Alex: by The Skin of Our Teeth

No, I did not use Thornton Wilder’s play as a last ditch effort to complete my 26 book count, I actually did it with real full-length novels!  I can’t believe I can actually type the sum total of these books.  Admittedly, I contemplated fabricating titles that I’d finished, in hopes of completing them next year on some sort of literary loan system.  Thankfully, reading into the night in the mountains allows you to slip out of the space time continuum, so miraculous feats were achieved in that ski lodge.  First, a few books that I completed since the last blog post, and before my mountain excursion:

Neuromancer by William Gibson.  I finally finished this guy.  All my kindlers out there, turning up the word size real big and popping this on the treadmill does wonders for your brain and fitness life.  Also, this book was fascinating.  It was a dystopian future book (I know, right?) about a hacker that does “one last job”.  So cool.  Besides the epically cheesy action movie setup, its also the first place where someone penned the term “cyber space”.  And this book was written in 1984.  Auspiciously enough.  The author conceived of the internet before it was even engineered!  Crazy.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling.  This and Bossypants by Tina Fey were both great reads, mostly what you’d expect and really hilarious!  I liked Fey’s more frankly because I think she’s had more career to riff on, but both were greatly appreciated by this reader, and I recommend them both to anyone who is a fan of these funny ladies.

Now to begin the books that I read in the mountains:

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese is a story about Ethiopia (not India, Alli) and a hospital that is located there.  It tells the story of about 5 doctors that enter the hospital at various times in their lives, and how they affect one another through the years.  Its definitely a family saga, as the action spans some 90 years.  There were beautiful descriptions of the surgeries that made me want to become a doctor again.  Almost.  A great read for anyone that loves family sagas and may or may not be also interested in global health or just medicine in general.   Like even if you watch Grey’s Anatomy, you’ll like this book.

Talking to Girls About Duran Duran by Rob Sheffield is a coming of age memoir chronicled through hit (?) songs from the 80′s.  This book was a gift from my roommate, Chris, and it was a great help in hitting my quota!  The author writes for Rolling Stone Magazine, so his tone was very colloquial.  He was really funny and insightful, and had lots of hilarious stories to share about his antics growing up in our most pop-cultury decade.  Each chapter was almost a short story that was modeled around a song from the 80′s and the only shortcoming of the book probably lies in me, since I just wish I could get the references he makes to the songs he’s writing about as sadly I have no idea what he’s talking about.  Perhaps the author hoped his voracious readers would flock to youtube to educate themselves as they read?  Not when I have 26 fucking books to read.

Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid was given to me by my friend Emily when we were both wonderfully drunk and talking about, of all things, Feminist literature.  We took a Women’s Lit class in college and we nerded out about it the entire time we were in it.  For the record, our professor wore a fanny pack, giant scrunchies and no bra to every class, so what’s not to love?  Kincaid wrote another book we read in that class, which lead to Emily giving it to me.  Its the story of an au pair from the West Indies that comes to work for a wealthy family in New York City.  My favorite part of the book was the characterization of Lucy.  Kincaid herself came from the West Indies (I believe?  Too lazy to research now, lets just go with it) so she has some insight into the culture shock of moving to the U.S.  Lucy has an uncompromising outlook on the world that at first seems admirable, but to me in the end leaves her unhappy.  Kincaid’s prose is ridiculous, and anyone who likes reading should read this.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett is an awesome story that I won’t talk about here because book club is coming up.  BUT ITS COOL SO READ IT.

Wow, I can’t believe I finished.  So glad reading is back in my life, and can’t wait for next year.

Read on,

Alex

1. God Emperor of Dune 423 pages
   
2. Oliver Twist 672 pages
   
3. Strength in What Remains 272 pages
   
4. The Towers of Midnight 862 pages
5. The Hunger Games 384 pages
6. Catching Fire 391 pages
7. Mockingjay 400 pages
8. Wizard’s First Rule 848 pages
9. The Handmaid’s Tale 392 pages
10. X-Men: The Second Coming 392 pages
11. Finishing The Hat 443 pages
12. The Geography of Bliss 325 pages
13. Riddle of the Sands 264 pages
14. Neuromancer 288 pages
15. Heretics of Dune 448 pages
16. Dance With Dragons 1040 pages
17. Cloud Atlas: A Novel 544 pages
18. The Fates Will Find Their Way: A Novel 256 pages
19. The Night Circus 400 pages
20. House of Leaves 709 pages
21. Cutting for Stone 667 pages
22. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? 240 pages
23. Bossy Pants 288 pages
24. Talking to Girls About Duran Duran 288 pages
25. Lucy 176 pages
26. Bel Canto 316 pages

Total Count to Date: 11,440 pages

(and if consider a book to be 280 pages long as our father blog did, I’ve read roughly 41 books this year)

Hello,

It has been 4 books since I’ve last caught up with you. I am finding more and more that I like reading the books more than I like blogging about them. Often, I see it has chore, something to cross of my list, get out-of-the-way and then I can go back to focus on reading (or whatever else I was doing.)

