End of February

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February 2017

Kept up certain trends this month as well. Maybe next month I’ll get back in the swing of things.

Books Read

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To start out with is a book I actually read last month but forgot to toss on the list: Mrs. Dalloway. It was a reread, as I had tackled this book back in university. At that time, I considered it the best book I’d ever read, and it still ranks up high, but I’d have to say the overall impact of the book as lessened. Still Woolf writes like no other. I can’t get her prose out of my head.

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The next book took me forever for my standards to finish. When I picked ‘Rich Man, Poor Man’ up from Bookbub, I thought it was going to be a quick read. Turns out this thing is roughly 600 to 700 pages long. Damn e-files! You never know what you’re going to get. However, I enjoyed it a lot, despite feeling like little progress was ever happening with my reading of it. Plainly, it’s just a good old-fashioned story with an epic look.

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Next on my list: Sex Object. I picked this up after finding a list for top 25 books all people should read about feminism. It’s essentially a little book filled with essays, broken into three sections. Clearly, she’s a powerful writer and shows a great viewpoint of what women have to go through on a daily basis, especially in NYC. I found some of the thoughts repulsing and shook my head in disbelief at what some people do. My only complaint about the book was the last third. I didn’t see what her having a kid really played into it all.

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Then…on to another reread: The Giver. I had to do this with one of my lower, slower classes. I originally read this eight years ago on request of my future wife. I forgot how short of a book it really is. Seriously, this book has a lot going on, but it is svelte. Still, the language and presentation was wonderful, even if my memories of it were better than the book itself fared as a whole. Scarily, I could see correlations between it and the Trump era we live in now. All books seem to do that to me nowadays.

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Followed by that, I read Amulet. My wife bought it for the kids, and I quickly read it—15 minutes before a class started. Overall, it’s good for a certain young age group, but it lacks that draw that other graphic novels hold. If anything, I’d advise to skip it. Read Bone. Read Smile. Read anything else. Even the drawings are lackluster compared to the other amount of fare that has flood the market recently.

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Then…another reread: Night. Elie Wiesel is awesome! I read this in high school, and had my kids read it now. They, too, loved it, especially when compared to Anne Frank. Where her diary rambles on for pages with little more than notations of daily events, this terse little book kept things moving and did it with force. Again, so much of it resounded with me seeing the current Trump milieu. After all, Wiesel is famous for saying that all bad men need is good men to sit by and do nothing.

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Lastly…another reread: The Bell Jar. I read this with my sole high school student. It’s a girl, so the strong feminist notions were perfect to talk to her about, especially as Korea is not particularly pro-gender equality. The disparity here feels to be reflected in this enjoyably written novel. I remember the first time I read this—in university—I felt it was quite a heavy, depressing book. This time around, I saw a lot more and didn’t find it so cloudy—though, the foreboding ending still gave me the shivers.

Progress on 2017 goals

Finish Crasher: I’m at 71,000 words now. That’s a bit behind schedule as I was hoping to be done. But with any luck, I’ll get the rest of it ironed out soon.
Read: Life: A Manual: 0 pages

The Fountainhead: 172 pages

Here I Am: 0 pages

Send ‘All the Things in the Unknown World’ to agents: Got it sent out to 110 this month alone, so a good and busy month. That’s a total of 151 so far. Awesome.

Next Month’s Agenda

I plan to tackle more of Ayn Rand’s big book, along with some of the light fare on my TBR. I recently picked up Bone Gap, which many have toted to be an amazing read. I hope it doesn’t disappoint. Also, I’m going to strive to finish Crasher so I can put it behind me and clean my head out.