Anne Tyler is my favorite writer. I love her. I love her books. I love the ordinariness of her characters and how their small lives suck me in. How much I love living in her worlds and how sad I am when they are over. When I heard Noah’s Compass was coming out, I was so excited. Another novel by Tyler. She does write consistently but she’s not so prolific. You have to be patient. I wish she wrote six books a year, I can never get enough.
Noah’s Compass was no exception. I read it in one day. I wished there was more. I felt like I was living in the world of her characters. It made me think about growing old. About the choices I make. About how much presence matters. Being present in your own life. Being there. now. Being here. now. Taking it all in. Being accountable. How very much it all matters.
I love this book. I need to go back and read some of her older books now. She’s so very magnificent.
I put off reading Julie and Julia forever. I didn’t think there was a chance I was going to care for the book. I do not cook (ok I do a bit more now but still). I heard the book was mediocre. I just didn’t think it was going to be interesting or worthwhile.
But then the movie came out. And I have this rule about movies. I won’t see them unless I’ve read the book. And I heard the movie was good. So now I had to read the book. And so I did.
And guess what?
It was good.
Not amazing or stunning or mind altering. But it wasn’t bad at all. It even had some profound thoughts here and there. It was certainly an enjoyable read. And as soon as I finished it, I watched the movie. That was good, too. The movie had a lot more about Julia Child’s life which was interesting. But it lacked some of the profound parts of the book, which was lame.
I guess, that’s how these things go.
I read about Await Your Reply on several “top books of 2009” articles so I decided to give it a try. I had read and liked Dan Chaon’s previous book and had high expectations. While the writing was good and I liked the way the plot intertwined and unraveled at the end, I just didn’t get into this book as much as I would have liked.
None of the characters held my interest or sympathy. I found myself uninterested in their stories and how they turned out. The plot, also, wasn’t something I found engaging. But this is personal to me. The writing was engaging. So if the subject of identity theft is interesting to you, you might enjoy this novel more than I did.
 A few months ago, I decided it would be fun for David and me to listen to Harry Potter while I drive him to school and back. And then I realized it would also be fun for me to listen to something else when I’ve dropped David off and am driving back home with Nathaniel.
I started with SuperFreakanomics. I’d read Freakanomics and liked it and so figured this would be a good one for the car.
And it was.
I enjoyed the topics presented, the simplicity with which complicated ideas were explained and it did make me think a lot. Like the first one, I didn’t think it was amazing. But a perfect book for the car.
One thing I started a few months ago was to get back into the habit of reading a book each week. Doing this helped me remember how much I like reading and how happy it makes me. I really enjoy the arts and crafts, too but reading has a special place in my heart. So for 2010 I decided to continue my “a book a week” goal. Some weeks I on’t get to finish it and that’s ok but I know that I will read a whole lot more if I set this goal.
With that, here is my current list of books. They’re alphabetically sorted and you’ll see most of them are fiction. The ones with the star at the end are non-fiction. The little “a” in the paranthesis is a link to amazon, mostly for me since I like to read about the book each week when I am choosing my next book.
- A Fraction of the Whole (a)
- A Gate at the Stairs (a)
- A Spot of Bother (a)
- Await Your Reply (a)
- Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It (a)
- Chronic City (a)
- Fluke (a)
- Good in Bed (a)
- Heat Wave (a)
- Homer and Langley (a)
- I See you Everywhere (a)
- In the Woods (a)
- Julie and Julia (a)
- Let the Great World Spin (a)
- Made To Stick* (a)
- Night Train (a)
- Noah’s Compass (a)
- Now You See Her (a)
- Revolutionary Road (a)
- Sag Harbor (a)
- Saving Fish from Drowning (a)
- Shanghai Girls (a)
- Slam (a)
- Something Borrowed (a)
- Spooner (a)
- Stitches*(a)
- Empire Falls (a)
- That Old Cape Magic (a)
- The Accidental Billionaires* (a)
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (a)
- The Anthologist (a)
- The Art of Racing in the Rain (a)
- The Black Swan* (a)
- The Blind Side* (a)
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (a)
- The Coral Thief (a)
- The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder (a)
- The Devil in the White City* (a)
- The Fire (a)
- The Forgotten Garden (a)
- The Gift (a)
- The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest (a)
- The Girl Who Played with Fire (a)
- The Girl With No Shadow (a)
- The Last Song (a)
- The Last Time They Met (a)
- The Museum of Innocence (a)
- The Poisonwood Bible (a)
- The Road (a)
- The Sea (a)
- The Secret History (a)
- The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (a)
- The Unaccustomed Earth (a)
- The Wishing Year (a)
- The Year of the Flood (a)
- This is Where I Leave You* (a)
- What I talk about when I talk about Running* (a)
- What I Wish I Knew when I was 20* (a)
- What the Dog Saw* (a)
- When You Reach Me (a)
- Wishin and Hopin (a)
- Wolf Hal (a)
Here’s to a year of high quality reading. As always, if you have suggestions please leave comments. Last year, I read a lot of the suggested books and loved them.
