Fizz Reads A Book

It Chooses You, by Miranda July

2012-01-17T15:13:00.000-08:00

I love Miranda July, so I'm biased here. This book is almost a companion piece to her recent film "The Future". While she was stuck writing the end of the movie, she distracted herself by interviewing people who advertised things for sale in the Penny Saver. That project became this book, and through it she not only figured out what to do with her film, she found someone who became a large part of it.

This book is charming and gives some insight on her thinking behind "The Future", a film I found fascinating. It also gives some insight on the recently married July's heart. I find her way of thinking comforting.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and Other Concerns), by Mindy Kaling

2012-01-17T15:08:00.000-08:00

This book was thoroughly delightful and I would like to be friends with Mindy Kaling. Her book is a fun memoir where she talks about how she got to where she is through hard work and being a good kid. I notice that she doesn't talk a lot about mooning over boys and only mentions someone who sounds like a serious boyfriend once, right at the end. I think this book would be a good influence for teenage girls. A very funny, light read that I identified with in several places. Would have been good to read on vacation.

The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman

2012-01-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

This was my Christmas. Staying up until 3 am several nights in a row, devouring (unintentional pun) eight years worth of zombie comics. And it was damn worthwhile too. If you enjoy the TV series of "The Walking Dead", you will enjoy the comics too, even if you're not a regular reader of comic books. They're different enough that you appreciate them as totally separate stories. Either way, I can't wait to see Rick and the gang again.

11/22/63, by Stephen King

2012-01-06T11:05:00.000-08:00

I read a lot of Stephen King in high school-oh, how much less freaked out of things I must have been then!- but not a word since, until I started reading a blog called The Hairpin. The Hairpin has a Stephen King fan on staff, and I was interested to read about a couple of King's recent works. This, his newest book, sounded really good so I requested it from the library. You guys. SO GOOD.

The titular date refers to JFK's assassination. The plot is that Jake Epping, an average high school teacher, finds a portal to 1958, and decides that he can change the world by saving Kennedy from being killed. That's all you need to know. It wasn't a horror like I expect from Stephen King, and although there were whiffs of the supernatural (whiffs beside the main plot of time travel, of course), I was only a little freaked out. This book was super interesting and unpredictable and I couldn't put it down.

Shteyngart!

2011-12-21T15:15:00.000-08:00

Suddenly I'm noticing him everywhere.

Interview in the NYT

Article on his Sunday routine in the NYT

His Twitter feed (which I found out about- how else?- via the NYT, namely, a tweet from columnist Frank Bruni)

Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart

2011-12-14T15:53:00.000-08:00

I heard this guy interviewed on Q, and he and his book sounded so interesting I requested it straightaway, after some Googling to figure out what his last name was. Since then, I've read that this is his third book, but his first that is not straight-up humour. It's a humorous book, but mixed with quite a bit of seriousness.

"Super Sad True Love Story" takes place in a very near future, hints of which I am seeing all the time. Poor protestors camping out in a NYC park? That's in here. I just read an article suggesting you try out emoji instead of texting boring old words! In this book, people can actually get a degree in Images, which are now the preferred method of communicating. People despise books, preferring to immerse themselves in their apparati (ultra-smartphones). I've gotten a few unpunctuated emails clearly written on a phone (that doesn't make it okay!) that suggest we're headed that way.

This was a super interesting book that made me think a lot. I could probably go on about it all day. A definite win!

A Good Man, by Guy Vanderhaeghe

2011-11-30T11:55:00.000-08:00

I have read both of the other books mentioned on this one's cover, which I found from this review make up a Wild West-themed historical trilogy. Interesting! They deserve a re-read, since I remember that I liked them, but that's about it.

I liked this book too. Taking place primarily in a Montana pioneer town near the border of Canada, it sprawls back to the east and back in time a bit for some back-story, and also across a good many characters. The characters were vividly drawn, and I was absorbed into the story. I had a mild quibble with the Sitting Bull side plot, but never mind that. Get to know Wesley Case and Ada.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver

2011-11-15T16:07:00.000-08:00

This book changed my life.

That is such a cliche, but it's true, and I don't know if I can honestly say that about any other book. It's totally changed my attitude towards where I buy my food from and farmer's markets. Granted, I already leaned towards buying local food and had stopped buying any food from China because it all seems to be tainted, but I had a bad attitude towards farmer's markets. They were overpriced, I thought, and if you don't get there early they run out of everything, and they're sort of pretentious and elitist anyway. So not true. I've been going to the winter farmer's market at Nat Bailey Stadium, and there are so many farmers there, and so much fresh local produce and organic meat and eggs. No one's running out. The organic, free-range, SPCA-approved eggs are cheaper than at Whole Foods or anywhere else, and while it may be cheaper to buy potatoes and apples at Kin's, they certainly don't have the wide range of choices available at the market, and I can't be certain they're from as local a source. At the market, I bought blue potatoes from a cowboy whose son huddled under a Star Wars blanket, and apples I never heard of, that I imagine Anne of Green Gables might have crunched on, from some earnest-looking farmers. I'd so much rather support them directly.

I was actually kind of bored by this book at the beginning. The first part covers ground that anyone who's read Fast Food Nation or a Michael Pollan book already knows. But then it gets to the good part- a year of eating locally, mostly by growing their own food. It's so interesting, and even though most readers don't have a few acres of land to start a working farm, it's not off-putting at all. At no point did I think, "I can't do this." Kingsolver and her family aren't saints. They still buy coffee. But they don't buy bananas, and that is a commendable sacrifice.

Lobsters Scream When You Boil Them, by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough

2011-10-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

I read about this book on Serious Eats, and thought it sounded fun and informative. When it arrived and I saw that this pair had written like 20 other books, I thought, "Ugh, how good is this going to be?" I was pleasantly surprised. It's a very quick read, but it's kind of funny and it really is informative and even scientific. Thanks to them, I'm going to replace my plastic cutting boards with wooden ones.

I also read another book about a month ago, called Ice Cream, by Laura B. Weiss. It was a slim, attractive little volume about the history of ice cream. At first it was pretty dry, but then I got interested. Did you know that Philadelphia-style ice cream, which is eggless, got its name because of the proliferation of dairy farms around Philadelphia? I also got briefly obsessed with the idea of opening a retro soda fountain thanks to this book. Soda fountains didn't have their heyday in the 1950s, despite what movies may show you- it was more like the early 20th century. When someone invented the bottle cap, as this fascinating article says, that's when the era of the soda fountain effectively ended.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers

2011-09-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

What, it cannot have been a month since I've finished a book. There was definitely a graphic novel I read in a day and decided against mentioning. But was that really it?

I saw this in the library years ago and was intrigued by the title, but didn't even look at it. Since then, I've become a fan of Mcsweeneys and have been to the pirate store in San Francisco. I really wanted to see the movie Eggers co-wrote with his wife, but never got around to it. I guess I managed to see one film he wrote. Anyway, this book happened because Kelly found it while going through some of his stuff at his parents' house and brought it home for me. I had absolutely no clue what it was about. If you don't know either, it's about how his parents died of cancer within a month of each other, and he and his sister, both in their twenties, raised their little brother, who was 7 when his parents died. So there's the heartbreak. The genius is in Eggers' style of writing, which is kind of self-conscious and hipstery and definitely unique. There's even interest in reading the copyright page. I liked it a lot but found myself criticizing some of his more irresponsible parenting techniques, plus disliking the pretentiousness of his hipster youth magazine.

I just saw this in my unused Amazon Associates sidebar and felt compelled to add it:

*Update November 15, 2011: I finally saw Away We Go, the movie I referred to never getting around to watching. I watched it on Netflix one night while I was home alone. I really liked it!

Alone in the Classroom, by Elizabeth Hay

2011-08-10T16:14:00.000-07:00

Like the Miriam Toews book I just read, I read Elizabeth Hay's acclaimed earlier book (Late Nights on Air) and liked it, but not enough to follow up on further works. I actually heard both the authors on the same CBC Radio show, which is what got me to request both the books.

I did like this, but I guess I have the same "meh" response that I did to the first. I don't even have much to say about it. Good characters, very character-driven. I liked the women but not the men. I think it covered too much time. Not for me.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by JK Rowling

2011-07-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

I didn't get into the Harry Potter books until the first movie came out. My friend dragged me to see it when I was visiting her in Victoria, and then loaned me books 2, 3, and 4, which at the time was as far as they went. Because she didn't have the first book and I'd enjoyed the film, I bought Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in the gift shop on the ferry home and proceeded to devour it. There's nothing I love more than finding a book you can completely lose yourself in, especially when you're in transit and have nothing but time. (I admit to having the same fond feelings for The Da Vinci Code, which totally killed a 10 hour flight home from the UK.)

I remember staying up until 5 am to finish book 4, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I was horrified when Cedric Diggory was killed, but because the previous books had been so gentle, I fully expected him to be revived somehow. When there was no more to read and he was certainly not coming back, I closed the book and cried with genuine shock and sadness.

To commemorate the very last Harry Potter movie coming out, I decided to reread the last book. I'm glad I did. While I quite enjoyed the first of the two Deathly Hallows movies, I didn't like this one so much. It seemed to miss out on too many things. Like, I'm not sure if Tonks was even pregnant in the movie. The book is much richer in detail and feeling. To me, the epic climactic battle at Hogwarts was better in the reading than the showing, and should that be so? And they really dropped the ball on the deaths. Shouldn't the passing of Fred, Lupin and Tonks have made me sadder than Dobby and Hedwig? The epilogue was well done, but I don't think you can beat the last sentence of the book. "All was well."

Irma Voth, by Miriam Toews

2011-07-20T10:23:00.000-07:00

I read A Complicated Kindness, an award-winning earlier work by the author, and while I liked it, I found the ending quite sad. So I wasn't really going to bother with Toews again, until I heard her on a CBC radio program. I liked her and I liked the bit of this book she read.

I liked Irma Voth a lot. It's about a young Mennonite girl from Canada who has moved to Mexico with her family. Her misogynist father disowns her when she marries a local boy, who then leaves her, and she ends up working with a film crew. Finally she runs away to Mexico City with her younger sister. I like the way things happen in this book. There are a lot of languages, and it all seems a bit surreal, especially when she says something and then immediately recants it- no, she just made that part up. There is a ghost of an older sister haunting them (not literally) and a wisp of a baby sister fighting them (more literally.) The ending isn't exactly bursting with happiness, but maybe that's just life.

