May 2014 Reading List

A very mixed bag of books read in May:

1. The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick
2. Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card
3. Divergent by Veronica Roth
4. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum
5. TheWatchers by Stephen Alford

It seems to me that Quick is mining gold by writing about quirky characters that somehow don't fit within our nice definitions of "normal".  I had read The Silver Linings Playbook just before I saw the movie and enjoyed the book much better and so when Good Luck was released I went for it.  ( I see that a movie is to be made of this book as well).  While the main protagonist, Bartholomew, instantly endears himself to the reader via his naive review of his circumstances, it was Max that really held my attention.  I just loved his potty mouthed and creative use of the F bomb in every sentence he utters.  Fold in a road trip to Canada with the four misfits of the story and you have the makings of a tale that while straightforward is also funny, heart warming, and a little zany.

Pathfinder is basically formulaic Card stuff.  Take a kid coming of age and put him in a situation where he has to uncover for himself some unusual powers he possesses.  Off the top of my head I can think of Alvin, Ender, Gate Thief and Homecoming where this same premise is used so it is getting a little tired.  As always Card creates interesting locations and sci-fi ideas (in this case combining quantum physics and time travel to effect) to weave into the stories.  I'll continue with the series' next book but I will be becoming more selective of Card's newer work in future.

Against my better judgment I picked up Divergent to read in advance of watching the much-hyped movie.  Unlike Mortal Instruments I felt that the Divergent series had a chance of taking on the Hunger Games for supremacy.  During my readings last year, the only YA novel I read that I truly enjoyed was The Fault in Our Stars.  All the other drivel with coming-of-age female protagonists that I read got me so p***ed off that during the last YA novel I read I had to put the damn book down after getting about halfway in -- which is something I hardly ever do.  At times I felt like doing that with this book.  But I persevered.  The combination of first person narration and sentences that start with "I did this" or "I felt that" just grate against my soul.  The only thing that kept me going was the anticipation of learning what the Erudite were planning.  I will watch the movie now and if it is lucky enough to be made into a further two movies then I will be spared from having to read the other two books in the series.  And I think I have (finally) learned my lesson.

So from YA to Children's fiction -- huh?  Well the story of Oz is one I never knew as a child.  I never saw the movie until a few years ago.  I have never really liked the musical movies from that era (e.g. The Sound of Music -- I know, I know, I am pagan!).  Having recently watched Saving Mr Banks my curiosity was piqued about the true nature of some of these stories when compared to the syrupy movies that we made about them.  What surprised me about Oz is just how much STORY there is in the book that never makes it onto the screen.  Sure this is a kid's story but what it must've been like for children over 100 years ago to read this book!  Blessedly the tale is short but I feel so much better now for having discovered the real Land of Oz.

Elizabeth I's reign is usually seen as a form of "Golden Age" when England prospered and grew as a nation.  In The Watchers the reader gets a glimpse of what life must've really been like within Liz's court -- i.e. nerve-wracking.  The term "watcher" refers to a spy and I was intrigued by the notion that Liz's reign needed to resort to espionage.  Apparently the Pope had declared her a heretic because of her stand on protestantism and the rest of catholic Europe wanted her dead and gone.  Elizabeth's spies thwarted a number of plots against her and she narrowly escaped defeat from a Spanish invasion in 1588.  Great stuff!  The historical records that still remain over 400 years later is phenomenal and reading history from this perspective was not only enlightening but also thrilling.  You couldn't make this stuff up!

April 2014 Reading List

Here's what I finished reading this month:

1. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago
2. Children of the Jacaranda Tree by Sahar Delijani
3. Earth Abides by  George R Stewart
4. Manuscript Found in Accra by Paulo Coelho 
5. The Circle by Dave Eggers

I guess I expected something different from Gospel.  I expected a rational account of the life of the man.  Instead, and I in hindsight I feel appropriately, that what I got was a version of the story the man himself might've written to set the record straight.  Saramago's writing is simple and beautiful.  The story seemed more cohesive than the actual gospels.  However, what made the reading more challenging was that there was no punctuation like question marks or quotation marks.  I assume that this was to make the narrative more like other books in the New Testament.  While the din has probably died down now for the 20 years this book has been around, it still packs a punch.

For Children, again my expectations were not met but in a different way.  I was expecting something like Hosseni's And the Mountains Echoed but I was disappointed.  While the story was similarly arranged and dealt with a similar topic and region, the end result was not as good.  I found the characters to all be very similar.  The narrative seemed to shift from person to person rather than sitting clearly with the protagonist.  I frequently got lost or my mind drifted until I encountered a poignant phrase that would jar my attention back again.  So the potential was there but by the end I was just relieved it was done.

