First of all, looking back, I see I have read about 32 books in 2009. This number isn't entirely accurate, as there are books that don't merit blogging, but close enough. This is a lower number than I would have liked, but decent enough considering the combination of school and work, and the big project that was Infinite Jest. And depending on how I spend the rest of today, I might get through Wolf Hall as well, another big book. Also worth noting, I actually made it through all my magazines for the year, New Yorkers included. (In 2007, when I finished those, I left a huge pile of other crap. No piles left this year.) I also set the goal of reading 10 books I already owned. Considering how much I love getting library books instead of reading what I already have, this is harder than it sounds. And looking back at my posts, I didn't do it, and hit what looks like 8 instead, although if you count books that were lent to me before the start of 2009, maybe I could give myself credit.
So for the year to come... I'm going to stick to my usual. I'm going to keep up with magazines, and again go for reading 10 books that I already own. This time, I'm going to identify 6 in advance, and leave the other 4 up to fate. So here goes. In 2010, I will read:
2666, by Roberto Bolano
Dreams from My Father, by Barack Obama
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz (why have I been putting this off???)
The Black Book, by Orhan Pamuk
Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver
And in deciding this list (all random except for 2666, which I thought would be part of Infinite Summer, but that appears uncertain, to say the least) I am noticing how many other fantastic books I have that I am really eager to read. Perhaps I need to lose my library card for a little while...
Happy New Year to you and yours.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
"Happinesses opted against" or, an iPod love affair
The Song is You - Arthur Phillips
New York: Random House, 2009
I was recently commenting that Phillips has written four very different novels, starting with the Eastern European ex-pat novel in Prague, and then an Egyptology mystery and a Victorian ghost story before this latest about the unlikely romance between a music fan and an up-and-coming singer-songwriter set in present-day New York City. Except that there are thematic similarities. I mentioned in one of those previous reviews that he likes to play with the subjectivities of reality as experienced by different people. That continues here, as Phillips layers actions and memories, such that you are constantly forced to re-conceive of what happened in the previous pages.
Plot brief: Julian is a somewhat-jaded tv commercial director who has lost his wife and son, his libido, and is struggling to hold onto memories of the power of song. Until he comes across Cait O'Dwyer, a young Irish musician who is about to make it big. Julian's estranged wife and Asperger-y brother are also lost and damaged, and so are the other men orbiting around Cait: her guitarist and collaborator, a policeman who much prefers Sinatra, and a washed-up rocker who grasps desperately at a chance to feel fame again. Phillips sets up a whole array of other storylines that could be, most of them freighted with a hint of impending menace. I read nervously, unsure when a misunderstanding - that subjective reality - would lead to disaster. Whatever disaster means.
The novel also contains some lovely musings on the power of music and the way certain songs elicit longing and evoke times and places. And how their power loses potency when called upon too often, or wrongly. It made me want to empty my iPod of all those podcasts and just trip down memory lane, one song at a time.
New York: Random House, 2009
I was recently commenting that Phillips has written four very different novels, starting with the Eastern European ex-pat novel in Prague, and then an Egyptology mystery and a Victorian ghost story before this latest about the unlikely romance between a music fan and an up-and-coming singer-songwriter set in present-day New York City. Except that there are thematic similarities. I mentioned in one of those previous reviews that he likes to play with the subjectivities of reality as experienced by different people. That continues here, as Phillips layers actions and memories, such that you are constantly forced to re-conceive of what happened in the previous pages.
Plot brief: Julian is a somewhat-jaded tv commercial director who has lost his wife and son, his libido, and is struggling to hold onto memories of the power of song. Until he comes across Cait O'Dwyer, a young Irish musician who is about to make it big. Julian's estranged wife and Asperger-y brother are also lost and damaged, and so are the other men orbiting around Cait: her guitarist and collaborator, a policeman who much prefers Sinatra, and a washed-up rocker who grasps desperately at a chance to feel fame again. Phillips sets up a whole array of other storylines that could be, most of them freighted with a hint of impending menace. I read nervously, unsure when a misunderstanding - that subjective reality - would lead to disaster. Whatever disaster means.
