The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Played with Fire (a sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) is the second novel in the Larsson "I will soon be dead so i better crank out some international best sellers that i will never see a dime for" trilogy. Larsson wrote all three manuscripts before he died and did not get to see how popular they would become.

Like its predecessor, Dragon Tattoo, I inhaled this book. Larsson wrote modern, hard-boiled detective novels that you literally cannot put down. Both books have incredibly intricate plots spread over so many characters that it takes about half the novel to keep track of who is who. They center around an idealistic magazine editor and a socially awkward girl (who happens to be a genius) who unravel mysterious crimes, corruption, and government conspiracies. They are set in Sweden which can be a little confusing. Names are different and so is money. I still cannot tell you how much a kroner is worth. Every other page will say something like, the detective found 4000 kroner in her wallet (and you wonder is that a lot to be in a wallet, or not much at all...noooo idea), but once you get into the style and rhythm of the story it really hooks you.

Are these novels perfect? Absolutely not. I've actually never loved the incredibly observant free-wheeling hard boiled detective character who follows his own moral code while sleeping with every dame that crosses his path. And this is definitely that "hero", but there is something really enjoyable about the way Larsson tells his story that keeps me coming back for more. Both novels were great. I actually thought The Girl Who Played With Fire was better than the first novel, because it knew where its climax and ending was. A warning: if you choose to read these books, you do have to start with dragon tattoo to understand the plots of Fire, and Dragon tattoo does trail off a bit at the end. Everytime you think youve reached the dramatic conclusion its like BUT WAIT theres MORE. All in all, i would definitely reccommend these books for anyone who enjoys fast-paced thrillers.

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

Or "A Manhunt for the 2009-2010 Book Season"

I realize we're not even a month into this literary journey, but I'm pretty sure I just read my favorite book of the year. The last time I was this nerdgiddy about a book was last year's Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer, which I didn't think could ever be topped in terms of its edge-of-your-seat-informational-page-turner-ness. But Michael Pollan has matched it.

In Defense of Food is (as the cover says) an eater's manifesto: a look into how food science has replaced food culture, how foodlike products have replaced actual food, how industry and politics have divorced food from the natural world, how - in spite of America's obsession with "nutrition" and "healthy eating" - we have become more and more unhealthy, and (nerdbest of all) how to look at our relationship with food and eating in a healthy, productive, respectful way.

It's not a diet plan. Pollan never outlines exactly what we should or shouldn't do. He just presents some facts and philosophies and suggestions and leaves it to the reader to apply to his or her life. Some of his suggestions: Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. Don't eat anything with ingredients you can't pronounce. Eat your meals at a table (No a desk is not a table).

It's chock full of fascinating facts and insights. Whether you buy into it or not, it definitely makes you think about your relationship with food and nourishment and the natural world in a really constructive way. I, for one, totally buy into it, but then again I'm on a bit of a food-and-nature kick these days. This is the first in a string of food-related books on my YMR queue, so if any of you are interested in chatting about food culture in America, I'm your gal.

Pollen's main argument is seven words long: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.

Hard to disagree with that.

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Or "How Andy Lampl Ruined Thanksgiving."

I am wearing a dress from a thrift store, grey boots from Macy's, a scarf I bought from a street vendor in New York, tights from Target, and a necklace Reggie gave me, writing a review of a very disturbing book.

I won't say I liked it. I won't say I recommend it. But I will say that I thought it was very good and that, if you haven't, you should probably read it. And that I definitely dig this Mr. Ellis character and am looking forward to reading more of his stuff - although it will be awhile because I feel that I must regain the will to live before diving back into that awful world.

American Psycho is a miserable portrait of the young rich late-1980s Wall Street types told in first person through Patrick Bateman, an uber-rich 26 year old Wall Streeter-by-day-serial-killer-by-night. To describe the plot makes it sound like a trashy grocery store novel, but believe me it is not. It is part totally fucked up miserable psychological thriller gore fest, and part biting social commentary. It is nauseating, exhausting, and hilarious.

It's not a question of whether or not it is miserable to read. Without a doubt, it is the most miserable thing I have ever read. The question is what about it makes it most miserable? Because I can't decide. I honestly don't know which was worse to read: the way-too-long-and-detailed, violent, graphic, chauvinistic depictions of sex; the hideous descriptions of brutal torture and murder and hacked up body parts (including three vaginas that our hero keeps in his gym locker); or the scene where Patrick and some of his Wall Street buddies all talk on conference call and try to decide where they're going to eat that night. I am not saying that to be clever. Ellis's genius with American Psycho is that the rape and murder and disembowelment is just one part of Bateman's repulsive and meaningless lifestyle.

It's a horrifying look at isolation in the age of burgeoning technology, obsession with appearance and trends, where people's names and jobs and girlfriends are interchangeable and, ultimately, insignificant. Yes, he's a serial killer, but at the end of the day Patrick Bateman is just a sad lonely guy who can't even cook a meal for himself.

My warning to you, readers, is this: you can't un-read American Psycho. So just beware.

Now I have to go return some videotapes.

A conspiracy theory by Allison Sanchez

I think SOME people (I won't say any names, I'll just give you a very difficult clue that only the worthy could solve. His or her name rhymes with Schmeggie) out there are jealous that I read 2 books and was well on my way to finish a third.

