tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60433912011-12-12T14:50:16.827-08:00Don't get excited, it's just a reading log.Beckynoreply@blogger.comBlogger3651100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-56620557706475359662011-06-22T14:30:00.000-07:002011-06-22T14:31:51.953-07:00

You may have noticed I have moved on! Where I am now: My Twitter

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-54118717631387471982010-01-03T22:33:00.000-08:002010-01-03T23:18:42.632-08:00

A plea for amnesty & my best of 2009This year just got away from me. Maybe I needed a break from blogging, maybe I got distracted by shiny new social media tools. Who knows? Anyway. I'd promise to keep up from now on, but I'd hate to make myself a liar. I will promise to try though.In the meantime, here's my 2009 rundown:This year my numbers were way down from last year's. I only read 108 books:

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-92011078504667925762009-04-19T22:57:00.001-07:002009-04-19T23:17:09.747-07:00

As promised...I was excited for a new Vicky Bliss mystery with Elizabeth Peters' The Laughter of Dead Kings but it wasn't until the second half of the book that the action really got going. So while it was nice to revisit the characters (and Schmidt will always be awesome), it wasn't the best entry in the series. I won't get into why I picked up Linda Howard's Mr. Perfect, but it was okay for

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-31694295085832983392009-02-13T09:26:00.000-08:002009-02-15T23:19:50.672-08:00

I loved Audrey, Wait! by Robin Bremer so much that I made a playlist of all the songs from the chapter headings to listen to while I read it. The plot is fairly basic - Audrey breaks up with her boyfriend Evan, who then writes a song about her that becomes huge, forcing her into the media spotlight. What makes the book special are the well-drawn characters, including Audrey's parents, and the

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-33559125141033685552009-02-10T10:56:00.000-08:002009-02-10T11:14:17.146-08:00

2009 books (I'm already really far behind. Sigh.)I finished the Sean McMullen trilogy with The Miocene Arrow which moves the action to the North American continent and Eyes Of The Calculor which, while still interesting, felt less urgent and less complex than the previous two. Plus it had an almost literal deus ex machina character who I liked but the concept and execution of it didn't work that

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-31491530950355864182009-01-31T22:42:00.000-08:002009-01-31T23:12:11.259-08:00

2008 (belated) end of the year round up.I read 80 adult fiction books, 10 adult non-fiction, 45 YA, 5 graphic novels, and 6 essay collections for a total of 146 books which I believe is my highest total since I started keeping track. My 10ish favorites (in vague order of when I read them):1. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You by Peter Cameron. I ran right out and bought myself a copy as soon

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-9848940280757742242009-01-31T16:40:00.000-08:002009-01-31T17:11:42.684-08:00

Final 2008 push!Ellen Wittlinger's Blind Faith has been on my to read list for a while and while it was good I think I expected more of it because so many people said they loved it. Robin McKinley's Chalice, I'm sorry to say, didn't have much of a chance from me even thought I wanted to love it. See, I love The Hero And The Crown and The Blue Sword like whoa, but I don't think she's written

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-67325779677252694372009-01-28T21:53:00.000-08:002009-01-28T22:13:26.609-08:00

Don't You Forget About Me by Jancee Dunn was okay, although I hope I was not supposed to like the main character Lillian all that much because she annoyed me for almost the entire book. But then, I'm not someone who views high school as the best time of my life, so maybe I'm not her target audience. I don't think so though because by the end Lillian does realize that she turned a blind eye to a

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-49018118214563809052009-01-20T22:08:00.000-08:002009-01-20T22:37:31.485-08:00

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! I might actually catch up this week. My new year's resolution is to not get so freakin' behind again.Okay! This entry is dedicated to Claire, without whom I would have missed out on some awesome YA this year. Mwah! Sarah Beth Durst's Into The Wild and Out Of The Wild are pretty cool. Julie, Rapunzel's daughter, has to save her mom and her other fairy

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-82522833179303123662009-01-18T23:04:00.000-08:002009-01-18T23:37:04.041-08:00

I really liked The Summer Of Naked Swim Parties by Jessica Anya Blau. It's about a teenage girl of hippie parents who is struggling toward that necessary separation of self from her parents. But what do you rebel against when there are no boundaries? How do you have a sexual awakening when everything is frank and upfront? I read a couple of Elizabeth Scott books. The first, Stealing Heaven wasn't

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-79661604955839963992009-01-16T18:42:00.001-08:002009-01-16T19:03:57.076-08:00

Someone arrived here by searching for Scott Pilgrim fan fiction. That totally just made my night.Which naturally leads me to Jennifer Crusie. No really, it does. Anyway. Bet Me was decent and had its moments but there wasn't a whole lot of depth there (unlike, say, Marian Keyes) and the coincidences and luck thing as the two main characters got together kinda went over the line into cloying once

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-11791373263394800482009-01-15T20:11:00.000-08:002009-01-15T20:43:49.821-08:00

Claire recommended Wild Girls by Pat Murphy to me and I thought it was great. It's about two preteen girls who meet each other in the woods and become friends. They start writing stories together and help each other through some tough family drama.I know I'd heard of Holly Black's Tithe a long time ago and I don't quite remember what prompted me to finally pick it up, but I was pleasantly

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-19680082441675969472009-01-12T17:08:00.000-08:002009-01-12T17:36:59.278-08:00

