Damn Alice Hoffman can tell a story, can’t she? Skylight Confessions was weird and sad and ok maybe even haunting. Which is appropriate since there was some haunting involved. A good reminder of why I like Hoffman – helpful since I go for long stretches wondering why I like her.
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I think TW just picked The Saffron Kitchen off of the shelf last week when we had ZERO library books and she was dying for books. These sorts of books I often just skip, I’m usually too far behind on my TBR list to even consider something that hasn’t been recommended by someone. But this time, we really had NO library books on the TBR shelf – so I went ahead and gave it a try. And it was good.
At first I assumed this was going to be “just another Iranian/British book” and it was for about 50 pages and then I was hooked. I’m not sure the bridge scene, in exactly that way, needed to happen – yes to the bridge scene, no to what happened to Sara. Other than that, I have no complaints about this book.
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The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative is a book that wound up on my library reserve list but I’m not sure how it got there. It feels like it was recommended on a blog but maybe not. I’m tempted to say TW reserved it from something that she read but it’s very much a “Denise” type of book so – who knows. However it got there, (feel free to jump in and take credit if you’ve blogged about it at some point in the last 2 months), I’m glad.
It is a very “Denise” book – I collect creation stories and there are some creation stories here. There are also some very excellent stories of other types, all about “Indians” or “Native Americans” or just “Natives” if you prefer. I love the way King starts every chapter in exactly the same way and ends each chapter in almost exactly the same way. Brilliant – particularly for a book about stories – and a book about truth.
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I’m not sure how it happened but now that I’ve finished The Descendants I’m feeling like this is one of my favorites for 2007. It was slow going, particularly slow going since I read a dozen or so pages in Charleston at the end of June and picked it up again on the trip home from BlogHer Con and was just as confused as when I started reading it the first time.
After reading the first dozen pages and feeling like maybe I should just give up because I couldn’t figure out whose voice was speaking or the relationship between the characters, I closed it – read the jacket and started over one more time and then it all clicked.
What a great dysfunctional family. Matt’s frequent mention of blogs as a primary resource for parenting advice was one of the most amusing things I’ve read in ages.
I did finally finish Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows. Finally. I cannot believe it took me more than a week. Well yes I can since I had one of the craziest weeks of my life.
I liked it, the book not the crazy life – well I guess I liked that too. There are some parts that I was disappointed in, the “19 years later” part is probably the biggest disappointment. She should have just left it alone.
Rather than ramble on and on, and include some spoilers that piss people off, I’ll just link you over to Mombian and her post about Rowling and lesbian literature. That won’t piss anyone off, will it?
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I’ve blogged about Nickie before – several times, actually. I first discovered her blog when writing a post for BlogHer about Guide Dogs. I’ve been reading her work ever since and learning something new with just about every single post that she makes.
When she announced she had written a “blook“, I bought it: Nickie’s Nook: Sharing the Journey. Not the digital download, I bought the real thing and I was thrilled when it arrived. I spent my spare time today reading it and while some of it reads like a “blook” most of it reads like a “book” – a real live, honest to goodness book. Many of the essays and entries in it, I’ve read before on her blog. But many of them were new to me – either published on her blog before I was reading it or published when I was swamped and just skimmed. Or maybe they didn’t come from her blog at all, I’m not sure. It doesn’t matter – what does matter is that once again, Nickie taught me stuff – and she got me thinking about things I probably would never have thought about. Nickie is very, very good at that.
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Man what a difficult book. Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters was a good and interesting read but depressing as HELL. Longer post on BlogHer. Now I’m going to find something to eat. Sheesh.
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Once again, a whole week to read a book but it’s not the book’s fault. I really need to figure out this east coast/west coast schedule thing and until I do that, my reading time is going to be pretty limited. Too bad since it means it’s taking me a long time to read a great, fun book like NO! I Don’t Want to Join a Book Club.
That is my idea of old age (and death) – I’m not going to go back to school, or learn a foreign language, or do some weird travel excursions. I’m going to enjoy doing nothing. That’s it. No clubs or volunteer work. When I’m old I want to enjoy being old and feel no guilt for not having time or desire to do what other people think I ought to be doing.
I can barely wait to be 60!
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I finally finished Lisa Alther’s Original Sins. I’ve only been reading it for weeks. I can’t remember when it has taken me so long to finish a book but it wasn’t the book’s fault, it was mine – I was distracted. So, about the book. It was much better than Kinflicks but again, very doggone long. I liked the characters quite a bit better. I liked watching them move from childhood into the adulthood – figuring out how to navigate through racism and feminism and a wee bit into orientation. And, I liked the ending.
The Garden of Eden and Other Criminal Delights by Faye Kellerman is a book of short stories or short crime stories to be specific. TW reserved this on from the library on audio. Do you know why she reserved this one on audio? Because Nancy McKeon was listed as a narrator of the book. We were about half way through it and enjoying it very much when we realized we hadn’t yet heard Nancy narrate a story. We got all of the way to the end and still no Nancy. Weird. Apparently our library version is not the same version as the one you can order at Amazon. Ah well, we still enjoyed the stories very much. We would both recommend this one but agree that we probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much if we had read it rather than listened to it.
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