We survived our 50 books in one year challenge. In 2009 we are still reading...

Monday, March 30, 2009

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (#14, Classic)

Apparently everyone and their dog read this book between the ages of 8 and 13. Not me. I waited until I was good and ready at 28.

It's short, it's easy, and it's about the civil war. The book is very descriptive--but I found it really hard to envision the scenes he was describing. There is very little dialogue or story line other than the thoughts of a youth in the midst of his first battle. I did find the theme of abandoning very interesting, and something that has always been missing in all the war books and movies I have read and seen.

I think that this may be one of those books that can be adapted very well to screen, so I am definitely planning on seeing the movie.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (#8, Contemporary Literature)

Sometimes I read books and halfway through I start to wonder why it took me so long to find them. How is it that I am just now reading Bernhard Schlink's The Reader? An Oprah's book club book, I read this one fairly quickly even though it was one of those books that makes you want to take your time and savor the writing. I really enjoyed Schlink's style; it is abrupt and brutal and simple, yet almost always beautiful.

This was March's book club pick and probably my favorite book of the year. Controversial and thought provoking, I enjoyed whetting my literary chops on this one. I found myself slipping back into English major mode, questioning everything and trying to figure out my stance on just what Schlink is saying.

Set in Germany in the years following the Holocaust, The Reader tells the story of a love affair between a former concentration camp guard and the teenage boy she helps one day on his way home from school. Part one is slightly unsettling and a little hard to swallow at times but the portrayal of this young boy's love for this older woman is gripping, as is the impending fallout their love affair causes.

My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler (#7, Nonfiction)

This was an impulse purchase from the Buy 1, Get 1 Half Off pile at Borders. I thought maybe I would laugh a lot and get some tips to have my own crazy horizontal life but alas, all I got was a less funny, less satisfying female version of Tucker Max. Handler's stories in My Horizontal Life are not that funny. There is potential for goodness here, but I might have only cracked up twice while reading this book.

Maybe I am just not a fan of Chelsea Handler. Maybe if I watched her show on E! I could appreciate the humor more but I found myself cringing at the poor quality of the writing. Her stories were believable in the sense that they were so boring and pointless that they had to be true. Why else would you write a book with really boring stories of your so called crazy sexcapades? Some stories had such potential for true hilarity but most just fell flat. I mean there are midgets and jungle fever and poop stories. How can you go wrong? Apparently, you can.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Tess of the d'Urbervilles (#13, Classic)

You know what Thomas Hardy likes? Murder. I had a sneaking suspicion that Alec was going to bite the dust at some point, but the ending was... um... different than Far From the Madding Crowd.

Poor Tess, so good and pure, is ruined thanks to one night. And, the events of the night are defined depending on how the reader interprets the situation--was it rape or was she seduced? Either way, her life according to Victorian standards is completely tainted.

The story has the Romeo and Juliet type theme--two young people intensely in love, but you know their happiness is going to be short lived. Deep down Tess knows that Angel will not forgive her for her past, yet she is unable to keep it to herself. Should she have told him? What would you do?

Overall I didn't love the book. It was much more dark, depressing, and desperate than my other experience with Thomas Hardy. I have a really hard time with novels from this time period where the characters have happiness within reach, but because of societal pressures it slips away, and what would have been bliss and prosperity turns into death and hardship.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Woman in the Dark by Dashiell Hammett (# 12, Fiction)

I went to the library last week with the intention of picking up a few books. I left with ten. Two of the ten are over 1,000 pages.... yeah, I think I have a problem. My eyes are always bigger than what I can handle--pretty much when it comes to anything... food, books, plans... you name it. I guess I'm just an eternal optimist.

Dashiell Hammett is the author of The Maltese Falcon, which was on my list, but it was not there so I grabbed this instead. If you have ever seen an old school murder mystery movie like The Maltese Falcon or Rear Window, that is exactly how this book reads. I could just imagine a dark and drizzly night with a woman in 40's styled garb running down the street with an erie voiced narrator introducing the scene--very twilight zone-esque.

It was a quick and enjoyable read. Apparently there is a movie based on one of the characters in the book, so I think I will have to see what that is all about.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner (#11, Chick Lit)

Oh dear what was I thinking? I read Good in Bed years ago and found it falling far from my taste in books.

I need to get something off my chest about this author. It may come off bad, but I just don't relate to overweight characters in books--and that is a theme that I believe is present in all of her books. In Little Earthquakes I probably liked the character (of course her name had to be becky) less because she was described as obese. Does that make me a horrible person?

But, that was not anywhere near the forefront of why I wouldn't recommend this book to most people. First off it's about four women about my age, but they all meet in a yoga pregnancy class... yeah, the book is about babies, husbands, affairs, balancing work and family--not exactly up my ally. It was moderately entertaining with some nice friendshipy type scenes, but Weiner's writing is so mediocre. Actually I would say it's 75% mediocre and 25% bad.