The novel also contains some lovely musings on the power of music and the way certain songs elicit longing and evoke times and places. And how their power loses potency when called upon too often, or wrongly. It made me want to empty my iPod of all those podcasts and just trip down memory lane, one song at a time.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sookie Stackhouse, take 3
Club Dead - Charlaine Harris
New York: Ace Books, 2003
And so here is Book 3. Damn, this girl gets around. Also, lots more supernatural creatures out there. It's a little overwhelming. Nothing particularly to add to my thoughts on this series, but figured I would have it here for the record.
(Also, since there are elements here that appeared in Season 2 of True Blood, albeit in different fashion, I'm wondering exactly how they will use this book for Season 3.)
New York: Ace Books, 2003
And so here is Book 3. Damn, this girl gets around. Also, lots more supernatural creatures out there. It's a little overwhelming. Nothing particularly to add to my thoughts on this series, but figured I would have it here for the record.
(Also, since there are elements here that appeared in Season 2 of True Blood, albeit in different fashion, I'm wondering exactly how they will use this book for Season 3.)
Family Histories
Rain of Gold - Victor Villaseñor
Houston: Arte Publico, 1991
A friend, recommending this to me, describes it as the book that made him want to be a history major. (For me, that was pretty much a foregone conclusion - probably because of this book from my childhood that no one else has ever heard of - but I had a similar experience reading this.) Much as I love history, these kinds of books are few and far between, so I decided I would go find Rain of Gold after my semester ended.
And then I found out it was 550 pages long. And I questioned my resolve. There's a lot I want to read coming up; was I sure I wanted to devote so much time to this book about a Mexican family that eventually settles in California? But then I sped through the book. I could barely put it down. Victor Villaseñor's parents are the two protagonists in this unlikely love story, though the lifeblood of the story likely belongs to his grandmothers, two women who battle to keep their families alive and together through upheaval and violent change. The foreword, just over 2 pages long, is important, so don't skip it. Here he explains how these stories were part of the air he breathed growing up, and how he brushed them aside as he got older, as we all do, until he had a family of his own and realized "how empty I'd feel if I couldn't tell my own children about our ancestral roots." But even more importantly, he explains why the narrative is told in a melodramatic style that is sometimes reminiscent of magical realism. It makes sense then.
What works even as everything threatens Juan Salvador and Lupe and their families again and again is that you know the end - you know that eventually there will be Victor, and then this book. And as a result, history seems fated, preordained.
And finally, while the scenes is Mexico when Lupe is a little girl are perhaps the most vivid of the entire book, I was particularly interested in life after the two families make it to Southern California sometime in the early 1920s. My family first settled in Los Angeles around 1950, so learning more about what it was like - for Californians of all races - during the Prohibition era was fascinating.
Houston: Arte Publico, 1991
A friend, recommending this to me, describes it as the book that made him want to be a history major. (For me, that was pretty much a foregone conclusion - probably because of this book from my childhood that no one else has ever heard of - but I had a similar experience reading this.) Much as I love history, these kinds of books are few and far between, so I decided I would go find Rain of Gold after my semester ended.
And then I found out it was 550 pages long. And I questioned my resolve. There's a lot I want to read coming up; was I sure I wanted to devote so much time to this book about a Mexican family that eventually settles in California? But then I sped through the book. I could barely put it down. Victor Villaseñor's parents are the two protagonists in this unlikely love story, though the lifeblood of the story likely belongs to his grandmothers, two women who battle to keep their families alive and together through upheaval and violent change. The foreword, just over 2 pages long, is important, so don't skip it. Here he explains how these stories were part of the air he breathed growing up, and how he brushed them aside as he got older, as we all do, until he had a family of his own and realized "how empty I'd feel if I couldn't tell my own children about our ancestral roots." But even more importantly, he explains why the narrative is told in a melodramatic style that is sometimes reminiscent of magical realism. It makes sense then.
What works even as everything threatens Juan Salvador and Lupe and their families again and again is that you know the end - you know that eventually there will be Victor, and then this book. And as a result, history seems fated, preordained.