Written in 1949, it could be argued that Stewart created the original post-apocalyptic novel in Earth Abides.  He clearly gave a lot of thought to what it would be like to be the only person left alive in a world where humans had essentially disappeared -- a Robinson Crusoe of America.  However once others coalesce around Ish, the protagonist, the central theme of the book becomes: How can one impart their intelligence and civilization to descendants and put off a descent into barbarism?  The title should provide a clue.  But I couldn't help thinking for myself how I would perpetuate my thoughts and experiences to those I leave behind.  I guess we all struggle with this "meaning of life" quandary.  This book is not so much an action-thriller as it is a philosophical musing that could easily become all too real.  Very well written.

I had to look up whether Manuscript Found in Accra was based on something real or whether it was a work of fiction.  Turns out it is the latter.  But that is how good the little book of "wisdom" is.  Given this is out of Coelho's head, it is clear he has a lot of stuff on his mind that he wants to leave us with.  It reads like a book out of the Bible -- perhaps like David or Solomon would've written.  While it doesn't take long to read per se, it is dense with philosophically good advice.  It would take time to absorb it all -- and probably many, many reads.  I'll be going back to it in the future to spend more time with it.

No doubt people have already written more about The Circle than I can observe here.  I was wary of reading another book by Eggers since I really didn't enjoy A Hologram for the King that much.  But the notion of seeing what he had to say on the issues around the evolution of social networking and the effect that has had on our privacy as a society -- well, I couldn't resist.  And I'm glad I did read it.  The unfolding of the story gave me the creeps.  I discussed some of what Mae (the protagonist) was adjusting to, with my wife.  She didn't think it was a big deal where I was horrified.  This tells me that those of us that have issues with the erosion of our privacy from the likes of Google and Facebook, are numbered as a minority.  And this is one of the major points Eggers seems to be making.  Sure the plot is a little flimsy in parts and some of the characters seem a little shallow but top marks for making us think consciously about what we're doing each time we put ourselves "out there".

March 2014 Reading List

March was mostly a non-fiction reading month for me.  Still catching up a significant number of unread books from previous years.  Only four completed:

1. Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner
2. The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
4. The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant

I must emphasize that Weiner is not one of my regular sorts of authors.  But my wife and I listen to audiobooks while traveling in the car and this one was her choice.  I have to say though that I enjoyed this one a bit more than others we have "read" by Weiner.  That doesn't mean I'll be tackling any books in this genre by myself -- lets get that clear!

Onto the first of the non-fictions.  The Shallows covered a lot of the same ground as Moonwalking with Einstein when it came to describing how our brains work.  But what is new is the convincing argument that Carr makes to substantiate how the Internet is making it harder for us to maintain a deep extended focus on tasks.  Definitely will change my habits and give me something to encourage my family to change in their lifestyles too.

I recently found Henrietta Lacks on the Amazon 100 Books to Read in Your Lifetime and I had it in my unread library so figured I needed to do something about reading it.  I'm glad I did.  Skloot does a great job of not only telling us why Henrietta's cells are immortal but also immortalizes her family too.  And that seems way overdue!  The afterword is particularly poignant and really digs into the ethical issues about tissue culturing today.  It is by no means cut and dried and you'll be surprised how strongly you will react to these issues after completing this book.

I can't believe the Story of Philosophy was written in the 1920s.  It doesn't read as if the book were nearly 100 years old.  I have often wanted to get a good coverage of the lines of thought of key philosophers like Kant and Spinoza and this book does them justice.  Even if you don't have much interest in philosophy this is still an interesting read.  What gave me chills was how some of the ideas expressed in Nietzsche's Zarathustra became horribly twisted by the Nazis into party doctrine.  I have made a reading list of some of these guys to look into further.  Definitely NOT Kant though!

February 2014 Reading List

Started more books this month than I ended up finishing.  Have been focused on reading ones that have been on my shelf for longer than they should have:

1. The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
2. Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness
3. The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar
4. Alif the Unseen by G Willow Wilson
5. The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger

The Kitchen House is a Southern slavery tragedy with a slightly new twist whereby an irish immigrant, orphan girl is thrown into the mix.  As the girl grows up and serves out her indenture the tension increases as she finds herself between two distinct worlds.  It was ok in my opinion -- just ok.

