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Wednesday, September 20, 2006
A trip to the Friends of the Seattle Public Library book sale and two recent trips to Powells were fairly bad for my shelf space: Daniel Handler's AdverbsJorge Luis Borges's Ficciones (in Spanish) Angela Carter's The Bloody ChamberPico Iyer's Cuba and the NightEtgar Keret's The Nimrod FlipoutEtgar Keret & Actus Comics's JetlagDan Simmons's OlymposJames Clavell's Shogun
posted by kristin at 1:52 PM
Friday, September 01, 2006
Joe Kubert's Fax from Sarajevo is a heart-wrenching graphic novel based on faxes received from his friend trapped in Sarajevo during the siege. Horrifying.
posted by kristin at 3:42 PM
James Sturm's The Golem's Mighty Swing is a baseball comic with small-town American racism thrown in. Ok, but not really my thing.
posted by kristin at 3:40 PM
Alison Bechdel's Fun Home was my pick for August's book group meeting. It's a memoir in "graphic novel" form focussing on Bechdel's relationship with her father before his death. I liked it, but can sympathize with the complaints of the people in book group who didn't like it as much. If nothing else, it was a good conversation starter.
posted by kristin at 3:36 PM
I'm not much of a mystery reader, but do seem to like bibliomysteries. Lawrence Block's The Burglar who Liked to Quote Kipling was a fun story about a burglar turned bookstore owner turned burglar again. Apparently there are quite a few more books in the Bernie Rhodenbarr series, so perhaps I'll read more of them.
posted by kristin at 3:33 PM
I normally don't like reading short story collections as much as novels, but managed to read two in a row this month. James P. Blaylock's 13 Phantasms was the more recent. There's a story about doughnuts. One about time travel. One that reminded me a bit of a Tim Powers novel. And more.
posted by kristin at 3:29 PM
Mark Helprin Ellis Island & Other Stories is a collction of short stories and one novella (which is the title story). There's a wide range in the stories; some serious, some more fantastic. Not as good as his novel Winter's Tale, but worth reading.
posted by kristin at 3:24 PM
Jasper Fforde's The Fourth Bear is the next in his nursery crimes series. This one has Goldilocks, bears, and the Gingerbread Man, among other silly things. Fun and light.
posted by kristin at 3:22 PM
It's somewhat embarassing that I'd never read Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre yet (especially considering how much I liked Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair). I didn't love it, but I'm glad I've read it now. I don't really know what I was expecting from the book, but I was somehow surprised by what it really was.
posted by kristin at 3:18 PM
Kage Baker's The Life of the World to Come is part of her Company series. You wouldn't want to read this one without reading the series from the beginning because it wouldn't make much sense. I would argue in favor of reading the whole series. This is the first one that takes place significantly in the future (and well, very very far in the past) rather than sticking to one particular historical period. Fun.
posted by kristin at 3:13 PM
Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One by Edward Trimnell is a third book that has blended together in my head. More suggestions about ways to learn foreign languages.
posted by kristin at 3:11 PM
James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain is a tale of family struggle in Harlem. I found it a somewhat painful read, but I think that was part of the point.
posted by kristin at 2:59 PM
I haven't read many chick-lit books, because the few that I'd read didn't hold my attention. I heard an interview with Jennifer Weiner and decided to give one of her books a try. I checked Good in Bed out of the library and read it all in one sitting. The book starts when the main character gets a phone call from her best friend and is told to go pick up a certain magazine. Her ex had started writing a column about having loved a "plus sized" woman. The book goes from there, but amazingly didn't annoy me in the way most chick-lit has.
posted by kristin at 2:55 PM
Graham E. Fuller's How to Learn a Foreign Language was a quick read, but I honestly don't remember at this point how it differed from Barry Farber's book, How to Learn Any Language Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably and on your Own.
posted by kristin at 2:53 PM
Wow. A month behind. Sorry! The month also means it's a little hard to remember details of all of my reading. Robert Irwin's The Arabian Nightmare was a bit surreal. Set in 15th Century Cairo, the book follows an English spy through his waking and dreaming worlds, which get closer and closer together.
posted by kristin at 2:45 PM
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