Just plugging away...

I think I'm on my eighth book at the moment? Let's see...

4. White Teeth - Zadie Smith
Smith is a good writer. Individually, her sentences are beautiful. For being her first novel, written when she was 24, it is impressive. However, it just did not hold my attention. The characters and the plot just did not do it for me. They were not likable, just obnoxious mostly. Does that make me racist? I don't know. I definitely prefer On Beauty to this one. If I didn't have to read it for school, then I probably never would have finished it because it was also very long. Oh well. I mean it was good, just not particularly interesting to me. That is all.

5. The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes - Various Authors
It's funny okay, McSweeney's can be quite funny. This is just the perfect book for an English major. I saw this book at a bookstore and realized that they had switched the covers so the back looked like the front and I knew I had to read it. The library didn't have it so I made them order it. And it definitely did not disappoint. Allow me to quote some excerpts.

Phrases on the Marquee at the Local Strip Club to Cater to a More Literate Crowd: "Our Girls Even Drive Oscar Wilde" and "Leaves of Ass".

Possible Titles for Sue Grafton Novels After She Runs out of Letters: "/ Is for Slash" and "F1 is for Help".

Okay there are a lot more funny ones but I am too lazy to type things out for no one to read. And I must admit that I did not read the sections that I knew I wouldn't get anyway, but the ones that I did get were quite funny.

6. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
I don't think this book really needs introduction. It was very quick and very good. Poor Sylvia Plath and all the other "crazy" people in the 50s. I wish she had written more fiction as I prefer novels to poetry. Then I watched the movie Sylvia which I have been meaning to watch for ages ( despite the fact that I do not like Gwyneth Paltrow or Daniel Craig) but have never felt like I could because I hadn't read The Bell Jar. That's some depressing shit right there though. But the movie had good knitted things and that's always a plus.

7. Wild Nights! - Joyce Carol Oates
I never really knew what to think of Joyce Carol Oates. I had always kind of put her in that "books my mother reads" category with Elizabeth Berg and Jodi Picoult. But we read one of her short stories in lit and it was decent, if completely creepy. And also, she's so prolific that I would just have no idea where to start. I don't feel like I can really like an author if I haven't read the majority of their work. She publishes like two books a year or something ridiculous like that. Anyway, I saw this book advertised somewhere and it looked intriguing, which it was. In the book, JCO reimagines the last days of five famous American authors. Except it's not really what you would expect because she completely removes the authors from their usual time and place. And she writes about that author in their particular style. Poe is a lighthouse keeper in South America and Emily Dickinson has become a robot thing and Mark Twain is pretty much a pedophile. It's all very odd, but very good. It never was too weird or too fanfic-y to read. Probably because it was JCO and she knows what she's doing. But I definitely recommend it if you are a fan of American lit. Well that wouldn't include Jesi, but she should read it anyway.

8. Lady Chatterley's Lover - D. H. Lawrence
Okay just started this one, but the intro/defense to the book was hilarious. Mostly because it would just be so unnecessary today. The author of the intro gives examples of what would be considered smut and compares it to excerpts from the book and how Lawrence means so much more than that. I am only thirty pages in, but it is good so far. Of course, so was Sons and Lovers at the beginning, it was only after hundreds pages of Paul hating on Miriam that I got annoyed. And the way they talk about sex in this book is just so, I don't know, quaint I guess. But I think Lawrence was doing a good thing, even if his book didn't get published til 1960 and even then people got upset about it.

Well off to a good start

Hey I've only been off a week, but already I've read three books! Granted they were all on the shorter side, but still.

1. The History Boys - Alan Bennett
This is one of my favorite movies and so my roommate bought the play for me for my birthday. I don't know, I am not big on plays, personally. This one was good mostly to see the differences between the play and the movie, but I need prose. The delivery in the movie is so excellent that I just hear their voices when I read the play. This sounds so negative, but I did really like it.