And finally, while the scenes is Mexico when Lupe is a little girl are perhaps the most vivid of the entire book, I was particularly interested in life after the two families make it to Southern California sometime in the early 1920s. My family first settled in Los Angeles around 1950, so learning more about what it was like - for Californians of all races - during the Prohibition era was fascinating.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Yet another vampire post
Living Dead in Dallas - Charlaine Harris
New York: Ace Books, 2002
I read the second book in the series that has become True Blood, which I miss. A classmate has noted that Harris seems to have better editors as the series goes on, and even if this second novel I feel like I might be starting to see a difference.
What's sort of more interesting to me is how drastically the books differ from the tv show. Reading this, which is essentially season 2, you can see where the writers found their inspiration, but then they went off in all sorts of directions. And most of them, I prefer. The television characters, Sookie and Bill excepted, are pretty much all more vibrant and funny and engaging. (Harris pours her all into Sookie, so she is lively on the page, and while book Bill is fine, I find him just sooooooooo boring on the show that it's not too hard to outdo him.)
Anyway, it was a good read for finals week. Vacation reading on the way...
New York: Ace Books, 2002
I read the second book in the series that has become True Blood, which I miss. A classmate has noted that Harris seems to have better editors as the series goes on, and even if this second novel I feel like I might be starting to see a difference.
What's sort of more interesting to me is how drastically the books differ from the tv show. Reading this, which is essentially season 2, you can see where the writers found their inspiration, but then they went off in all sorts of directions. And most of them, I prefer. The television characters, Sookie and Bill excepted, are pretty much all more vibrant and funny and engaging. (Harris pours her all into Sookie, so she is lively on the page, and while book Bill is fine, I find him just sooooooooo boring on the show that it's not too hard to outdo him.)
Anyway, it was a good read for finals week. Vacation reading on the way...
I can see the appeal of small-town life
Empire Falls - Richard Russo
New York: Vintage, 2001
They made a miniseries out of this novel the year after I moved to LA. I was taking the bus at that point, and I remember there were ads on benches everywhere. It was a little over the top.
The book itself is a little over the top though too. Except that it's also understated. Does this make any sense? It's about the life of a fading town in Maine, centered around Miles Roby, who was supposed to leave but didn't, and his family. It's slooooowly paced, except when it isn't, and the main narrative is punctuated with regular flashbacks that explain how it all came to be. You find yourself wanting a positive outcome for (most of) the characters, but just don't know if that'll happen.
This is one of those books where I think I might remember reading it - and the atmosphere it created - better than I remember the plot itself. I started it on a gloriously warm and sunny Thanksgiving afternoon, then spent a lovely portion of an evening reading snuggled in a beautiful hotel lobby. (And then finished it in bed at some point later.) The overall effect was tremendously calming.
Russo is a thoughtful writer, and I appreciated his style. A few of the moments that caught my eye:
New York: Vintage, 2001
They made a miniseries out of this novel the year after I moved to LA. I was taking the bus at that point, and I remember there were ads on benches everywhere. It was a little over the top.
The book itself is a little over the top though too. Except that it's also understated. Does this make any sense? It's about the life of a fading town in Maine, centered around Miles Roby, who was supposed to leave but didn't, and his family. It's slooooowly paced, except when it isn't, and the main narrative is punctuated with regular flashbacks that explain how it all came to be. You find yourself wanting a positive outcome for (most of) the characters, but just don't know if that'll happen.
This is one of those books where I think I might remember reading it - and the atmosphere it created - better than I remember the plot itself. I started it on a gloriously warm and sunny Thanksgiving afternoon, then spent a lovely portion of an evening reading snuggled in a beautiful hotel lobby. (And then finished it in bed at some point later.) The overall effect was tremendously calming.
Russo is a thoughtful writer, and I appreciated his style. A few of the moments that caught my eye:
- he "especially admired that they were dreamers who felt no urgency about bringing their dreams to fruition."
- "What did you do when you were good at just one thing, after it turned out you weren't as good as you thought?"
- "And that's the thing, she concludes. Just becasue things happen slow doesn't mean you'll be ready for them. If they happened fast, you'd be alert for all kinds of suddenness, aware that speed was trump. 'Slow' works on an altogether different principle, on the deceptive impression that there's plenty of time to prepare, which conceals the central fact, that no matter how slow things go, you'll always be slower."
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