It's April 3, 2012. In the last year and a day, I have read 50 books.
** ACTUALLY, only that sentence is from April 3, 2012. Just after April 3, 2012, I as a student teacher interviewed for and obtained an excellent job teaching high school English at an amazing high school in St. Louis, MO, and my life became busier than I had ever imagined possible.
However, I still find time to read. I read some amazing books this summer, and I feel the urge to begin another blog to discuss those books. When I get that figured out, I'll add the link here. For now, I just want to say this:
Learning about my own reading has been, really, kind of crazy. I read a lot of books I didn't like this year, strangely enough, but I figured out more about how I choose books. I finally learned how to put down a shitty book and I continued my time-consuming habit of reading late into the night, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, in waiting rooms and in lines at just about anywhere, when I found a book I loved. And, ultimately, I've learned a lot about how to think about (and write about) books -- a skill that I am sure will come in handy starting on Tuesday, August 14th, when I start teaching high school students why reading still matters.
That was ultimately my idea when starting this book: I wanted to be able to show my future students that I, as their teacher, truly love reading and still find time to read as an adult. I wanted to show reading as a legitimate pursuit of knowledge and fun, an idea that seems to be dying in the modern high school community and an idea that I do NOT, under any circumstances, want to die. I want to inspire my students to read, and so I have tried to document my efforts, reactions, critiques, and loves about reading over the course of this year.
I hope that something good will come out of this blog, I really do. I will try to continue to write about my love of reading, but next time I won't be counting the books I'm reading or writing about every single one. Instead, I want to choose those books that I found stunning, incredible, meaningful, dark, comedic, everything that I love about stories, and share that love with my students.
I have no idea if anyone is following/reading this blog, but if you are, thank you, and hopefully I'll see you on a new blog about books before too long.
- M, 8/12/2012
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
50. A Game of Thrones
50. A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin (3/19/2012 - 4/3/2012)
In a year and a day, I read 50 books, and I have to say that this was the perfect book to end that year on. This book starts the nearly-legendary series A Song of Ice and Fire, which now totals five enormous books and is the foundation for the HBO series "Game of Thrones."
I don't even know where to begin to describe this book (or this series, for that matter). There is so much to it! There are so many characters, so many backstories, and so, SO much conflict. This is a series where, and I don't think I'm really giving anything away but nonetheless, SpoilerAlert!, characters are constantly being moved in an out of the narrative, usually due to a sudden and only barely expected death. But despite this, A Game of Thrones is a fascinating and totally compelling book. It's a long read, but it is so worth it.
I won't even try to describe it -- I'm not sure I could accurately summarize it anyway -- but I will say this: read this book. And then read the next book, and the rest of the series, and give yourself about three months to devote your life to this task, because these books will take over your life. They sure took over mine.
It is a testament to how amazing this book is that, upon finishing its 807 pages, I briefly paused to grab some nourishment and then immediately opened A Clash of Kings to keep reading the series.
In a year and a day, I read 50 books, and I have to say that this was the perfect book to end that year on. This book starts the nearly-legendary series A Song of Ice and Fire, which now totals five enormous books and is the foundation for the HBO series "Game of Thrones."
I don't even know where to begin to describe this book (or this series, for that matter). There is so much to it! There are so many characters, so many backstories, and so, SO much conflict. This is a series where, and I don't think I'm really giving anything away but nonetheless, SpoilerAlert!, characters are constantly being moved in an out of the narrative, usually due to a sudden and only barely expected death. But despite this, A Game of Thrones is a fascinating and totally compelling book. It's a long read, but it is so worth it.
I won't even try to describe it -- I'm not sure I could accurately summarize it anyway -- but I will say this: read this book. And then read the next book, and the rest of the series, and give yourself about three months to devote your life to this task, because these books will take over your life. They sure took over mine.
It is a testament to how amazing this book is that, upon finishing its 807 pages, I briefly paused to grab some nourishment and then immediately opened A Clash of Kings to keep reading the series.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
49. Love is a Mix Tape
49. Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield (3/16/2012 - 3/18/2012)
This is one of my favorite books of all time. The love story that Rob Sheffield shares is rich in detail, full of odd humor and depth and the ideas of what makes love possible for everyone. I read this book about once a year because I like being reminded that I am not the only one who experiences love like this; I recognize that others do, of course, but the story that flows forth from these pages is truly incredible.