In the interests of actually having a 2008 roundup before the end of January I'm going to try very hard to catch up this week. Onward!I really loved China Mieville's Perdido Street Station despite the, uh, "insect p0rn" as my friend so delicately put it, that happens in the first chapter. Sure, it was a little overwrought at times and the style could be a bit much, but once I rolled my eyes a few

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-698767068941742622009-01-11T20:57:00.000-08:002009-01-11T21:22:32.574-08:00

From worst to best: PopCo by Scarlett Thomas. I loved this book. It was like a fantastic Douglas Coupland and Neal Stephenson collaboration. It's got cryptography, pirates, corporate retreats, buried treasure, and a kickass geeky heroine who works for a toy company and is intelligent and interesting. When Alice gets a simple coded message, "Are you happy?" it starts her on making a change in her

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-73378077274907107512008-12-17T13:44:00.000-08:002008-12-17T14:08:52.125-08:00

It's not often I can pinpoint the single worst book I read in a particular year. But oh boy can I this year. Stephanie Kuehnert's I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone has a great title that's absolutely wasted on some of the worst writing and characterization I've read in a long time. No one had brown hair - it was chocolate. And eyes weren't green, they were jade or sea-green. Not to mention their eyes

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-24593384934716466822008-12-16T14:12:00.000-08:002008-12-16T14:43:23.735-08:00

The only note I have on Harlen Coben's Hold Tight is that it had a few too many cute connections at the end but overall it was pretty good. Although I don't remember a single thing about the plot, so maybe it wasn't all that good. Meg Gardiner, on the other hand, is my new favorite mystery/thriller author. Like most everyone else I first heard about her from Stephen King via Entertainment Weekly,

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-58080004403582253542008-12-08T12:21:00.000-08:002008-12-08T13:05:40.088-08:00

Non-fiction roundup:First is The Feminine Mistake: Are we giving up too much? by Leslie Bennetts, which read like she took every thought I ever had about marriage and put them in writing. It was really excellent and I thought she was wise in sticking to an economic focus and not getting bogged down in the moral and social aspects, although she didn't ignore them either. Here, have a couple of

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-49105893978783009812008-12-03T21:20:00.000-08:002008-12-03T21:54:03.677-08:00

Okay, I'm totally going to overwhelm you with books until the end of the year in an effort to get current. First up are Brian Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, Scott Pilgrim Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, Scott Pilgrim Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness, and Scott Pilgrim Vol. 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, all of which I read at

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-53261899999645221132008-07-06T14:46:00.000-07:002008-07-06T15:04:20.083-07:00

Reading David Mitchell's Black Swan Green after a long string of largely disposable mysteries and YA was just really lovely. It's his most straightforward book, not as playful or intricate as his others, but by no means is it simple or plain.Denise Mina's latest, Slip Of The Knife continues her Paddy Meehan character into the early 1990s. Paddy, now a successful columnist, has to deal with a son,

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-73356721097843648922008-06-25T19:43:00.000-07:002008-06-25T20:09:41.874-07:00

I read Laura Lippman's What The Dead Know because it was in The Morning News' Tournament of Books. I liked it quite a bit even though I guessed one twist really early on. I thought it was pretty well-written too. It inspired me to check out a bunch of her other books, but unfortunately they were less compelling. The Power Of Three felt like it was missing something and fell just short of being

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-75568507740255794612008-06-24T20:06:00.000-07:002008-06-24T20:43:38.472-07:00

Let's talk YA.So Jonathon Scott Fuqua's King Of The Pygmies was pretty interesting. It's about a teen boy named Penn who starts hearing voices. His parents are concerned about mental illness, while his alcoholic uncle insists they have the power to hear other people's thoughts. I liked how the book stayed ambiguous enough to allow the reader to wonder and hope along with Penn, but also realize

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-52344025637219287432008-06-23T20:32:00.000-07:002008-06-23T20:50:58.230-07:00

Forever ago I read Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer, which I mistakenly thought was the last book in the series, but no, apparently there's another one on its way. Which I will read as soon as possible even thought I just keep getting more and more annoyed with these characters.Cherie Priest's Dreadful Skin wasn't as good as her others, but still interesting. It's three interconnected novellas about a

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-38202465744432700962008-03-20T16:49:00.001-07:002008-03-20T17:52:56.614-07:00

Oh, hi neglected blog. Bragging to Daisy this morning about our new wireless router and how I could now email from the garage and blog poolside turned into me promising her a post before we went to dinner tonight. So here I am. Blogging poolside. But it's a little breezy, so I might go inside soon.So then. Let's talk about Charlaine Harris. I've been meaning to read her vampire series for ages

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-22912252483185488682008-01-31T13:58:00.000-08:002008-01-31T14:35:14.315-08:00

While I went into Peter Cameron's Someday This Pain will Be Useful To You with high hopes, I still half-expected to dislike it. Instead I loved it so much I went right out and bought myself a copy. Right from the first page I just knew this book and I would click. It was so dryly funny and sarcastic and the main character James, a hyper-literate teen not sure about starting college in the fall,

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-22254276803217552932008-01-24T11:30:00.000-08:002008-01-24T12:09:29.172-08:00

Clearly my resolution to keep up with posting hasn't worked so far because I'm 12 books behind already. Oh well. The first book I read in 2008 was Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep, a Christmas gift from Daisy. I was convinced I was going to hate it based on the reviews I'd read, but I actually loved it. I should have known I would because of my fascination with boarding schools and their insular worlds.