The facts of the case are this, On Saturday November 22, A Miss Lauren Cozzens met me at a restaurant. And 'who is she?' some of you may be asking yourselves as you peruse this blog at your leisure. WELL, "she" is Reggie Gowland's FORMER ROOMMATE.

Now, I arrived at the restaurant (A MEXICAN restaurant no less-everyone knows that a sanchez would never turn down an invitation to eat the food of their homeland), with the book I was about halfway through: The Lost City of Z (I had spent time reading it on the El). Lauren sneakily asked me why I had a book at dinner and then cruelly made fun of me. She then offered to hold it for me in her purse and I NAIVELY handed it over. This book is then NEVER RETURNED to me. And I will now be unable to finish it, until a future date when I hunt this fiend down and pay ransom for my poor dear book. I will also have to start over on a third book which will completely throw me off toward my 50 book goal.

Am I saying that Reggie made up a fake movie, got people to invest millions of dollars in it, made sure Laurens production company was involved in the project, made sure they chose her to go live in Ann Abor for 3 months during the filming, and then diabolically sent her down to chicago this weekend to steal my book? Well I think the facts speak for themselves. This is war, Reggie Gowland. It's on.

Push by Sapphire

In an effort to read this before the movie, "Precious" (based on this book), came to town, I didn't need to worry about finishing on time as it's a very quick read and I couldn't put the book down. This is a short yet very disturbing story of Precious Jones, an obese, illiterate, sexually and emotionally abused, pregnant 16 year old from Harlem who can't catch a break no matter where she turns until she is enrolled in an alternative school where she finally begins to value herself after a lifetime of self-hatred. Don't get turned off by the author's use of language. The flow of the writing takes a little getting used to but is necessary to give a voice to this girl and her attempt at understanding how to survive the hand she's been dealt....a horrendous hand at that. Makes you realize what cushy lives so many of us lead. Makes me want to pick up something light and airy to read next!

You + Me = Us (Calculus)

I really liked this book. A lot.

This was a weird mashup of forty different possible answers to the big question of what exactly happens when we die. Funny, bizarre, quantum-physics-esque. Many were incredibly poignant. All gave you something to think about.

In one possible afterlife, you get to relive every moment that you've ever had on earth, except this time, all the moments are reshuffled and placed into categories. So, in the afterlife, you spend five months reading magazines on the toilet, three years swallowing food, three days calculating restaurant tips, twenty-seven hours experiencing pain, thirty years sleeping, eighteen days staring into the open refrigerator...

In another afterlife, you wake up and find out that you and the rest of the human race were really just creations, super-complex walking eating cameras that have a lifespan of 80+ years and are built to record all the marvels of earth and space and figure out the essential questions of the universe, cameras which were constructed by these tiny dim-witted immobile creatures that aren't big enough to explore earth on their own.

And 38 more. The writer, David Eagleman, is a neuroscientist, which may or may not buy this book some street cred, you know, depending on if you're into scientists or whatever. But regardless, it's a book that makes you think for a long time after you finish. And that's always a good kind of book, right?

The Gathering by Anne Enright

Actual Tagline of book: A moving, evocative portrait of a large Irish Family haunted by the past.

My (way more realistic) tagline: If you'd like to know what's motivating your actions, then why don't you ask your penis and/or vagina?

Honestly, I got so sick of every action of this book centering on sex. If someone had the urge to do the dishes, it was because of some burning desire in their loins. When one character meets another for the first time, not only do they picture the other naked, but the desired knows she's being pictured naked and loves it. And may I add that most of the sexual stuff was about the main character's grandmother? A direct quote, "When I was in college, I decided that Ada (her grandmother) had been a prostitute-the way you do." No, Veronica, I don't actually. Because NOBODY spends time imagining their grandma as a prostitute. But, I suppose I am getting ahead of myself, without further ado i present The Gathering: A review by Allison Noelle Sanchez:

This novel centers around Veronica, a middle-aged Irish woman from a very large family, whose brother has recently killed himself. As Veronica deals with her grief and guilt over the coming months she stops sleeping, becomes alienated from her children and husband and spends a great deal of time focusing on an obsession with her past. Namely, a past that revolves around her grandmother, Ada. Memories float through the narrative in non-linear fashion, some real (her childhood memories at her grandparents house) and many imagined (like her grandparents having sex on their wedding night).

I am torn about my feelings toward this novel. There were revelations about family behavior that I found brilliant and reread several times. Like the passage,

"Sitting on the Brighton train I am trying to put a timetable on my brother's drinking. Drink was not his problem, but it did become his problem, eventually, which was a relief to everyone concerned. 'I'm a bit worried about his drinking,'-so after awhile, no one could hear a thing he said, anymore."

And yet, there were also lot's of parts that i just found repetitive and boring. I found her sexual musings about her grandmother odd and ridiculous. When Veronica talks about memories or imaginings she breaks into this omniscent narrator voice and describes in detail events that she could not have witnessed personally, let alone get close enough to hear characters' thoughts. The author plays alot with memory and is constantly shifting her thoughts mid-sentance. I found this tool interesting at first. For instance, she starts describing she and her brother seeing her grandfathers body at a wake. Then suddenly she realizes it couldn't have been just the two of them there, another sister must have been there. And then she adds the sister into the narrative revising the earlier memory. While I enjoy the play on percieved versus real memory. This device was used so many times, that I started to get annoyed. This happened with lot's of things in the novel, the author does bring up an interesting point or idea, and then it's like if you don't get the point that is clearly spelled out the first few times? Don't worry the author will push that point home a few hundred more times to make sure you get it.