 I have been meaning to read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society for months. When I was pregnant and my sister was visiting, she bought the book for a friend and I started reading it then but never really got into it. So I shied away from picking it up for months but last week I decided it was finally time.
As it turns out, it was absolutely delightful. I loved the format of letters written back and forth among multiple characters and the stories and the characters were very colorful, lovable and fun to watch.
Had I known it was sort of about the second world war, I would likely have not touched it at all. It was a relatively small part of the book tone-wise but still anything about that bothers me. In the end, I am glad I read it and would highly recommend this pithy yet quick read.
What a great book The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie was! A fantastic job writing from a young girl’s point of view. Wonderful details. As someone who also loves chemistry, what a delightful character. What a great plot. I really enjoyed every single moment of this story.
I think I read about this book in Wendy Smedley’s blog and I wrote down the name and decided that it looked like fun. I am not the type to read mysteries all that often (I don’t really read much genre fiction at all) but this one was truly magnificent. Mostly because the characters were well thought out and kept the whole story going. Highly recommended.
 After John Irving, I wanted something less dense but I was also hooked on high quality and didn’t want something too light. In comes Olive Kitteridge. I’ve wanted to read this book for a while and have read and wrote briefly about her previous novel. I don’t even like short stories but the only one I remember liking was similar to this in that it was a collection of linked stories.
I must like that because I get the chance to get to know a character deeply almost like a novel. These stories were all full quiet sorrow but I loved them. They made me think. They made me think a lot, actually. I really, really enjoyed this book and devoured it quite quickly. Highly recommended.
 I am a huge John Irving fan. I’ve read almost every single novel he wrote. Like most of his other fans, I’m sure, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Cider House Rules, and The World According to Garp top my list of favorites. And if I were being completely honest, I’d also say that I didn’t like The Fourth Hand at all. It just wasn’t up to Irving’s amazing caliber.
Until I Find You also wasn’t a major favorite of mine. So when I found out about Last Night in Twisted River I was mixed. Oh not true. I wasn’t at all. There was no doubt I was reading it. But I really really hoped it was like the older Irving work.
And you know what? It was!
It was it was it was. This was a dense, fascinating, epic novel. I loved it. Not as much as the other three maybe but really loved it.
Thank you John Irving.
 I picked up The Knitting Circle pretty randomly. I wanted something lighter and quicker to read.
Well it was quicker. But not lighter.
As it turned out, this book is about a mom whose five year old daughter just died from meningitis. The story is personal cause the author herself just recently lost her own daughter. And this book was well written.
But it was so painful. So so dreadfully sad. Having an almost-five year old myself, I couldn’t stop imagining the worst and kept getting freaked out over and over again. I am not sure it was a good idea to read it.
It did, however, make me want to knit again. The soothing, repetitive motion is quite calming.
I must also say that the woman who taught me to knit was nothing like the store owner in this story. She was unwelcoming and snotty. All in all, I would say do not read this unless you’re into really sad stories.
On to John Irving. I love him.
 Honestly, when I first decided to read The Help I was a little traumatized by the fact that my reader said it was over 1,000 pages. After last week’s reading marathon, I wasn’t sure I could finish this one on time.
I was so wrong.
This is one of the best books I’ve read in a long long time. Absolutely fantastic writing, gripping plot and I cared for each of the characters so much that I couldn’t put the book down for a second. I really wish it went on for another thousand pages. It was that good.
The changing of the points of view was smooth and wonderfully executed. It’s almost impossible to believe this is her first novel. It’s about a world I know almost nothing about and I think that’s what made it even more compelling to me.
I would highly recommend this book. Truly.
On to next week’s book. Something smaller but doesn’t look like it will be lighter.
I seem to have a lot of trouble beginning a book. It takes me a while to dive into it and the first fifty or so pages are always a challenge. For this reason, I used to make sure that I was in the middle of a book when I knew I was taking a long flight.
One of the rare exceptions to this was on a trip Jake and I took from NYC to Istanbul. I had checked out several books from the library and hadn’t begun any of them. The Time Traveler’s Wife was one of them. It was huge and I am not even sure why I thought it was a good idea to bring it in my carry-on. But I am so glad I did. I opened the first page when we took off and did not close the book until I was finished. And, if you’ve read it you might know that it’s quite a thick book. I could not put it down. It was amazing and incredibly unique.
So, when I heard the wonderful author had a new book, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. I’ll have to admit that this one was harder to get into. It might be because I wasn’t in a confined space. Or because I now have two kids. One of which needs to nurse quite often. Either way, I made it to the weekend having only read forty pages of the book.
Determined as I tend to be, I decided I would read the book this weekend. And I just finished it. All 704 pages. And I loved it. While the book wasn’t nearly as magnificent and as unique as the other one (it is really impossible to do that again I imagine) it was very interesting and worth the read. I liked the characters. I loved the descriptive narrative (which I am not usually fond of). I was interested in the characters though I would have liked a few of them to be a bit more three-dimensional. But honestly, I really loved the book and am still glowing from its dream world.
It was a splendid way to spend my weekend.
|
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
|
