppy and blunt.

So this was my reintroduction to Hemingway, and I feel more or less the same as I did at 12. This may not be the thing to read if you haven't read some of his stories before, and I feel like it's been almost off-putting enough to keep you from trying anything else, unfortunately. So read his stories first, then come back to this. Then, when you're reading this, skip everything until the section with Fitzgerald, which is pretty comedic, and the most fleshed out. That's what I wish I'd done, anyway.
]]> 5372761 Thu, 30 Aug 2007 13:02:14 -0700
author: Herman Melville
name: Mary
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1851
rating: 4
read at: 07/05
date added: 08/30/07
shelves:
review:
I didn't think I'd like this, but turns out I do! True, some parts are a little longer than they maybe need to be, some parts a little dry, but when it's good, it's very very good, and the writing is like poetry.
]]> 5369475 Thu, 30 Aug 2007 12:33:08 -0700