CURRENTLY READING

CRAP I'VE READ (The B.LOG Proper)
In which record all the books I read. Not to be confused with the Blah-og, in which I record a very small portion of the things I think.

October, 2008

Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs -Very different from Magical Thinking. More novelistic. Not sure about it yet.

The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells - Just grabbed it out of desperation, but was pleasantly surprised. It's both light and heavy. Not really about so-called "big" issues, with its focus on women and family, but I thought it was quite good. Much better than the movie.

Magical Thinking, by Augusten Burroughs - Funny. Very David Sedaris. So Sedaris, in fact, that I sometimes couldn't tell the difference, but that's okay. I would read more by him, certainly.

Disturbances in the Field, by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. - Dense. Well written. Poetic. Philosophical. Hard. Sad.

September 2008

Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman. - I just started, but so far... it's great. So funny.

August 2008

The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot - Because sometimes it's good to go back.

I've Got the One More Washload Blues by Lynn Johnston - For Better or For Worse is one of my guiltiest pleasures. I love it. I don't know why. I find it comforting. Even though it's cheesy. Even though it's lame. I can't help it - it makes me happy. I hit a used goldmine of old collections recently, so I went on a reading frenzy. Judge me if you must. I loved them all.

The Big 5-0 by Lynn Johnston

Growing Like A Weed by Lynn Johnston

Love Just Screws Everything Up by Lynn Johnston

Starting From Scratch by Lynn Johnston

There Goes My Baby by Lynn Johnston

Things Are Looking Up by Lynn Johnston

Pushing 40 by Lynn Johnston

It's All Downhill from Here by Lynn Johnston

If This is a Lecture, How Long Will It Be? by Lynn Johnston

If I Knew, Don't You Think I'd Tell You? by Jann Arden - A collection of blog posts. Okay, but not professional or even well written. I've soured on a lot of her music now that I'm grown up, but what I still love about her is that she's a real person, and that comes across here.

Astonishing X-Men 1: Gifted, by Joss Whedon/John Cassaday - I liked it, surprisingly. Am I becoming a comics person? Maybe it's just because I'm a Whedonite.


July 2008

The Hunnter's Moon by O.R. Melling - A teen fantasy book set in Ireland. Lots of fairies. For some reason, I couldn't really engage with it.

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby - We've been here before. I needed to go back to it to see myself.

The County of Birches by Judith Kalman - Impossible to evaluate, considering the circumstances. Not something I would have read on my own, and not really me, but it is well written.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera - Beautiful. Terrible. I dunno. It's hard to read this kind of book and judge it accurately. The "novel of ideas" is at its heart a strange concept. I was interested. I enjoyed the translation. I thought it was beautiful. But it made me sad too. Sad in a personal way, because it left me feeling like I've never had an original thought in my life. (It's hard to face the fact that your seemingly unique and inspired feelings and ideas have already been thought and verbalized more than perfectly ... more than 25 years ago, no less.) And it's also difficult, when you read a book based on someone else's opinion of it, not to think obsessively about what it MEANS that they liked it. It's hard to turn off thinking about what the book means about them. ANYWAY. All that aside, it was good, and is of course worth reading.

Look Through My Window by Jean Little - Just some calming kid-stuff I felt like rereading in the bath. Dated.

Casanova: Luxuria by Matt Fraction - Comic book. Hilarious, but not obvious. NOT for everyone, but I enjoyed it. Cerebral and difficult and messed up. Love love.


June 2008

Chronicles of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery - Happy. Sort of revisiting the first three Anne books (and sometimes feels lazy as a result), but decent overall if you're a fan.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters - This was recommended and loaned to me by a friend. I didn't love it. It's well written and well plotted, but for some reason, I just couldn't get really INTO it. I just didn't care. My friend loved it, so I expect the problem lay with me and not with the book.