Life, On the Line, by Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas

2011-07-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

Grant Achatz is someone I find extremely interesting, and his restaurant Alinea is the top place I desire to visit, so I couldn't wait to read this book. I was not disappointed. This tells Grant's story from his childhood working at his family's diner, all the way through his tenure at the French Laundry, to his launch of Alinea and his battle with cancer. I was wondering what part Kokonas, his Alinea co-owner, had in the book when he finally showed up halfway through. His parts are in a different font, which is a nice touch.

It's kind of funny, the parts of his life Achatz hurries through and glazes over (his education at the Culinary Institute of America only takes a couple of pages and his relationship with the mother of his children is very hazy), but I get the feeling Achatz is a different kind of guy. Anyway, it's interesting to read about the set-up of Alinea and to get more details about Achatz's cancer then I'd ever read before. (It was pretty horrifying.) I liked this.

The Uncoupling, by Meg Wolitzer

2011-07-08T09:52:00.000-07:00

This was a pretty good book. I devoured it over one weekend. It's about a small town in New Jersey where all the women magically decide to stop sleeping with men when the high school puts on a production of Lysistrata, an ancient Greek play about women not sleeping with men as an anti-war movement. There are comparisons to the war in Afghanistan, and a strong technology theme- I'm not sure if the author is anti- it or not though. She talks a lot about how kids today are just overloaded with information and glued to their screens, and basically a lot of stuff I agreed with, but she never really condemns it.

I enjoyed all the characters, whom she really brought to life, and the humorous, dramatic climax. I found the explanation at the end a bit of a letdown, but no matter. Good stuff here.

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

2011-06-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

I had no idea how old this book was or what it was about. Had I been pressed, I would have guessed it was written in the 50s and maybe was like The Grapes of Wrath? Last month I was told it was actually a post-apocalyptic novel, which I'm into, so I got it from the library, and that's when I found out it was just published in 2006. I'm pretty clueless about Cormac McCarthy, obvs.

So this was a great book and I read it super quickly. It's hard to pick a place to stop because although it's divided into sections, there are no chapters. It just flows and flows. It's pretty much the darkest and most hopeless vision of a post-apocalyptic world that I've ever read. I think the decision not to say what happened to make the world like that was a good one, because instead of focusing on the disaster, you focus on the aftermath, which is really a stronger message. I want to watch the film now.

An Exclusive Love, by Johanna Adorjan

2011-06-06T15:14:00.000-07:00

I really thought this would be a depressing book, but it wasn't as bad as that. The author imagines the last day in the lives of her grandparents, Holocaust survivors who committed suicide together when the husband had a terminal illness and the wife, younger and healthy, didn't want to live without him. Adorjan intersperses this with memories of her grandparents, their life story, and interviews with their friends. It is an intensely emotional book and a fine read.

Black Dogs. by Ian McEwan

2011-05-30T11:59:00.000-07:00

Another of McEwan's earlier works, and again, I didn't care much for it. I enjoyed it more than his early short stories, but it wasn't as good as his later novels. It's about a guy's in-laws who loved each other their whole lives but couldn't live together because of an incident on their honeymoon that fundamentally changed the wife's beliefs. It's about evil and love and parents and communism. Maybe I didn't totally get it. I didn't give it all my attention.

Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay

2011-05-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

I thought this book might be depressing, seeing as it's about a little Jewish girl who locks her brother in a cabinet to hide him from the Nazis when they come to round them up in Paris during the war. (She didn't know they wouldn't be back soon.) But instead, it's very readable and absorbing, although of course, the subject matter is dark. It alternates chapters between the story of the little girl, and going to the camp, and everything she goes through, and of an American ex-pat journalist living in modern day Paris with her husband and daughter. She is researching the story of the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, which is when the little girl was taken, and finds herself linked to the child. It's a real page-turner, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Blood, Bones & Butter, by Gabrielle Hamilton

2011-05-23T11:53:00.000-07:00

Gabrielle Hamilton's restaurant Prune was on my "to eat" list when I went to New York City, but I didn't make it there. Next time! Despite my interest in her food, I wasn't too interested in reading her book, at least not until I starting reading rave reviews of it everywhere. Her story sounded intriguing, so I got it from the library, my hold coming in the same day as Grant Achatz's book. (Since I didn't have time to read both and couldn't renew Achatz's book, back it had to go. I've re-requested it.)

I had my doubts about a book written by a chef, but this particular chef also has a master's degree in creative writing. She is awesome at it. Her book is divided into 3 sections. The first, "Blood", is about her growing up, raised in a ramshackle old house by a French mother and artistic American father, both of who effectively abandoned her when they divorced when she was just 13. She started working in restaurants and got into some trouble. The fact that she was able to pull herself out of it and make such a success of herself is impressive. "Bones" is about her opening her restaurant, which is terrifically interesting and not as glamourous as you might think. "Butter" is about her green card marriage to an older Italian doctor, with whom she had 2 children. Since she's a lesbian, I found all the stuff about her tumultuous marriage intriguing, and I'm sure there's a lot left unsaid. It's mostly about their summers in Italy, and oh! what summers. Great read.

Scenes from an Impending Marriage, by Adrian Tomine

2011-05-10T16:16:00.000-07:00

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who ate fast food in their hotel room on their wedding night. (Whoo, romance!)

Tiny, cute and funny. Hey. Read it.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, by David Sedaris

2011-04-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

I could hear David Sedaris' voice reading these stories in my head. When I first heard his new book was about animals, I was worried I wouldn't like it. As soon as I started reading it though, those fears disappeared. How could I not like David Sedaris? He's great. These are animal fables, darkly humorous tales of morality. The accompanying illustrations, by a well-known children's book creator, are just as surprisingly macabre. Good times.

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, by Patton Oswalt

2011-04-09T23:20:00.000-07:00

I really like Patton Oswalt. I've seen him live twice. I've thoroughly enjoyed his comedy albums. I've even sat through a couple of episodes of King of Queens, I like him so much. So I was really looking forward to reading this book of his.

I was disappointed. It's a rather disjointed collection of chapters, some autobiographical, some comedy bits, some random comics and poems and fake greeting cards. The best part of the whole thing, and I'm not just saying this because I live in Vancouver, is his essay on a rather horrible time he had doing stand-up in Surrey years ago. That part is really good. Get this book just to read it.

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

2011-04-07T11:08:00.000-07:00

I'm a bad person. While I really enjoyed this book a lot, it was 3 books ago now, and I mostly feel pressure to whip something off and get it up on the blog. I can tell you that this was on my "to read" list for ages and ages, and when the movie came out, I wanted to see it, but totally didn't connect the two. Didn't even remember the title, actually. Well, I haven't seen the movie yet because I suck at seeing movies I want to see, but I did finally read the book, and good thing too.

The author is highly acclaimed, and I was surprised to find that he also wrote The Remains of the Day, for which he won the Booker Prize. This is quite different from what I imagine The Remains of the Day is like. It posits a world that grows clones for organ donation, and tells the story of three of those clones, who are entirely human in their emotions and lives. The world probably doesn't feel too comfortable thinking about that, but this is really about the three people, Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth. It's a bit of a mystery and a bit of a love story.

This is a way better review than I ever could have written: frighteningly clever

Oranges, by John McPhee

2011-03-24T11:47:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to say about this one. David Lebovitz recommended it, so I picked it up and was surprised to find it was published in the 1960s. This means that the author says such things as "American housewives are afraid of blood oranges", and the men featured (and they're all men) wear straw fedoras with madras plaid bands and say jaunty things. It also means that concentrated orange juice is the largest market for fresh oranges, and McPhee is unable to get a glass of fresh orange juice in Florida. Unthinkable. It's a very interesting look at another time, but there are still some timeless facts in here about the history of oranges (ladies in France used to bite into limes to redden their lips) and how they grow (they're sweeter depending on what side of the tree they grow on.) I liked it.

Continental Drifter, by Tim Moore

2011-03-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

First of all, this book was published in 2001, despite the really old-looking cover. Even Kelly asked me how old that book was. I know, right?

Second of all, this is Tim Moore's second book. I was surprised to learn that Frost on my Moustache was his first one, because it was so damn good. Since the laughs don't start right away in this one, I was a bit worried that the first one was a fluke. But soon enough, this tale of Moore driving a rickety old Rolls Royce through Europe picks up and I was laughing away like old times. I will be reading more of you, sir.

The Guardians, by Andrew Pyper

2011-03-19T21:31:00.000-07:00

This book is terrifying. I didn't expect it to be so scary. I'd call it a supernatural mystery. It's very more-ish; I read it in less than 24 hours.

I've never heard of this author before, but after I read the review of this book and requested it from the library, I heard it mentioned everywhere. All his books have been best-sellers, and he's Canadian, so that's cool. I don't want to say much about the plot, so just read this, okay?

The Prison Angel, by Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan

2011-03-08T12:01:00.000-08:00

This draft was almost two weeks old. Oops. The longer I wait to write about a book, the less I remember its impact on me. But this book certainly had an impact. I heard about Mother Antonia on a CBC podcast, and I was intrigued enough to request this book about her from the library. Mother Antonia is a twice-divorced mother of seven from Beverly Hills, where she lived an upper-class life. There was nothing stopping her from continuing like that, but in middle age she decided to make herself a nun (since the Catholic church wasn't interested in an older divorcee) and move to Tijuana, where she took up residence in a violent, overcrowded jail. She still lives now in that jail cell, well into her 80s. Long accepted by the church for her good deeds, she has met with Mother Teresa and the previous pope.

Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, this is no sappy morality tale. You don't need to be religious to take anything away from this book. It's her lesson of absolute love and forgiveness that really resonates in the heart. I loved it, and I daresay I love Mother Antonia.

Room, by Emma Donoghue

2011-02-18T21:42:00.000-08:00

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and winner of several awards, this book is compulsively readable. I finished it days ago and it still haunts me somewhat. When you read a book with a very definitive style of its own, do you find yourself thinking in that style? I do. I might find myself thinking Jane Austen-style, or Bridget Jones-style, or in this case, Jack-style. I kept on thinking to myself that I had "hotted" the food.