If you do decide to read this novel I will summarize the final 50 pages to save you some time:

So maybe none of that stuff that I remember happened. But it probably did. Except not most of it, I mean some memories have to be true. Or maybe not. I mean they probably happened. Unless they didn't. Maybe Ill go to spain. No i wont. Im gonna go home and have a baby with my husband. I hate him. but i love him. no i dont. Maybe ill go to scotland. On second thought, none of my memories are true. Yes, they are. No they aren't. They could be. Maybe they couldnt be. LIFE IS A BEUTIFUL MESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. (maybe not?) so just ignore everything i said. WAIT fooled you again, it was all true. haha no most of it wasn't. but some of it was......

Verdict: This novel felt like a great short story or novella that tried to stetch itself into an entire novel. It was tedious to get though and way too freudian for my tastes.

Josh Likes Sci-Fi Blah Blah Blah

So, I accidentally read more words that can only be described as speculative fiction. As has been said before, by me, right here, spec fiction is the fancy new term for sci-fi/fantasy, used especially to describe things that are not traditional rocket-to-the-stars (think Larry Niven) or sword-and-sorcery (think Robert Jor...well, most of last year's entries, I guess). In this case, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern issue 32. McSweeney's are cleverly packaged short story collections by popular and up and coming fiction writers, all writing on one theme. They come out, well, quarterly, and over the summer when I was working three jobs and making good money, I treated myself to a combination Believer/McSweeney's combo subscription. 32 was the first "issue" that came, and, coincidentally enough, this quarter's theme was simply "2024" (which turned out to mean that every story was set in the year 2024).

As this is a story collection, featuring 10 stories by 10 different authors (including names someone might recognize like Jim Shepard and Heidi Julavits), its hard to rate it overall. Besides being set in the not-so-distant future, and being written by popular indie fiction writers who tend to have some overlapping themes (two stories are set in East L.A. and deal specifically with that locations demographics and concerns, a number of them deal with natural disasters linked directly or indirectly to global warming), one story is not necessarily leading to the other, and it's hard to judge them as a unit. I enjoyed pretty much all of them, some more than others, certainly. What I love about spec fiction, especially this type, is it deals with human concerns on a level that is a bit fantastic. The more traditional sci-fi/fantasies are mostly about big broad themes...good vs. evil, exploration and conquest, political machinations and betrayal. Most of them don't have room for nuanced looks on human beings. But these stories were all about the everyday human struggles...aging, growing apart from your spouse, dealing with the fallout of a failed relationship, making decisions as a teenager, trying to find out where you belong, etc etc, but viewed through a futuristic lens. Secrets threaten a formerly happy marriage as floods threaten to submerge all of The Netherlands. A man wants to commit suicide because he cannot forget his lover, but he wants to do it by jumping into a mysterious hole that appeared one day on Nantucket, a hole that many believe to be an interdimensional portal. A teen becomes an outcast after her blackberry, which had previously predicted the probability and outcome of every decision she made, is broken by a friend. They are stories we recognize, set in a world that is slightly different. Its the only kind of fiction for me.
well, not the only kind. but i like it a lot, okay? I promise the next two books will have 0 sci-fi components. so sue me.

Man On Wire by Philippe Petit

Or "What a Precious Little Felony!"

Some necessary background in case you don't know: So there's this guy. Kind of a crazier, more French version of Omen Sade. Juggler. Pickpocket. Highwire walker. Decides he's going to wire walk between the World Trade Center towers. He does it. Holy. Shit.

AND I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO MAKE OF IT!!! WHAT AN EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTER THIS BOOK WAS! I alternated between furiously scribbling quotations into my notebook so that I could carry them around forever and consult them when I am in need of inspiration, and literally chucking the book across the room because I was too livid to even hold it in my hands.

The tug-of-war raging in my head goes a little something like this:

One one hand, this book was inspiring beyond all possible belief.

On the other hand, Philippe Petit seems like such an asshole.

On one hand, I was weeping - weeping, I tell you - with the beauty of the language and the overwhelming emotions of the story and Petit's descriptions of his experiences.

On the other hand, it's faux-poetic, pretentious, and overblown.

On one hand, I couldn't get past Petit's outrageous selfishness.

On the other hand, if he were the kind of guy who put others' needs before this dream, he never would have done it, and we would all be the worse without this breathtakingly gorgeous anything-is-possible story.

On one hand, it awakened in me this wide-eyed sense of optimism and idealism.

On the other hand, the cyncial voice in my head wouldn't stop asking, "Where the hell does he get the money to do all this?"

I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO THINK, PEOPLE!! I mean, read it. Without a doubt. Read it. I can't tell if it's the best or the worst, but regardless it is an unbelievable act and a beautiful story. It'll make you want to do all kinds of crazy things, in the best possible way.

Note to potential Man-On-Wire-readers: If you don't want to leave this book with a sour taste in your mouth - and I mean ruin-the-experience-of-the-whole-book kind of sour - for the love of God do not, I repeat, DO NOT read the epilogue. (Or do and then immediately call me to discuss it.) It is catastrophically miserable.

