Here’s what I read from April 1, 2003 to March 31, 2004, organized by category.
Non-Fiction:
The Valleys of the Assassins, Freya Stark (BC)
It took me a long time to read this. It should have been fascinating and compelling, the story of a European woman traveling in Persia by herself in the 1930’s, but for the most part I didn’t find it engaging.
Best Friends: The True Story of the World’s Most Beloved Animal Sanctuary, Samantha Glen, read by Juliette Parker (A)
I’ve given money to these people, so I thought I’d get more of the story. Some parts made me cry but it wasn’t as sad and horrible as I’d feared a book about animal rescue would be. I didn’t find out anything that would make me not want to support them in the future, either, so that was good.
Higher, Neal Bascomb, read by Richard M. Davidson (A)
This focuses on the competition between the Chrysler Building and the Manhattan Bank Building when they were built in 1929. It was engaging enough that I found myself rooting for one architect over the other. There’s even something of a surprise ending if you don’t know your New York City history.
A Wolverine is Eating My Leg, Tim Cahill
I was ready for a new book when Mr. Karen finished this, so I picked it up. It’s a collection of stories, some of them interesting, some of them tedious. I loved the articles about scuba diving, for instance, but could barely make myself finish the one about infiltrating a cult.
Balsamic Dreams, Joe Queenan, read by Paul Boehmer (A)
This would have been funnier if I had been born five or ten years earlier, since I couldn’t identify with at least half of the stuff he was poking fun at. I also had trouble with the reader mispronouncing “feng shui”, which probably means I’m closer to being a real boomer than I like to think.
Unplugged Kitchen, Viana La Place
Normally, I wouldn’t read a cookbook cover to cover, given that I don’t much like to cook, but this isn’t just recipes, it’s also something of a philosophical treatise about food with elements of autobiography. I bought this off a sale table because it seemed like the I could handle making most of the things she writes about, since the focus is on simplicity– no food processor required, which is good, since I don’t have one. Now that I’ve finished reading, I might actually make some of the recipes.
Life is Not a Stress Rehearsal, Loretta Laroche
I read this because my mom gave (loaned? I suppose I should check) it to me; evidently she thinks of me when she thinks of stress. I didn’t connect with the premise of this book, which was we can live less stressful lives by doing things the way our grandmothers did. I really thought it was odd that a self-help book was telling me I didn’t need self-help books (because grandma didn’t read them, you know).
In a Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson
I laughed out loud more than once while reading this tale of travel adventures in Australia. I am very glad I didn’t have to travel with him, though; he seems to favor long, ill-thought out walks.
The Making of a Chef, Michael Ruhlman, read by Jeff Riggenbach (A)
Though I don’t cook myself (other than following directions and recipes), I enjoy stories about people who can, so a book about what it’s like to be a student at the Culinary Institute of America is something I had to read. The best part of this book was the descriptions of why food behaves the way it does and what that means for cooking it. I wish I’d had a better audio version; the Blackstone Audiobooks edition I listened to didn’t flow well because it had pauses in strange places; first I thought the tapes were defective, but it seems to be just how it was edited. More than once I thought the side had ended or the tape had stopped working only to have the reader come back in a few seconds later.
Fiction:
The Crazed, Ha Jin, read by Norm Lee
For a book that mostly takes place in a hospital room, the plot took several turns I didn’t expect. I really, really want to know what happened to the main character after the book ended.
The Big Book of Misunderstanding, Jim Gladstone
I picked this up at the library because I liked the title. I was pleasantly surprised to see on the back cover after I got it home that it’s classified as “gay male fiction”; not what I’d expect to find in my conservative Republican town. I enjoyed the story but wished for a more definite resolution at the end (but that’s not how real life works, I guess, so why should a novel have to work that way).
Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon (BC)
Like the other Chabon, I liked this but didn’t get immersed in it. The ending was different than what I expected; it’s nice to be surprised.
Traveling Ladies, Janice Kulyk Keefer
I liked this collection of stories a lot. The writing painted moving pictures in my head and made me care about the characters.
The Nanny Diaries, Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
I found this oddly compelling. Odd, because there’s no reason rich people in NYC and their nanny should matter to me, but I got drawn in.
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster (BC)
I loved this book as a kid, which is why it’s the only book I have kept with me from childhood. It holds up very nicely on rereading.
Once Upon a Crime, edited by Ed Gorman & Martin H. Greenburg, read by a lot of people (A)
I didn’t know all the fairy tales used as inspiration for these stories. I liked a few of them, but most were not that compelling.
The Trial, Franz Kafka, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir, revised by E.M. Butler (BC)
I’m pretty sure I read this for a philosophy class in college, but I hadn’t remembered much. I found this more frustrating than illuminating. Maybe that was the point.