Jack is the 5-year-old narrator, who has lived his entire life in the 11 x 11 shack that his mother is held captive in as a sex slave. Chilling already, right? Throw in all this adorable innocent kid speech, such as hotting the beans, and you're captivated. There's an undercurrent of sadness running throughout, but it was far less dark than I expected.

Beyond the Horizon, by Colin Angus

2011-02-10T19:59:00.000-08:00

This book was really good. I read most of it in one night, and found it hard to put down. Colin Angus is an adventurer who tells his story of being the first person to circumnavigate the world solely under human power. Even better, he tells it well. I've had the misfortune of trying to struggle through a few badly written books lately, and I was concerned this might follow suit- this guy can hike, bicycle and row across the world, surely he doesn't have writing skills as well. But he does! Thank goodness.

This story has love (his fiancee joins him halfway through the voyage), conflict (his first travel partner TOTALLY SCREWED HIM), danger (hurricanes, emergency surgery), a laudable eco-conscience, and more. The author lives in Vancouver, so I hope to see one of his travel talks one day.

Why I can't read Nazneen Sheikh

2011-02-03T11:21:00.000-08:00

For every book I write about on this blog, there is usually one other book that I have given up on. This has been the case with not one but two of Nazneen Sheikh's books. The first one was a food memoir called Tea and Pomegranates that I thought sounded good. It wasn't. It was flowery and overwrought. The second one was called Moon over Marrakech, which I heard about in the travel section of the Globe and Mail and I thought might be a good book about the frustrations and pleasures of travelling in Morocco. I didn't recognize the author's name at the time, but when I picked it up from the library and saw what she had previously written, I sighed in anticipation of what was to come.

I was not wrong. I gave this one more of a chance, but eventually the self-obsessed drama and pretentious grandeur of her writing made me give it up. Here is an interview with the author that will give you a fantastic idea of what her books are like without having to pick one up.

Player One, by Douglas Coupland

2011-01-25T20:14:00.000-08:00

I tried to read a Douglas Coupland novel once. It was about ten years ago. I became irritated a few pages in, decided I must not like him, and never tried again. Until my boss offered to loan me this book he got for Christmas. It was apocalyptic, which I like, so I gave it a go.

This book was first broadcast on CBC Radio as part of the Massey Lectures. It's about people stuck in an airport hotel cocktail bar when oil suddenly rises to $250 a barrel (and rising quickly.) This is the end of the world. They barricade themselves in from the sniper that has suddenly appeared outside and the chemical cloud resulting from various mystery explosions. They're cut off- no tv, no phone, no power.

The main thing that bothered me is when they caught the sniper, who clearly had a God complex and oh, had KILLED several people, they conversed with him after they tied him up. Why didn't they cover his mouth with the duct tape they'd secured him with? I wouldn't have blamed them for just shooting him. Martial law. Instead they all initiated conversations with him and had debates. I would have been like, "Man, you're nuts. Shut the fuck up." That seemed really unrealistic to me that they would be so bored or something after a few hours (this story takes place in five hours) that they would be eager to talk to a lunatic with a scalp in his bag.

I guess I still don't like Douglas Coupland.

The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver

2011-01-16T12:57:00.000-08:00

I requested this book from the library ages ago, but since it was a best-seller, I was over 200 people down on the list. So it was lucky that I saw it on the fast reads shelf, but it was right before Christmas and I was too busy to get more than 130 pages in before I had to take it back. Another stroke of luck- I went to a different branch a few days later and found not one but two copies on the fast reads shelf. This time I managed to finish it.

I really liked Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, and while this is also a story about a very different time and place in the world, and is just as well-researched and well-told, I didn't enjoy it quite as much. It did pique my interest in Frida Kahlo, who is a main character, along with Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky. I was also horrified to read how the Cold War and anti-communism affected so many people in the States. We learned about McCarthyism in high school, but I thought it was more about censorship and blacklisting people in Hollywood, not putting so many regular people out of work.

This was one of the better books I've read in quite a while.

Wilson, by Daniel Clowes

2010-12-30T21:29:00.000-08:00

I used to read a lot of graphic novels. I still would if people would recommend them to me. I've enjoyed a lot of Daniel Clowes in the past, and this one was no different. Apparently it was his first book written with the intention of being a book, as opposed to his previous ones, which were collections.

Wilson is the story of a man who is at once despicable and pathetic. It's amusing, but sad, and you know things probably won't improve, especially as you watch him age. A good, short read.

Larry's Party, by Carol Shields

2010-12-21T18:24:00.000-08:00

I read this book for the first time almost ten years ago. It got me fascinated with hedge mazes. While I'm still interested in mazes and the surreal feeling of being lost they can impart, this time around the book didn't get me so excited about them. They're still great, but I must have taken more interest in the real story and not the symbol this time. Larry's Party is the quite wonderful tale of the life of Larry, first a florist in Winnipeg, then a maze designer in Chicago. His life is interesting and lucky, I think, but not extraordinary.

Sometimes I worry that other people analyze books more and get more out of them than me. But if I enjoy the story, as I thoroughly did this one, does it really matter?

The Death of Donna Whalen, by Michael Winter

2010-11-11T18:13:00.000-08:00

This is a powerful book. Michael Winter took court transcripts, police wiretaps, television news reports, and more to create a tale of a murder that really happened in Newfoundland. He changed the names (Donna Whalen was actually Brenda Young), and as writers will, condensed some characters and things like that, but the story is essentially true. It's fascinating to read how the people involved changed their stories to suit themselves. The story is told in their words, through their testimony. No commentary. It's unconventional and it works.

Half Empty, by David Rakoff

2010-11-02T19:45:00.000-07:00

Apparently I missed the point of this book. I was so bored by the first essay, a rather academic one on the power of "defensive pessimism", that the idea that this philosophy would be the theme of the book was lost on me. In the following essays, his trick of using multiple oversized words in long, long sentences made my eyes glaze over. It's a shame, because I really enjoyed his last two books, Fraud and Don't Get Too Comfortable, and I love him on This American Life. I guess I was expecting something really witty and sharp, and that's not what I found.

That being said, I think the essays which read more like they'd been previously published in Esquire or something were quite amusing, and the last essay on his battle with cancer was fantastic. Just one small quibble of Canadianness- he mentions that having his cancer treatment in Toronto is an option, but he chooses to have it in his adopted home of NYC. Later he says that he had a fight with his insurance company, using it to illustrate the point of American health care not being that great. So why not get treated in Canada, where that wouldn't have been a worry? Anyway. My pride in our system aside, this book wasn't my favourite, but it's definitely a superior option.

The Information, by Martin Amis

2010-10-18T22:09:00.000-07:00

I read this book. At first it was a bit slow, and then it picked up and it was quite funny, in a strange way. Then suddenly at the end it went from funny in an awful way to just awful things. I still haven't figured out what happened to the boy. Or what "the information" was exactly. Recommended reading.

How Did You Get This Number, by Sloane Crosley

2010-10-01T20:49:00.000-07:00

I really liked Sloane Crosley's first book, so I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately, her second effort is a big change. It's sort of like she grew up and decided that humour was for kids. While there were dashes of humour, it was mostly about life-changing stuff, travel and death and weddings. It may be for some people, but I was hoping for more of a good time.

Packing for Mars, by Mary Roach

2010-09-22T22:44:00.000-07:00

I really enjoy Mary Roach. She writes amusingly about science topics you never studied in school, such as what happens to corpses (Stiff), paranormal studies (Spook), and sex (Bonk). These are more than layman's terms, and they're damn funny.

Packing for Mars follows the same vein. It's about space travel, which is not all glamourous moon landings. A lot of consideration has to go into things like using the toilet in space. This book covers all that stuff. It's funny, honest and a little gross at times.

Right on

2010-09-21T22:33:00.001-07:00

Spoon Fed, by Kim Severson

2010-09-01T23:28:00.000-07:00

I had high expectations for this book; the Amateur Gourmet, whom I love, loved it. Unfortunately, we don't seem to share the same taste in books.

I have a new rule not to keep on reading anything I'm not interested in, and very early on in the book, I almost quit. I kept going though, and it was almost worth it. The premise is that Severson, a food writer for The New York Times, talks about the life lessons that eight female cooks taught her. It's a weak premise and kind of pretentious. "Ooh, I'm friends with Rachael Ray." "Ooh, Marion Cunningham was a mother figure to me." It reminds me of books like Cleaving or Committed, where the author pretends they're going to write a study of something, like butchery or marriage, and then writes all about themselves, like their torrid affair, their fear of marriage, or in this case, their tortured journey through alcoholism and coming out as a lesbian. I found it too contrived. Your meeting with Marcella Hazan was meant to help you find closure with your mother or something? Please.

I didn't even care for any of the recipes.

Elliot Allagash, by Simon Rich

2010-08-25T23:11:00.000-07:00

I read Simon Rich's last book, Free Range Chickens, a while back. I wasn't sure of it at first, but the short stories grew on me until I realized I found them hilarious. I'm not so sure if this effort is going to grow on me.

This, his first novel, is a very small book. It's about an unimaginably rich kid who decides, for sport, to make the most unpopular kid at school into the coolest, using various complex schemes. CONSEQUENCES FOLLOW.

I was never inclined to quit reading the book, but I wasn't totally enamoured of it. It certainly wasn't hilarious. I give this one a "meh".

Side notes: It's already been optioned by Jason Reitman to turn it into a film. Also, how old is this kid, 12?

The Slap, by Christos Tsiolkas

2010-08-16T20:53:00.000-07:00

I first heard of The Slap when it was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, but it's won several other awards already. I suppose it deserved them. It's about a man slapping someone else's kid at a barbecue in Australia, and the wide-ranging repercussions that action has. It's told from the point of view of eight different characters, who each gets their own section. I liked that, and it was easy to keep track of everybody, but sometimes I missed a character who I got to know early on and then wasn't around much after that. On the other hand, I was glad to finish with the three sexist, brutish Greek men who were portrayed. Since it was written by a Greek man, I'm not sure what that says about them.