Shadow of Night is the second in a series.  In this outing the couple (witch and vampire) travel back to Elizabethan England to uncover Diana's latent talents.  I really don't like romances which is a key element of this story but I am distracted enough by the complexity of play between the different creatures and the weaving of history into the plot to really enjoy it.  The system of magic that Harkness creates is also very rich and complex that I can totally forget about the lovey dovey stuff.  If you like Outlander by Gabaldon then Shadow is in the same neighborhood.

I very much enjoyed Barbarian Nurseries.  Not so much for it's depiction of a couple going through relationship problems and the effect this has on their housekeeper but more for its slice-of-life description of Southern Californian society and the forces that shape it right now.  Tobar has a technical grasp of language that reminds me of how I would describe something.  His use of wry understatement has to make you laugh out loud sometimes.

I'm still not sure how I feel about Alif.  On the one hand it tells a story that is fresh to westerners like me because it is based in a type of society that I am not very familiar with -- and of course the idea of the Jinn -- and I liked that.  But on the other hand if the subject matter was more familiar to me I might think this story to be overly simplistic.  It took me a while to complete this story which overall tells me that it was just ok.

Having not grown up in the US, I completely missed out on what many high schoolers experience as a rite of passage to read Catcher.  So I addressed this shortcoming by tackling it this month.  I have read that this book is controversial and certainly it must've been when it was released.  But now anyone that reads it for the first time like me has to wonder what the fuss was all about.  Societal attitudes (for most of us anyway) have changed in the past 60 years such that the shock value is not there.  What remains is a very unique narrative style (to me anyway) and reminder of what we have had to deal with as norms have changed.  I am sure that a modern day Holden could still shock us but that would need a rewrite.

January 2014 Readling List

Happy New Year! Even though I have no set goal for numbers of books to read in 2014, I still want to record what I have read and impressions of those books.  With that being said the following books are what I completed this past month:

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J K Rowling
2. The Seventh Day by Scott Shepherd
3. Revelations by Elaine Pagels
4. The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card
5. The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck
6. The Zero by Jess Walter

Finally finished the Harry Potter series.  Haven't finished watching the movies yet but I almost think they couldn't capture the pictures in my mind.  I do have to admit though that Part 1 so far has kept pretty close to the book.  Definitely glad I read the books though.  I even did a QuizUp challenge based on the books and did ok!

With Seventh Day I had no idea what to expect.  A pirate ship floating across the land?  That's weird (and never really got explained).  By the end I was pretty much hooked and I'll be looking for the sequel(s).  It was written as a serial so Shepherd had no way to go back and revise previous portions of the story.  That being said it is still pretty cohesive.

I'm a sucker for debunking history as we understand it and especially history twisted by religious institutions.  So if you're up for that then you'd love this non fictional account of the true purpose of the Book of Revelation.  Not my first by Pagels and certainly won't be my last.

I really enjoyed Lost Gate and already have Gate Thief on my virtual shelf.  Classic Card stuff.  He weaves together many of the magical histories of different cultures into one framework and then extends it across planets.  Perhaps not as good as Alvin or Ender but still very enjoyable.

The Good Earth is practically a classic.  I enjoyed it as the writing was solid and intelligent.  However it read as a "story" in the traditional sense of how a storyteller might relay it and I found that a little distracting at times.  This book was followed by two sequels but you get the sense at the end of Good Earth that the story is done.  I am with it anyway.

If you enjoyed Beautiful Ruins then leave it at that.  The Zero is nothing like that.  Don't get me wrong -- it's a clever story but I should've been paying attention to what other folks have said about it.  The protagonist has "gaps in his memory" which relates to gaps in the narrative which I think detract from the flow.  I got lost so often I despaired of ever finishing.  At the end I almost felt let down but I do have to give Walter credit where its due -- he has a masterful skill but I don't think this use of that skill is universally received.

December Booklist

We've reached the end of the year and the final tally was 107 books.  I added only 6 books to the total this month and I think the reasons for this were: (a) I got some kind of weird knee injury that put a hold on my running; (b) the holidays meant there were other distractions going on; and (c) there was a pressing work need forcing me to work longer hours than I normally would.  But all in all I am very happy with meeting my goal this year.  The 6 books I completed in December were:

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J K Rowling
2. 22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson
3. Odd Apocalypse by Dean Koontz
4. Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
5. Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See by Juliann Garey
6. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Now that I have caught up in books where I'd gotten to with the films I am very excited to complete the Harry Potter series!  And it all makes so much more sense to me now!