The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 1), Lemony Snicket
I’ve heard this series compared to Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies, which I think is very funny dark humor, but I found this to be too much bleak and not enough humor. I’ll probably read the next one in the series to see if I misjudged it.
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov (BC)
This isn’t the glorification of the sexual abuse of children that conventional wisdom might have led you to believe, but it’s still creepy. Beautifully written, but creepy.
All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers, Larry McMurtry, read by John Randolph Jones (A)
I couldn’t identify with the main character. I kept hoping the novel would give me more insight into why he did the things he did, or at least provide me with a satisfying ending. It was just aimlessness with a good short story buried in the middle.
Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcia (BC)
I didn’t want to throw this book across the room at any point, but I didn’t love it to pieces, either. I would have liked it better with more magic and less realism. I couldn’t entirely accept the world of the book as real, but it wasn’t fanciful enough for me to just suspend disbelief.
Virtual Light, William Gibson, read by Frank Muller (A)
I liked this a lot. I almost stopped listening to it after the first couple chapters, not really wanting to depress myself by absorbing yet another dark and gritty view of the future, but I’m glad I gave it a chance. Yes, the future here isn’t the shiny Tomorrowland I like to think isn’t just a fantasy, but it’s not a future without hope like I feared it would be in those early chapters. I liked the main character, and the descriptions of people and places were so good that it was almost like watching a movie in my head.
I Was Amelia Earhart, Jane Mendelsohn, read by Blair Brown (A)
I enjoyed this a lot more once I stopped trying to figure it out and just let it wash over me. So what if the narration changes from first to third person and back again multiple times and it’s sometimes hard to follow. It’s a dreamy book, those sorts of things happen all the time in dreams.
Turn, Magic Wheel, Dawn Powell (BC)
Unfortunately, I found the protagonist of this book to be less interesting than his main supporting character. I didn’t hate the story, but I really wished the focus were different. Evidently, this was satire, but since I’m not familiar with milieu it was poking fun at, I didn’t get it.
She’s Come Undone, Wally Lamb
I almost stopped reading this twice because of things the main character did (one incident involved bad things happening to animals and the other bad things happening to library materials; I’m not sure what it says about my own character that those things pissed me off more than all the bad things the people in the book did to each other). The thing I liked best about this book is that the ending was not what I predicted.
Why Girls Are Weird, Pamela Ribon
Of course I read this. I was never a Squishette, but I am not immune to the charms of Pamie. This was a quick, entertaining read. I did find myself distracted by playing “spot the entry”, where I’d look for parts of the book taken from Pamie’s journal and wonder which parts were from her real life and which were totally made up.
The Body Farm, Patricia D. Cornwell, read by Kate Reading (A)
At first, I thought I might have listened to this one already, but realized that some things seemed familiar because they were covered as backstory in later Kay Scarpetta books I’ve read. I liked this one, despite the misleading title (the Body Farm shows up only briefly and is not at all central to the plot) up until the last few chapters, in which Dr. Scarpetta did some things that seemed out of character.
Ladies With Options, Cynthia Hartwick, read by Barbara McCulloh (A)
This was a pleasant listen, the story of a ladies investment club in a small city in Minnesota. I saw a couple of the major plot points coming way before they happened, but that didn’t keep me from risking a visit from the library police to keep it two days past its due date so I could finish it before the person who had it on hold could get it from me.
The Devil’s Larder, Jim Crace (BC)
This is a collection of vignettes, some of them very short. The stories painted clear pictures, some of them a bit disgusting, some of them melancholy, all related to food in some way. I think they really need to be read one at a time and savored, because I found trying to read them one after the other was somehow disconcerting, like I’d just started to get a taste of something and then it was replaced in my mouth with something completely different.
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
I’d been meaning to read some Austen since I listened to Persuasion in March. I liked this book, too, but did sometimes have trouble getting into the rhythm of the language used. Sometimes I’d have to read passages over to make sense of them because the phrasing didn’t flow easily in my mind. It might have helped if I’d only been reading this book and could have immersed myself in it.
The Murder Book, Jonathan Kellerman, read by John Rubinstein (A)
I liked this. The detectives weren’t always right and not everything was tied up in a neat package and explained in the concluding chapters. Sometimes loose ends annoy me, but in this case, it made sense to leave them. I was impressed that the fact that one of the main male characters was gay led to no wacky hijinks in his interaction with the other main male character, who was straight.
Back When We Were Grownups, Anne Tyler, read by Blair Brown (A)
I was interested in the lives of the characters and had high hopes for the featured female whose story it was, but was ultimately disappointed by how little happened. I wanted drama and instead got real life. That’s not the book’s fault.