There was a lot of casual adultery and drug use in this book. Like, a father takes speed at his party, and later on, some teenagers shoot up something. Perhaps this was a particularly hedonistic group of successful, good-looking but ethnically diverse Australians. I didn't particularly like any of them except for Connie and Richie, the teenager best friends, and Anouk, just about the only non-deceptive adult in the bunch. You don't have to like the characters to like the book, and I did like it, but in the end, really, I think everyone overreacted. Some of them acted really terribly, and, spoiler alert- no one really had to pay for it.

Hungry Monkey, by Matthew Amster-Burton

2010-08-14T20:18:00.000-07:00

I heard about this book ages ago and requested it from the library, but it came in at the worst time possible, when I had something like 5 books out already and I think I was about to leave town for a week. So I had to return it. But when I started listening to the Spilled Milk podcast, which is co-hosted by Amster-Burton, I was reminded that I wanted to read his book and re-requested it. So glad I did. Even though I was a little taken aback by all the cover blurbs from parenting magazines, having a child is really not a pre-requisite to reading this. It's a very funny book about teaching his child not to be a picky eater. Besides being full of cute stories about his daughter Iris, it's full of really delicious recipes. I dogeared most of them and hope to find them online.

I also appreciate the foodie love he gave to Vancouver. I never knew what was up with the "robots make sushi" sign at the library, and I really have to eat at Rangoli. Also, Kelly's been trying to convince me to go to Blue C Sushi every time we go to University Village in Seattle, and now that I've read Amster-Burton's description of it, I am looking forward to agreeing to go next time.

Hotel Iris, by Yoko Ogawa

2010-08-10T18:48:00.000-07:00

OH MAN. Totally forgot I read this book until I loaded my photos onto the computer. I guess that shows what an impact it made on me.

This is a really thin book. It didn't take long to read. It's translated from Japanese. It's about Mari, a teenager who's had to drop out of school to help her mother run their hotel. Her mother is strict and rather awful- there's a metaphor I don't get about how she does Mari's hair every morning, and she's pretty obsessive about it.

Mari gets into this weird submissive relationship with a much older man. I couldn't understand the attraction at all. I guess I couldn't understand this book much. I wanted to like it more. I didn't hate it.

Medium Raw, by Anthony Bourdain

2010-08-02T23:40:00.000-07:00

I was pretty disappointed by this book. I really enjoyed Kitchen Confidential, and I'm a big fan of Bourdain himself- I enjoy his TV show, No Reservations, and the blog posts he writes for it. But Medium Raw felt kind of slapped together. The writing didn't seem to be his best work, and the chapters mostly had no connection to each other. And there was an over-gratuitous use of dashes and ellipses, which I understands sounds like he talks, but it wasn't even always grammatically correct.

On a personal level, I was offended that he said he hated his meal at Alinea, which is my top dream dining destination (wow, that sounds cheesy), and I thought that his suggestion that Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, deserved to die was crude and unnecessary.

The only part I can think of that I rather enjoyed was the chapter on how he's trying to poison his young daughter's mind against McDonald's. The rest was- just sort of...a waste of time.

Solar, by Ian McEwan

2010-07-19T20:16:00.000-07:00

I first found out about this book's existence when I saw it on sale in a Reykjavik bookstore, the Icelandic equivalent of a Chapters. We'd gone in to relax and have a hot drink in the inevitable Icelandic version of a Starbucks that was inside. The book was in English and I was thrilled to see it, but the prohibitive exchange rate made me cool my heels. I'd still be cooling those heels waiting for my library request to come in if my boss hadn't mentioned he was devouring it and I could borrow it when he was done.

I guess I feel a bit let down by Solar. It's not as awesome as Atonement or On Chesil Beach or even Saturday. It was certainly brave of McEwan to make his main character so thoroughly unlikeable. I couldn't stand Michael Beard, the philandering, greedy, lying, increasingly obese, Nobel Prize-winning protagonist. I did have a few good laughs at his expense though. There's one scene in particular, involving flesh sticking to cold metal, that had me howling. Again as in Saturday, the author clearly put a lot of work into research, as a lot of science is explained.

I didn't like the end very much. My boss told me his opinion of what happened, which if that's what McEwan indeed meant to imply, went right over my head. Like in many of his other books, an appendix is used, but I felt this one wasn't very enlightening.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson

2010-07-19T19:54:00.000-07:00

The last we left Lisbeth, it was over a month ago and I immediately placed my Amazon order for this one. Four long weeks later, my package arrived and I tore into it. Let's not be all high-brow and be like, "For a thriller, it's a fun beach read." Okay, yeah it is, but it's also just really good and exciting and pro-female and I couldn't put it down. No literary snobbery here.

A few notes:

Apparently the Swedes drink coffee like no one's business. The constant quaffing really made me want a cup.
One scene mentions that the sun is setting at 1:30 in the afternoon one wintry day. Wowza.
It's mentioned in passing that a hostel on Langholmen has been booked for a character. On impulse, I looked it up, and I'm pleased to say that the hostel in question, based in a former jail, is a Hostelling International location. HI also has a couple of other cool hostels in Stockholm, one on a ship and one in a 747 jet.

No spoilers, but how could they keep on mentioning the existence of this one character and then never ever have them actually show up? Surely had Stieg Larsson lived, this character would have the focus of the next book.

So in Sweden, movies based on all 3 books have long been made and released. Here in North America, we've just seen the 2nd movie, The Girl Who Played With Fire, come out. Kelly and I saw it on the first night, and I must say, I was disappointed. Maybe the story wasn't as good as the first one, which definitely worked as a stand-alone mystery, but I can't help but wonder if the change of directors didn't affect it. Also they left so so much out, which I can't stand. Book trumps film, yet again.

The Order of Good Cheer, by Bill Gaston

2010-07-07T20:07:00.000-07:00

Way, way back, many yonks ago, I studied creative writing for one year at the University of Victoria. And Bill Gaston was one of my teachers. Since I was young and easily impressed, I was very impressed to have a published author as a teacher. So I went out and read most, if not all, of his books. They were good, as I remember. And then apparently I totally forgot about him for 10 years until one day I wasn't sure what to request from the library and decided to get one of his newer books. This one.

This book kind of frustrated me. It was divided into 2 alternating sections. One story was about the voyageurs and Samuel Champlain trying to survive a Canadian winter in 1606. The book started off with that, and for the first few Champlain sections, I fought boredom, and actually resorted to skimming rather than reading a few pages. The other story I did like. It was about a 39 year old man in present day Prince Rupert. Andy essentially gets paid to read at work, and he does so voraciously. Currently he's reading about that winter 4 centuries ago. See the tie-in? Most of the book he waits for his high school girlfriend to move home from Toronto. I began to wonder if she would ever get back.

There was a rather heavy-handed global warming / environment theme, which I felt didn't fit in quite naturally. This book was undoubtedly crafted well and with talent, but for me, it didn't quite hit the spot.

Fall, by Colin McAdam

2010-06-17T22:50:00.000-07:00

I never understand having nothing to read when there are so very many books on my "to read" list. Yet there I was at the library in this predicament. I chose this off the Fast Reads shelf, thinking it seemed worth a shot. Good random choice! Fall was dark, intriguing, and captivating.

Fall takes place at an exclusive boarding school in Ottawa. It's told in first person from the point of view of two roommates. Noel speaks from the present day, as the story is set in the past. (Twelve years in the past, according to a review, but I don't remember that being clear in the novel.) He's a lonely loser with a lazy eye he gets teased for. He works out a lot and is clearly a bit weird. Julius, the popular and handsome son of the American ambassador, talks as an 18 year old, while the story is happening. His parts are almost stream of consciousness, and you feel like you're inside his head. He's going out with Fall, the title character, who Noel has a crush on. Conflict follows.

I liked this book. It really was a fast read, as you get sucked into the darkness and keep turning pages to see how it turns out. It's not perfect, but I was satisfied.

The Girl Who Played With Fire, by Stieg Larsson

2010-06-13T22:37:00.000-07:00

I actually finished this book on the plane home from Los Angeles last week. So derelict at blogging! Okay, so I had heard nothing at all of the Millenium trilogy when the film based on the first book, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, came out. And since I didn't hear or see much about said film, I probably would never have seen it if we hadn't wanted to go to the Living Room Theater in Portland. That was the most interesting film playing, so we chose it, but we knew nothing going in. We didn't even know it was Swedish! The movie was utterly absorbing and thrilling, and left me wanting more. A few days after our return home from Portland, I whipped into a Book Warehouse and picked up the second book in the series. I proceeded to devour it, mostly during our trip to Los Angeles.

I can't give too much away about the plot, but rest assured that it's just as exciting as Dragon Tattoo. Something that is probably not well known is that the Swedish title for the first book actually translates to Men Who Hate Women. Therefore the line in this book about the title character being "a woman who hates men who hates women" won't have as much meaning. The repeated references to Astrid Lindgren novels didn't have much meaning for me, unfortunately. Sure, I read Pippi Longstocking, but I was a kid. I guess some parts are really just for the Swedish.

The day after I finished this, I ordered The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest from Amazon. I eagerly await reading the further adventures of Lisbeth Salander.

Blood River, by Tim Butcher

2010-06-08T18:53:00.000-07:00

I created this draft on May 31, but never got around to actually writing anything until today.

This book is a true story of a journalist's voyage through the Congo, following the same trail the explorer Stanley took (he of "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" fame.) It's quite a challenge for anyone at all to travel through the Congo, but for a white man to travel overland is quite a feat, and Butcher sounds like he had a completely awful time. It's somewhat amazing he wasn't killed.

I'm really interested in tales of the Congo, fictional and non. (I love The Poisonwood Bible but I guess I didn't blog about it when I reread it not too long ago.) I thought I would like this one, but despite the gripping subject matter of his adventure and the desperate state the country's in, it wasn't a terribly interesting read. It picked up after a bit, but I was never thrilled. In fact, I imagine that the way it drags feels similar to the way time dragged when the author sat in a pirogue on the Congo River for hours and hours in the still heat. It made me long for a far more exciting book I read years ago, which was also of a white man who rode a pirogue in Africa. Now what was that called?

A Homemade Life, by Molly Wizenberg

2010-05-28T17:52:00.000-07:00

Molly Wizenberg is the Seattle blogger who writes Orangette, a rather darling food blog I fell for a few years ago. She and her husband also own Delancey, a New York-style pizza restaurant I'm now even more mad to go to the next time I'm in Seattle. Even though I'm a fan of hers, it took me a while to read her book, which is now out in paperback. Why? I don't know. I dragged my heels on reading the Amateur Gourmet's book too, and I love his blog. Anyway, it finally occurred to me to take Molly's book off my Amazon wish list and get it from the library.