Rob and Renee Sheffield got married relatively young, in their mid-twenties, after an unusual friendship and about two years of dating. They lived a happy, full life on almost no money for about five years, exploring life, comparing their upbringings, and battling each other over everything from which words are banned in fights to why they should wait til they were more stable to have kids -- in other words, just about every major and minor topic that most loving couples also fight over. A little more than five years after getting married, Renee stood up one Sunday afternoon, and fell over -- dead, from a pulmonary embolism. She had no warning signs whatsoever; one moment she was there, the next she was gone.
The book is not just this tragic story; it is also the story of how one begins to move past the loss of the love of his life. Sheffield does not sugarcoat his grief. He explores every facet of it, from his sudden obsession with Jackie Onassis Kennedy to driving for hours with Renee's dog, a pet he no longer knew what to do with.
I like this book so much because there is so much in it for me, as someone young and in love and desperately afraid of losing the love of my life. There are so many circled, underlined, dog-eared passages in my copy of this book, so many shared moments between my fiancee and myself in its pages, and so many ways that Sheffield is able to perfectly and simply capture love.
I cannot recommend this book more highly. It truly is amazing.
This is one of my favorite books of all time. The love story that Rob Sheffield shares is rich in detail, full of odd humor and depth and the ideas of what makes love possible for everyone. I read this book about once a year because I like being reminded that I am not the only one who experiences love like this; I recognize that others do, of course, but the story that flows forth from these pages is truly incredible.
Rob and Renee Sheffield got married relatively young, in their mid-twenties, after an unusual friendship and about two years of dating. They lived a happy, full life on almost no money for about five years, exploring life, comparing their upbringings, and battling each other over everything from which words are banned in fights to why they should wait til they were more stable to have kids -- in other words, just about every major and minor topic that most loving couples also fight over. A little more than five years after getting married, Renee stood up one Sunday afternoon, and fell over -- dead, from a pulmonary embolism. She had no warning signs whatsoever; one moment she was there, the next she was gone.
The book is not just this tragic story; it is also the story of how one begins to move past the loss of the love of his life. Sheffield does not sugarcoat his grief. He explores every facet of it, from his sudden obsession with Jackie Onassis Kennedy to driving for hours with Renee's dog, a pet he no longer knew what to do with.
I like this book so much because there is so much in it for me, as someone young and in love and desperately afraid of losing the love of my life. There are so many circled, underlined, dog-eared passages in my copy of this book, so many shared moments between my fiancee and myself in its pages, and so many ways that Sheffield is able to perfectly and simply capture love.
I cannot recommend this book more highly. It truly is amazing.
Friday, March 2, 2012
48. Eating the Dinosaur
48. Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman (2/27/2012 - 3/15/2012)
This book upset me. I love Chuck Klosterman, I really do. I have read all but his most recent book, and Killing Yourself to Live, his non-fiction account of traveling across the country investigating the deaths of rock stars, is one of my favorite books of all time.
But not this book. Too many of these essays are just out and out boring -- they almost feel like Klosterman is being intentionally dense and boring just to fuck with me as a faithful reader. The voice is still entirely his, of course, but he seems to have lost some of the clever humor that made me love his nonfiction in the first place. What remains is the voice of a self-indulgent guy who enjoys thinking deeply about just about anything that's not actually relevant.
For example, the first essay in the book runs about 40-50 pages and discusses, at length, why people feel compelled to answer when they are being interviewed. I'll grant that there is probably deep psychological reasoning behind why we do in fact answer intimate questions from strangers in an interview setting, but I suspect that it can be summed up in just a few words about most people's inherently self-promoting outlooks. I'm not saying that all people are selfish; I'm saying that people like to talk about themselves. Isn't that an established fact? I seem to encounter it a lot as a great way to get to know someone on a date when I happen to flip through Cosmo in a checkout-line. Look: people like to talk about themselves. I just saved you from reading this awful essay.