I have purposely been avoiding Weiner since 2002 when I read her first novel, but I fell prey to this sitting on my mom's bookshelf in the guest room. I knew what I was getting myself into, but sometimes you just gotta read the fluff.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

The Emperor's Children by Clair Messud (#10, Fiction)

Um. So, you know how Holden from The Catcher in the Rye really bothered me? Well, I feel like this author stole from J.D. Salinger and put Holden into this book. Not a complete plagiarism, but Bootie is way too reminiscent to not make the connection, at least for me.

I really did not like this book. I tried. I really tried to like Danielle, and maybe Julius, but I just couldn't do it. Everyone was just too into talking nonsense. If there are people out there that actually talk like they do--so philosophical and meaningless-- then point me in the opposite direction!

The book sleeve makes it sound like it could be fairly apropos for someone my age and in my place in life. Will I ever find someone special, and will I ever find something that sets me apart and I can really make a difference in the world? But, the author just makes these really annoying, self absorbed, stupid, lazy characters who are too busy looking for perfection and are therefore above anything but perfection in the meantime.

I read this for book club, so I'm definitely interested to see what others think of it. I have yet to talk to anyone who really liked it, I'm thinking it's going to be less than enthusiastically received.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (#9, Nonfiction)

I really enjoyed this book. So much so that I think I have been boring people with stories, anecdotes, and slightly uppity behavior when saying things such as, "Where did you get THOSE strawberries? I bet THEY are not Local." (imagine me with my hands on my hips and a bit of a swagger)

This book was really interesting to me for two specific reasons. First of all, this was kind of my life. I didn't live for one whole year on only local foods, but I did have a gigantic garden that was like a second job for everyone in my family, and we ordered the cute itty bitty turkey chicks to raise for Thanksgiving. And let me tell you--Kingsolver is dead on when she says it doesn't matter if you name those chicks, because they get ugly fast. Ugly. Real Ugly. Seriously. Yet, regardless of how gross they grow up to look and what a mucky, disgusting mess they turn their living quarters into, I think I would have disowned my parents if they made me participate in the whole beheading of the turkeys, no gracias.

Secondly, I found that reading this book was perfectly timed because I am planning on having my very own garden at my new apartment! So, next winter if you want some delicious homemade pesto I am where it's at! (fingers crossed!)

I definitely hope to follow some of her habits, and hopefully I will have a smaller carbon footprint because of it.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

The 2-Hour Tarot Tutor by Wilma Carroll (#6, nonfiction)

I have my roommate to thank for getting me into Tarot cards. She blew my mind when she read my cards this summer. I kid you not but the cards really did reflect everything that was going on with a boy at the time. The cards also predicted the outcome which is both scary and cool. And although Sarah uses a different deck, she sparked my own personal interest in Tarot cards.

I found Wilma Carroll's The 2-Hour Tarot Tutor at the library and didn't realize how great a book this is for teaching one to read the cards until I actually started to read it. It teaches you to look at the cards and "say what you see." That is more important than trying to memorize the meanings of the cards. Carroll reiterates her point hundreds of times in the book and I really do think this is an advantageous way to learn how to read the cards.

I also like her use of numerology and how she relates it to the cards. After calculating my personal number for the year of 2009, I was blown away by how accurate it was! Especially since last year's personal number was a 9, which means it was a time of endings, which it really was.

I have been browsing through other Tarot card books but this is the only one that I have been able to read cover to cover. I will be sad when I return this to the library--it has proven to be a useful resource.

Second Chance by Jane Green (#5, Chick Lit)

For the month of February, our book club voted to read Jane Green's Second Chance. We were searching for something on the lighter side of things, something that would allow us to recover from our heavy first read, Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Now if you have been reading booknymphs for a while, you know how I feel about chick lit. I always begin these books with such great hope--I always want them to be good, I want them to be satisfying and funny and romantic and overall, a great story. But as we know, good chick lit is hard to find. Aside from reading Jane Austen--who can be credited with the creation of the chick lit genre--it's pretty rare to find a piece of modern chick lit that I actually enjoyed and would recommend to a friend. That said, I started Second Chance with low expectations. I didn't really think it would be that good and I worried how the book club discussion of it would go.

I was right about the quality of the book. It was chinsy and downright annoying at times when the narrative style fell into typical chick lit whiney whiney female babble. That is my number one pet peeve when reading these girly books. I cannot stand a whiney main character waxing about how no man will ever love her or what if he likes me or I don't like him or I really do like him or what am I saying, there is no way he will ever like me etc. You get the picture. It reads too much like a personal diary for me and if I wanted to read something like that I'd read my own journals from high school.

I was wrong about the quality of our book club discussion. I thought the six of us would have a hard time finding things in this book to talk about but apparently our abilities to relate to the themes of Second Chance made for a long, interesting discussion. The subject matter (the death of a close friend bringing the group closer together) really sparked an intense discussion as we all could better relate to the characters. Compared to our stilted and mostly quiet discussion of A Thousand Splendid Suns, Second Chance inspired a vibrant conversation that had us all sharing stories and laughing uncontrollably. And the funniest thing is that only two people actually finished the book! Sadly, I must admit I had fifty pages to go when we met to discuss but I finished it afterward, I promise!

Our pick for March is Bernhard Schlink's The Reader. Sarah is hosting and it will be interesting to see how our discussion of another heavy themed book will go.