The book is comprised of many short chapters, each ending with a recipe. When I searched the internet last night for the recipes I'd bookmarked, I was pleased to find most of them on her blog, but a wee bit disappointed to find that the blog posts which accompanied them were veeery similar to what was in the book. Like, almost word-for-word. I wanted it all to be new writing. To be fair, I didn't read her blog the first couple of years it was up, so it was new to me.

In any case, it's a charming story of love, food, France, and her family. The story of her father's death was heartbreakingly intense.

At the same time I read the book, I also started listening to her podcast, Spilled Milk, which is delicious and fun. I really like Molly Wizenberg. I want to hang out. (Dear Molly, I live in Vancouver, we could totally hang out sometime!)

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table

Walk on Water, by Michael Ruhlman

2010-05-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

I've made it pretty clear on both this blog and particularly my food one that I'm a big fan of Michael Ruhlman. I think he's a great writer who advocates for things I care about, such as sustainable and slow food, which made it interesting to read a book by him that wasn't about food at all. It was about congenital heart disease.

Ruhlman spent a good deal of time at the Cleveland Clinic, a hospital that specializes in babies born with heart troubles, and he describes what that world is like. He tells us what drives the staff to work such a horrible, important job, particularly profiling Dr. Roger Mee, one of the top pediatric heart surgeons in the world. He tells us how the families are affected. With great sensitivity, he talks about what the babies go through.

This book is interesting in many ways- you get some history, you get some troubling facts about lesser heart centres, and you get absorbing looks into the lives of doctors and families. I quite liked it.

Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood

2010-04-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

No photo of the book this time because Kelly returned it to the library before I had a chance. It wasn't his fault, I left it by the door in the spot I always put my books when I want him to take them back for me. How was he to know?

Anyway, when I finished The Year of the Flood way back in February, I said I wanted to reread Oryx and Crake right away. Finally I have. It didn't take that long once I got going- it was a great read. Very absorbing. All these tiny details from the second book made a lot more sense. Atwood did a great job dovetailing the two books. My memory of it from the first time I read it was that it was very bleak and depressing. Well, it was, but it also wasn't. The story was of a bleak and depressing near-future, but I didn't feel sad reading it.

I look forward to the eventual third novel. In the meantime, I might reacquaint myself with some other Margaret Atwood novels- what the heck was The Blind Assassin about?

Manhood for Amateurs, by Michael Chabon

2010-04-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

Finally, a book I don't hate! Seems like it's been a while. This was a copy we got autographed at the signing in New York in October, a fact I was inordinately proud of. It's a series of thoughtful essays on what it means to be a man and have a family. Also, to like comics. It's very warm and loving and intimate; we learn about such family secrets as when his wife almost committed suicide. Yet it's not down or sappy in the least. It's lovely and it made me happy when I read it.

Looking for Calvin and Hobbes, by Nevin Martell

2010-04-19T20:07:00.000-07:00

I already wasted a lot of time on this book, so I shan't waste any more. And you shouldn't either. Padded and unsatisfying.

Cleaving, by Julie Powell

2010-04-05T22:36:00.000-07:00

I hate putting off writing about a book, because now I'm well into my next book, and my feelings about this one have faded. But I did feel strongly about Cleaving at the time.

I have neither read nor seen Julie & Julia, and although I still want to see the movie, I doubt I'll be reading the book. The thing is, I don't like Julie Powell. Besides her affinity for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we don't have much in common. This book is about her foray into the world of butchery, which was really interesting. It's also about her unrepentantly cheating on her husband, which was extremely irritating. I kept on wondering how her husband didn't leave her. She was just so not sorry about being in love with this other guy- and then she thanks her husband and her lover in the same breath at the end! At least she admitted that her actions were selfish and immature. But I'd really had it with her whining and moping.

Also, the traveling to explore global butchery at the end of the book was really random. She couldn't think of any more metaphors comparing cutting up meat to the dissolution of a marriage? I guess she was too heavy-handed with them at the beginning.

Instant edit: I wondered if I was possibly alone in my strong feelings about this book (and the author) sucking. I am not.

We pause for a literary geek-out

2010-03-31T16:27:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned before that I'm a Geoff Nicholson fan, and I've mentioned on Fizz Eats about his food blog, Psycho-Gourmet. One of the cool things about his website is that there aren't a heck of a lot of comments, so it's entirely possible that the author will respond to your comment. Well, hold on to your hats, because this is even cooler. Nicholson wrote a blog post in response to a comment of mine, and mentioned my name! I was pretty thrilled.

The Blythes are Quoted, by L.M. Montgomery

2010-03-27T23:25:00.000-07:00

I was intrigued when I saw this at Chapters- a book delivered to her publishers the day L.M. Montgomery died (allegedly by her own hand)! Meant to be the ninth Anne book! Unpublished for almost 70 years! Surprisingly dark, with themes like adultery and death! I was like, #1 Anne of Green Gables fan when I was a kid, so with some hesitation at my illusions being shattered, I got it from the library.

I seriously think people are making a way bigger deal about this than it deserves. Okay, so maybe the people who wrote the foreword and afterword are scholars and professors who have studied the life and work of L.M. Montgomery, but really. First of all, this was already published, in a very edited version, in 1974 under the title The Road to Yesterday, which I've read. What they did in 1974 was jumble up the order, remove the longest story for some reason, take out all the poems and short vignettes of the Blythe family at home that connected the stories, and edit for grammar etc. (Apparently she was a big ellipsis fan.) Second of all, I do not at all agree that this counts as an Anne book. Yes you've got the vignettes, and the poems are meant to be by Anne and her son Walter, and the Blythes are indeed quoted quite vigorously, but the stories are not about the Blythe family, they just take place around them. Thirdly, I didn't find the themes overly shocking. I guess it was a bit dark, but lots of her books have had dark elements- unhappy childhoods, broken love affairs, death.

I had a bit of a quibble with just how often the Blythes are mentioned. It's like Anne and Gilbert are the patron saints of the town. I don't see how they could realistically figure so prominently in so many hearts and minds. It's all "her eyes reminded him of Mrs. Dr. Blythe's" this and "Dr. Blythe is the only man with any sense in this town" that.

Another thing that was a bit of a shock was the sexism. I marked a few spots for illustrative purposes.

"Anne: ...To think I'd prefer any career to marrying you!"

"'Exactly- just like a woman,' riposted the doctor."

"...while writing poetry is a very good amusement for a woman it is no real occupation for a man."

There's also quite a bit of instant falling in love and getting engaged on the spot, as well as men declaring women to be theirs forever at the first kiss. I know that it's meant to represent the views of the time and not necessarily the views of the author, but it's still a bit of a shock to read such airily written lines.

All that being said, the works of L.M. Montgomery really fired up my imagination and inspired me in my youth, and I will always appreciate her for that. This was a fine read, just a little overhyped, and I think I'll try to reread her books sometime soon.

Where Men Win Glory, by Jon Krakauer

2010-03-25T16:20:00.000-07:00

I couldn't have timed it out more perfectly. I took 2 library books on my trip to Iceland, and I finished this, the second one, near the end of our flight home. Bazinga! (As Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory would say.) (That show is both formulaic and unusual at the same time.)

I really like Jon Krakauer, as I've mentioned before, but at first I wasn't too interested in reading about a football player who quit his NFL career to serve in Afghanistan, where he died under 'friendly' fire (a phrase I despise). Football and war, not my favourite topics. Eventually I thought, "Heck, why wouldn't I like it? Krakauer is a great writer who writes well researched non-fiction." So I ordered it from the library.

Great idea. This book is an absorbing and tragic tale of an intelligent, complex, brave man. I kept on wishing he hadn't been so noble that he left his wife and amazingly close family and friends to fight for something he believed in so much. He even had chances to get out and go back to the NFL, but he didn't take them. The futility of his death, and the ensuing cover-up, are both sad and infuriating.

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

Extreme Vinyl Cafe, by Stuart McLean

2010-03-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

I started this on the plane to Iceland, and finished it our first night in Reykjavik, when jet lag awoke me at 5 am. It was a pretty quick read, and I'm sorry to say, not the most satisfying one. Now, I'm quite a Stuart McLean fan, but this was nowhere near as funny as his earlier Vinyl Cafe books. Maybe it had something to do with the feeling that I'd already read most of them before, although it would seem that I'd just happened to have heard most of them on the radio show. But I have happily reread or re-listened to his stories before, and the trials of Dave and Morley usually crack me up. I remember reading once about Dave in his hotel room with a duck, and I was literally shaking with silent laughter as I tried to hold it in, since I was on a bus and all.

If you've never read any Vinyl Cafe stories before, I would suggest starting with an earlier collection. There's nothing extreme about this one. *sad trombone*

Extreme Vinyl Cafe

Born Round, by Frank Bruni

2010-03-04T21:16:00.000-08:00

I had no expectations from this book, which might have made me even more pleased with it. This was a great book. Until recently, Frank Bruni was the food critic at the New York Times, one of the most prestigious food journalism (or dare I say just journalism) jobs going. Which might make people surprised to learn that he's dealt with an addiction to food his entire life. He's struggled with bulimia and fad diets and undereating and massively overeating. As someone who has trouble with overeating myself, I found his story very interesting. I can't imagine ever hiding myself away from friends because I felt too fat to be loved. Yet he did this over and over again.

How he overcame his problems with food to become healthy and sane is so interesting to read. There's also the story of his loving and large Italian-American family, who are so closely connected with eating, and his enviable career in journalism. The book takes a humorous turn at the end when he recounts some stories of working as a food critic, much like the Ruth Reichl book I read a while back. I'm very interested to see what he does next at the Times and beyond.

The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood

2010-02-26T21:42:00.000-08:00

This book reminded me why I own almost a dozen Margaret Atwood books. I haven't been too interested in what she's done since Oryx and Crake, but this brought me back to the fold. It was fantastic and I couldn't stop reading it.

The Year of the Flood isn't exactly a sequel to Oryx and Crake. It's sort of concurrent, and expands on the same story of a dystopian society. I want to reread Oryx and Crake right away so I can understand the book more deeply, because I can hardly remember it.