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry - Well written. Not quite worth the hype, but I can't deny that this is a well written and engaging book. It is also, unfortunately, depressing. No happy endings here. I believed in the writer's knowledge and experience of India, which was a nice change from a lot of India-themed novels I've read. But while the unhappy ending contributed to the authenticity of the story, it was still hard to take.

Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery - This is sad, but I sort of hated it. It just doesn't sit with me like the first three books in the Anne series. The letter format, the vignette style, the lack of narrative arc... all of it felt desperate and grasping and void of the magic that's inherent in the other books.


May 2008

It Had to Be You (The Gossip Girl Prequel) by Cecily Von Zigesar  - Trash. But fun trash. And I read the rest of the series, so I could hardly stop now.

Anne of The Island by L.M. Montgomery - ditto below.

Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery - see below.

Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery - So comforting.

Not Wanted On the Voyage by Timothy Findley - Loved this book is high school and found I still like it, though the things I loved before have become less compelling. Still, it's a solid book, if a little dated from a post-modern perspective.


April 2008

Peter and the Shadow Thieves by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson - Second in the Peter Pan prequel Starcatchers triology. Very enjoyable. It was a little hard to get into at first, but if you stick with it, it becomes ultimately very exciting. Lots of little references to the Barrie mythology, which was fun. Will definitely invest in the third book as well.

The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. LeGuin - Last in the Earthsea series. Better than Atuan, but not as good as Wizard. Still, if you've invested in the previous books, it can't be skipped. Also, there is a lot going on here that is worthwhile. Readers of the Life of Pi will see connections. There's an appealing oceanic quest as well, which is nice. The villian is a bit of a let down, but it's still a strong book, and it rounds out the series in a satisfying way.

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. LeGuin - Not close to as good as the first book in the Earthsea trilogy, but it was okay. Fairly boring, and without any real quest. It's sort of an idea-driven fantasy, and might not appeal as a result.

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin - In keeping with my desire to reread some of the books I loved when I was a kid. This one holds up. And is, I think, required reading for anyone interested in fantasy.

Going Solo by Roal Dahl - A memoir and the companion to Boy. Lovely, old-fashioned style, and very interesting. Maybe even more interesting than Boy. Dahl's adventures in Africa and Greece and his time in the RAF are especially well described. I immediately lent this to my grandfather, once I'd finished.

Heartburn by Norah Ephron - Just felt like something light. This book has been called the first "chick-lit novel" which is sexist and offensive and idiotic. It's light, certainly, but it's funny and smart too. Lots of good recipes intervowen into the story, too.

Unless by Carol Shields - Almost TOO good. Lots of intertextuality. I understand it better now that I'm in English grad school. Terribly sad, though. Not for men, unless those men are very well adjusted, frankly.

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris - More of the same, but I liked this one very much. Nice, short pieces. The second half - about Sedaris' life in France with his partner Hugh - is especially hilarious.


March 2008

Question & Answer by Alison Pick - I very much admire Alison, and this poetry collection is very good. Traditional and not at all like Daniel's book (below) but very appealing. Sad, and often feminine.

Predicting the New Big Advertising Breakthrough Using a Potentially Dangerous Method by Daniel Scott Tysdal - Daniel is my friend and I might not have read this book otherwise, but his poetry really is innovative, experimental and (sometimes) very touching.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle  - Again, not as good as Wrinkle (or many of L'Engle's other books) but interesting in a way. Bit hard to follow.

A Wind in The Door by Madeleine L'Engle - Not as good as Wrinkle, but it has it's moments. It goes in the other direction - on a micro journey into the smallest cells in the body, etc. In that way, it's very much in keeping with the first book.

A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle - Thought it was time to revist this. Very 60s. Very cheesy at times. This is a macro journey into space and the wide universe. But all in all, it's not hard to see why this was an important book, even if the moment's sort of passed.

A Perfect Gentle Knight by Kit Pearson - Had I not already read Kit's entire catalogue, this would have been fine, but knowing what I know, it was pretty awful. Lazy writing. Stock writing. Phrases and characterizations right out of her earlier works, sometimes word for word. I'm terribly sad about it. Still, if you have a daughter, this is a worthwhile book. It's just sad that Kit's repeating herself.

