19. The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle, read by Lily Rabe - Aryn Kyle has set herself a very high bar with this book, her first novel. It is a story of a family going through some tough times, nothing too extraordinary, told by the twelve year old youngest daughter. Of course our narrator sees herself at the center of this family, that's how twelve year olds think. But the reader will see how all the lives are falling apart, coming back together, and sometimes stagnating, while staying true to a young girl's voice. The sense of place (a small horse ranch in the desert) is so strong you can just about smell the leather saddles, the characters are fully fleshed out, even those that only appear on a few pages, and the plot takes some surprising, but very believable turns. The only negative was Kyle's female chauvinism. The women of this story act while the men react. The women are the instigators, the men are manipulated. There are a few exceptions to this, but it was noticeable enough I found myself wondering how the father could be so weak and oblivious and have raised daughters who think so well for themselves.
20. Speaking With The Angel, Edited by Nick Hornby - A collection of short stories written by friends of Nick Hornby at his request to raise money for an autism education program in England (and in the US if you buy the published in America version). The only requirement Honby gave his friends was that the stories be told in first person. With that broad of a brief, you're bound to get a variety of tone, plot, and of as in any anthology, quality. Colin Firth, for one, should never quit his day job. And Dave Eggars reminded me that writing as an animal will cause an immediate disconnect with the reader that is very difficult to overcome. On the positive side, a few of the stories are just down right good short fiction: Roddy Doly writes "The Slave", a sneaky little story that examines the difference between maturity and age; Giles Smith brings us "Last Requests", about person with a very unique job - preparing the last meals for death row inmates; and Irvine Welsh writes in the voice of a homophobe who finds the afterlife exactly what he wants it to be. It wasn't a surprise to learn Walsh was the author of "Trainspotting". Of all the pieces, my favorite was "NippleJesus", by Hornby himself, a "what is art?" story that shows that the question is more important than the answer.
21. Twilight by William Gay - This is a Southern Gothic horror story with the emphasis on people and place over action. That's more than enough to make this story a page turner of the highest calibre. A young man who probably thought his childhood was the worst thing that could happen to him finds himself mixed up with some truly evil men as a result of a question about his father's internment. In an attempt to find justice, he crosses paths with a county full of those sort of characters that make Southern Gothic stand apart from any other genre. The story cuts back and forth, not always smoothly, but when you get to the part that meets up with the beginning of the book, it's all too clear - and perfectly gruesome. Gay goes all out with the dialect and social customs of the region he's writing about, and they add to the "other worldy" aspect of this dark and violent tale. I can't wait to read more of what he's written!
2008/05/09
2008/04/15
Books 16 - 18
16. California Screaming by Doug Guinan - Funny, trashy, light but not dumb - a simply good "junk food" read. Yes, the book gives away its underlying theme by having one character actually say it, "Maybe young gay men are looking for father figures and in doing so, they won't always make the best relationship choices". Ignore the attempt to provide deeper meaning and just go along for the ride in Hollywood where a broke but beautiful (even by their artificially high standards) guy hooks up with a very big deal player; a sweet and lonely guy falls deep into the muscle queen swamp, and some people actually manage to grow up and act like adults.
17. Duma Key by Stephen King, audiobook read by John Slattery - First, the negative. Stephen King still suffers from what I call SKS, a malady I named for him because he was the first author that I saw it in. It is Stephen King Syndrome, and it could be cured by an editor standing up to a successful author and saying "You're not being paid by the word! Every thought does not belong on the page. Cut the crap!" JK Rowling went through a bout in the middle of her series, imo. So yes, Duma Key is much longer than it needs to be. Phone calls and emails are quoted verbatim when they add nothing to the story. Characters make oh-so-clever pop culture references to show King's cleverness, not the character's. The horror part of the story is played out repetitively to the point it's just not scary anymore. So, in short, TOO LONG!