I finished The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, a book that wrapped up the series in an absolutely compelling, page turning read, that, much like the previous two books, was impossible to put down. The writing absolutely drew me in, that way where you are yelling at the characters in your mind, disagreeing with their choices and are absolutely driven insane by the fact that they cannot seem to see things that are so apparent to you. Well, like the other two, I will compel you to pick it up for a read if you have not done so already.

Ok, so I was mentally exhausted and my co-worker passed on Mindy Kaling’s new book to give me a good laugh. It was silly, took a good 2 days to read and had pages so I added it to my list. I have nothing else to offer on this one except that I needed a break so I went for it.

Eggers’s You Shall Know Our Velocity took a  a while to read. He is one of those writers that I really want to take the time to digest every word, sentence and chapter since I know everything he writes is so carefully chosen. I  was glad that the book absolutely blew me away as I expected it would. Eggers left nothing to disappoint. He developed the central character’s of Will and Hand so well, both through their travels, relationships with other and themselves and through their own internal turmoil. It coneys are great commentary on who deserves what in the world, the experience of self-discovery and coming to terms with one’s own personal conflict. I felt completely fulfilled at the close of this book and cannot wait to pick up Eggers other writing that I have not yet gotten the chance to indulge.

Finally, I just wrapped up Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March. I am going to hold of commentating for now since I am reading it in collaboration with a bunch of friends. Overall, the book was exactly what I was looking for in terms of a classic and I was happy I picked it up (even if I know some friends were not too happy that I suggested it.) Oh well.

Read on!

1. naked – David Sedaris 291 pages
2. In Defense of Food – Michael Pollan 256 pages 
   
3. Three Cups of Tea – Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin 331 pages
   
4. This I Believe II – Jay Allison and Dan Gediman 245 pages
5. A Hope in the Unseen – Ron Suskind 384 pages
6. someday this pain will be useful to you – Peter Cameron 229 pages
7. Stones into Schools – Greg Mortenson 389 pages
8. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer 320 pages
   
9. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins 384 pages
   
10. Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins 391 pages
11. Heads You Lose – Lisa Lutz & David Hayward 301 pages
12. Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins 400 pages
13. The Power of Half – Kevin Salwen & Hannah Salwen 243 pages
14. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson 590 pages
15. Freedom – Jonathan Franzen 562 pages
16. Zeitoun – Dave Eggers 325 pages
17. The Girl Who Played with Fire – Stieg Larsson 724 pages
18. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – Stieg Larsson 576 pages
19. Is Everyone Haning out without me? (And Other Concerns) – Mindy Kaling 222
20. You Shall Know Our Velocity – Dave Eggers 351 pages
21. The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow 586 pages

8100 pages

Alex: Fates, Circuses, and Leaves

Hey readers,

A quick blurb from the three books I’ve recently read:

The Fates Will Find Their Way, by Hannah Pitard is a story that chronicles the lives of a group of boys from a town in (the location of the town really isn’t important and I can’t even remember it), and is told from the perspective of a group narrator.  A lot of “we couldn’t believe it when… and our minds raced as we realized that… and our manhoods awoke with a fervor when we saw her quivering nipples…  I included that last little gem because it aptly represents my main problem with the book.  The author seemed to cast the group of male friends in an extremely horny, gossip-mongering mold.  I applaud her for going for such a specific characterization, but it made me feel like she thought that all men are, are sex driven creeps.  We’re only about 90% that, GEEZ HANNAH.  But anyway, it surround the disappearance of a girl from their high school class on halloween, and this group narrator tells stories from their unfolding lives and from the life that this disappeared girl might have had after her abduction.  Not an earthshaking book, but one that was interesting to read.  A quick read, definitely.