I'd Make a Sweet Hacker

As dorky as I am, I don't read much of what I consider to be "traditional" science-fiction. I must prefer the fantasy end of the spectrum to something that is mostly about, say, rocketships or robots or technology. That caveat aside, I loved Snow Crash. Stephenson is one of those sci-fi/fantasy writers who are being rebranded as "speculative fiction" and moved to the proverbial front of the store (i.e. being marketed to readers in general, as opposed to geeky, pimpally mes).

Snow Crash is told from the dual perspecitves of Hiro Protagonist, a samurai-sword wielding super hacker, and Y.T., a skateboarding "Kourier", or super duper delivery girl. It's set in the not too distant future, where America has been splintered into various franchises, each with its own currency, residencies, and law (you can be a citizen of Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, the neo-nazi New South Africa, the Uncle Enzo run Mafia, and hook your RV up to the Buy n' Fly to drive for you, pay for a bathroom, a jail cell, etc., all in the same strip mall). You can also (from you PC or a phonebooth) log in to the Metaverse, which is basically the internet where you can walk aorund, own a house, go to a bar, etc. Hiro, one of the lead architects of the meta verse, witnesses his friend Da5id, basically the most famous hacker in the world, be exposed to a new designer drug called Snow Crash, which shuts Da5id's computer and brain down simultaneously. Snow Crash users tend to speak in tongues, which leads Hiro (with the help of former girlfriend Juanita) to discover that what it actually is is a nam-shub, an ancient Sumarian magic that changes the brain's language center the way a hacker changes computer code. What starts as an exploration of this fantastic future world turns into a quest by the few (Hiro, Y.T., Mr. Enzo, Juanita) to take down a vast conspiracy that involves the church, the Inuits, the franchise United States of America, and millions of refugees who have lashed their rafts to an aircarrier. To try to explain the whole plot (the main villian is a former eskimo who has wired a nuclear bomb to his pacemaker) would be silly and unfair...if you have any interest in modern science fiction, read it.

The Bristles or the Handle

"Most really pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman, Lenore notices, all of a sudden."

And so starts David Foster Wallace's first romp into the world of novel-sized metafiction. The Broom of the System is about a girl named Lenore Beadsman, who has a sneaking suspicion that she might be a character in a much larger story. But regardless of all that, things aren't going particularly well for Lenore. Her great-grandmother has gone missing from her nursing home, along with 24 other residents and staff members. Someone seems to have slipped her pet bird, Vlad the Impaler, a spoonful of genetically enhanced baby food, because all the bird does now is spat sexually ambiguous psychobabble ("Of course you satisfy me, Clinty. Don't think you don't.") and verses from the King James bible. Something's wrong with the phone lines at work, and Lenore's job as the switchboard operator for the flailing publishing company Frequent & Vigorous (which is really just an elaborate tax dodge) is insufferable. Her hygiene-obsessed therapist has taken to wearing gas masks during sessions and breaking everything down into membranes. The owner of her building, Mr. Bombardini, has decided that he'd like to consume the universe, and so he starts eating everything in his path. And added to all this, icing on top: the whole thing is set in a slightly-worse Cleveland, Ohio, a massive section of the state now being occupied by a huge black sandy wasteland known as the Great Ohio Desert, or G.O.D. when people are feeling lazy.

I really liked this book. There's not much of a plot that weaves through all the pieces, but that was okay. David Foster Wallace sets up this ridiculous, colorful, Looney-Tunes-esque (there's actually a really awesome mini-dissertation in here about the economics of Wile E. Coyote and his questionable Road Runner tactics) universe, and then holds you by the hand and takes you from place to place to show you all the different funny beautiful disturbing things that he's created. And so you just kind of let the book unpeel for you. And unpeel for you it does.

"and I got nervous, and finally when I said I supposed the bristles, because you could after a fashion sweep without the handle, by just holding on to the bristles, but couldn't sweep with just the handle, she tackled me, and knocked me out of my chair, and yelled into my ear something like, "Aha, that's because you want to sweep with the broom, isn't it? It's because of what you want the broom for, isn't it?" Et cetera. And that if what we wanted a broom for was to break windows, then the handle was clearly the fundamental essence of the broom, and she illustrated with the kitchen window, and a crowd of domestics gathered."

We all know an "Olive"...

Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout

Here is a collection of 13 stories (a novel in stories) so beautifully written that it won the Pulitzer prize for fiction this year. The common thread weaving these stories is Olive, a big-boned force of a woman in her 60's, cranky, abrasive, and not one to mince her words around anyone she encounters. Taking place in a small town on the coast of Maine, Elizabeth Strout draws us in to the subtle yet dramatic lives of the townsfolk of Crosby, interjecting Olive Kitteridge as both a meaningful figure in some and a peripheral figure in others. We come to understand Olive in her loneliness, love, her grief, and aging and grow with her when, after a lifetime of little patience for anyone she encounters in her life, she realizes and accepts her needs as well as those around her. This is life in all its honesty and a book you'll want to come back to time and time again. I loved it.

Hi gang! And ten books.

My name is Erika. I live with Josh. The copy of "Welcome to the Monkeyhouse" that the subletter stole from his bathroom was mine.

I love to read.