But the good? Nobody writes about the creative process like King does. Read his "In Writing" and you'll be a better writer for the effort. Read any of the many interviews he's done about what he goes through to produce a book, and you'll understand, it's not magic, it's work - hard, disciplined, sometimes heartbreaking work. But you do it if it calls to you, because to not do it makes life unbearable. In Duma Key, the story centers on a man who's been in a terrible construction accident and must build himself a new life. King uses his experience of recovering from a car accident to take the reader into the mind of someone who barely knows himself anymore. As a form of self-therapy, the man moves to a new local and takes up painting (or does painting take him up? It is a ghost story, after all!). Through out the story, there are chapters titled "How To Draw A Picture" , and they are the short course from Stephen King on how to sit down and put that idea that's in your head down on paper, whether it be in words or in pictures. Those are the chapters that kept me listening to this book at the times when I really did not care who or what was the monstrous muse that haunted Duma Key. Well, that and John Slattery's perfect-for-this-story voice.
18.Cheri and The Last of Cheri by Colette - On the surface, this is the melodramatic love story of a boytoy and the woman who turned him out. But go deeper, and you see that the characters are going through a lot more than simply growing old - they're all growing up, a condition brought on not only by nature but also by post WWI Paris. Cheri was raised to be an ornament, something his mother, lover, and finally wife could be proud to call her own. What all these women failed to see was that while they moved forward in life, he wanted nothing more than to hold on to what he had - even if it didn't exist anymore. It's that realization, that all things change and that he was incapable of changing with them, that changed my opinion an whether Cheri was a weak coward or a tragic victim.
17. Duma Key by Stephen King, audiobook read by John Slattery - First, the negative. Stephen King still suffers from what I call SKS, a malady I named for him because he was the first author that I saw it in. It is Stephen King Syndrome, and it could be cured by an editor standing up to a successful author and saying "You're not being paid by the word! Every thought does not belong on the page. Cut the crap!" JK Rowling went through a bout in the middle of her series, imo. So yes, Duma Key is much longer than it needs to be. Phone calls and emails are quoted verbatim when they add nothing to the story. Characters make oh-so-clever pop culture references to show King's cleverness, not the character's. The horror part of the story is played out repetitively to the point it's just not scary anymore. So, in short, TOO LONG!
But the good? Nobody writes about the creative process like King does. Read his "In Writing" and you'll be a better writer for the effort. Read any of the many interviews he's done about what he goes through to produce a book, and you'll understand, it's not magic, it's work - hard, disciplined, sometimes heartbreaking work. But you do it if it calls to you, because to not do it makes life unbearable. In Duma Key, the story centers on a man who's been in a terrible construction accident and must build himself a new life. King uses his experience of recovering from a car accident to take the reader into the mind of someone who barely knows himself anymore. As a form of self-therapy, the man moves to a new local and takes up painting (or does painting take him up? It is a ghost story, after all!). Through out the story, there are chapters titled "How To Draw A Picture" , and they are the short course from Stephen King on how to sit down and put that idea that's in your head down on paper, whether it be in words or in pictures. Those are the chapters that kept me listening to this book at the times when I really did not care who or what was the monstrous muse that haunted Duma Key. Well, that and John Slattery's perfect-for-this-story voice.
18.Cheri and The Last of Cheri by Colette - On the surface, this is the melodramatic love story of a boytoy and the woman who turned him out. But go deeper, and you see that the characters are going through a lot more than simply growing old - they're all growing up, a condition brought on not only by nature but also by post WWI Paris. Cheri was raised to be an ornament, something his mother, lover, and finally wife could be proud to call her own. What all these women failed to see was that while they moved forward in life, he wanted nothing more than to hold on to what he had - even if it didn't exist anymore. It's that realization, that all things change and that he was incapable of changing with them, that changed my opinion an whether Cheri was a weak coward or a tragic victim.
2008/04/03
Books 14 - 15
14.In Defense of Food, An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan - This is the follow-up to Pollans's book The Omnivore's Dilemma, attempting to answer the question a lot of readers had after that first book - "What should I eat?" Pollan's simple answer is on the cover of this book, as well as leading off the introduction: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Simple advice, explained in detail over the course of the rest of this rather short but loaded with footnotes and references book. The bulk of the book deals with Nutritionalism - the science/religion that tells us something new every day about what to eat and what not to eat, often canceling out what we had been told years and sometimes even only months before, the end result of making the process of nourishing ourselves far more complicated than it needs to be. Pollan shows how the US government tried and failed massively to help Americans choose a healthier diet in the 60s and 70s and how it's not even trying any more. He covers the history of nutritional science as it relates to health, pointing out the reversals that come as science unlocks more secrets and taking that as evidence that we probably don't know very much at all about why what we eat affects our health. It's that core theme of the book that has me questioning what Pollan is saying - if scientists don't know, what's he basing his theories on? Common sense for the most part, fine, but some suggestions, such as "Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food" seems to jump to the conclusion that all new things are probably bad things. It's still a very good book about what's going wrong with the Western Diet, but I wouldn't call it a manifesto.
