bookblog

How To Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young

Eh. I like a bitchy tell-all about publishing and New York fame whores as much as the bext girl, but this one just never gelled for me. Toby Young can't decide if he's Dave Barry or David Brooks; strippergrams and Tocqueville are a difficult combination, and it gets even weirder when he refers to some woman's tits on every other page.

May be this is another victim of over-hypr though; I heard a lot about this book when it came out, and it was highly recommended to me by a friend as well, so I was really looking forward to it and it kind of fell flat. Though I do identify with his anger over his friends' success. Maybe I'm too much of a loser myself to appreciate books about losers who are trying to pretend that being a loser is cool, as long as you can admit it.

Abarat by Clive Barker

In times of emotional stress or exceptional tranquility, I like to read Young Adult literature. A lot of it is really exceptional, especially when compared with some of the mid-list stuff that is aimed toward adults. maybe only the good stuff is stocked, because shelf space is at a premium?

Abarat isn't the best example of YA fantasy out there, but it does have a lot going for it. It's very, very dark; maybe too dark for some kids, though I would have loved it. Also, weirdly devoid of romatic tension, which every girl heroine should at leat have as an option, IMO. The world it creates--the Abarat, a chain od 25 islands based on the number of hours in a day, plus one eextra for Time out of Time--is fully imagined and well done. Plus it has pictures. I don't like graphic novels (or COMIC BOOKS, as they are called by people who don't read them) because I don't like pictures instead os story. But illustrations in addition to story, I can dig.

For Rouenna by Sigrid Nunez

I found this book in a box of freebies in Takoma Park. I'd never heard of Sigrid Nunez, so I was instrigued that the blurbs kept referring to her as one of the most celebrated writers of vher generation, etc. It's a really beautiful, quiet story that pulled me in from the first paragraph. Her style is so quiet and effortless-seeming that I can almost see how thos book might have failed to capture my interest if I'd been in a different mood...but I still think the quiet power of it would have shown through. It's really lovely, which is not a phrase one normally associates with books about the lives destroyed by the Vietnam War. I'll be on the lookout for more of her stuff.

Tracks of Angels

Tracks of Angels by Kelly Dwyer

This was pretty good. A coming-of-age tale with literary aspirations.

Shot In the Heart by Mikal Gilmore

Shot in the Heart

Family memoir by the brother of executed murderer Gary Gilmore. This is an amazing book that my sister picked up at Kultura in Dupont Circle last week. It has Mormons, murder, ghosts,, spiritualists, and an illegitimate child of Harry Houdini all rolled up in one package, but it's far from rollicking. Mikal Gilmore's pain about his devastated family practically bleeds on every page. It's really really good.

Love by Toni Morrison I

Love by Toni Morrison

I love Toni Morrison. I've read her entire oeuvre. This one is...not among the best (that would be Beloved, IMHO), and a little confusing at times, but I'm still enjoying it for the language and the sharp moments, which are always unexpected and true.