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<![CDATA[Chris
is on page 122 of Frankenstein
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http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/28403327
Chris
is on page 122 of
Frankenstein
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<![CDATA[Chris added 'Frankenstein']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78144195
to: Frankenstein (Enriched Classics)byMary Shelley
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<![CDATA[Chris added 'Frankenstein']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/28403327
to: Frankenstein (Hardcover)byMary Shelley bookshelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[new comment from Chris]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/217716-straight-up-nonsense-part-the-second
Chris made a comment in the fiction files redux group:
what did you think of this? people keep talking about it all of a sudden everywhere i go. i trust you -- can you give me the 411 even though it's been a while since you've read it? tha..."
Hi, Mo! I just finished reading the second book in this series, "The Girl Who Played with Fire," and really liked it. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is very good. I like thrillers, and this one delivered. Larsson is all about character. If you like descriptions of settings, there's not a lot here--think minimalist, like Ikea. It's lots of close third-person, mostly focusing on Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist, and Lisbeth Salander, who's one of the most intriguing female characters I've read in popular fiction. Larsson handles pacing well, especially in the second half of the book if I remember correctly. You should definitely try it. Interesting look at Sweden, both the happy Scandinavian side and the darker, more cynical underbelly. Good stuff all around. Let me know what you think.
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<![CDATA[Chris
is on page 299 of The Girl Who Played...
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http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/64338221
Chris
is on page 299 of 503 of
The Girl Who Played with Fire
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<![CDATA[new comment from Chris]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/116215-happy-birthdays-and-other-announcements
Chris made a comment in the fiction files redux group:
What Dan said above about having his head up his keister...sorry I've missed all these birthdays of all these great people. Happy happy, ladies and gentlemen.
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<![CDATA[Chris added 'Something Borrowed']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/58013758
to: Something Borrowed (Paperback)byEmily Giffin
I'm a high school English teacher who likes poetry and wine, so I turned in my man card a long time ago. Still, when my wife said I should read this book, I hesitated. The cover is a soft pink. It has a wedding ring on it. These gave me pause.
Fast forward a few years to when I've just finished reading Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale and need something less epic in scope and language to read. Something Borrowed was still on my nightstand. (I'll also confess that, since my wife first read the book, I have met the author--our relationship is somewhere between casual acquaintances and friends--and I felt a wave of guilt over not having read this book.)
I'm sorry I waited so long.
Something Borrowed, as my wife described it, is "chick lit for smart people." It isn't Charles Dickens, nor is it trying to be. It's clever, witty, and seemingly dead-on about life for twenty-to-thirty-something professionals in Manhattan. Sometimes the plot is familiar, and a handful of minor characters--like Les the workaholic boss--are straight out of Central Casting.
If plots that are (at times) predictable run you off, two things will redeem this novel for you. The first is the writing. It's sharp and observant in a slightly cutting but not overly-bitchy way--picture a smarter and less mannered Sex in the City, for starters. Conversations are dramatized without undue dramaturgy, and there are longer scenes of description that do not drag but merely underscore the significance of what has or is about to happen. Emily Giffin knows when to show us a scene and when to just tell us a few things and move on. Her writing is at its best when describing and showing people. The main character, Rachel, offers insights not only about the people and the Manhattan life around her, but also about herself, her own feelings and interior plottings and calculations.
Which leads to the second thing that's very strong about this novel: the main characters. Rachel sweeps you up in her story--written in present tense, Rachel's narration pulls you along effortlessly--and reveals a lot about herself and her woes while avoiding saccharine, pity-party theatrics. Her best friend, Darcy, is a raging narcissistic bitch who is also a lot of fun to read about--she sharpens every scene that she's in and makes you understand why, even though she can be insufferable, everyone puts up with her, even cares for her. Dex, Darcy's fiance, could almost be a fantasy pin-up--brilliant, courageous, sensitive, and hot--except that he's portrayed as a real human being with emotions and baggage of his own...in other words, he's not perfect. (Although some readers might disagree.)
The premise is simple: on her thirtieth birthday, Rachel, who is single and constantly in the shadow cast by her best friend, party-girl Darcy, drinks one too many and ends up in bed with Dex, who in a few short months will be married to Darcy. Awkward! But Emily Giffin takes the time to explore not just the pratfall comedy that Hollywood would make of this in a movie but also issues of loyalty, betrayal, friendship, and love, along with the ever-present issue, for Rachel, of getting older and having fewer and fewer options for potential partnership bliss.
I often joke with my students about genre devices. Romantic comedies, for example: boy meets girl, boy almost gets girl, boy seems to lose girl, sad emo music plays while it rains, then boy redeems himself and gets girl. Something Borrowed is a romantic comedy of the old school set in early 21st-century Manhattan, a version of Bridget Jones' Diary that you could actually imagine happening.
Rachel's voice was fun to read and hear, and I'll miss it and her. Until the next time I pick up the novel.
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<![CDATA[new comment from Chris]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/201800-is-this-reading
Chris made a comment in the fiction files redux group:
Maybe. But fifteen is still young. There's a whole lifetime between fifteen and eighteen. I always knew I wanted to be a writer (at least since eighth grade) and figured being an English teacher was a good way to pay the rent until I scored my first novel. Then a funny thing happened on the way to literary fame--I realized I loved teaching. I remember when I was in my mid-twenties being puzzled by friends who didn't know what they wanted to do. And I think I was the outlier on that one.
Being an English major is a romantic idea, even when you're serious about it. I mean, really, you spend your whole time surrounded by great prose and poetry. You get academic credentials for reading and talking intelligently about books. And when you realize writing papers about those books is much, much harder than you realized, when you pull off a good paper, it's like getting a paycheck in the mail.
Most teenagers I know--and they're a relatively sheltered bunch in my suburban private school--are a curious blend of jaded naivete. They know far more about the world than I did at their age--especially at 14 and 15--but they have no experience against which to judge the world, and so their views of the world are, necessarily, incomplete. Which is good, because they're only 14 or 15. The really bright kids--my AP students--are brilliant and love reading. I assigned Beowulf and Jane Eyre for summer reading and they ate them up, especially Bronte (though some of them loved Beowulf as well).
And that's the difference--the reading, the desire to spend time alone with a book.
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<![CDATA[new comment from Chris]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/201792-is-this-a-good-idea
Chris made a comment in the fiction files redux group:
A couple of things. First, some classics, as difficult as they are, ought to be introduced to students who could handle them for the most part. I didn't like "Moby-Dick" when I was assigned to read it in high school, but I realized it was a strange, powerful book. Ten years later I picked it up again and re-read it, discovering that I loved it--but I wouldn't have done that, in all likelihood, if I hadn't read it before.
That said, I had an English teacher in ninth grade who allowed us to read anything we wanted as an outside book, once every few weeks, and report on it. He wasn't always thrilled with my choices--I was big into Alistair MacLean thrillers--but I liked being able to have some choice.
Now, as a high-school English teacher, I try to do that dance between "getting the kids involved" and "but they need the classics!" One thing we're doing this year with ninth graders is actually reading FEWER books because we're going to spend a lot of time working on writing. Also, the four ninth-grade English teachers couldn't all agree on a book to teach at the end of the year, so we're each going to choose one by Christmas, based on our students' strengths and interests.
I'd also add that some teachers, no matter how good they are, will never get all of their students interested in any one book. I'd be happy if my students read anything regularly, outside of assigned texts. I see that happening less and less.
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