15. The Rotter's Club by Jonathan Coe - A funny, sad, romantic, historical, and always entertaining coming of age novel about the lives of four young men in 1970's Birmingham England. As an American, I'm sure I'm missing some of the major story line about labour and some of the minor pop culture points, but I understood enough to know that the characters are complicated and interesting and very, very human. I was glad to know there's a sequel, because when this book ended I wasn't ready to say good bye to these guys or their families.
15. The Rotter's Club by Jonathan Coe - A funny, sad, romantic, historical, and always entertaining coming of age novel about the lives of four young men in 1970's Birmingham England. As an American, I'm sure I'm missing some of the major story line about labour and some of the minor pop culture points, but I understood enough to know that the characters are complicated and interesting and very, very human. I was glad to know there's a sequel, because when this book ended I wasn't ready to say good bye to these guys or their families.
2008/03/18
Books 11 - 13
11. Lord John and The Hand of Devils by Diana Gabaldon - I'm sorry to say, it's happened again. :( Once again, I'm off of Diana Gabaldon's books. She's a good story teller, I worship her research abilities, and she has wonderful ideas for plots. And I think Lord John is a damn interesting character, in his own right! But Jamie Frasier is dragged into each of these stories, and that's all a little too emo for me. I'm simply not a Jamie fan, I guess.
12.Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson - I read this entirely out of curiosity. Once upon a time, a was a fan of Patterson's mysteries. I fell out of "fan", however, when the descriptions of violence and torture ran longer and with more detail than the descriptions of any other part of the story. Sue me, but TorturePorn is no more my thing on the page than on the screen. So how could a writer who knew no limits handle young adult fiction, I wondered? Quite well, it turns out. The story arc is a little weak, but the characters are innovative (genetically engineered super powered kids that don't act like mini-adults), the multiple settings are all equally well written, and the violence isn't there just because the author writes it well. I'm hoping the second book picks up with a story and an actual resolution of something, instead of all the set up that this book is.
13. City of the Sun by David Levien - Levien goes beyond the basic PI mystery by going into a crime that most writers would shy away from - pedophilia compounded with sex slaves. We know who committed the abduction, we know what's happened to the young boy, and we know that he's still alive before the investigator or the parents, but there's still a lot of suspense as to what shape the kid will be in when he's found. Unfortunately, Levien's background as a screenwriter takes over in the final scene, and good solid story telling is replaced by an over the top action scene that brings the cheapens the whole book. He's got some very interesting characters - especially the bad guys; and he knows his setting - Indianapolis. It's too bad the last thing the reader is left with is something from a direct to video action movie.
12.Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson - I read this entirely out of curiosity. Once upon a time, a was a fan of Patterson's mysteries. I fell out of "fan", however, when the descriptions of violence and torture ran longer and with more detail than the descriptions of any other part of the story. Sue me, but TorturePorn is no more my thing on the page than on the screen. So how could a writer who knew no limits handle young adult fiction, I wondered? Quite well, it turns out. The story arc is a little weak, but the characters are innovative (genetically engineered super powered kids that don't act like mini-adults), the multiple settings are all equally well written, and the violence isn't there just because the author writes it well. I'm hoping the second book picks up with a story and an actual resolution of something, instead of all the set up that this book is.
13. City of the Sun by David Levien - Levien goes beyond the basic PI mystery by going into a crime that most writers would shy away from - pedophilia compounded with sex slaves. We know who committed the abduction, we know what's happened to the young boy, and we know that he's still alive before the investigator or the parents, but there's still a lot of suspense as to what shape the kid will be in when he's found. Unfortunately, Levien's background as a screenwriter takes over in the final scene, and good solid story telling is replaced by an over the top action scene that brings the cheapens the whole book. He's got some very interesting characters - especially the bad guys; and he knows his setting - Indianapolis. It's too bad the last thing the reader is left with is something from a direct to video action movie.