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-55730050098941387002008-01-08T11:23:00.000-08:002008-01-08T11:52:49.208-08:00

And now a quick roundup of my 2007 reading.I read 111 books this year: 45 fiction, 39 YA, 21 non-fiction, and 5 short story collections.My 10-ish favorites of the year in the order I read them were:1. Half Of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche. An absorbing and emotionally devastating look at the Nigerian civil war.2. The Zero by Jess Walter. Set in the days after 9/11, this book is told

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-33294552713792722382008-01-08T10:52:00.000-08:002008-01-08T11:21:33.309-08:00

Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint, Privilege Of The Sword, and Fall Of The Kings (with Delia Sherman) were indeed, as Claire said, the gayest fantasy books I've ever read. I didn't believe anything could out-gay Lynn Flewelling's, but these most certainly did. All three follow the family of Tremontaine through the generations as it rises and falls in influence and power in society. Fall Of The Kings I

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-7450263101885801502008-01-03T14:14:00.000-08:002008-01-03T14:45:20.526-08:00

St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves by Karen Russell has been on my list for ages but I can't remember exactly what it was that made me have to read it now. Whatever it was, I'm glad because I enjoyed these stories very much. Russell commits utterly to each premise whether it's girls literally raised by wolves or the family of the Minotaur making the great western migration. There is a

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-26726927094556698582008-01-02T14:49:00.000-08:002008-01-02T15:17:36.786-08:00

I was excited to hear that Ellen Emerson White had a new book coming out, but it was a sequel to a trilogy and I'd only read the first book ages ago, which is not easily available from my library, so I settled for starting with the second, The President's Daughter. In this one, Meg Powers' mother has been elected president and Meg has to deal with being a teenager in the public eye and her

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-77378855816207870202007-12-28T14:50:00.000-08:002007-12-28T15:07:40.538-08:00

I was a little surprised by Perry Moore's Hero. I suppose I expected it to be a little more Sky High or Mystery Men with some gay teen drama thrown in, but while it had plenty of humor, there was some serious stuff going on there. It was actually more reminiscent of Justice League and Watchmen instead. With some gay teen drama thrown in. See, Thom has problems. His father is homophobic and

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-15883165748390324932007-12-27T13:57:00.000-08:002007-12-27T14:42:25.928-08:00

Last year for Christmas Claire gave me The Hollow Kingdom by Clare B. Dunkle, which she thought I'd love but, like so many books I buy or get as gifts, it still sat unread in the bookcase. When she asked me about it I had to confess, but I promised it would be my next book. Once I started, I only stopped a third of the way through to email her to tell her she was completely right and I totally

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-54205633527940828642007-11-27T14:06:00.000-08:002007-11-27T14:50:40.850-08:00

I suppose I've been putting off talking about the next book because I'm not quite sure what to say about it. The Water Cure by Percival Everett struck me as similar in structure to Glyph, but the subject matter is much darker and angrier. It's kind of a stream-of-consciousness meditation on the development of Western thought and how it either justifies or repudiates the nature of torture as

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-14669278236453249642007-11-13T14:11:00.000-08:002007-11-13T15:02:22.643-08:00

I'm bound and determined to actually get up to date here.Because I loved The Dud Avocado so much, I grabbed Elaine Dundy's The Old Man And Me. While not as funny as The Dud Avocado, it still had its moments. Watching Honey/Betty slowly become unhinged as she tries desperately to receive her inheritance she feels she's been cheated out of wasn't always pleasant, but it was never boring. And there

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-55857633894957724562007-10-30T14:21:00.000-07:002007-10-30T14:57:51.232-07:00

Time to catch up a little bit more.Pants On Fire by Meg Cabot was cute, if predictable. And it's no joke that "Kissing--Fiction" is a subject heading for this book.Hex Education by Emily Gould and Zareen Jaffery was fairly insubstantial - like a cute and fluffy version of The Craft.The Four Dorothys by Paul Ruditis was fun. It takes place at an exclusive private school in Malibu during the spring

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-11618739811364603212007-10-12T14:59:00.000-07:002007-10-12T15:26:44.665-07:00

No, I haven't disappeared. But I was sick for a while and then there were work issues and in the meantime my notes on books just kept piling up waiting for me to post. Here's the first round of catch-up.I finished the last three Body of Evidence books, Brain Trust, Last Breath, and Throat Culture by Christopher Golden and Rick Hautala and enjoyed the return to less fantastic ways to die and more

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1916415903303886902007-09-17T09:11:00.000-07:002007-09-18T13:49:45.586-07:00

I enjoyed A Killer Life: How an independent film producer survives deals and disasters in Hollywood and beyond by Christine Vachon with Austin Bunn a lot. I picked up her first book a couple of years back because she wrote about the making of Velvet Goldmine, but found her conversational writing style and passion for making interesting movies appealing, so I was happy she'd written another,

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-61329657198946147742007-09-05T12:55:00.000-07:002007-09-05T13:34:27.822-07:00

I spent the holiday weekend watching Doctor Who and reading the next five Body of Evidence thrillers by Christopher Golden: Thief Of Hearts, Soul Survivor, Meets The Eye, Head Games, and Skin Deep. They were all pretty entertaining, although when read one right after the other, they definitely test one's credulity. I mean, I love medical zebras as much as the next House fan, but Golden was really