22 Britannia Road is a good read about a Polish couple who come together after again in 1946 after being split apart by the events of WWII.  Their different experiences of survival are what get in the way of picking up where they left off.  Well written story but just a little predictable.

I've been following along the Odd Thomas series from the beginning and Apocalypse is the 5th in the series (there's #6 out already).  I am getting a bit tired of the formula though.  Odd's narrative is always amusing and entertaining but unless events are going to come to some kind of completion in #6 I won't bother going any further.

I loved Await Your Reply.  Such an interesting topic to select to write about.  The book explores the psychological impact on different personalities as they undergo a conscious decision to reinvent themselves (or the impact of knowing someone who has disappeared in this way).  Not until the end do we learn how three seemingly different stories are linked together.  Great book that I would recommend.

Same too with Too Bright (i.e. I loved it).  I kept thinking about this story long after I completed it.  We follow the narrator's experience with his descent into and out of a severe bipolar disorder.  The way the story unfolds is every bit as fragmented as his loss and recovery of memories as treatment for the disorder ensues.

My daughter had to read Watching God for high school.  I picked it up this month out of curiosity.  Although the story is straightforward as events unfold I loved the parts of the story where the dialog has stopped and the characters contemplate.  The prose is just beautiful as the name of the book suggests.  I enjoyed stopping and thinking about the imagery of those words when the book was in this mode.

>>>>>>>>>>

I've decided to continue keeping a monthly summary of my readings going forward -- even though I have no set goal in mind for 2014.  If nothing else, its a record of what I've read and impressions that I have.  Some friends ask for recommendations on what to read based on my thoughts so if nothing else this blog might help others.

November Booklist

Well, I made it -- a month ahead of schedule.  I added 8 books this month to the previous figure of 93 to bring the total to 101.  I've been debating about whether I'll try to get the end of year number up as high as it can go or just get on with some books I've been meaning to read (e.g.  A Dance with Dragons) that are a bit longer than I could usually spend the time on.  I think I'll go for quantity.

This month was the first time all year that I started a book and after about 20% of it just had to give up -- and all that effort wasted in the process.  I won't name the book in case I might affect anyone else that liked or might like it.  After all its more my fault than the author's.  I have developed a passionate dislike for YA fiction.  The premise of such books is often intriguing but the protagonists invariably seem to be teen girls which have these tedious thoughts about so much stuff that normal people would have no trouble sorting through.  Ugh!  This time I got to a point where this girl was trying to deny her lurid thoughts about a boy -- OMG! Just kill me.

Here are the 8 books read this month:

1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J K Rowling (my 100th book!)
2. When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde
3. The Kings and Queens of Roam by Daniel Wallace
4. Faking It by Elisa Lorello
5. The Sisterhood by Helen Bryan
6. METAtropolis by Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, Ken Scholes
7. The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
8. The Habit by Susan Morse

This month's Harry Potter installment was the longest -- phew!  But it was also good stuff.  Can't wait to finish the last two in the series.  This was also my 100th book completed.  I had 3 or 4 on the go including this one but since it took so long it was almost last finished.  I squeezed in one more before month end (The Habit).

When I Found You was great.  I was expecting sappiness but instead I got a story that was genuinely moving.  I will probably read more by this author.

Didn't really like Kings and Queens.  It was sort of told like a fable in this made up out-of-the-way town in America.  Couldn't quite get into it even though its characters were interesting.

Faking It was an odd choice by me for sure.  I listened to the audiobook version with my wife and we both ended up enjoying it but for different reasons.  Two people learn something from each other in a business like relationship with strict taboos about falling in love -- but of course they do anyway.

The Sisterhood was another one of those novels that linked present with past -- this time being the spanish inquisition and settling of South America.  The present portion of the story was boring but the past was fascinating and I thought quite well researched.  Overall I enjoyed it.

METAtropilis is a collection of related and linked novellas by recognized SF authors.  There are two "sequels" that I probably won't read but I found this collection of near future American cities intriguing.

Loved Family Fang!  I read that Nicole Kidman bought the book rights and is putting out a movie version of this book next year.  I think it will be great.  Hard to describe the story other than two kids are brought up in a most unconventional way and find challenges later in life because of it.

Also loved The Habit by Susan Morse, wife of David Morse of The Green Mile and St Elsewhere fame.  This book is a memoir of Susan's improving (but trying!) relationship with her eccentric mother in the latter years of her life.  Very funny and very readable.  I initially thought I was buying a novel but after seeing photos in the book I realized it was a true story!