The Friend Who Got Away, edited by Jenny Offill & Elissa Schappell - Twenty essays about friendships former. Generally very good. A few stinkers. This is something that's not really talked about much, and in that, it's a valuable book.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - I could read this book every year forever. It's that good. It's so heartbreaking.


February 2008

The Journals of Sylvia Plath - Hard to get through in any normal way. Better just to pick up and open to a place, read a bit, then abandon until the next time. And of course, would be more enjoyable were it not marred by Ted. His grubbly little fingerprints are all over it, ruining the way it was meant to be.

Naked by David Sedaris - Again, a reread. And like last time, was a lot tougher to get through than Dress Your Family, which is just better and more concise all around.

Dress Your Family in Corderoy and Demin, David Sedaris - Re-Re-Reread. I love Sedaris. He's so hilarious.

The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch - Another reread. Love this book. Love the marine biology. Love the style. It's gripping.

Earlybird by Rodney Rothman - Another reread. I liked it a lot when I first read it, maybe because I related to Rodney, who was floundering after losing his job, just as I floundered a bit a couple of years ago. I am less invested this time, but I still think it's a fun, pop-culturey sort of book that does say something interesting and worthwhile about getting old.

The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank - We've already talked about this. It's one of my favourites. I reread it again and again. It's so much deeper than it sounds.

Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II - Lovely intro by Stephen Sondheim as well as a very good intro by OH himself. Otherwise, it's just song lyrics and won't be interesting unless you... want the lyrics, I guess.

By Heart, Elizabeth Smart: A Life, by Rosemary Sullivan - Dense and difficult to get through, even though it's interesting. I finished because the author is my prof, but don't know if I would have otherwise. It's too bad because Smart's life is pretty fascinating. Maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind.
'
Boy, Royald Dahl - God, his life is fascinating. Dahl writes simply about simple things, but he makes them interesting in a sort of magical and subtle way. But it's sad too. Thank goodness we don't cane children anymore. It sounds just awful.

Ownself, Mary Calhoun - So sad. Out of print. Little girl who believes her harsh Methodist father doesn't love her, summons and swallows a faerie. Or thinks she does. This is a surprisingly smart book for kids and it absolutely charmed me when I was little, and still does.

The Princess and the Goblin, George MacDonald - Lovely. Always has been. Children's romantic quest story that holds up today.


January 2008

Sisters In The Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Traill, Charlotte Gray - Very good. A littel dense and a little dry in places, but considering how dry it COULD have been, impressively engaging.

Appointment With A Stranger, Jean Thesman - Teen melodrama that charmed me back in 1990 or thereabouts. Good break from the heavy school reading, but humiliating, considering how much I once loved it.

Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor, Richard Doddridge Blackmore - Ditto Ivanhoe. Icko.

Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott - This sort of 19th Century Romance bores me, but hey. Welcome to grad school.

The Racketty-Packetty House, Frances Hodgson Burnett - Adorable book from Kaye. Very charming for little kids. Good for the holidays.


December 2007

**Note: am not including anything here that I've read only in part. Also, am not including literary articles. Feel like i'm reading hundreds of those.Am drowning in them. Welcome to grad school, right?


November 2007

Land to Light On, Dionne Brand - Very good poetry collection. Had to read it through a good three times before I even began to understand it, though.

Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen, Rosemary Sullivan - Very good. Again, not for the non-literary, but very engaging. A little fem, a little too psychology-based, and a little hippy trippy drippy, but I liked it.


October 2007

The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell - Exactly what you'd expect from a literary bio written when this was written. Not exactly fun times, but decent if you're interested.

Natasha and Other Stories, David Bezmozgis - Decent. Quite touching at times, but again, not really innovative. Traditionally written. Canadian. You know.