Thanks for letting me join your group! This is the first blog I've ever done. I like your noble goal and will do my best to put in my 50 by this time next year.

YES!

Since I'm joining late, I'll just count the book/s I've read since November 1st (posts to come):

• Novel Without a Name, by Duong Thu Huong
• The Johnstown Flood, by David McCullough

For now, I want to throw out ten books in the spirit of catching up.

TEN BOOKS I SUBMIT

So these ten are the first smattering. They're either books I plan to keep rereading forever, or ones that I loved the first time and would like to put out there.

• Another Country, by James Baldwin
• The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• West With the Night, by Beryl Markham
• Nicholas & Alexandra, by Robert K. Massie
• Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
• The Elephant Vanishes, by Haruki Murakami
• To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

• Emily of New Moon
• Emily Climbs
• Emily's Quest

These last three are all by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Decidedly young adult fiction. Possibly girly. But I find them to be more relevant and helpful to me now than they ever were when I was little.

Okay! Enough for now. Thanks again!

ROUND TWO! READ!

If I read 60 books this year, does it count as reading fifty each year?

1. The Gathering Storm- Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
2. Snow Crash- Neil Stephenson
3. McSweeney's Thirty-Two- Various Authors
4. Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Girls, 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined by Saxophone, and 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop Culture Lists- The A.V. Club
5. The Boy Detective Fails- Joe Meno
6. Inherent Vice- Thomas Pynchon
7. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo- Stieg Larsson
8. Black Hole- Charles Burns

9. The Satanic Verses- Salman Rushdie

10. Devil in the White City- Erik Larson

11. Born Standing Up- Steve Martin
12. The Girl Who Played with Fire- Stieg Larsson
13. The Corrections- Jonathan Frazen
14. Zeitoun- Dave Eggers
15. Killing Yourself to Live- Chuck Klosterman
16. Invisible Cities- Italo Calvino
17. Haroun and the Sea of Stories- Salman Rushdie

The Beginning of the End (Not That Anyone Else Cares)

I don't think there's anything else in literature quite like the sprawling fantasy epic series. Sure, there are serial novels, and novels featuring the same character over and over again (Agatha Christie and the "Do something for something else alliterative" novels come to mind) but while those may build on each other and carry over, Fantasy epics tend to focus on exactly the same characters, with the arcs and storylines carrying over from book to book, cliff hangers abounding. You may have to wait to or three books just to see the next chapter about the character you were enjoying so much in book four, and every time something seems resolved, some other plot crops up, or the overarching plot comes back in. In this sense, its more like serialized television then anything else. Like watching Lost or Battlestar Galactica, the narrative follows a point beginning to end, and if you don't stay with it til the very very end, you won't know how it turns out. Sure, you can drop in and out, but if you are a devoted follower, you need to know every detail, and keep track of every thread, and to do that, you need to keep up. But unlike Lost where you may have to wait a week, or at worse, nine months, in between, fantasy epics that are still being written can take years from book to book, and you find that in order to really be ready for book 12, you have to remember everything from books 5 and 7 and 9, and you don't. Hence, rereading the first 11 (last year) in preparation for this one (this year).

As this is the only WoT book I will read this year, I'll indulge in a fuller post than I usually do for these. The major thing about this book is it is the first of the series released after series creator and author of the first 11 books (and prequel), Robert Jordan. Jordan died in 2007, while he was well into writing what was supposed to be the final installment in WoT. As tragic as his death was (both for his friends and his fans) he supposedly left copious notes detailing how the series wound up, and even wrote the final chapter or some already. Enter Brandon Sanderson, a random fantasy writer tapped by Jordan's wife and editors to complete his opus. I was concerned before cracking the book...as excited as I was, and as much as I want (nay, need) to see how everything plays out...does Rand survive Tarmon Gai'dan (the mythic and much promised final showdown betwee the forces of the Dragon Reborn [good] and Shai'tan, the Dark One [evil])? Do Perrin and Faile reunite blissfully? What happens to Mat? does he find and rescue Moriane? Who is Verin, really? Where are the remaining Forsaken? What is Cadsuane's deal? Etc, etc...I was worried that the styles wouldn't mesh, the choices would seem odd, or worse, that they would seem to betray the nearly ten thousand words (and what feels like an equal number of reading hours) devoted to setting them up. But, thank the light, my worries were mostly for naught. The style is different, here and there (mostly in terms of dialogue with a more modern vernacular...characters using words like "ain't" or starting sentences with "Look..." where they didn't with Jordan) and some small choices are circumspect, but mostly it seems to like trudging down the same path I've been on for some time. And that's a good thing. Even with the end in sight.

Go ____ Yourself: an exercise in style

I've seen The Big Sleep, and I've read a good solid handful of books that follow Chandler's style (and a healthy handful of films as well, plus I think we're all familiar with the dozens of outright parodies that are out there). But I'd never read the book itself until I grabbed it while looking fruitlessly for the first installment in James Ellroy's Underworld USA trilogy (which I haven't read since high school and want to revisit en route to reading his final entry, just published). And those circumstances are pretty appropriate, given that Ellroy's style looks a lot closer to Chandler's than I would ever have imagined.