There's a character in The Year of the Flood called Rebecca Eckler, which irked me for a while because I was pretty sure that Rebecca Eckler is a Canadian lifestyle journalist I sort of hate. A note in the back of the book said that the character's name was auctioned off for charity, so that explains that. (Just the sort of self-obsessed thing she'd do. Ooh, I guess I do hate her.)

Apparently this is the second book in a series of 3, so perhaps the ending wasn't so vague after all.

Committed, by Elizabeth Gilbert

2010-02-20T16:59:00.000-08:00

I really loved Elizabeth Gilbert's previous book of non-fiction, Eat, Pray, Love (as did thousands of other people), so I was eager to read her new one. It's about ten months she spent on a trip in Asia with her fiance while in immigration limbo. Her fiance, Felipe, is the Brazilian man she met at the end of Eat, Pray, Love, and they are completely committed to spending their lives together, but completely opposed to the institution of marriage, both having suffered horrible divorces. However, the wonders of Homeland Security ban Felipe from ever again entering the US unless they marry.

I would have liked to read a book about her trip in Asia and struggles with American immigration laws. Instead, I got a book which tries to research marriage through studies and books in an attempt to convince the author that her second marriage is not going to be a disaster. This was both boring and, I felt, self-centred and unnecessary. Gilbert and Felipe are clearly deeply in love, and had two private commitment ceremonies. What's the big deal about making it legal to satisfy some officials? They are both mature adults who've learned from the mistakes of the past, so I couldn't understand why she was so damn hesitant. Plus the book seemed to be meant more for her personal comfort than other people's enjoyment. Several times I grew bored while reading it, and a few times I grew frustrated and considered putting it down and moving on. I enjoyed the last few pages though and was able to finish it with a smile.

Committed

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules, edited by David Sedaris

2010-02-15T19:13:00.000-08:00

This is a collection of short stories chosen by an author I really like. Most of the stories I enjoyed, some I was neutral on, and one was so disturbingly, graphically violent, I almost didn't finish it. But in the end I have a hard time leaving things unfinished. (The story was by Joyce Carol Oates, for whom Wikipedia tells me violence is a theme.)

I liked how thoughtfully Sedaris placed his stories. Katherine Mansfield's The Garden Party (the sole story I'd previously read, and I do love) was followed by a story that referenced it.

The story that impressed me the most was Lorrie Moore's People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk. It was great. I might look more of her work up, but besides that, I didn't take too much from this collection.

Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn

2010-01-31T23:04:00.000-08:00

I read it in one day. Take that, unreasonably large amount of library holds that came in all at once.

This is the first novel by Gillian Flynn, whose book Dark Places I wrote about recently. It has a lengthy blurb by Stephen King on the back, which sheds more light on the book than the confusing inside jacket. It's a heart-wrenching thriller about the murders of 2 young girls in a small town, which are being investigated by a reporter who was originally from the town. She has a dark past of her own, involving an unhealthy relationship with the sharp objects of the title.

Finding out whodunit made for an engaging and quick read. I heartily recommend this book.

Sharp Objects

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, by Marina Lewycka

2010-01-31T13:20:00.000-08:00

There is no question that this book flowed well, and that the author is skilled. Yet I spent most of the novel irritated at the characters and wondering why I was continuing to read it. The story is about an elderly Ukrainian man, recently widowed, who marries a much younger Ukrainian woman so she can live in England legally with him. I know this wasn't the point, but I just kept on thinking the father (the story is told by his daughter) was foolish and Valentina, the bride, was a tarty bitch who needed a good punch in the face.

The author also tells the history of the father and his first wife and older daughter back in the Ukraine before and during World War II, which was sad, but I wasn't like, "I am now so enlightened because this is super relevant to the story!" It was supposed to connect to the strained relationship of the older and younger daughters, but I didn't feel that subplot was connected well enough to the main plot. As well, there was the ongoing theme of the book the father was writing on tractors, chunks of which were actually in the book. There was supposed to be a metaphor in the tractor novel, but my eyes glazed over when I tried to read those parts and I ended up skipping them.

All in all, an ambitious but not entirely fulfilled first novel. Yet I felt a little sad to close the book on the characters at the end.

Frost on my Moustache, by Tim Moore

2010-01-24T17:35:00.000-08:00

You might be thinking that it took me an awfully long time to read this one book. I've actually read 2 others in the meantime, but they were too prosaic to write about in detail. I'll give it a little go. The first one was called Iceland: Land of the Sagas, and I picked it up because Jon Krakauer took the photographs. It's a rather dry "pictorial classic" (publishers' words), published in 1990, and it tells about Iceland's history and culture through the sagas, violent semi-historical tales about Iceland's heroes that everyone there knows. They're actually pretty important to Iceland, so I'm glad that I had an overview of them.

The other book was Lonely Planet Iceland. Not much to say about that, except that it's now highlighted and Post-It flagged within an inch of its life.

So, yeah. Guess where I'm taking a trip to in March?

Frost on my Moustache was recommended in Lonely Planet. (Thanks for the lead!) It's a travelogue about the author's trip to Iceland and Norway, following in the footsteps of one Lord Dufferin, a 19th century aristocrat and once-Governor General of Canada (so that's why we have so many Dufferin Streets in this country), who made the same trip in 1856.

This book is bloody hilarious. I can't tell you how many times I put it down and sat there heaving with silent laughter. Moore is very dry and there are a few subtle jokes that took a few seconds to sink in, which I think shows how talented he is. There are also a few jokes with British references I know I didn't get, but that's all right. I didn't laugh as much towards the end, especially when it sort of dries up in Norway, but I still heartily recommend this book, even if you're not visiting Scandinavia.

Frost on my Moustache: The Arctic Exploits of a Lord and a Loafer

Penguin Hardcover Classics, designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith

2009-12-31T12:44:00.000-08:00

I will take one of everything, please. You can see all the covers she's designed on her website, or they're on Flickr too.

Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn

2009-12-28T21:07:00.000-08:00

This book was really good, and I kept on chirping so to Kelly at random times in the 2 days after I finished it. It's sort of a mystery about a woman whose family was killed when she was a child, and it goes back and forth between the present day and the day of the murders. Of course these are sad things, but it's not quite as dark as it sounds. It's very absorbing, and the way each chapter ends makes it hard to put down. I made quick work of it, and will be reading the author's first book as well.

Dark Places: A Novel

The Terror, by Dan Simmons

2009-12-23T17:53:00.000-08:00

I've been interested in the doomed Franklin Expedition to find the Northwest Passage ever since I was young and the wax museum in Victoria put up an exhibit on it. So when I read a review of this book, which is a fictionalized retelling of the expedition, in an adventure travel magazine, I thought I might like it. I was a little dismayed when I went to pick it up at the library and a) it was an 800 page hardcover and b) the jacket told me the story featured a supernatural beast killing off the men. I was cynical, but thought I'd give it a shot.

I'd describe The Terror as historical fiction / thriller. It was extremely well researched, with details I remembered from the wax museum (like the lower jaw of a corpse being bound) and a long bibliography. It was also exciting and highly readable. I found myself wishing I could have saved it for a long plane ride. While I ended up quite liking it, and accepting the mythical killer beast, when Simmons threw in a psychic captain so he could work in other historical facts that the icebound sailors would have had no way of knowing, I thought that was going a bit far. But then...that plot point worked out in the end too.

Even though I went in knowing that everyone died, I still felt sad near the end when they started dying en masse. (Not a spoiler, that's just how it went down as time passed and everyone got sicker and hungrier.) Despite the slight hokiness, it was a good read and inspired me to read more about the true history of the Franklin Expedition.

The Terror: A Novel

Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby

2009-12-09T22:51:00.000-08:00

I love Nick Hornby, and this book didn't disappoint, although I disapproved of the use of American terms in a few places, such as "potato chips" instead of "crisps", which I thought might have been pandering to the larger market. That's neither here nor there though, because I loved this book. I had to wait a while to get it from the library, but not as long as I'll have to wait for the new Margaret Atwood (I'm still at least 200th in line for that.) Meanwhile, Kelly bought it for not one but two e-readers (long story). I'm not bitter.

Anyway, even if he didn't manage to slip in a mention of Arsenal, this is Hornby at top form. He doesn't often write from the point of view of a woman, but he knows what he's on about. I liked this a lot more than How to be Good, which also featured a woman as the main character. This book was cheery and loving, and although the main plot point probably wouldn't really happen in real life, it all feels very realistic and insightful. It's been a while since I read a book so quickly and with such enjoyment. Hurrah!

Higher than the Eagle Soars, by Stephen Venables

2009-11-28T23:40:00.001-08:00

Oh man. First I hemmed and hawed over whether or not I even wanted to read this book (which was free), and then I took forever reading it, and then I took my sweet time writing about it. This was a slow book.

I've always been attracted to stories about climbing Mt. Everest, but my hesitation with this book was that it seemed to be more a memoir of this man's life than anything. There were certainly stories about mountain climbing in it, and a tale of Everest as the climax, but there were also stories of his education and love life as well. I liked hearing about this posh Oxford boy becoming an experienced mountaineer, but for thrilling climbs, I'd be better off rereading Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air.

Wait, now this one is about books

2009-11-13T16:00:00.000-08:00

So I caved and ordered 2666 by Roberto Bolano from amazon.ca. Here is the link to the book I ordered. Here is the link to the book I should have ordered. Look at them side by side. Do you see the difference?

...

The difference is that the one I ordered was in Spanish! Hilarious! Funny thing, if you search '2666' on Amazon, the Spanish version is the first result. How silly of me to order it. Maybe if the customer reviews hadn't been in English, making me think that it was read by people who speak English? I see now that if I had bothered to search inside, I would have seen the Spanish, but I wasn't buying a picture book, so I didn't bother. And yes, I see that it's in the product details, but I didn't think that was required reading.

So I tried to return it and was pleased to see that Amazon would pay for the shipping and send a replacement, since it was their mistake for not making the language obvious. But then I got an email (promptly and from a real person, to my surprise) telling me that it was actually my mistake and so I had to pay for the shipping and would only get a refund. Meaning that if I wanted to re-order the book in English I would have to pay for that shipping too. After a frustrating morning of writing frustrated emails and getting prompt replies from humans, finally one of them gave in and said they would pay for the return shipping, but I would still just get a refund instead of a replacement. Which is what I wanted. I'll just take that refund and buy 2666 at my neighbourhood bookstore.