2. Maurice - E. M. Forster
Another book that I have seen the movie of with my roommate. I highly recommend both. This book deals with homosexuality in early 20th century England and so it was not even published until the 1970s. But it is really quite excellent. I read A Passage to India in high school and never liked it that much, but I recently read Howards End and really enjoyed it so I decided to give Forster another go. I must not be a huge fan of imperialism, because I really like his other works. Howards End is about social class conflict in England and there is really nothing I like better. Forster deals with controversy very nicely I think. I really wanted to annotate this book, but I couldn't since it belonged to the library. Anyway, it is about one man's struggle to overcome his homosexuality in a time and society that definitely did not accept it. And it is beautiful, that is all.

3. The Awakening - Kate Chopin
Yeah this one has been on my list for a longgg time. I finally picked it up because I needed something to read on the train that was small enough to fit in my purse. Kate Chopin is awesome! I like that her stories are all about women finding themselves and ditching their husbands. Always a good topic. But the book is really beautiful and Edna is a really interesting character. Although I think that the end is not really a victory. It seems like more of a cop-out. I will not give it away, but the more I think about, the less satisfactory I find it.

4. White Teeth - Zadie Smith
Only 100 pages in. Will discuss more later.

Oh it is that time of year again.

I return. It seems that around March and April I get anxious for the summer and I start doing anything that can be summer related, even though I overwhelmed with homework and that sort of thing. But yes, once again, it is time to start thinking about summer reading. As always I am inspired by professors to read some books that are usually related to one of my classes. This time they are:

Maurice - E. M. Forster
I didn't like Passage to India when I read it in high school, but I just read Howards End and it was excellent. I also watched the movie for this book and it was fantastically gay so how could I not.

On Beauty - Zadie Smith
This book is an homage to Howards End, except it is set in the present and focuses more on race instead of class. I have started it and it seems good so far, but there is no time for it now.

The Awakening - Kate Chopin
Read a short story or two by her last semester so I bought this one and a few other short stories at The Book Table. Except I already own it. Oops.

Lady Chatterly's Lover - D. H. Lawrence
Here's hoping this one is less whiney than Sons and Lovers. I can't handle too much repetition, but there's nothing like turn of the century "smut."

Don't worry, this list will grow. I have all sorts of books I have to read for London, as I will be spending the fall semester there. Mostly books by the Brontes, as I am doing a giant project on them and I've only read Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.

Wait I thought I had more

Oh wait I remember now. I knew I had more than one book to blog about but I just could not remember and now I do.

Firstly, I finished Reading Lolita in Tehran. It picked up a bit, but still dragged the majority of the time. But enough.

Next was Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier. I like Tracy Chevalier, she writes nice historical fiction that is usually sad, which is usually my style. But this novel just totally fell short of what I normally expect. First of all, it really should be more marketed towards teenagers. The protagonist is twelve. And I mean, yes, there can be adult books about twelve year olds, but this is not one of them. It's like she just added little snippets of sex and language to make it inappropriate for younger people and I just do not think it worked. I was disappointed. And it also had that little title tie-in that Jesi hates so much. Some random paragraph about the fireworks that were "burning bright", which really had nothing to do with the story. I will say though that it did give a nice pictures of the lower class in 18th century London. But other than that, not much going for it. One of the first books I've read so far that I have not liked. Ah well, it is not like I wasted that much time on it.

After that I read The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld. I really enjoy her work. She also wrote Prep which I read in the library at DU when I locked myself out of my room. I think what she writes is very honest and believable. Nothing really ever works out for the main character. Their relationships are usually fucked up and never satisfying. And she's a really excellent writer... but she is just marketed completely wrong. Her covers are white and very chicklitish, nevermind the titles. The Man of My Dreams? I mean seriously. Any woman who picked it up hoping for a nice, light story is going to be pretty disappointed. Otherwise, most excellent.