This is really great hard-boiled style, which is probably the most obvious thing you can say about it, but it's really pleasantly surprising just how sharp it still seems, SEVENTY YEARS after its publication. Chandler deals with a lot of grime here -- blood, guts, vomit, seduction, nudity -- that doesn't seem shocking until you reach a chapter where a young homosexual (hey, that sure didn't make it into the movie!) repeatedly tells Marlowe and anyone else he happens to meet "Go fuck yourself." Only Chandler, for obvious reasons given the era he was writing in, renders it as "Go ___ yourself." And then proceeds to spin pure gold from it over and over again; once he's established the kid's vernacular, he calls it back repeatedly ("He made a suggestion," one cop drawls, spitting and saying "I'm letting it drift") to increasingly sharp effect.

So there's a lot of that. There's a lot of stellar verbal sparring. You forget that not only don't they write movies with this crackling dialogue much any more, but they don't write much of anything like this any more. "You should see him sober. I should see him sober. Somebody should see him sober. I mean, just for the record. So it could become a part of history, that brief flashing moment, soon buried in time, but never forgotten -- when Larry Cobb was sober." I mean, the book is littered with throwaway lines like this. It's delight, pure and simple.

So you know, I'm still looking forward to that Ellroy, but I gotta say, he's got a lot of surprising-me to do if he's gonna out-grit Chandler. This was rip-snorting good readin'. More like it, please!

Two Serious Men

So after seeing A Serious Man (SEE IT, guys, it's great), and reading a truly excellent AV Club interview with the brothers Coen, I wanted to dig into this book of interviews and critical responses to their films. Published in the wake of Big Lebowski (and with a few of the later interviews in the piece hinting at what would become O Brother Where Art Thou), it's pieced together out of chronological pieces on, with, and about the Coens. Which is interesting, to a degree (seeing how Blood Simple was received and how they were perceived in interviews then as opposed to by the time Fargo came out), but ultimately leaves the book pretty short on context or reflection. There's an interview series I flipped through in a Berkeley bookstore about a year ago (I remember a Mike Leigh installment in particular) compiled of interviews one single author did with directors over the course of their career, and that seems like a much more fruitful approach -- a cumulative effect with much less redundancy and thin focus. Throw in the fact that most of these reviews aren't, say, Rosenbaum-esque Considerations Of Films (in fact, many are culled from Variety and Hollywood Reporter and include predictions of fiscal success or failure) and you have a pretty thin, unsatisfying volume. Frankly, you're a lot better off reading that AV Club piece to get a sense of the brothers that doesn't come with a gloss of incredulous "BROTHERS who make movies TOGETHER? What a country!"

Guys! It's the start to an exciting new year where I complain a lot! WHO'S JAZZED ABOUT THIS? ...JUST ME? Okay, well stick around, this next book blows the friggin' roof off with excellence and style.

UPDATE: This is the book on the Coens in the Interviews series I mention above. Might check it out if I have the time and inclination, though I'm actually much more interested in the Mike Leigh and Robert Altman installments. Intrigue!

Post-mortem, or SHAAAAAME

Well, quite a bit shy of 50, but tell you what gang, this was a swell yearlong project if only for keeping me focused on some "pleasure" reading in the midst of rehearsals, for-pay scriptreading, and the numbercrunching of an average day. Nice to keep a little pressure on an arena that I've always loved more than the things I Have To Do. SO! No grand promises or designs on hitting the mark this next year, but hells YES, I will give it another shot! And hey, I'm already two books in! (After a month of rehearsing a show while running another show, I'm almost overwhelmed by the sense of free time that comes with only doing one thing at a time.) So bring it on, my friends. And keep giving me sweet, sweet titles to add to the "yet to come" stack. I'd do summaries like all you clever cats, but I'm DONE with the shame of the past! On to the future! To glory! Et cetera!

Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson

Or "Kickin' Off the New Year in True Nerd Glory."

Pat read this book. I was intrigued, and have intended to read it ever since. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is the week that those intentions came true.

What a sweet after-dinner mint of factoids this little wisp of a book turned out to be! It's satisfactorily substantial without being dry, and leaps subjects, ideas, and times with the ease that Sarah Vowell wishes she could muster. And, best of all, it avoids any bullshit conjecture about Shakespeare's life and who he was and what he thought. Bryson is clear from start to end that, for all intents and purposes, we don't know a damn thing about Shakespeare.

Shakespeare: The World as Stage doses out some Elizabethan/Jacobean history, some literary scholarship, some peeks into the culture of 16th century England, some good ol' fashioned religion, and (my nerdfavorite of all) a thorough investigation the last four hundred years of Shakespeare scholarship. Which you'll dig, if you're into that sort of thing. I'm into it. I dug it. It's a lot of information, delightfully packaged, and breezy to read. My kind of history, indeed.

Book 1: mysterious benedict society and the prisoner's dilemma

So, this week I read the third book in the Mysterious Benedict Society. While I definitely enjoyed it(I thought it was improved from book 2) I have a problem with this series that are becoming clearer with each book.

The stakes feel low: Now I know the actual stakes are the world will be taken over by evil, and everyone the kids have ever loved will be brainswept or killed, BUT we all know that isn't going to happen. While you could loosely say that for a lot of books, (we often know the good guys will prevail ahead of time) it is especially annoying to me here. In the Harry Potter books we knew that people could die. They did die, and so in the constant battle of good versus evil there were real stakes for the reader. In mysterious, I just don't need to feel nervous or emotional about the characters' fates, because it doesn't matter how many hundreds of feet milligan falls, it will only result in a broken arm and slightly weakened voice.

