I finished Laila Lalami’s The Moor’s Account, which will be published in September for the rest of you peons who did not win the Goodreads giveaway. It’s an alternate version of the account of shipwreck and survival in the New World first told by Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca (and isn’t that a wonderful name?). This version is told by Estebanico *nee *Mustafa al-Zamori, the slave of one of the survivors. At first it goes back and forth between the expedition’s arrival in the Florida and Mustafa’s life in Morocco, but eventually the tale of Mustafa’s life catches up to the beginning of the journey and there’s only one storyline after that.
I was dreading the ending because I’ve read a lot of multicultural literature and Native American literature. Every time I get near the end of a “first encounters” story I always expect the worst, but that did not happen this time. It was a surprisingly happy ending for our narrator. What a refreshing change! The native tribes are still doomed because this is historical fiction, but for the short term everything works out all right.
I just read this myself, to help endure the end of Game of Thrones. It was my first graphic novel - I have to say I prefer the usual form. I haven’t read the short story, though, so I’ll have to see if it is as short as the graphic. I also enjoyed Mr. Mercedes, and was pleased that King had done a good job of ending the story for a change. Right now I’m reading Conn Iggulden’s Stormbird, the first in his new historical fiction series on the War of the Roses. In another attempt to sooth my GOT withdrawal, I read that GOT was loosely based on the War of the Roses, so I went to Amazon looking for books on that era. I was delighted to find out that Iggulden was just starting a new series! I wish I knew how to link on a tablet
I love Iggulden’s series’ - the first one I read was on Genghis Khan, followed by one on Ceasar. If you are a fan of historical fiction, you will adore this author. I love turning people on to him.
This was my second win in five years. The first time I got a nice hardbound copy of Mary Oliver’s Evidence. This time I got a bound galley which was extremely cool. Found a few typos, too.
He wasn’t all that old when he wrote that, but he certainly was a sea dog. Pretty much anything by Alan Villiers is worth reading.
His most interesting might be Sons of Sinbad, the story of a 1938 voyage in a Kuwait dhow, sailing down the east coast of Africa in much the same way as had been done for something like 2000 years.
I had a good time with Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings, which follows a group of kids who meet at summer camp through their adult lives. I thought the writing was very sharp, insightful, and funny (although it’s really not a funny book, exactly). It’s definitely very character driven, so people who don’t like books that exist for the point of letting characters meander around without doing much of moving plot forward probably wouldn’t like it. As a plus (for me), it takes place in New York City, and is very true to how I remember things about New York during the 80s and 90s.
I just finished She Flew the Coop, by Michael Lee West, promoted as being about life, death, sex and recipes in a small town in Louisiana in 1952. Well written but depressing. We have philandering husbands, a teenage girl who attempts suicide because she’s afraid of her father’s temper, a nasty neighbor who sends poison pen letters, a brutish husband who beats his wife, and a “reverend” who rapes little girls. Practically no one made it out of that book unscathed. I can’t recommend it.
Next up: Caleb’s Crossing, by Geraldine Brooks, who I absolutely love.
I’m almost done with The Portable Dorothy Parker. I must own this book, if only for the reviews. Her stories and poems are okay, but she excels at lacerating bad writing. The review of A.A. Milne’s play “Give Me Yesterday” should be engraved in letters of gold for all time.
[QUOTE=Dorothy Parker]
…[the main character] had a nasty habit of tapping on the wall between [his bedroom and his childhood sweetheart’s] to communicate with her. The code was not essentially difficult. There was one tap for “a,” two for “b,” and so on. I ask you, kind reader, to bear this in mind for rougher times.
…He must tap out to her, on the garden wall, his message, though she is right beside him. First he taps, and at the length it would take, the letter “I.” Then he goes on into “l,” and, though surely everyone in the audience has caught the idea, he carries through to “o.” “Oh, he’s not going on into ‘v,’” I told myself. “Even Milne wouldn’t do that to you.” But he did. He tapped on through “v,” and then he did an “e.” “If he does ‘y,’” I thought, “I’m through.” And he did. So I shot myself.
[/QUOTE]
I enjoyed this last year, then another by the same author called (looking on Kindle…) The Wife, which I thought was also well written. Both books put me off, a little, in featuring super-successful and wealthy people. I don’t know any of those, so I find it hard to empathize with them. I’d read another Wolitzer, but won’t be digging into her back catalogue.
