Books books books.

I went to Alaska on vacation last week. I got through about five books which is pretty good I think. Not as good as Jesi of course but you know. Here's the rundown.

1. Saturday by Ian McEwan
MUCH LOVE. McEwan is an awesome, awesome author. His imagery is beautiful and he really gets into his character's heads. Saturday is about the day in the life of one man in London. His day starts out routine and then gets more and more eventful and we learn all about his family. The protagonist is a neurosurgeon and so there is a lot of hospital/human body metaphor. Did you know they call it the "theatre"? Where they do surgery. Didn't know that. Anyway, phenomenal book, possibly the best I've read by McEwan, which isn't much. But it tops Atonement quite possibly.

2. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
I had read about 100 pages of this book before I left and it was a little slow going. Actually the whole thing was slow going, but that is just its nature. It is about a young woman in New England in the early twentieth century attempting to make her way into high society, basically trying marry rich. She is apparently absolutely beautiful and should have no problem getting a husband, but instead she makes friends with other people's husbands and doesn't marry the guy she loves because he isn't wealthy enough. All this leads to her decline to poverty, which is really beautifully portrayed. The problem I had with this book I think was that Wharton was a little too open and upfront about what she wanted to get across. Instead of letting her characters and their actions do the criticizing, she has them talk about what is wrong with things. It just seemed a little too obvious for me, but I don't know, I could be reading it wrong. But still, it definitely trumps Sister Carrie.

3. Enduring Love by Ian McEwan.
Second McEwan this trip. Probably ranks third out of the three I've read. This one is about a scientist husband and a professor wife who live in London. They have a great relationship and they love each other and you just know it's all going to crap soon. They witness a hot air balloon accident and one guy dies and this other guy who was there starts stalking the protagonist and develops this major major crush on him. And it's just creepy. And of course, the protagonist just cannot handle it and no one believes him and McEwan does a good job of making the reader think that perhaps he is the crazy one. Excellent stuff though. I need to read more.

4. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Won the Pulitzer I do believe. And it was good, just, I don't know. I never really got into it too much. Someone about Ondaatje's style turned me off. It was just hard to tell what was all going on a lot of the time. It switched around between characters a lot without clear transitions. But hey it won a Pulitzer right? I also watched the movie which was really sad. I cried a lot at the movie, but not the book. Mehhh.

5. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
It's about a hermaphrodite. She becomes a he. I really enjoyed it. I like the family history and how Eugenides would get into one generation of the story but still mix it back with the narrator's story. It was twisted enough to be interesting but not too gross. It was also interesting to get the Greek immigrant dynamic as well. I also liked the play on the title too. Oh and it won the Pulitzer too. If given a choice, I'd say read Middlesex, not the English Patient.

Since returning home, I have finished Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs. This is the book (and its series) that Bones the tv show is based on. Kind of confusing, but Kathy Reichs, who is an anthropologist, writes books about an anthropologist named Temperance Brennen, and in Bones, Temperance Brennen is the anthropologist who writes books about an anthropologist. It's like the show copies Reichs' life, not the books. But anyway, it's your basic mystery novel, but with a little more forensic anthropology thrown in. The Temperance Brennen of the book is a lot different than the one in the show. I stayed up one night to finish it, but that doesn't mean it was good. Just suspenseful.

Before I left I was reading Reading Lolita in Tehran, and now I am finishing it. It's gotten less interesting. She's stopped talking about her "bookclub" and now just talks about her life in and out of the university and during the war. It seems to have become less literary and more political, or rather, the author's ambivalence to politics. I am basically skimming which makes me sad.

Next on the list is Burning Bright, the latest from Tracy Chevalier.
HAPPY JESI?