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino, translated by William Weaver (BC)
I so did not get this book. I tried reading long stretches to get into the rhythm and in short stretches to give the ideas time to develop in my head before I put more in. Neither made me feel like I understood what this book was about. There were a few striking images, but I think I’m just the kind of person who needs a plot and/or developed characters in order to like a book.
The Keys to the Street, Ruth Rendell, read by Donada Peters (A)
I had some problems with this book. Some of the minor characters weren’t distinctive enough for me to tell them apart; I figured out who the killer was about halfway through, and while I appreciated that the ending wrapped things up pretty neatly, the pacing of it didn’t match the rest of the book. Still, I didn’t see one of the plot twists coming, so that was nice.
Child of My Heart, Alice McDermott, read by Bernadette Dunne (A)
I got hooked into this early, when a character was described as “one good night’s sleep away from being beautiful”. I had trouble believing some of it, and felt the ending was too abrupt, but on the whole I liked it.
Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
I liked this a lot; it’s a funny book about Armageddon. Perhaps I am dooming myself to hell by praising irreverent humor like this, but I’m betting God enjoys a good laugh, too.
Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, Larry McMurtry, read by Doug Ordunio (A)
I haven’t read any of Larry McMurtry’s novels, which might have helped me connect better with this essay. It wasn’t bad, just a little rambly. It seemed more like a companion piece than a fully realized work.
Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson (BC)
Reading this was like hearing about someone else’s dreams. The bad parts didn’t seem so bad because there was an air of unreality about the whole experience. I wasn’t blown away by the beauty of the language like so many other people seem to have been; I actually thought it got in the way of telling the story because the deliberateness of the phrasing seemed to add some distance to the telling.
Guards, Guards, Terry Prachett, read by Nigel Planer (A)
Mr. Karen listened to a Terry Prachett book on a kayaking trip and thought I would like it, so I checked out this title, the only one our library has on audio by this author. I was a little concerned about jumping in on book eight of a series, but it turned out that I didn’t feel like I missed out by not knowing the backstory. I liked this a lot; it was funny and entertaining and unpredictable. The reader was very good, using different voices for the many characters so it was easy to tell them apart, but not being overdramatic about it.
Book of Evidence, John Banville (BC)
I didn’t enjoy reading this, mostly because I found the central character exasperating and there wasn’t enough else going on to distract me from him and keep me engaged in the book.
Fluffy Fiction:
My Fair Viking, Sandra Hill
I was curious if this, the other Viking romance in the library’s collection, would be better than the first one I read. It was, but only a little.
The Very Virile Viking, Sandra Hill (BC)
Not the usual book club fare. This was not good, though there were a few unintentionally funny passages.
Utopia, Lincoln Child
This was the most appealing title available at the Walgreen’s I found myself in after I finished The Nanny Diaries. I liked the theme park setting and the competent female characters.
The Junkyard Dog, Robert Campbell, read by Peter Waldren (A)
I picked this one up because it was set in Chicago, and I’d just been there. I was a little disappointed that the city in the book was not the one I’d visited, but that’s not the book’s fault. It was a good car book; engaging enough to keep my attention but not so complicated that I had to keep rewinding to figure things out.
The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling, Lawrence Block, read by Richard Ferrone (A)
This unfolded so slowly I had a hard time staying awake at times, fortunately when I was a passenger in the car and not the driver. It was not as funny as the jacket led me to believe, thought it did have its amusing moments, just not enough of them. Mr. Karen and I both thought they should combine this series with the Cat Who books, coming out with titles such as “The Burglar Who Read Cervantes to the Cat Who Sang Arias”.
L.A. Dead, Stuart Woods, read by Robert Lawrence (A)
This is one of the Stone Barrington books, which have been a staple in my fluffy guy fiction reading. I think I’m over Stone now, though, because this book was just too stupid. To get into this book, you’d have to not just suspend disbelief, but expel it and send it to a detention school far away so that you’ll be able to swallow the plot twists that allow Stone to uncover vital pieces of evidence after multiple police searches of the same site or to have sex with yet another woman who’s not his wife. While you’re at it, send logic away, too; that way you won’t be disturbed by the continuity problems that the editor should have caught. I’m all for escapism, but this just didn’t work. I also didn’t like the audio edition I listened to (from Brilliance Audio); it mechanically altered the voices whenever a character was speaking on the phone or from the television, and that was annoying, especially since the volume would often drop when this happened, forcing me to either rewind or miss something.
The Cat Who Moved a Mountain, Lillian Jackson Braun, read by George Guidall (A)
Pleasant, diversionary listening while commuting– I’ve heard so many of these I know the formula by heart.
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