Last night I finished J. Maarten Troost's The Sex Lives of Cannibals, his travel memoir of his two years on Tarawa, an atoll in the nation of Kiribati in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific. I wouldn't have survived the poor sanitation (people shit directly into the lagoons), lack of much of anything but fish to eat, and the constant Macarena in the background, but I'm glad I read about it. I'll have to check out his later book about life in Fiji.
posted by kristin at 11:57 AM

This year's Seattle Reads book is The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. I've had it since Christmas but just now finally had a chance to read it. I'm now looking forward to the author events coming up and want to see the movie.
posted by kristin at 11:52 AM

People had been recommending Janet Evanovich to me for years, so I finally picked up One for the Money, the first in her Stephanie Plum series. (It was my mystery choice for Nancy's class). After being laid off, and broke, Stephanie takes a job as a bounty hunter working for her cousin, and it's definitely not the easiest job she's ever had.
posted by kristin at 11:48 AM

Norman Spinrad's Greenhouse Summer was my choice of SF novel for class. Set in the near future, after the polar ice is mostly melted, scientists are arguing over whether or not it's too late to do something to prevent the planet from reading Condition Venus. The main character is probably one of the first PR people featured in such a role.
posted by kristin at 11:42 AM

I'm taking another class from Nancy Pearl starting next weekend and decided to get a jump on the reading for it (one western, one mystery, one romance, one SF or fantasy, and a graphic novel) over spring break. For my western I chose Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry in spite of its length (~950 pages). I read those 900+ pages in about 2 1/2 days. The book is fabulous. One of the best I've read in a long time.
posted by kristin at 11:38 AM

I love bibliomysteries and Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind did not disappoint. Apparently he's published other books in Spanish that haven't been translated yet. Hopefully they will be soon.
posted by kristin at 11:37 AM

The Genius Factory by David Plotz is an investigation of the "Nobel Prize" sperm bank and some of the children born from it. Worth a read.
posted by kristin at 11:35 AM

Frank Chin's Donald Duk is the story of a boy growing up with Chinese parents in SF's Chinatown. I liked it, but must not have loved in since I remember very little about it 3 weeks later.
posted by kristin at 11:33 AM

Out of curiosity I read two children's books about lindy hop back in the day. Stompin' at the Savoy by Alan Govenar and Happy Feet by Richard Michelson. I'm probably going to need to buy copies for the kids of some of my dance friends.
posted by kristin at 11:31 AM

Orson Scott Card's Shadow of the Giant is the latest in the Ender's Game series. This one takes on the point of view of Bean years after the return to Earth. I enjoyed it, but would not suggest reading it without reading the rest of the Shadow books.
posted by kristin at 11:29 AM

A few tidbits from the last 24 hours. I finished Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things last night. Definitely worth a read. Right now my favorite story would be the novella featuring Shadow from American Gods, but that's probably just because it's the last one I read. Also last night I put a bunch of books up for swap on bookmooch.com. If you haven't checked the site out, you should. It's nifty.

Tonight I went to see Art Spiegelman as part of the Seattle Arts & Lectures series. I'd briefly considered not going because I was tired and was going to be late, but I managed to get there just before he was introduced, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Among other things he talked about the history of comics, while projecting images illustrating his points.
posted by kristin at 9:47 PM