Midnight at the Dragon Cafe, Judy Fong Bates - A well written and very traditional novel. Nothing special, but nothing wrong with it either.

The Daring Game, Kit Pearson - Great for young girls. I picked this up again (for the millionth time) because I just needed a break from school reading.

The Global Soul, Pico Iyer - Booooooring. Sorry, but it was. And way simplistic.


September 2007

Look Through My Window, Jean Little - Great. I read it because I needed a break from all the boring school CanLit I've been reading and it definitely did the trick. Like lots of old kids' books, it's a bit dated, but very satisfying.

Ten Thousand Lovers, Edeet Ravel - Meh. I didn't hate it. It has been heavily criticized for being about a young woman and about love, but frankly, those sorts of complaints are pure sexism. The hebrew/arabic etemology stuff is pretty interesting.

Life of Pi, Yann Martel - It was okay, but again, I wasn't a huge fan. Again, it's overrated. The first eighty pages are dead boring, the middle section is okay, and the end is totally self conscious and terrible.

A Complicated Kindness, Miriam Toews - Hated it. It reads like a Mennonite, Canadian version of Go Ask Alice, only it's not honest or as well written. The hype is undeserved.

God, The Universe and Hot Fudge Sundaes, Norma Howe - Dated, but sweet and serious. Probably too serious and deep for a contemporary kid.

A Place Apart, Paula Fox - Lovely. True and sad.

Tom's Midnight Garden, Philippa Pearce - One of the best children's books I've ever read. Ever. It's about time and memory and fantasy and it's perfect.

Boomability, Sharon Creech - Poor American 13 year old (she's a bit of a bumpkin) spends a year at a boarding school in Switzerland. Earnest and original.

The Moons of Madeleine, Joan Clark - Influenced me heavily when I was a kid. It's a coming of age story, about a 12 year old girl visiting Calgary for a summer. There's lots of heavy feminie stuff in it, as well as some fantasy and greek goddess stuff.

The Language of Goldfish, Zibby O'Neal - I'm rereading old kidlit books right now. Mostly, they're about growing up. This is a lovely one about art and therapy and a 13 year old girl who attempts suicide.


August 2007

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, all by J.K. Rowling - Basically, I went back to the beginning and burned through the whole series again. It was liking taking a big, lovely breath. Even if you're not AT ALL into this kind of writing, it's hard not to appreciate the care she took in her plot planning and that sort of thing. And for someone like me, who loves this sort of writing, it was almost too wonderful. I laughed, I cried... I laughed and cried again. Harry, will you marry me? We're almost the same age!


July 2007

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling - It's not really over, is it? IS IT? If you have no self control, like me, this is a fast and intense read. I was done in 10 hours. I should have savored it. I hate that it's over.

Feeling Sorry For Celia, Jaclyn Moriarty - SO good. It's a teen book, and Australian, so won't appeal if you don't like that sort of thing, but if you can be objective about it, this book is original and hilarious.


June 2007

Child of my Heart, Alice McDermott - Fished this book from the 3 for $9.99 bin at Chapters and didn't expect much, but it's surprisingly good. Very sad. Slow and feminine and somewhat dated, with an A Tree Grows in Brooklyn sort of vibe. My only complaint is that it's sort of vague, washing over things that seem important very quickly, but maybe that's part of its charm.


April & May 2007

No real time to read. Too busy working and moving. Mostly just been doing magazines and things like that.


March 2007

A Million Little Pieces, James Frey - I tried, but I couldn't finish it. This book is trash. Made up or not, it's just badly written.

The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Mitch Albom - Surprisingly good. It was a fast read, and I was resistant at first, but it was touching and sad and well written. Just the sort of thing I love.

The Perfect Elizabeth: A Tale of Two Sisters, Libby Schmais -  I didn't like this at first. It felt too light and self indulgent. Nothing seemed to be happening. Eventually, I got into it, though. and by the end, I was pretty hooked. Though there's no real plot to speak, I think the book and the main character in particular are fairly true, which I liked.

