2011 Book #16: Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Chronicle of a Death Foretold is short, and I guess that’s my only real complaint. It’s similar, in a lot of ways, to One Hundred Years of Solitude, minus the vast epicness, which is my favorite thing about that novel. I’m not saying that means I didn’t like this one. It’s a novel(la?) spiraling around […]
2011 Book #15: Mockingjay
I think I’ve said all I want to about the Hunger Games trilogy. Mockingjay was just like the other two, but this time, instead of ending with a cliffhanger, it just ended. Think about the end of Harry Potter, the summing up several years in the future, but badly. In Harry Potter, I think such […]
2011 Book #14: Disgrace
J.M. Coetzee has been following me around. I hadn’t heard of him until relatively recently, and then his name started popping up everywhere. Book-related everywheres, anyway. So when I happened to pick up Disgrace and read the blurb, I decided to give it a try, recalling how much I’ve liked South African lit in the […]
2011 Book #13: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
I liked Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? much more than I thought I would, though I don’t have too much to say about it. It’s about the difference (or lack of) between real humans and animals and electronic, man-made androids and animals. It’s a really interesting read: I couldn’t put it down. This morning, […]
2011 Book #12: Catching Fire
Okay, I was wrong. I said I probably wouldn’t bother reading Catching Fire, the sequel to The Hunger Games. In my defense, Borges made my brain hurt, and I needed some serious leisure reading. This one certainly qualifies. If you haven’t read these books and think you might like to, you should probably stop here. […]
2011 Book #11: Labyrinths
Borges makes my brain hurt. Labyrinths was a really difficult read. It reminds me a lot of Italo Calvino, especially Invisible Cities. Evidently, Calvino was heavily influenced by Borges. Labyrinths is a collection of short stories, essays, and parables. I really enjoyed some of the short stories, but lots of the lost me because I […]
The Wall and the Books
Borges‘s Labyrinths is not an easy read, and I’m having a hard time finishing it. That said, the end is in sight: I’m about three-quarters into it. It’s a collection of short stories, essays, and parables. I haven’t hit the parables yet as they’re at the end, but the essays are much easier to read […]
2011 Book #10: Popular Hits of the Showa Era
I really liked Popular Hits of the Showa Era. It’s short and a very quick read, and that’s exactly what I was looking for. It’s also fast-paced and seemed more like a long short-story than a book. Murakami doesn’t waste time with in-depth descriptions but still gives the reader enough information to enter the world […]
The Fail Pile gets its first book: This Side of Paradise
I jumped into This Side of Paradise right out of The Hunger Games, and I liked it at first. Then it got tedious. It reminds me of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man but without a cohesive plot. It’s a series of little vignettes about a kid who grows up and goes to […]
2011 Book #9: The Hunger Games
Well, The Hunger Games is certainly a quick read. It’s the first kids’ book I’ve read in a while, and I liked it well enough. Suzanne Collins isn’t an especially good writer – it’s purely pop fiction like Dan Brown and all those other authors I usually can’t bring myself to read. That said, I […]