2008/02/20
Book Reviews
9. A Gladiator Dies Only Once: The Further Investigations of Gordianus the Finder by Steven Saylor - Another collection of short stories featuring Gordianus the Finder, Saylor's last century BC private investigator. There's more mystery in this collection and less character, something that works fine if you've read the other stories. With one exception, these are well done historical fiction, that is, stories that put you effortlessly in a place and time. The exception is the title story, which reads more like the kind of historical fiction they use to trick elementary kids into learning something than adult reading. The reasons those stories don't work on kids is because no one likes to be lectured, and that's exactly how all the information Saylor has gathered about Gladiator's comes across. A lecture shoehorned into a very easy to solve murder case. Other than that one story - it's a good read.
10. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, audiobook read by Allen Corduner - This novel definitely has one of the best narrators I've read in a long time - Death. A smart, observant, down to earth sort of Death who gets to see a lot as he goes about the world, collecting souls that have passed on. He's not deadly, this Death, he's simply punctual. He's telling us the story of a young girl in the Nazi Germany, but really he's telling the story of the power (and the hunger) that comes from knowledge. Knowledge defined as the ability to read in this book, but there's a whole lot of other learning going on, as well. Learning about people, and love, and with Death as a narrator, obviously loss. This audiobook version was wonderful, the reader had a perfect accent and pitch for all the characters, and even handled the sort of editorial asides in such a way that the flow of the story never went astray.
10. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, audiobook read by Allen Corduner - This novel definitely has one of the best narrators I've read in a long time - Death. A smart, observant, down to earth sort of Death who gets to see a lot as he goes about the world, collecting souls that have passed on. He's not deadly, this Death, he's simply punctual. He's telling us the story of a young girl in the Nazi Germany, but really he's telling the story of the power (and the hunger) that comes from knowledge. Knowledge defined as the ability to read in this book, but there's a whole lot of other learning going on, as well. Learning about people, and love, and with Death as a narrator, obviously loss. This audiobook version was wonderful, the reader had a perfect accent and pitch for all the characters, and even handled the sort of editorial asides in such a way that the flow of the story never went astray.
2008/02/05
Winter 2008 NBCC Best Book Recomends....
....well, the first thing they recommended is to change the name of the list, to NBCC's Good Reads. And then they came up with a list of books, getting a lot more authors and critics to tell them what they'd recommend to anyone who wanted to know "What should I read?". These first cold dark days (seriously, here in the Midwest States it never got brighter than twilight today!)of 2008, they say your time will be well spent with:
Johnson, Diaz and Ross's books were on the list in November, and that's got to be a very strong recommendation, indeed. They're all on my hold list at the local library, and I should be getting all of them very soon (but not at the same time I hope - that's a little too much serious reading for me). I'm happy to see the Michael Pollan's new book is a recommend as well. His The Omnivore's Dilemma was a great read and had a very positive effect on my life. Or perhaps a good negative - it was a major contributor to me losing 60+ pounds. I skimmed this new book at the book store, and it looks just as good.
Fiction
1. Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke (Farrar Straus & Giroux)
2. Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Riverhead)
3. J.M. Coetzee, Diary of a Bad Year (Viking)
4. Geraldine Brooks, People of the Book (Viking)
5. Steve Erickson, Zeroville (Europa)
Nonfiction
1. The Rest Is Noise, by Alex Ross (FSG)
2. Brother, I’m Dying, by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf)
3. In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press)
4. Musicophilia, by Oliver Sacks (Knopf)*
5. The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein (Metropolitan)*
Johnson, Diaz and Ross's books were on the list in November, and that's got to be a very strong recommendation, indeed. They're all on my hold list at the local library, and I should be getting all of them very soon (but not at the same time I hope - that's a little too much serious reading for me). I'm happy to see the Michael Pollan's new book is a recommend as well. His The Omnivore's Dilemma was a great read and had a very positive effect on my life. Or perhaps a good negative - it was a major contributor to me losing 60+ pounds. I skimmed this new book at the book store, and it looks just as good.
2008/02/02
A Rabbit Hole for Word Lovers
It's either educational or a time sucker. Okay, it's both, and fun too. A perfect rabbit hole!