While I skipped the essay on why football is essential to American society, I do have to say that there were several awesome essays in this book. In one, Klosterman delves into the scary-true predictions made by the Unabomber's manifesto about technology, and the results in this essay are fascinating. Additionally, while writing about Alfred Hitchcock, Klosterman asserts that "learning should be the primary goal of living," an idea that, as a educator, I tend to agree with. So the book is overall not without its gems, but I suspect that if you just google "Hitchcock's Vertigo Chuck Klosterman," you'll turn up with that essay and you can skip the rest of the book.
Finally, I'd like to recognize that the most memorable part of this book was when Klosterman states that, as far as he's concerned, the best possible result of time travel would be being able to eat a dinosaur. Awesome.
This is a fairly confusing book -- I'd prefer to re-read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs instead.
This book upset me. I love Chuck Klosterman, I really do. I have read all but his most recent book, and Killing Yourself to Live, his non-fiction account of traveling across the country investigating the deaths of rock stars, is one of my favorite books of all time.
But not this book. Too many of these essays are just out and out boring -- they almost feel like Klosterman is being intentionally dense and boring just to fuck with me as a faithful reader. The voice is still entirely his, of course, but he seems to have lost some of the clever humor that made me love his nonfiction in the first place. What remains is the voice of a self-indulgent guy who enjoys thinking deeply about just about anything that's not actually relevant.
For example, the first essay in the book runs about 40-50 pages and discusses, at length, why people feel compelled to answer when they are being interviewed. I'll grant that there is probably deep psychological reasoning behind why we do in fact answer intimate questions from strangers in an interview setting, but I suspect that it can be summed up in just a few words about most people's inherently self-promoting outlooks. I'm not saying that all people are selfish; I'm saying that people like to talk about themselves. Isn't that an established fact? I seem to encounter it a lot as a great way to get to know someone on a date when I happen to flip through Cosmo in a checkout-line. Look: people like to talk about themselves. I just saved you from reading this awful essay.
While I skipped the essay on why football is essential to American society, I do have to say that there were several awesome essays in this book. In one, Klosterman delves into the scary-true predictions made by the Unabomber's manifesto about technology, and the results in this essay are fascinating. Additionally, while writing about Alfred Hitchcock, Klosterman asserts that "learning should be the primary goal of living," an idea that, as a educator, I tend to agree with. So the book is overall not without its gems, but I suspect that if you just google "Hitchcock's Vertigo Chuck Klosterman," you'll turn up with that essay and you can skip the rest of the book.
Finally, I'd like to recognize that the most memorable part of this book was when Klosterman states that, as far as he's concerned, the best possible result of time travel would be being able to eat a dinosaur. Awesome.
This is a fairly confusing book -- I'd prefer to re-read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs instead.
No # -- The Love of Stones
The Love of Stones by Tobias Hill (2/20/12 -- )
This book was downright awful. I was less than 30 pages in before I stopped reading it. In theory, the plot sounds fairly interesting: a women is searching for an infamous brooch worn by Elizabeth I that has been lost in history. The brooch consists of 3 gigantic rubies framed by 3 perfect pearls -- it can actually be seen in some portraits of Elizabeth I, which is really cool.
But, unfortunately: the writing is terrible. The book is super dense and -- remember that I have a degree in English literature and am in graduate school to teach English -- I had an incredibly hard time even deciphering the plot. The story switches back and forth from present to past from paragraph to paragraph, and frankly, the past isn't very interesting. It's something about the first guy who wore this brooch but who ultimately lost his land and life to a battle with the French king in somewhere between 1400-1550. The text is so dense that I actually couldn't figure out when this even was taking place.
Once the story gets into the present tense and stays there, it does not, unfortunately, get more interesting. The main character has an in-depth knowledge of gems and their value, origins, black market trafficking, etc. But she is thoroughly un-empathetic; she is written as cold and presumably calculating. The author was probably going for gem-smuggling bad-ass female protagonist, but he just didn't pull it off. I felt nothing for this character and when she meets with failure in her first underground jeweler meeting, I had no thoughts or feelings of empathy whatsoever -- actually, no feelings of sympathy either, which is an extra-bad sign in literature. Great authors evoke empathy; good, even just decent, authors evoke sympathy. Here, I had nothing.
I put this book down within a few days and I will not be picking it back up.