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-59675588748082840012007-08-30T11:01:00.000-07:002007-08-30T11:28:33.140-07:00

I'm falling behind again. Okay, so Spook Country by William Gibson was great. Like Pattern Recognition, it's also set in the present day and involves a cult musician turned journalist writing a story on virtual locative art for a magazine she suspects doesn't really exist. Of course there's a lot of other stuff going on too, and it's fun watching all the players converge and the cat and mouse

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-51056635433087966972007-08-27T14:17:00.000-07:002007-08-27T14:50:36.451-07:00

Knowing that Joe Hill is Stephen King's son was bound to influence my impression of his first novel Heart Shaped Box. I'm not a huge Stephen King fan, but I've read a few of his books and liked most of them. Regardless of my personal opinion of the man's writing, the fact remains that he's a horror mainstay and for Hill to enter the same profession, let alone the same genre, takes some serious

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-67715409269356855262007-08-17T14:15:00.000-07:002007-08-17T14:20:39.374-07:00

Vacation roundup:My first day there I finished up Love And Other Four Letter Words by Carolyn Mackler. It's about a teenager named Sammie who, when her parents separate, has to move to New York City with her emotionally unstable mother. I enjoyed it, but it was a little reminiscent of Sarah Dessen, only slighter and without her more rounded characters.Coincidentally my cousin was reading River

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-30782901910524463832007-08-15T12:03:00.000-07:002007-08-15T12:05:31.279-07:00

Before I left on vacation I read Freak Show by James St. James. It's about Billy Bloom, a teenage drag queen (or, rather, a full-on 90's club kid) plopped down in a conservative Florida private school for the rich and troubled. Billy reminded me a little of Kitten Braden from Breakfast On Pluto, especially in the beginning, but Billy is a little more self-aware than Kitten and usually dresses to

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-86417240629817663892007-07-23T14:01:00.000-07:002007-07-23T14:03:15.674-07:00

The bloom is off the rose a bit with Wings To The Kingdom by Cherie Priest. Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed it a lot, but some flaws started to jump out at me. Maybe it was because a haunted Civil War battlefield just isn't as creepy as a Florida swamp, but I felt there was a little less urgency to the plot this time around. I also thought the writing wasn't as accomplished as I'd initially

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-47388398812139078572007-07-19T09:14:00.000-07:002007-07-19T09:32:03.720-07:00

Ice by Vladimir Sorokin (translated by Jamey Gambrell) initially had me totally enthralled. Using hammers made of ice, men and women beat on the chests of those they've kidnapped in the hopes of finding others whose hearts will respond with their true names. Those whose hearts remain silent are presumably left for dead while those who are "awakened" are welcomed as brothers and sisters. However

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-69037035006102366822007-07-08T17:48:00.000-07:002007-07-08T18:31:15.627-07:00

I'm behind again, as usual. Back at the end of June I read the utterly delightful The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy. It's about a young woman, recently out of college, spending a couple of years in Paris meeting artists and actors and having all sorts of adventures. It was funny and charming and made me laugh out loud in public more than once. One culprit: "The waiters at the Select comported

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-18249829282341551652007-06-19T19:29:00.000-07:002007-06-19T20:35:41.366-07:00

I've been so busy at work lately that the last thing I want to do when I get home is fire up the laptop, but I'm getting ridiculously behind on posting, so here's a roundup of what I've read the last week and a half.A Short History Of Myth by Karen Armstrong is, I believe, intended to be the introduction to the whole Myth series and I've been meaning to read it for a while now. It was indeed

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-20950461659400279522007-06-08T14:52:00.000-07:002007-06-08T15:09:35.844-07:00

My new-found love of Jess Walter led me to Every Knee Shall Bow: The truth and tragedy of Ruby Ridge and the Randy Weaver family, his non-fiction account of the 1992 standoff. I only have vague memories of this event because it all happened before I starting paying much attention to politics (that would come a couple of months later), so most of it was completely new to me. Walter naturally

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-4229380735971099822007-06-05T14:52:00.001-07:002007-06-05T15:10:30.557-07:00

Find Me by Carol O'Connell kind of feels like the end of the Mallory series. In this book Mallory is following the tracks of her long lost father through his old journal entries written about the famed Route 66. Coincidentally there is a caravan of parents of missing children driving the route to raise awareness of their situation. And the FBI just so happens to be investigating what they believe

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-72022649521353068392007-05-30T13:08:00.000-07:002007-05-30T14:04:17.679-07:00

I have pages and pages of quotes from No god But God: The origins, evolution, and future of Islam by Reza Aslan, which covers exactly what the subtitle says in a scholarly but immensely readable fashion. His is a decidedly modern, progressive viewpoint, arguing that "religion, it must be understood, is not faith. Religion is the story of faith." And that "all religions are inextricably bound to

Beckynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-79957975789311192092007-05-16T08:05:00.000-07:002007-05-16T08:20:53.989-07:00

I finished The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall yesterday. It caught my eye because it starts with a man waking up with no memory of who he is. He finds a note from himself (signed "The First Eric Sanderson") telling him he needs to call his doctor, who tells him he is suffering from a dissociative disorder stemming from the traumatic loss of his girlfriend. But things take a turn for the seriously

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-53379260621946894212007-05-14T13:08:00.000-07:002007-05-14T13:37:07.523-07:00