Visuwords
Visuwords
2008/01/29
Book Reviews
6. Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips - It's a setting that just full of possibilities: the Greek Gods of Olympus are still around and most of the principles are living in a rundown house in modern London. With characters like Apollo and Athena and Hermes, there's no end to complications and plot twists, right? Phillips does come up with jobs suitable of her cast - Aphrodite as a phone sex operator just makes perfect sense. And if Apollo and Aphrodite live in the same house, they probably would end up having sex with each other, considering their particular strengths, and despite being half siblings. Altogether, wouldn't we expect the whole clan to be just as dysfunctional in this age as the one they originated in? But that's the problem with this book - the characters do act all too often just as you'd expect. They have almost no arc. I guess that's the problem with characters so deitic - they have no where to go but down, and if that's not your ending, you really don't have much of a story. There are two mortals that get mixed up with this crazy family, and they do have a journey, but you'd think with people like Zeus and Hades getting involved, the whole thing would be more.....epic?
7. The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson, read by Peter Francis James - As young adult fiction, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party, as the full title goes, is pretty astonishing in its own right. Told first from the pov of a pre-Revolutionary War period slave living in Boston, then in epistolary form from the pov of a fellow soldier in the rebel militia group he attaches himself to, and then again from Octvian's pov, this is a side of that time period rarely presented in fiction, let alone discussed in history classes. Octavian starts sout his life in a rarified condition - he receives an exemplary classical eduction. Why this slave receives such an education, and how what he has learned plays out against the common perceptions about his race and station is told in vocabulary and grammar correct to his time period. As an adult listening to the story, I thought the set up dragged a bit, but that's usually the case when an adult reads TA fiction. The second and third parts of the story, though, are a well told story for any age. The ending is a set up for a second volume, and I'm very curious to see how the author handles his character during the actual war.
8. The Guardians by Ana Castillo - Whenever I read a story told in the form of characters getting their own chapters to tell their versions of overlapping events, I hold that story to a higher standard. Why? Because it's an easier way to tell a story. The author doesn't have to pin down the voice they're going to use. In the case of this book, that higher standard is exceeded. A fifty-something legal immigrant from Mexico has taken custody of her illegal immigrant sixteen year old nephew. Her brother, a man who has crossed back and forth from New Mexico to Mexico so many time he no longer needs a coyote to guide him (but still must use one because the coyotes are all about job security), has gone missing. Regina does not want to give up hope that her brother will return, Gabo the nephew who already lost his mother to a cross over gone very bad, tries to use his extreme faith in God to guide him in all areas of his life, and a handful of interesting characters, not caricatures all share in the search. You won't forget what happens to these people because Castillo makes you care about them, no matter what your opinion on illegal immigrants.
7. The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson, read by Peter Francis James - As young adult fiction, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party, as the full title goes, is pretty astonishing in its own right. Told first from the pov of a pre-Revolutionary War period slave living in Boston, then in epistolary form from the pov of a fellow soldier in the rebel militia group he attaches himself to, and then again from Octvian's pov, this is a side of that time period rarely presented in fiction, let alone discussed in history classes. Octavian starts sout his life in a rarified condition - he receives an exemplary classical eduction. Why this slave receives such an education, and how what he has learned plays out against the common perceptions about his race and station is told in vocabulary and grammar correct to his time period. As an adult listening to the story, I thought the set up dragged a bit, but that's usually the case when an adult reads TA fiction. The second and third parts of the story, though, are a well told story for any age. The ending is a set up for a second volume, and I'm very curious to see how the author handles his character during the actual war.
8. The Guardians by Ana Castillo - Whenever I read a story told in the form of characters getting their own chapters to tell their versions of overlapping events, I hold that story to a higher standard. Why? Because it's an easier way to tell a story. The author doesn't have to pin down the voice they're going to use. In the case of this book, that higher standard is exceeded. A fifty-something legal immigrant from Mexico has taken custody of her illegal immigrant sixteen year old nephew. Her brother, a man who has crossed back and forth from New Mexico to Mexico so many time he no longer needs a coyote to guide him (but still must use one because the coyotes are all about job security), has gone missing. Regina does not want to give up hope that her brother will return, Gabo the nephew who already lost his mother to a cross over gone very bad, tries to use his extreme faith in God to guide him in all areas of his life, and a handful of interesting characters, not caricatures all share in the search. You won't forget what happens to these people because Castillo makes you care about them, no matter what your opinion on illegal immigrants.