I finished Guards! Guards! (I had the punctuation wrong the first time. ) The night I’m finishing up, The Fella is reading his tablet and tells me that Pterry won’t be hitting that convention for the first time b/c of the Alzheimers. So when I got to the last couple lines of the book, I cried a bit that night. Keep fightin’ Terry.
Then I ripped through The Pile of Stuff at the Bottom of the Stairs, a British novel about a pissed off wife. I didn’t really like the narrator at first much, [seriously, we ALL have friends with the ‘perfect’ life–you learn to love yours and not be envious] but the story had some funny parts. Actually very funny. I ended up giving it a B-.
It reminded me, in a way, of Good in Bed. Both seemed like rom-com movies in book form.
And I don’t get to get on much of a high horse about any of it, b/c I’m now reading Suzanne Brockmann’s Breaking the Rules. What??? I like her stuff–shit blows up real good plus soft core sex.
(For the record, my reading habits are ALL over the place b/c I read just about any genre…but I’m cheap (ahem) FRUGAL and I get most of my giant pile of books-to-be-read at Goodwill.)
Just read my way through the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson and the standalone Alloy of Law: Mistborn four - I really enjoyed these books. Though no word yet as to when the next trilogy set in this world will be coming out.
Am now reading Who is Tom Ditto by Danny Wallace - a fun read…
Currently reading A Country Doctor’s Notebook by Bulgakov, after seeing the English TV series based on it staring Daniel Radcliffe and Jon Hamm. The series was excellent, and the book, naturally, even better. So far, I’ve found you can’t go wrong with Bulgakov - I wonder why, all those years ago, I never read anything other than The Master and Margarita by him. I’m going to read Heart of a Dog next.
I don’t read graphic novels all that often, but liked this one - a pretty good adaptation of Martin’s short story. If you want to try other grownup comics, check out Watchmen (superhero conspiracy/alternate history) or Locke & Key (good vs. evil in the seacoast town of Lovecraft, Mass.).
My favorite grown-up comics are still the classic Eisner ones - the Contract with God trilogy. It is the work that popularized the term “graphic novel”, and it is an acknowledged masterpiece of the genre. Though, I must say, not exactly a bundle of laughs! But then, neither is Maus.
I only just discovered the TV show; I didn’t realize it was based on a book! I might have to check that out.
I’m a big Joe Hill fan, and this is on my “maybe” list…I want to see how I do with Maus first, since I already bought that.
A little side note/question: Locke & Key is available in a Kindle edition, but I can’t imagine that working well at all. Has anyone read a graphic novel on their Kindle?
And not just any book - a book written by (IMO) the greatest Soviet-era writer, based in his personal experiences as a doctor during the Revolution. Well worth reading.
I was watching the show, and I nearly shat myself when I saw it was based on stories by Bulgakov. I had loved The Master and Margarita for many years, and had no idea he had written a book of stories based on his medical life.
According to the extras on the DVD I eventually got, Daniel Radcliffe had much the same reaction - on hearing this show was in the works, he basically insisted on having a part in it, because he had been a huge Bulgakov fan based, once again, on his reading of The Master and Margarita.
The story of how the book came to exist is pretty interesting - apparently, these stories were written for ephemeral Soviet-era magazines of the 1920s, and long forgotten, when some Bulgakov researcher came across a reference to them, searched out obscure fading mimeographs buried in a forgotten Soviet-era archive, and disinterred them.
Don deLillo’s “White Noise”, I tried to read something else by deLilllo a few years ago and didn’t like it and quit, decided to try him again. In “White Noise”, he is a master of satire and observation of the human condition.
It’s an alternate version of the account of shipwreck and survival in the New World first told by Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca (and isn’t that a wonderful name?). This version is told by Estebanico *nee *Mustafa al-Zamori, the slave of one of the survivors. At first it goes back and forth between the expedition’s arrival in the Florida and Mustafa’s life in Morocco, but eventually the tale of Mustafa’s life catches up to the beginning of the journey and there’s only one storyline after that.
I like her stuff–shit blows up real good plus soft core sex.
I had loved The Master and Margarita for many years, and had no idea he had written a book of stories based on his medical life.