It feels like I haven't spent a weekend doing nothing but reading for a long time. It was nice, despite discovering my grand plan of lounging by the pool Sunday afternoon wasn't going to work because our lone deck chair was seriously dirty and possibly broken, so I enjoyed my lunch on the patio bench instead and then went back inside to resume my position on the couch. So Saturday I read The

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-70380080371225233392007-05-14T11:58:00.000-07:002007-05-14T12:29:35.317-07:00

Last week I read Murder In The Model City: The Black Panthers, Yale, and the redemption of a killer by Paul Bass and Douglas W. Rae. It follows the murder of Alex Rackley by fellow members of the Black Panthers who suspected he was an informant, their trials, and the life of Warren Kimbro, one of the gunmen in the case, as he turned his life around. The book attempts to clarify the facts of the

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-65554931799296222092007-05-09T11:36:00.000-07:002007-05-09T11:45:06.358-07:00

Last week I read Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson, a collection of short stories linked by a shared narrator and his drug-fueled experiences. I can't say it's my favorite book of short stories, but there are moments and scenes that still occupy my thoughts and the writing was often beautiful ("The women were blank, shining areas with photographs of sad girls floating in them"). I suspect I'll come

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-45234590099863195172007-05-07T13:42:00.000-07:002007-05-07T14:10:26.602-07:00

I have been somewhat reluctant to write about How Sassy Changed My Life: A love letter to the greatest teen magazine of all time by Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer because while I loved Sassy, I came to it late and never fully connected with it before it was gone. I didn't subscribe until after I'd graduated from high school and left home because I wasn't allowed to. Wait, I take that back

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-73241780356168761942007-05-01T14:31:00.000-07:002007-05-01T15:03:51.819-07:00

The Revolution Will Be Accessorized edited by Aaron Hicklin is a compilation of essays that originally appeared in BlackBook magazine, which I occasionally read. These aren't long in-depth interviews or powerful essays for the most part and it's a bit of a mixed bag with some I enjoyed, some I thought were just okay, and some I didn't care for at all (namely Toby Young's piece, which just further

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-66195674900578333602007-04-26T11:58:00.000-07:002007-04-26T12:51:58.562-07:00

Daisy recently read Heavy Metal And You by Christopher Krovatin and I picked it up because of the paragraph she quoted: "There are certain rules that apply to mixes, of course. Always start them off well - the first couple of songs are incredibly important. I personally preferred starting with a catchy, fun, sometimes softer track, something to draw the listener in. I put a harder, more energetic

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-40743743656603837352007-04-18T11:46:00.000-07:002007-04-18T12:08:43.458-07:00

Okay. So. I finished The Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian last night in a flurry of pages and tears. I just... I can't even... It wrecked me. I'm talking huge gulping sobs at the end. You know, I don't have enough distance to talk about it right now. Just thinking about parts of it still makes me emotional. I can't seem to get the last page out of my head and the implications of one line in

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-58815051835205965472007-04-18T11:43:00.000-07:002007-04-18T11:46:47.735-07:00

I'm not sure if I should even put My Secret compiled by Frank Warren on here because it's more of an art book, really, but it did involve some reading, so there you go. If you've never heard of Post Secret, go check out the blog, and if you have then you already know what the book is like.

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-80701248278251996022007-04-11T14:18:00.000-07:002007-04-11T15:11:19.057-07:00

My last day of vacation I spent reading All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson, a sort of sequel to Idoru, but one that can be read alone. It's been years since I read Idoru and I was able to follow along without too much hassle, although one of these days I'm going to read all his books in order to better see how they fit together. This one takes place mostly in a future San Francisco, where

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-80968533389085545312007-04-09T11:20:00.000-07:002007-04-09T12:08:31.994-07:00

Because Daisy knows me all too well, when she gave me Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell for my birthday, she made me give her an exact start date because otherwise it might have sat in my bookcase for years before I got to it. Conveniently though, I was going on vacation a few days later and told her I'd take it with me and start it on the plane. I brought along several other books also

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-67866428251217046652007-04-05T14:30:00.000-07:002007-04-05T15:06:38.583-07:00

I'm starting to get dangerously behind. So, Eat, Pray, Love: One woman's search for everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert. I was a little wary of this book at first because it seemed too... too... twee? No, that's not it. I don't know the word I'm looking for. Too something. But I read enough positive reviews to give it a chance when I saw it sitting downstairs and

Beckynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-88626047167673832172007-03-26T11:48:00.000-07:002007-03-26T12:03:42.553-07:00

I actually read Jess Walter's The Zero last weekend but haven't had a chance to post about it yet. It opens with NYPD detective Brian Remy coming to after having shot himself in the head in an apparent suicide attempt just days after 9/11. However neither he nor the reader knows why he did it or what brought him to that place. In fact, there are a lot of things Remy doesn't know: why his son is

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-83463067809894422002007-03-15T13:49:00.000-07:002007-03-15T14:22:50.888-07:00

The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh is a funny little book that takes shots at Hollywood, the commercialization of death, and basically anyone without the least bit of self-awareness. It features a love triangle between Aimee, a cosmetologist at the funeral home; her boss Mr. Joyboy, the embalmer; and an English poet named Dennis, who works at a funeral home for pets. It was clever and funny, and while

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-67589646897913497212007-03-07T12:40:00.000-08:002007-03-07T13:21:46.205-08:00