2008/01/17
Book Reviews
1. Person of Interest by Theresa Schwegel - Schwegel knows her setting (Chicago and the near 'burbs) well enough that that alone made this a good read. Then, she populated her story with flawed humans, my very favorite kind to read about! At the center of the story is a married couple who hit the wall in their marriage at the same time. This comes at a bad time, as the husband is an cop on a case that is far closer to his home than he can imagine, and the wife is looking to greener pastures just when her daughter's accommodating boyfriend wanders through. The police investigation is the central plot, but because of the perfectly believable way Schwegel brings all the members of the family into that plot, it's not your average police thriller story. The ending was a little too neat and nice for my tastes, but aside from that, I really liked this book.
2. Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin, Audiobook read by the Author - This was good - so very good! I'd strongly recommend the audiobook over the book because Martin does small bits of his original routines, and hearing them is so much better than reading them. The audiobook also has Martin playing banjo for the chapter breaks. If you're a fan of Martin's, interested in the history of stand up comedy, nostalgic for the 1970's, curious about just how serious comedy can be, or want to study a genius's creative process, listen to or at least read this book. Covering Martin's childhood to his last days in stand-up (and explains in good part why they were his last days of stand-up), the biography ends in the late 70s. Just as I wish Stphen Fry would get busy on his second volume of memoir's, I hope Martin is planning on writing about the second third of his career.
3.Memoirs of Hadrian and Reflections on the composition of memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar - A fictional memoir of Roman emperor Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus, told in the form of a very long letter to his appointed successor, Marcus Aurelius. Yourcenar has Hadrian covers his life pretty much in chronological order, occasionally jumping forward or backward to explain how he came to feel the way he did about a few of the vast number of topics he covers. As historical fiction of the Roman period, it's a so-so read, with more focus on character than place or time. As a character driven story it's true a page turner. Hadrian's rule bridged the time when the Roman gods began to be replaced by Christianity and other cults, and he made an attempt to understand (if not agree with) the Jews of the time period. He's probably better known for his great love for Antinous, and Yourcenar does a beautiful job of establishing that relationship without sensationalizing it, especially dealing with Hadrian's deification of the young man who captured his heart.
4. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson - A collection of horror short stories including the one that lends its title and very basic premise to the the recent Will Smith movie. Matheson writes stories that put the terrible into the mundane. His monsters, evil spirits and boogey men cross over to our world in a way that will have you second guessing the logical explanations for those bumps in the night. He's not heavy on morals and meanings, these are simple horror stories that don't have deeper meanings. There's also some humor, especially in the almost silly but very enjoyable The Funeral. The collection also includes Prey, the basis for 1/3 of the awesome Dan Curtis production "Trilogy of Terror".
5. Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway, ready by Patrick Wilson - This book was published, unfinished, after Hemingway's death. As such, it would be unfair to criticize it as a finished novel. It's more like a third or fourth draft - still full of holes in some parts, over written in other places. The story follows a recently married couple through their several honeymoon in Europe, while at the same time the husband attempts to work as a novelist. The character of the husband voices what must have been some of Hemingway's thoughts about the writing process (and his thoughts on drinking while you write, as well), while the young wife explores her sexuality through gender switching and a first time lesbian affair. The husband falls in love with the wife's lover as well, but that may have been more out of self preservation than attraction, in my opinion. The real benefit of reading this book is to fellow writers. It's reassuring to know that someone like Hemingway sometimes wrote very badly on his way to writing the great stuff. As for the audio version - Patrick Wilson should not attempt feminine French accents. It took this listener right of of the story and had me thinking I was listening to a parody or comedy routine.
2. Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin, Audiobook read by the Author - This was good - so very good! I'd strongly recommend the audiobook over the book because Martin does small bits of his original routines, and hearing them is so much better than reading them. The audiobook also has Martin playing banjo for the chapter breaks. If you're a fan of Martin's, interested in the history of stand up comedy, nostalgic for the 1970's, curious about just how serious comedy can be, or want to study a genius's creative process, listen to or at least read this book. Covering Martin's childhood to his last days in stand-up (and explains in good part why they were his last days of stand-up), the biography ends in the late 70s. Just as I wish Stphen Fry would get busy on his second volume of memoir's, I hope Martin is planning on writing about the second third of his career.