That being said I enjoyed the slower pace of this book from the last. I also feel that the situations seemed less forced and more realistic (an across the world voyage alone made less sense). I look forward to more of the series coming out! Does anyone else think Kate and Reynie are gonna get it on soon? I mean, they are 13 and 14, and both attractive go-getters who live in the same house......

Ten excellent books on Dorothy's list, not necessarily favorites, but ones that made an impact and are unforgettable.

In no particular order and I'm sure I'm forgetting some choice titles (so many books, such poor memory!) , but these are stand-outs:

"Atonement" by Ian McEwan

"Love In The Time Of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

"Crossing To Safety" by Wallace Stegner

"The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz

"Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides

"Falling Man" by Don DeLillo

"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

"The Reader" by Bernhard Schlink

"Everything Is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safron Foer

"Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safron Foer

And I'll add an 11th one just because it was one of the first books I had ever read that, to this day, has stuck with me...

"Death Be Not Proud" by John Gunther

I'm sure I'll want to add to this list, probably as soon as I publish this post, but it's a start. I'm anxious to contribute to the Magical Reading blog. I've been a silent observer since this was started last year and have really enjoyed reading everyone's reviews. Thanks, Andrew!!! (Now go clean your apartment!)

I READ 25 BOOKS IN 6 MONTHS, DOES THAT COUNT?

Reeeecap....

Actual Number of Books Read: 39 and 5 halves

Number of Books Read for the First time vs. Number re-read: 25/14

Best Books Read for the First Time: Sharp Teeth, Bel Canto, Chuck Klosterman IV, Then We Came to the End

Book that Held Up as Unimpeachable: Black Swan Green

Days Before the Release of the Twelfth Book That I Finished Rereading the First Eleven Books of the Wheel Of Time: 4

Number of Books Read to Impress a Girl: One

Number of Books Read that, When Speaking To a Girl, I Wouldn't Admit to Reading: 13

Worst Book that Was Finished (sorry Julie edition): The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Book that I Wasn't Able to Finish Due to Boredom (sorry Pat edition): Born Standing Up

Book that I Wasn't Able to Finish Due to It Being Stolen From the Bathroom By Our Subletter: Welcome to Monkey House

Books That I Read Exclusively In The Bathroom: Songbook, Nights Of Passed Over, McSweeney's Book of Poets Picking Poets, Shakespeare Wrote For Money

Books I Haven't Read But Plan to For Next Year (Other People's Lists Edition): Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, Inherent Vice, Consider the Lobster

Classic Books I Will Plan to Read But Won't: Infinite Jest

Classic Books I Plan to Read: The Satanic Verses

Number of Pages Read in Wheel Of Time Series Read, According To Wikipedia: 9,392

Number of Wheel of Time Books I Will Limit Myself to For Next Year: 1

Post Number of That Book: 1

FINALLY I've been invited to the cool kids table: Allison's 2009-2010 books

I'll take your 50 books in a year and raise you 25. Is that how this works? Now excuse me as I have to go find some intellectual books to add to my young adult novels so I look like a college graduate.

1. The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma - Trenton Lee Stewart

2. The Gathering - Anne Enright

3. The Girl Who Played With Fire - Stieg Larsson

4. Her Fearful Symmetry-Audrey Niffeneggar

5. The Thirteenth Tale-Diane Setterfield

6. Revenge of the Spellmans-Lisa Lutz

7. The Maze Runner-James Dashner

8. Hunger Games-Suzanne Collins

9. Catching Fire-Suzanne Collins

10. Shutter Island- Dennis Lehane

11. The Forest of Hands and Teeth-Carrie Ryan

12. Beautiful Creatures- Tracy Chevalier

13. The Girl With Glass Feet- Ali Shaw

14. Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang-Chelsea Handler

15. The Spellmans Strike Again-Lisa Lutz

16. The Corrections-Jonathon Franzen

17. The Road-Cormac McCarthy

18. Shanghai Girls-Lisa See

19. Gang Leader For a Day-Sudhir Venkatesh

20. The Bedwetter- Sarah Silverman

21. Me Talk Pretty One Day- David Sedaris

22. The Long Walk- Richard Bachmann (aka Stephen King)

23. The Dead-Tossed Waves- Carrie Ryan

24. Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives-David Eagleman

25. The Glass Castle-Jeanette Walls

26. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest-Stieg Larsson

27. The City of Ember- Jeanne DuPrau

28. Lucy- Lawrence Gonzales

29. The Lonely Polygamist-Brady Udall

30. The Passage- Justin Cronin

31. Sh*t My Dad Says-Justin Halpern

32. The Lost City of Z-David Grann

33. The People of Sparks- Jeanne DuPrau

34. The Prophet of Yonwood- Jeanne DuPrau

35. Outliers- Malcolm Gladwell

36. Why We Suck-A Feel Good Guide To Staying Fat, Lazy, and Stupid- Dennis Leary

37. Mockingjay- Suzanne Collins

38. The Cell- Stephen King

39. Everlost- Neil Shusterman

40. The Diamond of Darkhold -Jeanne DuPrau

41. Billy The Kid-The Endless Ride- Michael Wallis

42. The Other Boleyn Girl- Philippa Gregory

43. Alias Grace- Margaret Atwood
44. The Tent- Margaret Atwood

45. In Cold Blood- Truman Capote

46. The Weight of Silence- Heather Gudenkauf

47. I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil, and I Want to Be Your Class President- Josh Lieb

48. Earth-The Book- Jon Stewart

49. The Almost Moon- Alice Seebold

50. The Lorax- Dr Suess

2008 <----b----o----o----k----s----> 2009

The BEST:

Inherent Vice

Infinite Jest

White Noise

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

The DUDS:

I Love You, Beth Cooper

Girl in Landscape

Airframe

The GAYEST:

The Little Prince (I'm sorry, but come on. He's looking for the men! Please show me where I can find the men!)