I held off writing about I Have Lived In The Monster by Robert K. Ressler and Tom Shachtman until I finished The Evil That Men Do by Stephen G. Michaud with Roy Hazelwood because they cover similar topics, namely serial killers and the involvement of profiling in assisting the investigations. Ressler's book includes large chunks of detailed interviews he conducted with both Gacy and Dahmer and

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-65734386595028418682007-02-27T14:11:00.000-08:002007-02-27T14:44:51.675-08:00

Wait, it couldn't really have taken me almost three effing weeks to read The Night Life Of The Gods by Thorne Smith, right? Right? Man, that's lame. Sorry about that. It started out as so amusing and satirical and I loved Daffy and her uncle Hunter and the family dynamic and was excited to get to the whole bringing the Greek gods to life thing, but it started dragging on and on and Hunter and Meg

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-56270306879856575492007-02-08T13:09:00.000-08:002007-02-01T12:24:36.054-08:00

It seems you can't mention Raymond Chandler without also talking about James M. Cain, and since I love Chandler, I decided it was high time I checked him out. The Postman Always Rings Twice was the first one I picked to read and it won't be my last. It's a swift moving story of a drifter who lucks into a job at a rest stop where he begins an affair with the wife of the owner and soon is

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-64021890260866025552007-02-01T11:40:00.000-08:002007-02-01T12:24:36.577-08:00

I'm behind again because I hit a streak of really excellent, involving books that pinned me to the couch until I finished. First of them was The Dead Hour by Denise Mina, who is just all around awesome. Seriously, I went to one of her readings and she was so funny and smart and interesting that I wished we could be friends and hang out all the time. Plus she had on great shoes. Anyway. This book

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-36067157588620597322007-01-25T13:26:00.000-08:002007-01-25T13:45:12.265-08:00

I've been sick the last few days which normally means I read up a storm, but between the cough syrup and the insane fever, I couldn't begin to focus on anything more challenging than the Digging For The Truth marathon on the History channel. And even that was pushing it as now I'm half convinced that the real Temple of Doom was built by the people of the lost city of Atlantis and is located in

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-20715315475913039542007-01-16T13:12:00.000-08:002007-01-16T13:50:09.305-08:00

This long weekend was all about finally watching The Best Of Youth, but I did manage to finish Prayers For The Assassin by Robert Ferrigno. It has a very provocative premise: in the future the United States endured another civil war, splitting it into an Islamic country, with the southeastern Bible Belt breaking off and Nevada enduring as some sort of gray area/free trade state. The map provided

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-39071546552134295062007-01-09T11:12:00.000-08:002007-01-09T11:48:34.787-08:00

So, my tivo remote has been broken the last few days (luckily after I'd finished my Friday Night Lights viewing marathon) which means I've got a few books to post about.Saturday I finished Half Of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which was excellent. It's about the civil war in Nigeria in the 1960s and its devastating effects on three main characters and their families and friends, both

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1454660461259679292007-01-03T10:55:00.000-08:002007-01-03T11:36:01.455-08:00

And now it's time for the obligatory end of the year wrap up.I read a grand total of 124 books this year (I'm sure Daisy will be along shortly to put that number to shame): 62 fiction, 20 non-fiction, 37 YA/Juv, and 5 short story collections (one of which was also YA). And one graphic novel, which I think I stuck in with non-fiction.My 20 favorites (couldn't cut it down any further) in mostly

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-31988627710444776612006-12-29T10:48:00.000-08:002006-12-29T11:18:08.785-08:00

Claire, you were absolutely right about Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and I wish you would have marched me into a bookstore months ago and made me buy it. I'm going to have to stop and get my own copy on the way home from work today because there are a bunch of holds on this one so I can't keep it to read again and again. Oh my gosh, how much did I love this book? The way she viewed her life and her

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-50680167167824883092006-12-28T15:06:00.000-08:002006-12-28T15:15:54.524-08:00

Last night I read Wuthering High by Cara Lockwood, which follows 15 year old Miranda, sent away to a strict boarding school after crashing her father's car and maxing out his credit card. She soon discovers things are more than a little weird there. She meets a guy who says his name is Heathcliff and who calls her Cathy, her roommate insists that Dracula is roaming the campus, and her resident

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-71609086650527665122006-12-27T14:00:00.000-08:002006-12-27T14:39:02.907-08:00

Vacation roundup.First up was Hypocrite In A Pouffy White Dress by Susan Jane Gilman, which has been sitting unread on my shelf for ages. I was very pleased to find I hadn't wasted my money by buying it. It is most definitely not, as Daisy supposed, a chick lit title, but rather an extremely funny memoir of growing up in New York City as the staunch feminist daughter of hippies. I'd quote some

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-9557605397931716382006-12-18T12:38:00.000-08:002006-12-18T13:02:11.385-08:00

I'm behind again. Last week I read Wintersmith by Terry Prachett, his third YA book featuring Tiffany Aching and the hilarious Feegles. Tiffany is training to be a witch, but during a dance to welcome winter, she steps in and draws the attention of the Wintersmith with sometimes funny, but mostly disasterous results. As much as I love Death, I think Prachett's witch books are my favorites.I also

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1165965315770526922006-12-12T14:57:00.000-08:002006-12-12T15:15:15.786-08:00

Time for a catch up post before I get too behind. Last week I read So Hard To Say by Alex Sanchez which was cute and believable and felt very grounded in the Latin culture. It has alternating narrators - Xio, an eighth grade girl who is infatuated with the new boy in school, and the object of her affection, Frederick, who isn't quite sure what he wants. I'm sure you see where this is going. Then

