I finally finished Stiletto a couple of nights ago. I saw a note from a panel with the author that the third book won’t take as long as the second book did…I hope that’s the case. I won’t call these books instant classics, or anything like that, but each time I finish one I find myself wishing to continue in the world of the Chequy. So that’s something.
I have at least a dozen book samples loaded on my Kindle, and I was pretty sure that I was going to read the new Harry Potter next, but I found that I don’t care for the script format. I’ll try it again sometime, but meanwhile I started John Grisham’s Gray Mountain. It must have been a recommendation: even though I’m a Grisham fan, a story set in 2008 about a young lawyer who moves from NYC to Appalachia to do pro bono work when her firm implodes generally wouldn’t appeal to me. So far it’s kind of predictable: naive city girl with no courtroom experience meets smart-but-folksy rural lawyers, including a handsome man who is tough-but-fair and the only lawyer in their small town who will take on Big Coal…oh, and he’s recently separated from his wife…meh. It’s abundently clear who the Good Guys and Bad Guys are supposed to be; now I’m waiting for something interesting to happen.
I finally finished A Voyage Long and Strange, the Tony Horowitz book about the early European voyages to the New (to them) World. I liked it, although that wasn’t too surprising because I like American history and I like his writing. I got stuck in one of those bad reading situations, though, where I didn’t have very much left to read, but I kept going place and thinking “well, I can’t bring this book, because I will finish it quickly and then need a new book.”
And I zipped through The Past, by Tessa Hadley. It’s a novel about a family of adult siblings who return to the country house where they were raised, and it focuses a lot on the similarities and differences between family members. It is one of those funny books where the language was so well done that I enjoyed the reading of it a lot – but it’s hard to say exactly why the story was compelling.
I just started Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies, a YA novel about a family with bizarre magical powers, and I am tearing through it. If it continues to hold up, it will be one of my best reads this year.
I recently finished the graphic novel Before Watchmen: Nite Owl / Dr. Manhattan, which is very good - an intriguing story by J. Michael Straczynski involving quantum mechanics (hello, Schrödinger’s cat!) that dovetails well with the original, and fantastic artwork by Adam Hughes (Silk Spectre, for one, has never looked better). It includes a bonus section on the origins of the magician-gone-bad, Moloch. Any Watchmen fans should definitely check it out.
About halfway through another graphic novel, Top 10, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Gene Ha. It’s about police officers in a funky, decaying city of superheroes, supervillains, aliens and all kinds of genetically-engineered people and animals. Has its moments, but not nearly as good as Before Watchmen.
I’m also now listening to an audiobook of Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. Pretty well-written, but very depressing, about a 1970s Ohio family coming apart at the seams after the mysterious death of one of the children. It’s all about loss, grief, secrets and missed connections; not in the least an upbeat tale.
I just saw this; I’m glad you’re enjoying it so far! I liked that about the author, too, how he’ll just launch into some dorky story with unbridled enthusiasm. And for me it got funnier as it went along.
The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows are Built, by Jack Viertel. It explains the function of songs in certain positions in their shows. It’s very interesting.
Good grief, I haven’t posted in forever. Quick check-in to say that I just finished The Chalk Circle Man, a decent mystery written by Fred Vargas. Protagonist (and Commissaire) Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg grows concerned about a series of blue circles, mostly around strictly mundane objects, that begin to surface overnight in Paris arrondissements. When a corpse is found inside one of the circles, Adamsberg’s early misgivings about, and fascination with, the circles proves justified. Adamsberg is a strange sort of detective, all instinct and little apparent deduction. The mystery was idiosyncratic and beyond the setting, indefinably Gallic. I liked it although I found Adamsberg the man rather maddening in his thought processes.
I’ve since picked up Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho. Magic in England during the late 18th century? Or more precisely, a creeping lack of magic due to causes unknown? Count me in. It’s note-perfect and gripping thus far.
