Last week I spent most of the week frantically trying to finish Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections for book group on Thursday. I managed to do it (though didn't get enough sleep Wednesday night as a result). I liked it but didn't love it. Some individual scenes were quite entertaining but perhaps it was just too long to feel very cohesive overall. I noticed Franzen has at least one book of short stories available. I somehow think I'll prefer those.

Last night I again stayed up later than I should have finishing a book. This time it was William Gibson's latest, Pattern Recognition. I quite liked it actually. I'd been a little leary after his reading at Powells last week, but it turns out he'd just chosen a scene to read that really didn't stand on its own all that well.
posted by kristin at 5:04 PM

I've been lax about keeping this thing up to date lately on new readings, so this will be a catch-up post.

During jury duty I read Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen. As I expected it was hilarious in parts but very very odd. Are people in Florida really this strange? (Or at least the ones that aren't there for retirement?)

At home that week I read Marcovaldo by Italo Calvino. Subtitled Seasons in the City it's a series of short stories about Marcovaldo and the things that happen in the city around him. Not a good choice if you're looking for something plot-driven but it was a fun read.

My next jury duty and commuting book was Riding Shotgun by Rita Mae Brown. Oddly it ended up being partially a time-travel story (though not science fiction since no method was proposed for how she ended up in 1699) but is really about the relationships between people.

I'd had A Rush of Dreamers by John Cech sitting around for several years, purchased simply because it's a fictionalized biography of Emperor Norton. It focused a lot more on the early years while he was just Joshua Norton and his slide down into semi-madness. I think William Drury's actual biography was a better read though.

Last night, I finished Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. She decided to go to various parts of the country and see if she could get buy on a near-minimum wage no-experience necessary job. The outcome of her experiment wasn't really surprising. The interesting parts of the book were the little anecdotes about each job (waitressing, cleaning, and Wal-Mart) and the lives of her temporary coworkers. The book did make me grateful for my education and better-paying job.

posted by kristin at 4:52 PM

Purchased last week at Powells when I went to see Gibson speak:
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Shah of Shahs by Ryszard Kapuscinski
Baltasar and Blimunda by Jose Saramago
posted by kristin at 4:43 PM

I finished several books lately between being sick and having to show up for jury duty but I don't feel like writing about them just this second..

arrived today from amazon:
Matt Ruff's Set This House on Order (a new Ruff novel is cause for celebration)

purchased Tuesday from Looking Glass Bookstore (on a break from the courthouse):
The Culture of Fear by Barry Blassner
The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies
posted by kristin at 6:40 PM

I accidently stayed up until 5:30am finishing Lord of Emperors. It was long (they both were) but well worth the read. And unlike the first volume the second actually had a decent ending.


bought last weekend in Seattle: Crashing the Party by Ralph Nader
bought after hearing him lecture Wednesday: Why is Sex Fun? by Jared Diamond
arrived from amazon: New Japanese Voices edited by Helen Mitsios
posted by kristin at 3:35 PM

My only problem with Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay, which I finished last night, is that it is not a novel that stands by itself. It's definitely part one of two so I had to immediately start the second half, Lord of Emperors. It's a fantasy novel that doesn't bring to mind any thoughts of Tolkien (at least in my mind).
posted by kristin at 11:02 AM

It's hard to call My Ishmael a novel in any sort of traditional sense, though I suppose there are characters and some small bit of plot. Really it's more of an essay in conversation form about what humanity could do to not completely destroy this planet. It's a sequel of sorts to Ishmael but could stand on its own since it doesn't rely on you knowing anything from the first book. I haven't read the 2nd in the series The Story of B but probably will at some point. I have doubts that humanity as a whole would be able to implement most of his suggestions without perhaps making things even worse than they are now in the process, but he raises some very good ideas to think about.
posted by kristin at 11:50 AM