The LOVELY, WONDERFULLY MOVING BOOKS THAT DIDN'T QUITE MAKE IT TO THE "BEST OF" LIST BUT STILL DESERVE TO BE INCLUDED IN SOME KIND OF LIST, BECAUSE SECOND PLACE IS STILL WINNING, ACCORDING TO GYMNAST SVETLANA KHORKINA, RUSSIAN, SILVER-MEDALIST, OLYMPIAN:

Black Swan Green

Revolutionary Road

Lunar Park

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The STEAMIEST AUTHOR AWARD:

Bret Easton Ellis (you could melt an ice cube on those words)

The FINEST PASSAGE ABOUT RIPPING A SHIN BONE OUT OF YOUR LEG AND USING SAID BONE AS LETHAL STABBING INSTRUMENT:

Beat the Reaper

The SPOOOOOOKIEST:

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Hiroshima

The BOOK TO BOYCOTT FOR NEXT YEAR:

Eating Animals (I love you Jonathan Safran Foer, but I can't have you crawling into my brain and convincing me with your flowery language why eating turkey sandwiches is not what I should be doing in any given moment of the day. I'm sorry. I really am.)

The NEW YEAR OF MAGICAL READING MEMBERS(!):

Michael Ian Lampl

Dorothy Samuels Lampl

(Julie, can you create profiles for them? Or can you tell me how to take matters into my own hands with easy-to-understand computer terminology?)

The YEAR:

2009.

Is OVER?:

Just about.

And WAS IT INDEED MAGICAL?:

Well, as you can see, this sword of stainless steel is clearly soaked in bunny blood, but when I open this cage here, well look at that, our bunny is still alive. So you tell me.

A Year in Review

Well, gang, here we all are.

I think we're all here, anyway. Dad? Are you still out there?

Either way. Here we are. One year older, one year wiser, and significantly more well read.

I'd like to take this moment to thank you guys for joining me on this journey. It has truly been a joy every step of the way.

A brief reflection on this book-filled year...

EVERYONE SHOULD READ

Black Swan Green and Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer

(Tie!)

NO ONE SHOULD EVER EVER READ

The Book of Lost Things

THE UNEXPECTED SMASH-HIT

Pastoralia.

THE ONE I EXPECTED TO BE A SMASH-HIT BUT WAS REALLY A BIG OL' LOSER

The Book Thief

THE BEST BOOK THAT WAS THE LEAST ENJOYABLE TO READ

What Is the What

THE STRANGEST ONLINE MOMENT OF 2008

The brief and unexpected series of blog-comment exchanges with Dr. Jane Nelsen.

THINGS I AM EXCITED ABOUT FOR THE 2009-2010 BOOKYEAR

Getting some other women folk into this sausage-fest! Welcome, Allison and Andy's Mom!

So I'm on board for 2009-2010! And I'm gonna make it to fifty this time, because all I want in the world is to be just like Andy Lampl!! Who's with me, eh?!

I Got So Lazy About Posting!

Or "Hats Off To You, Andy Lampl!"

I solemnly swear that all these books were read in their entirety by October 31, 2009.

Also, for some reason my computer isn't letting me add images. Curse you, Safari.

Lightning round.

Haikus.

Get ready.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass

by Lewis Carroll

I like these books less

Every time that I read them.

Not a thing happens.

Equus

by Peter Shaffer

Groundbreaking, I'm sure,

For 1973.

Now, a bit dated.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat

by Oliver Sacks

Don't take for granted

You know your face is a face.

The brain is fucked up.

Viewpoints

by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau

I used this book to

Teach students in Idaho

That they have bodies.

Mastering Shakespeare

by Scott Kaiser

Annoying structure:

It is written as a script.

Still, some good lessons.

Games for Actors and Non-Actors

by Augusto Boal

You've not read this book

for Actors and Non-Actors?

Do. Your life will change.

A Shakespearean Actor Prepares

by Adrian Brine and Michael York

Hands-down my favorite

Book about acting Shakespeare.

Such juicy language!

Heartbeat

by Sharon Creech

My favorite author

When I was in the sixth grade.

She's still really good.

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma

by Trenton Lee Stewart

I'm essentially

A ten year old, but hot damn,

This book is perfect.

A Wrinkle in Time

by Madeline L'Engle

Much more religious

Than I seem to remember

From my younger days.

The Artist's Way

by Julia Cameron

A wacky hippie

Lady's advice on living.

Good Lord, I love it.

Admisson of Defeat.

Well. I failed. who's ready for round 2?!