Bookin' It Thru Life

Need a book recommendation? This is it!!! David Sedaris' Calypso . Not quite a novel and not quite a series of essays, it nominally circles around his purchase and enjoyment of a beach house in NC but really, its about him and his life. Note that the reviews say its about a man in mid-life who buys a beach house in NC and faces his age-did they even read the book? Its not about that AT ALL! I mean, yes, he is and does those things in the course of th e book, but that's not what its about...book reviews sometimes annoy me. \ I have not read Sedaris before and I have since gathered that all of his books are about him but this one could have been about me...he grew up in Raleigh in a displaced family (meaning they were not from Raleigh, not that they were refugees or anything), had a family of six kids, vacationed every summer on the NC coast, values his siblings like crazy, etc. I mean, I'm not a short gay man (well, I suppose one could call me short) who has made million...

So this book is odd...I mean, really, really odd.  In the interest of full disclosure, I only read part of it (179/302 pages-you do the math).  Not because I was not entranced-I was.  But because I just sort of stopped reading it.  I think this is one of those books that had I started it on vacation I would have plowed through to the end without ever putting it down.  As it was, I tried to read it in between "life" and it just does not lend itself to the up/down/ten minutes here/half an hour there reading that I generally do when I am NOT on vacation.  I didn't feel compelled to pick it back up and see what happens-its not one of those books that you think is going to have some great reveal at the end (though it may-like I said, I haven't finished it)-I think I just put it down one day and when I went to read next, I picked something else up instead and when I realized I had not finished Lincoln in the Bardo I was like, eh, that's too bad, but... The boo...

Psychological thriller...yes.  Unputdownable?  Not really.  Do I feel for this woman and her lost child?  Yes.  Do I wonder where the story is going?  Sure.  Does the author lead you one way, then another, and make you ponder?  Sure.  But not for long, and not very deeply, and frankly here I am a month or so after reading the book and I don't even remember exactly what happened so there you go.  My recollection is that the ending was satisfying if not quite the surprise that the author intended it to be (I think I read too much...I saw it coming).  Rating:  #5 Good Enough

Ever heard of "Chick Lit"?  This is a classic example.  Suburban married woman falls and hits her head and forgets the last 10 years of her life.  Chaos ensues.  There's the estranged husband who she thinks she is still in love with, the 3 kids who she doesn't remember at all, the sister/best friend figure whose job it is to support her...its all there.  Its really one of those books that you enjoy while you are reading it because well, do you really have anything better to do while you are waiting for another sports practice to finish but which, once you are done, you don't really think about again.  Its books just like this that got me started writing this blog...I was tired of picking up a book and getting 20 pages in and thinking, huh, I think I already read this.  When you read a lot of books, not all of which are "fabulous", its very easy to stumble onto a book and not realize from the cover's synopsis that O already read it.  Anyway, not su...

With this book I broke my cardinal rule of fantasy books that come in a series...I read Book One before the rest of the series was even out.  I hate that.  Cause if I love the book, I have to wait for the sequel and then I either forget to ever read it or when I go to read the sequel I have to go back and reread the initial book again.  So its nearly always better to just wait until the series is good and established and then dig in.  But I did it so here goes. Summer Dragon was standard fantasy fair.   A world that has its own politics and dangers, a protagonist whose situation during youth forms her "hero-ness" and of course, dragons.  Nothing to love here, nothing to hate, if it occurs to me later or I happen to stumble on it I'm sure I'll read the sequel 'cause I'm always looking for a book to read but its not going on my "must read" list or anything. Rating:  #5  Good Enough

I picked this up because I recall reading Stegner's Angle of Repose  and thinking it was fabulous.  A while back I read Crossing to Safety and liked it though did not think it was up to snuff with Angle .  Big Rock Candy Mountain appealed to me because I wanted something by someone I thought I could count on to give me a good read and for whatever reason I heard the song echoing in the background when I saw the name of the book.  (It doesn't take much to send me down the road of reading a book.) In some ways, the book did not disappoint.  The intro started out strong and I pulled the following quote:  " Books that render great insight may provide it gradually over time or with great suddenness.  Often the best novels don't completely reveal themselves the first time through, demanding to be understood at the right age and state of mind, in readings separated by the passage of years. "  This from Roger Stone who wrote the introduction.  Yes...

I believe that I picked this up off the "sale" shelf at Barnes and Noble.  You know, the one where the not-so-recently released hardcovers are marked down to $6.  As a general rule I peruse this shelf whenever I am in B&N.  You can often pick up an older Balducci or Grisham etc. etc. for dirt cheap and if you didn't read the book when it was "hot", you can read it now.  They also mix these "popular writer" overstocks with unknowns and with those, its really a crap shoot.  Some are good, some are bad, most are worth the mush reduced hardcover price tag assuming you don't mind dropping the occasional $30 to get 5 or 6 books which may or may not include a hidden gem.  I don't know that I'd call this one of those but I liked it well enough.  The premise is that a brother and sister are invited to their older, more successful, half sister's wedding to which neither one actually has an desire to go.  The book opens with them snarkily revi...

I was super excited about this book.  I loved French's other books (the Dublin Murder Squad) and expected this one to be a continuation of that series.  Alas, it was not, which in and of itself is not so bad.  However, it was also nowhere near the caliber of her other books.  I was, in a word, disappointed. It was not all bad...her characteristic " Fair play " in the narrative was present (Kristi, you won't have to look far to see it!!) and the overall tone was classic Tana French.  Toby's reminiscing about his vacation time spent at the family home with his cousins and his uncle's " benign neglect" as a caretaker made me smile; his wandering around the old family home just looking at what was the same and what was different-that evoked memories of doing the same thing at my grandmother's house when I'd go back after being away for some time.   And there were some fun words that I noted for future reference:  inchoate, ranunculus, rapacity...

I'm a HUGE Robin Hobb fan.  To date, I have not read a book by her I did not like.  If that's the standard, this trilogy met it.  But beyond that?  Not so much.  This trilogy went on and on and on.  One of the recurring themes (thematics?  something) was the impact that the book's magic had on the main character's weight.  I found that whole thing overbearing (huh-see how I did that...aren't I clever...not) and overwraught (how the hell do you spell that?) and frankly annoying.  I was not a fan of Nevare, I ultimately did not care much about what happened to him and at the end of the day I was really just happy the books were finally over.  Sorry, Hobb, as much as I love you, this particular series did not do it for me.  If your a fan and you have the time, of course I'd read these.  If your a fan and you don't have the time, you shouldn't feel to bad about skipping.  If your not a Hobb fan?  Pass. Rating:  #5 ...