My Secret, Frank Warren - The new PostSecret art/postcard book. Loved it, of course. We covered the PostSecret phenomenon in ION some months back, so nothing in the book suprised me, but it was funny, sad and true. And of course, just being a book of postcards, it was a breeze to finish. I read the whole thing in 20 minutes or so.

The Secret, Rhonda Byrne - Not exactly high quality literature, but I skimmed through it anyway. it's gimmicky and lame and tried to hook you in with a lot of hooey, but the basic idea is a good one. Postive thinking is a good thing. Duh. It's kind of obvious. Could have said that in an essay. Didn't need a book/DVD to hammer it home.

Cranberry Queen, Katheen DeMarco - I grabbbed this from the 3 for $10 section of my local bookstore, and wasn't very impressed. For a hanrdcover, at approx $3, it's not a bad deal, but the book itself didn't hold my interest. It felt like the author was waffling between wanting to write a cheesy chick lit novel and a more serious lit novel. Feels disjointed as a result.

Shopoholic & Baby, Sophie Kinsella - Just like the other 4 were. Silly, fluffy, but satisfying to anyone who likes the genre.

Everyone Worth Knowing, Laura Wiseberger - Garbage. The Devil Wears Prada was much much better. I wouldn't have bothered to read this at all had I not been trapped on a plane with nothing else to do.


February 2007

Bright Angel Time, Martha McPhee - A wordy book about broken families and the divorce boom of the 1970s. A little too stream of consciousness/poetically intense for me. Too many words. Too dense. At the same time, I felt compelled to keep reading and that's saying something. No satisfying conclusion, though.

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, Alan Alda - A memoir. Good. Not pretentious. Not wordy or writerly. Just like an old guy telling you about his life. And it was a darn interesting life. Alda is a darn interesting (and odd) guy.

A Rhinestone Button, Gail Anderson-Dargatz - Surprisingly good. I'd had this book sitting on my shelf for years (in hardcover, no idea where I got it) but always avoided getting around to reading it. In 1998, someone gave me A Recipe for Bees, and I didn't like it much and expected this would be more of the same, but I found it totally engaging. It's a prairie farmer / contemporary christianity story. Lots of country stuff. But interesting.


January 2007

Forever in Blue (The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood), Ann Brashares - Sad. The first three books are girly and upbeat, even when they're serious, but this is a growing up and saying goodbye sort of story. It's true to life, and that's a good thing, but it's sad.

Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, Ayelet Waldman - This was a reread. Ayelet is great and I love her, but this book isn't for everyone. Try it if you like so called chick-lit but are looking for something smarter and more literary too. It's about a woman who is dealing with the recent death of her infant daughter and trying to improve her relationship with her obnoxious five-year-old stepson at the same time.

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures, Vincent Lam - Mostly lame short stories that prove literary success is all about politics and not at all about talent or quality. I wonder why this won the Giller? Oh, I know. Because it's about, A) Canadians. B) Doctors. C)"Ethnic" Canadian Doctors. And there's a little incest thrown in for good measure. How shocking! (And we all know that's what makes a "good" book nowadays.) Seriously, though. Lam is a doctor. Why not stick to being a doctor? Sure, for a doctor, he's not a bad writer, but for a writer is he really all that good? Um, no.


December 2006

Miss Misery, Andy Greenwald - Started out incredibly strong, realistic, insightful, touching, then took a weird turn into the fantasic and never recovered. Still, those first fifty pages were great and I rode on how good they were all the way to the end. The story: While working on a project about the blogging phenomenon, a twenty-something, Jewish writer boy in New York (Andy Greenwald, anybody?) gets drawn into a sort of personal identity crisis. Lots of drinking/drugging/clubbing and pining over women. Lots of this-feels-false modesty on the part of the main character. But again, the beginning was great.

Me Write Book (It Bigfoot Memoir), Graham Roumieu - Too funny. I died laughing. (Luckily, it didn't take ... the death, I mean.)

Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins - I read this years ago and was in love with it. The second time around, I wasn't so impressed. Still love that it's epic and spans centuries, but no longer love how male it is. Too many tacky and useless sex references and scenes, too rambling. Five or six years change your perspective, I guess.

The Varieties of Romantic Experience, Robert Cohen - A book of short stories that looked great in the store. Alas, I couldn't get into it at all and abandoned the few stories I tried almost immediately. Might have to give it another shot later.


November 2006

The V Spot, Sherry Krantz - Book three in the Vivian series. See below. This one revolves around whether or not she's ready to accept a good relationship and the death of her dog. Deep stuff. Very deep.

Vivian Lives, Sherry Krantz - Book two in the series mentioned below. Vivian's grown up a bit, has finally found a nice boyfriend, and is finally ready to deal with her issues. (Specifically, an abusive ex who is not quite believable as part of Vivian's history.) The current nice boyfriend wants to get married, Viv doesn't. Drama ensues.

The Autobiography of Vivian, Sherry Krantz - A badly written novel that's supposed to be by the fictional main character "Vivian Livingston" a virtual girl created as an internet marketing tool. Fun, but silly. And gimmicky. The book is filled with spelling mistakes and awkward writing, intended to solidify the idea that it's by a regular, real person. Not.


October 2006

The Luckiest Girl, Bevery Cleary - Girl gets to spend her junior year living with family friends in Cali. More teen girliness, but from the '50. I'm on such a roll.

Reckless (An It Girl Novel), Cecily Von Zigesar - Again, more of the same. See below.

Notorious (An It Girl Novel), Cecily Von Ziegesar - See below. Pretty much just more of the same, which is satisfying.

The It Girl, Cecily Von Ziegesar - Jenny Humphrey, a character from the Gossip Girl series, is spun off into her own. It'ss all about her first days at an exclusive, eastern boarding school. Surprise, surprise, her classmates are mostly slutty bitches and beefcake boys. (Sorry, but they are. I never said I was classy.)

Would I Lie To You (A Gossip Girl Novel), Cecily Von Ziegesar - See additional crap listed below. These books seem to appeal most to girls of about 15... and me. They're mindless and fun. Like Sex and the City or Laguna Beach. Sometimes you want that.

Only In Your Dreams (A Gossip Girl Novel), Cecily Von Ziegesar - About rich NYC teens. More trash, only more modern than than Class Of series.


September 2006

Class of '89, Senior, Linda B. Cooney - Last one. Thank goodness.

Class of '89, Junior, Linda B. Cooney - I don't care... I like this stuff.

Class of '89, Sophomore, Linda B. Cooney - Like Mean Girls, just twenty years ago.

Class of '89, Freshman, Linda B. Cooney - Not as good as the Class of '88 series. This one is about a group of girls who are enemies rather than a mixed group of old friends.

Class of '88, Senior, Linda B. Cooney - The teased out love story finally concludes. And you gotta love a book that features a character named Nick Rhodes.

Class of '88, Junior, Linda B. Cooney - See below. Drama continues.

Class of '88, Sophomore, Linda B. Cooney - See below.

Class of '88, Freshman, Linda B. Cooney - Oh dear. Out of print high school junk. Forgive me, but I was feeling nostalgic. The series is about five friends who hit high school and try to stay friends despite their differences. It's cute.

Naked, David Sedaris - Good, but not as good as Dress Your Family... etc., but this was an early effort. Seems like he's always developing.

Every Visible Thing, Lisa Carey - Loved it. It's about a family dealing with the loss of the family's eldest child. Regular stuff - angsty teen, drug dabbling, and a potentially gay ten year old, but SO dramatic. I stayed up all night with it.

The Whole World Over, Julia Glass - Very dense, even thought it's often modern and feminine. It grew on me, but man o man am I sick of books set in NYC that climax with 9/11. It feels cheap.


August 2006

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris - I can't believe it took me so long to get into this guy. He's 'effin fabulous. Short, memoir-like stories, good for anyone, of almost any age.