Wait a second, this isn't about books!

2009-11-13T15:18:00.001-08:00

But fun, right guys? I would totally enter this contest if I didn't work there.

The Yiddish Policeman's Union, by Michael Chabon

2009-11-01T22:31:00.000-08:00

I picked this book up shortly before leaving for our honeymoon to bring on it. A few days into the trip, as I read the New York Times over breakfast, I saw an ad for upcoming signings at Barnes & Noble, including one by Michael Chabon. I was thrilled.

I suppose readings/signings by famous authors isn't as big a deal in New York as it is here, seeing as we turned up an hour before it started and got a seat fairly near the front. It did fill up, but much closer to the appointed hour. Compare this to the time I waited FOUR HOURS to see David Sedaris at Bolen Books in Victoria, and then waited another 3 hours to get my book signed.

Michael Chabon read 2 short stories from his new book and then answered questions for a bit (which were much less mundane than most of the questions asked Sedaris at the Victoria signing.) We were ushered row-by-row into a very orderly line, and after a short wait, Chabon signed our books. The meeting wasn't much to speak of, but it happened and I was so glad.

The Yiddish Policeman's Union was good too. It wasn't true love like Kavalier and Clay, and to be honest, I was a bit confused by the story (a detective story in an alternate reality where all the Jews live in Alaska), but I got involved with the characters and was almost totally satisfied.

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson

2009-10-01T12:40:00.000-07:00

Talk about easy reads. I didn't want to start a new book because I didn't think I could finish it before leaving for my trip (tomorrow!). While I was arranging our new bookcase, I pulled one of the three thick Calvin and Hobbes volumes out and joked that I would just finish it before I carried on. Then I thought, "Why don't I?" I thought it was a really cool gift when Kelly got it a Christmas or two ago, but for some reason I never opened a book up. Perhaps because they are so imposingly large and heavy.

I finished the first two and now I'm partway through the third volume of my all-time favourite comic strip (with Peanuts close behind), and it's an eminently satisfying read. It's still just as good as when I was a kid, but now I'm noticing how good the illustrations are, the philosophical references, and the warmth of the relationships.

Is "easy" a bad word when it comes to books?

2009-09-28T19:53:00.000-07:00

I'm well aware of every time I call a book an "easy read" on this blog. I'm a little sensitive about it, wondering if it says something about my intelligence that I only read "easy" books. It's not as if I'm reading Sweet Valley High, I just don't want reading to be a chore. I want to look forward to it, not sigh as I pick up a book to slog through another few pages because it's an intellectual must.

That's why I was relieved today to hear Tom Howell from CBC Radio's The Next Chapter refer to a book as both avant-garde and an easy read. It's a show about books, he liked the book, and he said it wasn't difficult to read, so it can't be a bad thing, right? But then sometimes I have discussions with people who are disdainful about certain populist books (i.e. anything by Dan Brown), and I don't know what to think.

What do you think? Do you only read Milton and Joyce, or are you happy with Shopaholic Takes Manhattan?

Chuck Klosterman IV, by Chuck Klosterman

2009-09-19T00:09:00.000-07:00

I borrowed this book from Sarah and read it casually over a few weeks, while I was in between books. It's a collection of Klosterman's interviews (with celebrities such as Britney Spears and Bono) and pop culture articles from various newspapers and magazines. Each piece is short and pretty funny, so it was easy to read an article here and there while not being compelled to finish the whole book. I even skipped the entire last section, which was fictional.

I kept on having deja vu while I was reading, which was a little disconcerting. I'm pretty sure I haven't read this book before. I know I've read at least 2, if not 3, Chuck Klosterman books, but not this one, so I couldn't put my finger on what felt so familiar about it. Maybe it's just his style. In any case, it's quite funny. He's a very clever writer.

Helping Me Help Myself, by Beth Lisick

2009-09-12T17:12:00.000-07:00

I don't like gimmicky books: ones that take a conceit like, "I'm going to do this one thing for this period of time and write a book about it." A.J. Jacobs is the king of this. He's written one book about reading the Encyclopedia Britannica for a year, another about following the rules of the Bible for a year, and has a new one out about being a human guinea pig, no time period specified. So when I picked up this book that Brie recommended and saw that it was about following self-help gurus for a year, I was a bit apprehensive.

Beth Lisick has some good things going for her: she has a happy marriage and a great kid, she's a published writer, and she owns a house. But the house is a mess and falling apart, she never sees her husband, and their finances are extremely dire. So maybe some self-help coaching is called for. The plan was to spend each month of the year focusing on one area of her life and one self-help expert, but she skips the summer, giving 2 months a page each; a bit of a cop-out, I felt.

The book never dragged, and I laughed out loud in places, particularly when she took a weight-loss cruise with Richard Simmons. Lisick is commendably open about her life, and she's a good writer, but I didn't totally fall for this book. I'm open to reading her earlier non-fiction work, Everybody into the Pool, though.

The Sweet Life in Paris, by David Lebovitz

2009-09-03T13:08:00.000-07:00

David Lebovitz is a pastry chef (formerly of Chez Panisse) and a food writer who authors the most delectable looking cookbooks (I could use his ice cream book for my new ice cream maker, hint hint).

This book is a light confection, comprised of fantastic recipes and thoughts on life as an American in Paris; primarily, what Parisians are like, and what American tourists in Paris are like (gauche!) It's an excellent read for when you have insomnia at 5 am, as it is just pleasant and doesn't require too much thought. It's good at other times of day too.

People Are Unappealing, by Sara Barron

2009-08-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

Sara Barron keeps on talking about how fat she is in this collection of personal essays, so out of curiosity, I searched for a photo of her. Turns out when you search for "Sara Barron", Google suggests you add "Perez Hilton" or "Michael Stipe". I guess she got a bit of notoriety for the penultimate story in the book, which I'll get to. Anyway, she's not fat.

I read about this book in Bust, which only gave it a half-hearted review, but I thought I'd try it anyway. The cover blurb by Sloane Crosley, whose book I quite liked, gave me hope, but no. Bust was right. The stories, which tell of annoying people she has known from her pre-teens to today, remind me of David Sedaris-lite and This American Life. But she's no David Sedaris.

Now the good things: I did giggle quite a bit. I also admired how self-deprecating she was; if I had serious facial fuzz, I don't know that I could be so open about it. But I didn't like that she saved her 2 stories of unappealing celebrities for last, as if they were the best for being about famous people (but with pseudonyms like "Madrid Days Inn.") I thought the appeal of the stories was that they were just about everyday folk from school and her family. The tale of the asshole rock star who ate at her work (supposedly Michael Stipe at Babbo) was indeed juicy, but I think giving it such a prominent spot takes away from the relatibility of the humour.

The Unit, by Ninni Holmqvist

2009-08-17T11:42:00.000-07:00

The Unit is a dystopian novel set in a near-future Sweden where childless people of a certain age (50 for women, 60 for men) are deemed "dispensable" and sequestered from society. They are sent to live in "units", entirely enclosed communities that are like luxurious jails. They have their own apartments, and there are restaurants, art galleries, shops, salons, gyms and more at their disposal. It costs nothing except their liberty and their organs. Dispensable people are used for experiments, drug testing, and as living organ donors, until they make their final donation. It's quite grim.

The circumstances that lead to this are only alluded to briefly. It seems that sexism has somehow been made illegal, as the main character, Dorrit, mentions that if a man had winked at her out in the community (as they think of the outside world), she would have been forced to report it. Also there is no excuse to be a stay-at-home parent, as daycare is mandatory. It seems that the only way to be a needed person is to have lots of kids and to work, and several mentions are made of snobby parents taking up lots of space with their strollers, and looking down on the childless.

The story was very good and absorbing, but I couldn't quite believe it. Was the rest of the world like this, or would it be possible to leave the country and hide out if you were nearing 50 and childless and single? If everyone is trying to have several kids, isn't overpopulation a problem? Wouldn't child abuse or unhappy partnerships abound if people who weren't suited for kids or each other were just desperate to avoid a worse fate? The end does suggest that change must be coming, as every month there are less and less people arriving at the unit, and they hear that younger people are getting pregnant, which I guess isn't what the government was aiming for.

I think this book would be easier to chat about with someone than review, but I can say that I really enjoyed it, and as dystopian novels go, I liked it better than The Carhullan Army, but not as much as The Handmaid's Tale.

The Unit
The Handmaid's Tale (Everyman's Library)

Mind the gap

2009-08-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

I realize there was almost a month between my last 2 posts, but I was still reading. Just nothing I felt was worth blogging about.

In July I re-read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in preparation for the film coming out. That actually took me awhile, because instead of whipping through it like I did the first time, I took my time to soak in the details. I'm glad I did, because the movie left so much out, and I'd forgotten a lot.

I also read magazines: the new Bust, Canadian House & Home (which I'm just getting as a subscription substitute for Wish, which went out of business), and- wait for it- Martha Stewart Weddings. It was the DIY edition, you guys!

Anyway, I'm getting married on Sunday, so don't expect too much from me in the way of reading/blogging in the next little while.

Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates

2009-08-03T22:59:00.000-07:00

I was so tired when I got into bed last night, but still decided it was a good idea to finish this book. I mean, I only had 50 pages left. (Read: sarcasm.) The ending left me so sad and kind of lonely feeling that I couldn't fall asleep for another hour.

I really wanted to see this movie when it came out, but as of yet haven't seen it. I was mightily pleased to find not one but two copies in the library at my work. When I finally started it (because I tend to save books in my bookcase for library droughts), I was quite surprised to see that the book, which is set in 1955, was actually published in 1961. I thought it was written more recently. so it was cool to see that this view of sort of suburban misery and conformity was taken at the actual time it was happening. As far as I knew, that was all hindsight.

Even though the book is of a definite time and place, and pregnant women smoke with abandon, the story could be from today. A very very good read.

Revolutionary Road
Revolutionary Road (Movie Tie-in Edition) (Vintage Contemporaries)

What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal], by Zoe Heller

2009-07-07T13:47:00.000-07:00

Lucy read this in French Milk, which reminded me that I wanted to see the movie based on it. So I got both out from the library.