Oh, and I’m listening to Grunt by Mary Roach on audio. I nearly caused a ruckus with my 20 y o daughter Arwen, who has graciously assented to my listening to audiobooks on our way in to work this summer. (We ride together every other day). Um, that may change. When I asked her about Roach’s book, I had forgotten I was mid-way through a long, excruciating discussion of phalloplasty and cadaver penis transplants. Arwen kept an appalled silence throughout the exceedingly detailed 20+ min on the topic (I kept thinking it would be over soon). Before our next ride, I apologized and said I was pretty sure that part was over, and could I listen again? Arwen laughed and agreed, then was treated to 20+ minutes on the terminology and science of diarrhea. The grimness of her face cannot be described. Again, I apologized, and she agreed to yet another audiobook session yesterday with markedly less enthusiasm. But she did agree, and I thought: well, surely we’re over the worst. Naturally, we ended up listening to an experiment involving various bear species and their proclivities toward chewing up used tampons (versus sharks and THEIR love for tampons). Alas, I am relatively certain that Arwen will never, ever agree to my listening to an audiobook in her presence again. :eek::smack:
*American Gods *by Neil Gaiman is finally finished. It was the 10th anniversary edition that was apparently longer. I feel bad for some reason hating it as much as I did. Never having read it before and wanting to get it done before the TV show came out, I wanted to see what the fuss was all about before it got “spoiled”. The set-ups like learning coin tricks were just excruciating in their orange blazers as the signs read “PLOT POINT AHEAD-THIS WILL PAY OFF LATER”.
So while that took we two months to read, I finished these two books in about two days a piece:
Camille Paglia’s *Break, Blow, Burn. * It’s a brilliant anthology of poems through the ages with her interpretations and dissections after each one. I read this after American Gods where I could see a difference where obsessing over minutiae is poignant in one and painful in the other. This is a great intro guide to poetry actually and I hope she ventures into making this a repeated effort.
Next up was *The Coconut Chronicles: Two Guys, One Caribbean Dream *by Patrick Youngblood. David Sedaris really has set a high bar for humorous memoirs and diary tales. It has made the ability to enjoy an amusing anecdote harder when other stories have been crafted better. The true story here about a gay couple who decide to renovate a house in Vieques and all the tribulations they encountered made me curious about the story. I’ve got some friends who just moved to Puerto Rico to live and some other ones who just started construction on the little island nation of Malta; I thought that this book might make a great gift for them based on the story line. It was…ok. Some stories just ended without a real resolution, it was like a drummer who would omit a beat in random places but you still waiting for the thump.
Currently reading Multiple Choice by Alejandro Zambra (translated by Megan McDowell). This book I’m actually a bit excited about. It’s what could be called a collection of short stories in the form of a test. The format of the book is eponymous and quirky but mindful of the reader and doesn’t mind taking us down the back alley to make a point. The Chilean author also writes in a refreshing point of view which has had me reading up on the Pinochet regime that’s referenced in the book.
stpauler I didn’t like American Gods, either! Unlike you, though, I didn’t finish the book. But several people on here suggested I try Anansi Boys instead, which takes place in the same world as American Gods but is a completely different story, and I enjoyed Anansi Boys.
Earlier today I was at Barnes & Noble with a friend and his son, and when we were in the “popular fiction” aisle we talked about the books we’re reading/have recently read. I mentioned that I’m currently reading a Grisham book and that so far it isn’t very good. My friend’s son suggested that I switch to something else, but I said I’d hang in there for a while longer because I usually like Grisham and something interesting could still happen. A woman in our aisle overheard our conversation, and asked me which book: I said Gray Mountain, and she told me that it doesn’t get any better. She said her husband – who is a Grisham fan – also read it and didn’t like it. So it’s not just me! I don’t usually abandon books, but this one is super preachy and it’s starting to get on my nerves. So I’ll probably switch to something else soon.
It is killing me that I can’t find/remember where I saw the link to that panel interview, but I remember some quote about either “check-ee” or “sheck-ee” being acceptable. I didn’t see an option for a pronunciation ending in the “ay” sound, but I also didn’t actually read the interview – I just saw some excerpts from it. I will keep looking!