Now I have started on Man Walks into a Room by Nicole Krauss. It is her first novel, I believe. It is about a woman whose husband disappears and when he returns he has amnesia and cannot remember her. It is really heartbreaking actually. Apparently Jesi's friend said it was not that good, but I beg to differ. I have not finished it yet but the writing is really quite good. Reminds me a lot of Jesi's writing actually. But so far it is really good. She does a good job at capturing what it would be like for the person with amnesia and their emotions, but also those of the people he knew.

I think that is all. I am on my tenth book for the month which is pretty good I must say. And I've got the new Anita Shreve and the new Ian McEwan on hold at the library so things are looking up.

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?

Uhh...

So I started House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. Got 100ish pages into it but I decided that I should read my library books and take my own books with me to Alaska. So I put it aside, even though it was a decent book. More of the whole early 20th century class issues. I like it though, the protagonist is a lot better than Sister Carrie. So instead I am reading Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler which is the sequel to Parable of the Sower which I read for Lit earlier in the semester. It is good, although I can't really say why. It's really critical of Christianity and organized religion and all these bad things keep happening and it's basically just really depressing. And because it's Memorial Day weekend I do not have to work so I have been doing a lot of reading which is nice.

Before starting Talents though I read the first chapter of Huck Finn and also fifty pages of Saturday by Ian McEwan. Huck Finn didn't thrill me (sorry Prof. Rohman), but McEwan is an amazing author. I absolutely love his prose.

I really need to decide which books to take on my Alaskan cruise which I am leaving for in less than a week!! Which books, but also how many. Does four sound like a good number? I'll be gone 12 days I think. I guess it depends on what books they are though. Saturday for sure, hum hum.
That is all for now, I just wanted to update because boy and I are sitting here intrawebbing it up.

Second book done! Also, I am pathetic.

So I finished my second book a few days ago. Sister Carrie* by Theodore Dreiser. It was... okay. It was recommended by my American Lit professor when we were reading Main Street. I liked Main Street a lot. They are supposed to be sort of opposite each other, in Main Street, Carol Kennicott goes from the city to a small down and tries to culture them, whereas in Sister Carrie, Carrie is coming from a small town to the big city and getting "cultured". I say "cultured" because she really just becomes more materialistic. Carol actually cares about poetry and ideas and architecture, and Carrie just cares about money. I could definitely see why Main Street was more popular than Sister Carrie. The characters are so weak and unlikable in SC. Carol just moves from guy to guy, going to whoever can give her the best time and the most money. And she lives with all these guys without marrying them, which isn't so much an issue but just the fact that she is totally using them in the process. She is just too controlling to be naive as she seems. She "falls in love" with this guy who she uses for his money, but somehow she doesn't realize he's married? Uhhh no. I just did not like her. I don't think I'd recommend this book for anyone besides those interested in the genre. I kept reading and reading and wondering what else could possibly happen. Usually that is a good thing, but this time I just wanted it to end.

Now I am reading The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips, who was apparently a child actor and five time winner of Jeopardy. Although what he acted in remains to be seen. Miss Jesi mentioned this book and I liked the title (great reason I know) and so I decided to check it out. It's been slow going. Only last night did I get to a point where I was reading without checking the page numbers to see how far I've gone. Part of the reason it's not so easy to get into is the fact that there are two narrators, both of whom are writing letters to someone. Epistolary is the word. The first narrator is the arrogant egyptologist who is writing to his fiance, the second is a private investigator doing research into this rich man's son. I think it only starts to pick up when the stories start to connect to one another. But it still isn't amazing or anything. Hopefully I can finish it in the next day or two.

I really am pathetic though because this is only my third book. I'm averaging like a book a week which is completely horrible. I only read at night because I have been working over 20 hours a week and that takes up a lot of time. And the rest of the time I am sleeping. I just need an afternoon or two alone on my hammock. I've also been redoing my room so that is taking up a lot of my time. But also now I am finished with the first season of Bones so less distractions!

And I don't know what my next book will be. I will have to think. It's time for another classic so we'll see.

* Blogger apparently doesn't have a handy little underline button so I am just going to skip it. Wah.