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien - 'Cause I felt like visiting an old friend.

The Man of My Dreams, Curtis Sittenfeld - Blah. Okay, but not great by ANY means. The book is about a girl whose Dad is emotionally abusive and the story opens after the girl's mother has already left the abusive Dad. Then we have a big long rambling look at how said girl's issues affect her relationships throughout her young adulthood. Personally, I think Sittenfeld is an overrated writer who's attempting to get revenge on boys who didn't like her and girls who wouldn't be her friend by creative negative characters based on people she knows. The writiting just isn't creative, which is sad... but then again, that might just be me being mean.

The Girls' Guide To Hunting and Fishing, Melissa Bank - A series of connected short stories, told in wee vignettes. I LOVE this book. I read it regularly. Women are obviously more likely to take to it than men, but it's just a good book all around. It feels real, and original, and NOT like someone who's just writing their own life.

Long Way Down, Nick Hornby - I hate to say this because I love NH, but this book was booooooring. Here's the premise: 4 people all plot to commit suicide by jumping off the same tower block on New Year's Eve. They run into eachother up there and decide not to do it. They spend the next bunch of months cultivating their bizarre relationship. They're very different people. A 30 year old wanna be rock star, a 50-something woman who's spent her life taking care of her disabled son, a disgraced TV presenter guy and a slightly psychotic teen. I just didn't buy it. At all. There were a couple of funny moments, but otherwise...blah.

The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger - Read this for the first time a couple of years ago and I think I was too busy trying to fully understand the time bits to pay attention to the underlying stuff. Men might not like it ('cause of the whole "love" theme) but I did. It can be a bit confusing because of all the jumping around, but if you don't worry so much about that, it's one of the best books I've read in ages. Even better the second time. Original and classic at the same time, but deadly, deadly sad too. Consider yourself forewarned.


July 2006

The Twins of Tribeca, Rachel Pine - More of the same. Another chicklit roman a clef. This time, it's about working in the evil movie industry (specifically, for Miramax) around the time when The English Patient won Best Picture. Not as well written or easy to ready as The Nanny Diaries, but it's okay. Especially considering the heat. (Of the season, not of the book.) But MAN, Rachel Pine sure hates those Miramax bastards a lot.

The Nanny Diaries, Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus -  It's summer. I'm allowed.

Jo's Boys, Louisa May Alcott - Only not boring if you're riding the wave of Little Women (or even Little Men). Otherwise...

Peter and the Starcatchers, Davy Barry and Ridley Pearson  -  This is my third time around with this book, mostly because it kicks ass. I was suspicious about the appropriation of the Peter Pan character when I first read it a couple of years ago, but they won me over. It's all about how Peter and the original lost boys get to Neverland in the first place. Plus, it's a little The Magician's Nephew, cause there's all kinds of neat-o formation magic. It'll make a good movie (if they ever get around to making it).

4 Blondes, Candace Bushnell - I was over 30 pages into this before I realized I'd already read it. I kept on anyway, because I didn't remember much, but apparently, being forgettable was a good thing in this case. It's summer trash, really. So if you like that kind of thing, it's okay. Otherwise...

Girls In Pants (The Third Summer of the Sisterhood), Ann Brashares - Reading this series makes me feel like I'm in jr. high school again. Brashares really knows how to write teens. It's overly dramatic, sappy, and a little awkward in a way, but fairly realistic too. Not for anyone who isn't into teen books, but fun if you are. Plus, it's got lots of good epigraphs.


June 2006

The Progress Of Love, Alice Munro - Ho hum. I liked some of these stories a lot. Others, not so much. Munro is always good in her way. She's not flashy or gimmicky, and she's very traditional in terms of her language and the way her stories unfold,  but I wasn't hooked on this book by any means. Even when the stories were good, I had to force myself to get into them. It felt like reading for school - even when you enjoy it, you're still reading because you have to.