This book was downright awful. I was less than 30 pages in before I stopped reading it. In theory, the plot sounds fairly interesting: a women is searching for an infamous brooch worn by Elizabeth I that has been lost in history. The brooch consists of 3 gigantic rubies framed by 3 perfect pearls -- it can actually be seen in some portraits of Elizabeth I, which is really cool.
But, unfortunately: the writing is terrible. The book is super dense and -- remember that I have a degree in English literature and am in graduate school to teach English -- I had an incredibly hard time even deciphering the plot. The story switches back and forth from present to past from paragraph to paragraph, and frankly, the past isn't very interesting. It's something about the first guy who wore this brooch but who ultimately lost his land and life to a battle with the French king in somewhere between 1400-1550. The text is so dense that I actually couldn't figure out when this even was taking place.
Once the story gets into the present tense and stays there, it does not, unfortunately, get more interesting. The main character has an in-depth knowledge of gems and their value, origins, black market trafficking, etc. But she is thoroughly un-empathetic; she is written as cold and presumably calculating. The author was probably going for gem-smuggling bad-ass female protagonist, but he just didn't pull it off. I felt nothing for this character and when she meets with failure in her first underground jeweler meeting, I had no thoughts or feelings of empathy whatsoever -- actually, no feelings of sympathy either, which is an extra-bad sign in literature. Great authors evoke empathy; good, even just decent, authors evoke sympathy. Here, I had nothing.
I put this book down within a few days and I will not be picking it back up.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
47. Beneath a Marble Sky
47. Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors (2/12/2012 - 2/18/2012)
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It wasn't particularly deep, more of a romantic romp through the history of the Taj Mahal intermixed with the horrors of living in the 17th century in India. But that lack of depth is overshadowed by beautiful prose and, really, a simple and beautiful story.
The plot focuses on the life of Jahanara, the daughter of the famous lovers Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan, who was the ruler of India at the time, and her relationship with Isa, the creator of the Taj Mahal. The story spans the death of Mumtaz Mahal, which inspired Shah Jahan to commission this gorgeous building, through the Taj Mahal's completion and the aftermath of Shah Jahan's death. The turbulence of the years after his reign are hinted at through the mysterious nature of endpieces of the novel, but the novel itself is quietly beautiful. Shors' prose is calm and simple, painting images in your mind that are almost as detailed as the Taj Mahal itself. Jahanara is a compelling female character, challenging the ideas of her time while dealing with constant threats due to her personal relationships with her husband, her lover, and her power-hungry brother.
The book is a love story overall, but it's not just the love story of Jahanara; it's the love story between Mumtaz and her husband, between her husband and the building of the Taj Mahal, and the love among a family that can't be together.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It wasn't particularly deep, more of a romantic romp through the history of the Taj Mahal intermixed with the horrors of living in the 17th century in India. But that lack of depth is overshadowed by beautiful prose and, really, a simple and beautiful story.
The plot focuses on the life of Jahanara, the daughter of the famous lovers Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan, who was the ruler of India at the time, and her relationship with Isa, the creator of the Taj Mahal. The story spans the death of Mumtaz Mahal, which inspired Shah Jahan to commission this gorgeous building, through the Taj Mahal's completion and the aftermath of Shah Jahan's death. The turbulence of the years after his reign are hinted at through the mysterious nature of endpieces of the novel, but the novel itself is quietly beautiful. Shors' prose is calm and simple, painting images in your mind that are almost as detailed as the Taj Mahal itself. Jahanara is a compelling female character, challenging the ideas of her time while dealing with constant threats due to her personal relationships with her husband, her lover, and her power-hungry brother.
The book is a love story overall, but it's not just the love story of Jahanara; it's the love story between Mumtaz and her husband, between her husband and the building of the Taj Mahal, and the love among a family that can't be together.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
46. Two Little Girls in Blue
46. Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark (2/10/12 - 2/11/12)
Do not mistake the speed with which I read this book for enthusiasm. On the contrary: this book, while interesting, was stunningly poorly written, which allowed me to breeze right through it. I was pretty irritated by this book, especially since this author is a huge bestseller, so I definitely gave away some key plot points in this post -- you've been warned.
