Lisa (Harmonybites)’s Comments (group member since May 29, 2010)

Lisa (Harmonybites)’s comments from the The Complete Idiots Guide to the Ultimate Reading List group.

I just finished it a couple of days ago and really enjoyed it--it's a thick book that nevertheless reads fast. And yes, its view of politicians is very cynical, sometimes satirical. In a way, I don't consider that completely realistic somehow--I think the cynical and idealistic is more mixed in both politicians and politics, and that's missing.

The portrait of Lincoln and his administration is fascinating--because Gore doesn't pull any punches in depicting things like the way they threw people in jail indefinitely without charges, closed opposing newspapers, censored people, banished an opposing politician, created fiat money and an income tax, the draft--basically shredded the constitution to bits--and knew it. But it also depicts how desperate things were and Lincoln though he comes across as a sphinx at times also does come across as human and warm, especially when it comes to dealing with his troubled wife. But yeah, politicians by and large don't come across well in this book--power-hungry, venal and corrupt.

I've been alternating the fantasy and literary lists. Finished in May:

Fantasy : I had started reading Novik's Temeraire books in April--I moved it up on my fantasy to read list since through LibraryThing I got an early review copy of the sixth book coming out in July. Loved the series overall which starts with His Majesty's Dragon . Also adored Beagle's The Last Unicorn . Tried Drake's Lord of the Isles but didn't finish since I found it a Lord of the Rings wannabe and a crashing bore. Don't even get why it's on the list--at least Brook's Shannara series are famous in fantasy even if I thought the first awful and a Tolkien rip-off. But Drake's? I liked Edding's Pawn of Prophecy and Feist's Talon of the Silver Hawk but not enough I want to read more of the series.

Literary : Adored Chabon's Adventures of Kavalier and Clay , a moving story and a fun read, and loved Cunningham's The Hours (read Woolf's Mrs Dalloway before it to better appreciate it since that's its basis but hated it).

I hated Don Delillo's Underworld with the heat of a thousand suns and didn't finish it. I don't care if Harold Bloom finds it "sublime" and it won runner up in a New York Times survey of critics for best American novel of the last 25 years--such a pretentious badly-written piece of crap as I've ever read. The only way I can understand its status as a modern classic and bestseller is a really bad case of the Emperor's clothes. Fortunately, de Berniere's Captain Corelli's Mandolin , which I just finished, took the bad taste out of my mouth.

Outside the lists, I also read and enjoyed Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris--the latest Sookie Stackhouse book.

Edit: May 30 - finished Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven --collection of connected short stories set in the Spokane reservation. Interesting, but bleak.

I found this group googling for The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Ultimate Reading List and been lurking since I joined GoodReads--decided to finally join. I've been making my way through the fantasy and literary fiction list alternately. I've read a lot more of the fantasy books but I'm finding to my delight that a lot of the books on the literary list really are good stories, not pretentious crap, and have enjoyed some more than I expected.

Anyway--thought it might be fun to share the experience.