I haven't watched the film yet, but the book was a quick and enjoyable read. I considered calling it "chick lit with a brain", but that's trivializing it, to say the least.

On the surface, it's about a married middle-aged teacher's affair with her teenage student. Below that, it's about the narrator, an older teacher who lives alone with her cat. She is a true spinster, uptight and severely lonely. Since she never has more than one friend at a time, she gets a bit obsessive.

While it can be a bit dark and chilling, with an uncertain conclusion, it didn't have any lasting impact, and while it was easy to read, it was never hard to put down. I still want to put it somewhere between the psychological thrillers of Ian McEwan and the light British girly fare of Helen Fielding.

Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi

2009-07-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

I usually request a book in advance from the library, but in this case, I was browsing the shelves in hope of finding something and thought I'd give this book a shot.

Azar Nafisi is an academic, not a creative writer, and it shows in this memoir. It's supposed to be about a secret class she taught at home in Iran, but it's also about her own life (studying in America, then getting married and returning to Tehran) and the struggles she had teaching American literature in Islamic Iran. Often it veers into academic dissertations on the authors she teaches, like Nabokov and Fitzgerald. I found this boring, especially since I've never read Nabokov, and I preferred the stories of the injustices against Iranians. It was quite a timely read too, considering the protests happening in Iran now. I still think about her recountings of women getting reprimanded for eating apples too seductively, or getting beaten because some of their hair was showing and a man reported them because that turned him on. How is that their fault? It's so sexist there.

So basically, she's not very good at writing dialogue and all the girls in her class blurred together for me, and my eyes glazed over when she went into a treatise on Austen, but reading about what is happening in Iran made the book worthwhile.

Everything and More, by Geoff Nicholson

2009-06-15T21:55:00.000-07:00

Oh dear. I posted this picture to a draft 8 days ago and have only just gotten around to writing about it. Why did I drag my heels so long? I did like the book.

I found this copy abandoned in the lobby of my work. I'd read Bleeding London, by the same author, a couple of years ago, so was pleased to see this. (Coincidentally, I just found Bleeding London in Kelly's bookcase. According to him I took it on our trip to Europe 2 years ago. Too bad it wasn't my copy.)

Nicholson is described as a satirist, quirky, and someone who writes black humour, all of which can be seen in this book about life in a massive London department store, sort of a Harrod's++. Everything and More moves quickly and smartly. I found it very amusing. I'll be looking up more of Nicholson's work.

French Milk, by Lucy Knisley

2009-06-06T21:07:00.000-07:00

Brie recommended this book to me, and she was quite right in thinking I'd like it. It's like a diary in graphic novel form, with some photographs thrown in for mixed-media fun. The diary is of a 6-week trip the author took to Paris with her mother, and one of her primary interests is the food, detailing what everyone had at every meal. I loved hearing about the heavy winter bistro meals, and the picnic suppers from the markets. My main problem was that she called the macarons she got at Pierre Herme and Laduree 'cookies'. Cookies?! Even Chuck Bass can't get their name right.

She also documented every book she read, and one of them was Perfume, one of my last reviews. She didn't mention whether or not she liked it, but when the movie based on it happened to be playing (in V.O., version originale, she noted), she went to see it. She seemed to think it was just okay, but her friend despised it.

Another book by someone younger than me. Where's my book deal? I don't actually have an idea yet, I just want one.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz

2009-05-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

I loved this book as much as I loved The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. They're both Pulitzer-winners with a comics theme, so I guess that's the kind of book I like. With an epigraph from Fantastic Four and an extended Watchmen metaphor in the last few pages, I'm sure comic book fans (like my fiance Kelly, whose books are in the picture above) will enjoy it also.

This book covers the lives of Oscar, an obese Dominican "ghetto nerd", and his entire family, from his sister and mother back to his grandparents, and the fuku (curse) that affects them all. Another shadow covering them is that of Trujillo, the brutal Dominican dictator whom I'm afraid I never heard of before reading this book. I should read more history.

The narrator speaks in a seamless blend of Lord of the Rings references, Spanish phrases, and curse words, with a healthy dose of David Foster Wallace-esque footnotes. The story jumps decades and from New Jersey to the Dominican Republic. It's just an excellent read.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, by Patrick Suskind

2009-05-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

I completely forgot to write about this book, probably because I was subconsciously intimidated to write about it. It was recommended to me by a co-worker, one of my maybe two regular readers (Hi Alex!), and unlike me, he seems to have actually analyzed it. I tend to be a surface reader, it has to be a really special book for me to think about themes and meanings and the like.

Also, a boy tapped me on the Skytrain and started talking to me about the book. He was cute too. I was like, "Why didn't this happen when I was single?"

Anyway, this book is kind of crazy. A man with no scent of his own but the most powerful nose ever, with sort of a God complex. Interested in no one and nothing but himself and scents. If you think it's weird when he chooses to live in a cave, wait til you get to the utterly surprising ending.

I fell asleep right after finishing this book and had bloody dreams.

The Manticore, by Robertson Davies

2009-05-01T12:09:00.001-07:00

This is the second book in the Deptford Trilogy, which I mentioned in my last post, but it's not exactly a sequel. It does pick up right where Fifth Business left off, but this time the main character is someone who was barely mentioned in the first book.

Almost the whole story is about this man's Jungian analysis in Zurich. David is the son of a main character from the first book, and we go over some plot from Fifth Business, but from his point of view. I thought it sounded dull at first, but I got pretty into it.

At the very end, David's analysis ends and he meets up with a few characters from the first book, which I didn't love. I think a world-famous magician and a stunningly ugly but stylish 'ogress' are jarring changes from Canadian lawyers and schoolmasters. The third book is supposed to be all about the magician, so I'm going to work on my other library books (4 holds in at once, eek!) before picking it up.

Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies

2009-04-22T15:48:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I dragged my heels on reading this book for so long. I think I picked it up at the library sale a few years ago. My relationship with Robertson Davies is complicated. When I went to Europe 4 years ago, I brought his book The Cunning Man with me. I'd found it on the ferry one time and left it in my bookcase for who knows how long, then brought it on my trip because a) I hadn't read it, and b) since it had been free, it was disposable. When I finally did read it, I liked it so much I ended up bringing it home after all, to force it on Erin. (I don't know if she ever actually read it.)

So I figured since I seemed to like this author, I'd pick up a few more of his books, which I did at the aforementioned library sale, and promptly abandoned in my bookcase. This puzzling resistance continued until now, when I had nothing else to read. And guess what? I really liked it. I liked it so much I went to the library to get the second book in the Deptford Trilogy, of which this was the first. I'm going to start it right now.

After Dark, by Haruki Murakami

2009-04-05T19:47:00.000-07:00

I feel kind of boring reading several books by the same author in a short time span, unless it's a series or I'm having a temporary fixation (i.e. Ian McEwan.) So I was a little hesitant about taking out this Murakami book, since I recently read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I don't know what I was being weird about, because I really liked this book.

It's very short and surreal, and like McEwan's Saturday, also takes place in a short time-frame, in this case overnight. The story is sort of mystifying. I wouldn't mind having someone explain it to me. It's several short chapters about two sisters; one is sleeping and has been doing so for a very long time, and the other one is staying up all night, and meets some interesting characters while doing so. The sleeping sister goes through something pretty creepy that bends the rules of time and space. I preferred the awake sister's story line and the people she meets, particularly the friendly young jazz musician. It was also interesting just to read about the details of life in Tokyo, like parks full of stray cats and buying milk at 7-11.

The Dud Avocado, by Elaine Dundy

2009-04-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

Phew. Dud is right. I read this book on Brie's recommendation, but she wasn't too keen on it either, so I don't feel bad slamming it.

This book was a hit when it came out in 1958, but perhaps it doesn't quite translate to today. It's about an American girl who goes to live it up in Paris, sort of Sex in the City in Paris in the 50s. Early chick-lit, like. But really irritating. For someone who just graduated from college, the heroine, Sally Jay Gorce, is a total idiot. She's running around nightclubs all night, losing pearl necklaces without concern, and getting involved with creeps. I was interested in parts, particularly her time summering in Biarritz. But then the way too tidy ending made the book lose any redemption it may have earned in the good bits. Sally Jay had already proven to be an immature, fickle lover, as if that ending had any real future! *grr*

I would suggest you just read Bridget Jones' Diary for the tenth time instead.

I Like You, by Amy Sedaris

2009-03-25T12:39:00.000-07:00

I wanted this book since it came out in 2006, and I finally got it. For my birthday. I'm kind of slow on the uptake sometimes.

Anyway, I read it all. I always imagined it as a coffee table book that you flip through, and some guests have already done that, but I soon found myself reading it from front to back. It was awesome. I like pretty much anything a Sedaris does, but I was really impressed by how this book was both fun and functional. While I probably won't start charging initiation fees for my cake club, as she suggests, I plan on making her spanakopita recipe for our next meeting. There's so many good recipes in this book, I wanted to put it on my cookbook shelf. (I didn't.)

In Between the Sheets, by Ian McEwan

2009-03-20T14:17:00.000-07:00

This thin collection of short stories is one of McEwan's earlier works. I prefer his later ones.

Garlic and Sapphires, by Ruth Reichl

2009-03-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

I was very surprised by how much I liked this book. I have several Ruth Reichl books on my library list, meaning at one time I read a recommendation of them, but for some reason I never felt like actually requesting them. Finally, lacking other books to read, I chose this one at random, but I still hesitated to start. I have no idea why I thought I wouldn't enjoy it. It was so readable!

Ruth Reichl, now the editor-in-chief of Gourmet, used to be the restaurant reviewer for The New York Times. There was a veritable price on her head, because as soon as a restaurant she went into recognized her, they gave her treatment fit for a queen: the best table, the best service, the best food possible. To find out how normal people experienced these restaurants, she concocted intricate disguises, and personalities to go along with them.

She has lots of good stories to tell about these times, from an irritating charity dinner with the most annoying "food warrior" on earth, to a madcap food tour romp through Brooklyn with Serious Eats writer Ed Levine. There's also some tasty-looking recipes, which I intend to make when I can eat meat again. I'll be requesting the rest of her books soon.