It's not that the content of the book was that bad -- the plot was fairly interesting, and involved enough that I wasn't sure of who the criminal mastermind was until the very end. Two twin girls are kidnapped, and while one is eventually returned alive, the other is claimed dead. However, she isn't -- the kidnappers have decided to keep her as their own kid. The girls can still communicate through 'twin talk,' and this ultimately helps the FBI and the parents understand that the other girl is still alive. Eventually, of course, this little girl is returned alive. (I would claim spoiler alert, but it's pretty obvious throughout the book that Clark isn't going to kill the second little girl.)
So: the plot sounds pretty good. But the conversational language of the book was completely stilted -- everyone talked like they were in Victorian England and would be kicked out of society for using contractions. And, even though two of the characters were three-year-olds, they still spoke in the exact same way as all of the adults. Clark isn't even a talented enough writer to consider the fact that a little kid will not speak in full sentences or perfect English, and she is certainly not a good enough writer to implement that fact in her book. In addition, in my personal opinion, there were a lot of religious overtones that I did not find either interesting or even slightly relevant to the plot of the book.
Plus, and it really irritates me when authors do this, the ending of the book is really cliche and preachy. It ends with everyone sitting in the family's living room, watching the reunited twins play, and the FBI agent starts thinking things like, "It's too bad all kidnapping cases don't have happy endings like this one." Frankly, that's too picture-perfect -- I don't want to read a book that paints a portrait of a perfect world. There is no such thing -- Clark totally ignores the potential for the second little girl to suffer from PTSD or flashbacks over how she was treated, or that the girls may never want to leave their home again, or that the mom is totally going to become so overprotective she never lets the girls do anything, ever. All of this is ignored in favor of "everything is perfect now, and too bad all kidnapped kids don't live." Really?!
I was so disappointed with this book. I don't think I'll ever touch a Mary Higgins Clark mystery ever again. As far as I'm concerned, this is just an example of why the title of "New York Times Bestseller" does absolutely NOT mean that the book is actually a quality read.
Do not mistake the speed with which I read this book for enthusiasm. On the contrary: this book, while interesting, was stunningly poorly written, which allowed me to breeze right through it. I was pretty irritated by this book, especially since this author is a huge bestseller, so I definitely gave away some key plot points in this post -- you've been warned.
It's not that the content of the book was that bad -- the plot was fairly interesting, and involved enough that I wasn't sure of who the criminal mastermind was until the very end. Two twin girls are kidnapped, and while one is eventually returned alive, the other is claimed dead. However, she isn't -- the kidnappers have decided to keep her as their own kid. The girls can still communicate through 'twin talk,' and this ultimately helps the FBI and the parents understand that the other girl is still alive. Eventually, of course, this little girl is returned alive. (I would claim spoiler alert, but it's pretty obvious throughout the book that Clark isn't going to kill the second little girl.)
So: the plot sounds pretty good. But the conversational language of the book was completely stilted -- everyone talked like they were in Victorian England and would be kicked out of society for using contractions. And, even though two of the characters were three-year-olds, they still spoke in the exact same way as all of the adults. Clark isn't even a talented enough writer to consider the fact that a little kid will not speak in full sentences or perfect English, and she is certainly not a good enough writer to implement that fact in her book. In addition, in my personal opinion, there were a lot of religious overtones that I did not find either interesting or even slightly relevant to the plot of the book.
Plus, and it really irritates me when authors do this, the ending of the book is really cliche and preachy. It ends with everyone sitting in the family's living room, watching the reunited twins play, and the FBI agent starts thinking things like, "It's too bad all kidnapping cases don't have happy endings like this one." Frankly, that's too picture-perfect -- I don't want to read a book that paints a portrait of a perfect world. There is no such thing -- Clark totally ignores the potential for the second little girl to suffer from PTSD or flashbacks over how she was treated, or that the girls may never want to leave their home again, or that the mom is totally going to become so overprotective she never lets the girls do anything, ever. All of this is ignored in favor of "everything is perfect now, and too bad all kidnapped kids don't live." Really?!
I was so disappointed with this book. I don't think I'll ever touch a Mary Higgins Clark mystery ever again. As far as I'm concerned, this is just an example of why the title of "New York Times Bestseller" does absolutely NOT mean that the book is actually a quality read.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)