3.Memoirs of Hadrian and Reflections on the composition of memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar - A fictional memoir of Roman emperor Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus, told in the form of a very long letter to his appointed successor, Marcus Aurelius. Yourcenar has Hadrian covers his life pretty much in chronological order, occasionally jumping forward or backward to explain how he came to feel the way he did about a few of the vast number of topics he covers. As historical fiction of the Roman period, it's a so-so read, with more focus on character than place or time. As a character driven story it's true a page turner. Hadrian's rule bridged the time when the Roman gods began to be replaced by Christianity and other cults, and he made an attempt to understand (if not agree with) the Jews of the time period. He's probably better known for his great love for Antinous, and Yourcenar does a beautiful job of establishing that relationship without sensationalizing it, especially dealing with Hadrian's deification of the young man who captured his heart.
4. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson - A collection of horror short stories including the one that lends its title and very basic premise to the the recent Will Smith movie. Matheson writes stories that put the terrible into the mundane. His monsters, evil spirits and boogey men cross over to our world in a way that will have you second guessing the logical explanations for those bumps in the night. He's not heavy on morals and meanings, these are simple horror stories that don't have deeper meanings. There's also some humor, especially in the almost silly but very enjoyable The Funeral. The collection also includes Prey, the basis for 1/3 of the awesome Dan Curtis production "Trilogy of Terror".
5. Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway, ready by Patrick Wilson - This book was published, unfinished, after Hemingway's death. As such, it would be unfair to criticize it as a finished novel. It's more like a third or fourth draft - still full of holes in some parts, over written in other places. The story follows a recently married couple through their several honeymoon in Europe, while at the same time the husband attempts to work as a novelist. The character of the husband voices what must have been some of Hemingway's thoughts about the writing process (and his thoughts on drinking while you write, as well), while the young wife explores her sexuality through gender switching and a first time lesbian affair. The husband falls in love with the wife's lover as well, but that may have been more out of self preservation than attraction, in my opinion. The real benefit of reading this book is to fellow writers. It's reassuring to know that someone like Hemingway sometimes wrote very badly on his way to writing the great stuff. As for the audio version - Patrick Wilson should not attempt feminine French accents. It took this listener right of of the story and had me thinking I was listening to a parody or comedy routine.
2008/01/11
Foodie Friday: 2007 in Review
Grist.org has a post up from their food editor, Roz Cummins, discussing the high and low points of her year in food. And yeah, she's had some low points - Grapples??? I guess they're not so new, but so far, I've been spared the creep factor of seeing them. Nutritionally, they're no different than a unadulterated apple, so the only gain in eating them is the flavor. The negative? Check out the ingredients of the Grapple: apples, natural and artificial flavor. Yep, nothing like "artificial ingredients in your apple!
Ms. Cummins' post did get me thinking of some of my best and worsts of this, a very big year for me nutritionally speaking.
My worst discovery - What's happened to our corn? I read the book The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and became annoyingly conscious of how this simple grain has turned into a bad, bad thing, both politically, economically and nutritionally. Grocery shopping became much more complicated.
My best discovery - Meat isn't a great thing for me. At least, not in the amounts this Midwestern, middle class, German heritage person was raised to think were "right". I started cutting it out of my life, partially because of what I read in that pesky Omnivore's Dilemma, partially because it's gotten so damn expensive, and partially because I wanted to try something new as a part of a calorie reduced diet. Within a few weeks of replacing most of the meat in my diet with veggies and whole grains I noticed a lot of positive changes in my general health. I'm not a vegetarian by any definition and have no desire to become one (yet), but I gotta say - too much meat is about as bad as too much alcohol, at least for me.
Ms. Cummins' post did get me thinking of some of my best and worsts of this, a very big year for me nutritionally speaking.
My worst discovery - What's happened to our corn? I read the book The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and became annoyingly conscious of how this simple grain has turned into a bad, bad thing, both politically, economically and nutritionally. Grocery shopping became much more complicated.
My best discovery - Meat isn't a great thing for me. At least, not in the amounts this Midwestern, middle class, German heritage person was raised to think were "right". I started cutting it out of my life, partially because of what I read in that pesky Omnivore's Dilemma, partially because it's gotten so damn expensive, and partially because I wanted to try something new as a part of a calorie reduced diet. Within a few weeks of replacing most of the meat in my diet with veggies and whole grains I noticed a lot of positive changes in my general health. I'm not a vegetarian by any definition and have no desire to become one (yet), but I gotta say - too much meat is about as bad as too much alcohol, at least for me.
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