Little Beauties, Kim Addonizio - I read this because it's been sitting in my living room for months, I needed something for the plane, and Addonizio thanks Lisa Glatt in her acknowledgements. It was fine. Not especially special, but fine. The story is told in rotating, first person perspective. We alternately hear from an off-her-meds woman with OCD, a pregnant teen, and the unborn (then born) baby of said teen. Lives collide, but I felt sorta meh about the whole thing. I hear Addonizio's poetry is better.

The Apple's Bruise, Lisa Glatt - SO good. Sharp, surprising, and unusual little stories that are only vaguely unsatisfying in that they are very short, and generally unresolved. They're all fairly dark, but not cheaply or gratuitiously so. I wish I'd read this sooner.

What Remains, Carole Radziwill - Again, not something I loved, but it grew on me. It's a memoir that begins with the death of the author's husband and two best friends, who happen to be Prince Anthony Radziwill, J.F.K. Jr. and Carolyn B. Kennedy. Carole then explains how she went from white trash nobody (complete with a mumu-wearing, pot growing Granny matriarch) to Princess in one short lifetime. The thing that bothered me most is that writing a secret-spilling memoir somehow seems a lot less difficult and brave when anyone who might object is... well, dead.

The Brooklyn Follies, Paul Auster - Protagonist Nat is a sixty-year-old pontificating grump, and this book rides on the ever-popular 'look at how interesting regular people are' concept. It was okay, though I was irked by much of Nat's characterization. He's always spouting crap like, "Pregnant women were sprouting up all around me, and I was turning into something of a woman myself: a person who wept at the mere mention of babies, a lachrymose saphead who needed to walk around with a box of emergency tissues so as not to embarass myself in public." Ew. This might be a book for men. Older men.


May 2006

Missing Mom, Joyce Carol Oats - I didn't care much for or about We Were The Mulvaneys and I found myself equally uninvolved with this... at first. However, by the end, I'd become fond of protagonist Nikki and used to Oats' new, somewhat experimental style. It grew on me.

Apex Hides The Hurt, Colson Whitehead - Not really my cup of tea. Too sparse, too metaphoric, too "I'm not going to tell you what this means. You've gotta figure it all out for yourself." I read this for a feature in the summer issue of ION. That said, I see why Whitehead's so beloved. His writing is pristine. Very deliberate. It's impressive.

Black Beauty, Anna Sewell - Remembered the story well, but couldn't muster up the same sort of emotion I had for this book when I was 10. That said, it was fun to go back to it, even if I found it more repetitive and less inspiring than I used to.

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Betty Smith - I'm on a quest to revisit the books I read at least 5 times when I was growing up. This one's still good. I remember that when I was a kid, I was disappointed that Francie grew up. Now, I forgive her.  I wish this had been a series, so I could read a bit more about her.

The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown - Thought I'd reread this in anticipation of the movie. Was thoroughly bored. The first time through, I ignored the writing style and got fairly hooked into the Grail Quest-i-ness of it. This time, I couldn't get interested. Maybe I won't see the movie after all.

Shopoholic Takes Manhattan, Sophie Kinsella - Reread this in an attempt to get into a breezy, summer sort of mood. Didn't really work. I like this series, but I also get frustrated with it. Why can't she just stop buying things? It can't be that hard.

Shacking Up: The Smart Girl's Guide To Living in Sin Without Getting Burned, Stacy Whitman - Read for story research. Couldn't finish it, as it didn't really apply to me, but a fast flip proved interesting.

His Dark Materials Triology, Philip Pullman - Was recently reminded that I introduced this series to my ex (and not the other way around, though he's really taken to it/claimed it as his own) and decided to read it again to see if I could remember what I thought about it before his exuberance took over. It's still flippin' fabulous. The first book in the trilogy - The Golden Compass (Also titled The Northern Lights) - used to be my favourite, and the last book - The Amber Spyglass - used to feel like a let down. Now, I feel more big picture about it, and like it all.