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1165443783759124402006-12-06T14:00:00.000-08:002006-12-06T14:23:03.780-08:00

I finished The Bullet Trick by Louise Welsh at lunch today. It's her second full length novel and was just as good as the first. This one follows a magician named William Wilson back home in Glasgow to apparently drink himself to death, interspersed with chapters on his recent time spent in Berlin and the horrible thing that happened there that sent him staggering back to Scotland. The atmosphere

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1164842782781384002006-11-29T14:31:00.000-08:002006-11-29T15:26:23.513-08:00

Things have been so busy at work lately that I haven't had time to post about I'm With The Band by Pamela Des Barres, which I finished last week. It's an account of the author's time spent as a groupie in the 1960s and '70s, falling in love with rock stars and trying to make her own artistic impact on the world. At first I thought the excerpts from her diary would get annoying fast because of

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1164065461963488612006-11-20T15:08:00.000-08:002006-11-20T15:31:01.996-08:00

I read The Death Of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell last week. This one was, if possible, even more messed up than the other two of his I've read. The narrator is a thirteen year old boy named Shug living and working in a graveyard with his mother. His father, a part time thief and full time drug user, stops by every now and then to knock them around or to take Shug out to steal dope from

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1163542712925662692006-11-14T13:53:00.000-08:002006-11-14T14:18:33.073-08:00

Over the weekend I finished Time Was Soft There by Jeremy Mercer. Mercer was a journalist and author who fled Canada after receiving a death threat and found himself in Paris with no money and no prospects. Which is when he started living at Shakespeare and Company among other itinerant writers. The book is about his time spent living there, the people he encountered, and the history of the

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1162501589164584762006-11-02T12:40:00.000-08:002006-11-02T13:06:29.196-08:00

Two down, five to go. That's right, I finally finished In The Shadow Of Young Girls In Flower by Marcel Proust. I've got torn ribbons of post-it notes sticking out of the top and scraps of paper tucked in between the pages with things like, "Corr. to part in Alain's @ finding beauty in own surr." written on them. There are far too many of them to detail here, but some will probably end up over at

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1161383145239000052006-10-20T14:56:00.000-07:002006-10-20T15:25:46.176-07:00

Last night I finished The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee, which I wanted to like a lot more than I actually did. I don't know what it was that put me off. I enjoyed the history parts for the most part, especially the section on Shakespeare & Co. in Paris, but all that made me want to do was read a book specifically on that. There has to be one on S&C, right? I thought I remembered one

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1161037734544402152006-10-16T14:47:00.000-07:002006-10-16T15:28:54.980-07:00

Late last week I read An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, which I enjoyed a lot, maybe even more than his first book. It's the story of a former child prodigy, dumped by the latest in a long line of girls named Katherine, worried that he is never going to make a difference in the world. He joins his friend Hassan, who is drifting through his post high school years, on a road trip to nowhere

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1160690922968724162006-10-12T14:34:00.000-07:002006-10-12T15:08:43.193-07:00

Sunday morning I finished Tomato Red by Daniel Woodrell. It's the story of a drifter who falls in with a brother and sister who have ambitions far beyond their low economic and social status. Trapped in a hick town, they dream of getting out, but every attempt they make in that direction is met with frustrating failure. "'God damn,' she says, 'you know, that big rotten gap between who I am, and

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1159817525735079282006-10-02T11:57:00.000-07:002006-10-02T12:32:05.773-07:00

Last week I read Marcel Proust by Edmund White, a short little biography with an admitted "homosexual bias." Right up my alley, then. And indeed, I enjoyed it very much. I was hooked from the first page when White says, "Studying him, of course, can have a disastrous effect on a young writer, who either comes under the influence of Proust's dangerously idiosyncratic and contagious style or who

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1159311417128385902006-09-26T15:23:00.000-07:002006-09-26T15:56:57.240-07:00

I don't really care about genre labels. I'll read anything as long as it gets higher than an "eh" on my vague rating scale. So the whole girlfight over "chick-lit" vs. "very serious literature which just so happens to be written by a woman" just makes me roll my eyes. If it's good, read it. What's so hard to understand about that? This was on my mind as I read Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes.

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1158776038489078322006-09-20T10:31:00.000-07:002006-09-20T11:13:58.860-07:00

Dan Wickett has been raving about Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell so much lately that I decided to bump it up to the top of my to-be-read list. I read it Monday and I completely agree with him that it's one of the best books of the year. It's about a 16-year-old girl in the Ozarks whose father jumps bail leaving her not only to fend for her two younger brothers and mentally ill mother, but also

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1158608948862027842006-09-18T12:15:00.000-07:002006-09-18T12:49:08.966-07:00

Last week I read Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover, a non-fiction book in which the author describes his experiences as a guard at New York's Sing Sing prison. A journalist by trade, Conover went undercover as a guard for over a year because his attempts to gain access and interviews for an article were rebuffed. The book not an expose - there are no shady deals or gotcha moments,

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1157783390384018702006-09-08T23:26:00.000-07:002006-09-08T23:29:50.400-07:00

Blood On The Saddle by Rafael Reig was good - a nice mix of Raymond Chandler and Jasper Fforde (which is interesting given that it was originally published right around the same time as The Eyre Affair). It plays with noir conventions, but there are interesting touches of fantasy: characters from books go missing in the real world, some bugs are actually discarded lines from despairing authors,

Beckynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1157434994764885882006-09-04T22:37:00.000-07:002006-09-04T22:43:14.783-07:00

I've been reading a lot while I convalesce, and I figured I should do a quick rundown to bring things up to date. First up was But Enough About Me: A Jersey Girl's Unlikely Adventures Among the Absurdly Famous by Jancee Dunn. I liked her voice and the writing was nice and breezy whether talking about her sisters or freaking out about meeting Madonna. And I loved the interviewing tips between

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1156283739768303592006-08-22T14:29:00.000-07:002006-08-22T14:55:39.790-07:00

I think it was last Thursday that I read Just Listen by Sarah Dessen. I started it during lunch, continued as soon as I got home from work, read at the show while the sun was still up and the opening band went through their endless mediocre early '90s alt-rock motions for an inexplicably enthusiastic crowd, and had to finish it before going to bed. I don't know what it is about her books, but

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1155590824629212672006-08-14T14:09:00.000-07:002006-08-14T14:27:04.646-07:00

Daisy gave me The Love Curse Of The Rumbaughs by Jack Gantos to read yesterday. By all rights I should have loved it - it's got that Midwestern Gothic thing going for it, hints of the supernatural, a nature v. nurture debate, etc. but I really, really hated it. I can't point to any one thing that stands out as a cause for my dislike, but there are several little annoyances that added up. For one

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1155148045738050872006-08-09T11:11:00.000-07:002006-08-09T11:27:25.760-07:00

While Claire was visiting this weekend, she read A Fistful Of Sky by Nina Kiriki Hoffman and left it for me to read after she left, which I did yesterday. It's about a young woman who is the only one in her family (aside from her father who is non-magical) to not transition and get wish powers when she was a teenager. When she does transition, it is at the unheard of age of twenty and her power

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1155066870208794872006-08-08T12:38:00.000-07:002006-08-08T12:54:30.240-07:00

Last night I finished It's Kind Of A Funny Story by Ned Vizzini which is about a fifteen-year-old clinically depressed kid named Craig who, while off his meds, stops just short of attempting suicide and gets committed to the adult psychiatric wing of the hospital for five days (the teen area is under repair). While there, removed from the pressure he puts on himself, Craig discovers his artistic

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1155063051135509552006-08-08T11:31:00.000-07:002006-08-08T11:50:51.150-07:00

Over the weekend I read How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not A Novel by Alain de Botton. It's a funny little book, part biography and part self-help book with advice on such matters as "How To Suffer Successfully" or "How To Put Books Down" illustrated with examples from Proust's life and works. I especially enjoyed the chapter "How To Open Your Eyes" which is about finding beauty and meaning in

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1154721528487836412006-08-04T12:44:00.000-07:002006-08-04T12:58:48.506-07:00

I've mentioned in the past that I often use YA or Juv books as palate cleansers when I've finished a large or involved book from which I have to free myself. Such was the case with Swann's Way and I couldn't have wished for a more different book than A Bad Boy Can Be Good For A Girl by Tanya Lee Stone. It's a story told in free verse of three girls who all end up dating the same guy. The guy is a

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1154720657622630892006-08-04T12:16:00.000-07:002006-08-04T12:44:22.530-07:00

About a month ago Stephanie decided she was going to read In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust and asked if anyone wanted to join her. The response was enthusiastic and she decided to set up a group blog, Involuntary Memory, for readers to interact with each other while working their way through the seven volumes of Proust's novel. I had bought the first volume, Swann's Way a while ago on a

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1154628851918052912006-08-03T10:21:00.000-07:002006-08-03T11:14:12.073-07:00

I actually finished The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History Of Four Meals by Michael Pollan just a couple of days after I got back from LA. Somehow the time got away from me and I never posted about it. Let's go to the notebook, shall we?The four meals he traces back to the source are: McDonald's fast food, a Whole Foods dinner, an organic Polyface Farms meal, and one prepared entirely with

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1152580682790491522006-07-10T17:59:00.000-07:002006-07-10T18:18:02.820-07:00

While I was in Los Angeles last week I finished up Damned If I Do, a book of short stories by Percival Everett. This is the second collection of his I've read and I definitely preferred these, probably because they are more recent and I've consistently thought that his later works are stronger (and funnier) than his earlier ones. The standout story is, of course, "The Appropriation of Cultures"

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1151984996184461252006-07-03T20:49:00.000-07:002006-07-03T20:49:56.200-07:00

Yesterday was my messed-up YA lit day, I guess. It began with Dreamland by Sarah Dessen, which pinned me to my seat until I finished. It's the story of Caitlin, whose older sister takes off without warning, leaving Caitlin to face the pressures of her family and high school alone. She gets involved with a guy you just know is bad news and finds herself trapped in a destructive situation. It's an

Beckynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043391.post-1151420540135014002006-06-27T07:49:00.000-07:002006-06-27T08:02:20.156-07:00

I read The Accidental by Ali Smith over the weekend. It's about a family on holiday and a woman, slightly ominous and a stranger to all of them, who appears on their doorstep and is taken in by them. She is fascinating to each member of the family for a different reason and the changes she inspires in them have lasting repercussions beyond the vacation. Each chapter is narrated by a different

Beckynoreply@blogger.com1