The second book I read was called The Night Circus, but Erin Morgenstern.  This was her first novel and it was very imaginative!  It told the story of two rival magicians who pit their pupils against one another through the ages to vie for power.  Kinda fucked up that they don’t fight their own battles, but whatever.  The most recent battle is the one depicted in the book.  My favorite part was how they describe the formation of the circus, which is to be the setting for the battle.  Rather than being a classic wizards duel with fireballs and summoned creatures, this battle involves creating the most wondrous attractions possible to showcase in the circus.  Its called the night circus because its only open at night.  It also arrives in the middle of the night, with no fanfare or advertisement, and leaves just as abruptly.  I thought the book was positively entrancing, even during the unlikely love affair that ends up happening between the two pupils.  I thought the ending was a little clumsy and didn’t really live up to the glamour and pomp of the night circus itself, but I chalk that up to it being her first novel.  She has a wonderful imagination and I can’t wait to see what she pens next.

The last book I read is probably the most difficult to describe.  Molly can back me up on this, as it took me about 5 minutes to describe the actual form of the book, but I’ll try again here.  Its essentially a collection of writings called The House of Leaves (a title which is never fully explained in the book) edited by Mark Z. Danielewski.  In the world of the book, Mark appears as an editor of these writings, when in reality he of course wrote them all himself.  But for the purposes of the novel, it makes sense that he only collected them, as they are all supposed to have be penned by different authors or recorders.  The first collection of writings comes from a man who is writing a scholarly criticism of a (in the real world) ficticious documentary called “The Navidson Record”.  The Record records a family’s move to a new home and attempts to show how a family dynamic is affected when moving to a new place.  (I’m having chills run down my spine as I write this.  Just why this is happening will become clear later)  The father, Will Navidson is a Pulitzer prize winning photojournalist, so true to form he sets up video cameras throughout the house, so as to not miss a moment in their new lives.  As they live their lives in this house, they discover that its dimensions are slightly larger on the inside than they are on the outside.  The anomaly remains at an obstinate 3/16ths of an nice.  Then, the disparity starts to expand.  Furthermore, a crawlspace appears between the master bedroom and the children’s bedroom, unbidden.  Finally, a door appears in the middle of the living room wall.  An exterior wall, for that matter.  A wall with a door in it, that when opened, reveals a long dark hallway heading off into an ending abyss.  Such is premise of the documentary that the criticism is being written about.  Additionally, as footnotes to the criticism itself, are the writings of a reader of this criticism, who had an unusual relationship to the author of the criticism in life.  He found his dead body.  Which prompted him to find this writings, most of them unfinished, and subsequently prompted him to start reading them, and writing his own commentary on the commentary in the margins of said text.

As you can see, the book makes your head spin.  On top of that, the printing of the book is absolutely insane.  If you’ve noticed that I’ve made the word house blue in all of my sentences, its because the book does that too.  Just one example of an unorthodox novel.  Some pages are left entirely blank, for dramatic effect.  Some contain only one word.  Pages will appear who’s writing is upside down, sideways, or sometimes both at the same time.  The narrative will shift into different languages without warning, and you have to rely on the editor’s translations in the footnotes to make your way through.  Some of the footnotes recall texts or quotations that seemingly have nothing at all to do with what is being discusses.  Appendices bookend the novel that provide further insight into the agents involved therein.  I won’t reveal any more about the plot or labyrinthine structure of the text, as it is one that can be truly savored by any book lover, so I wouldn’t want to spoil the experience.  Know, that this book has chilled me to the bone, and surprisingly also made me want to fall in love.  Although whether thats me or the book is anybody’s guess.  So there’s that.  One last thing: as a message from the editor, the first line in the book sums up the chills that are still traipsing up and down my spine:

This is not for you.

Read on,

Alex

 

1. God Emperor of Dune 423 pages
   
2. Oliver Twist 672 pages
   
3. Strength in What Remains 272 pages
   
4. The Towers of Midnight 862 pages
5. The Hunger Games 384 pages
6. Catching Fire 391 pages
7. Mockingjay 400 pages
8. Wizard’s First Rule 848 pages
9. The Handmaid’s Tale 392 pages
10. X-Men: The Second Coming 392 pages
11. Finishing The Hat 443 pages
12. The Geography of Bliss 325 pages
13. Riddle of the Sands 264 pages
14. Neuromancer 288 pages
15. Heretics of Dune 448 pages
16. Dance With Dragons 1040 pages
17. Cloud Atlas: A Novel 544 pages
18. The Fates Will Find Their Way: A Novel 256 pages
19. The Night Circus 400 pages
20. House of Leaves 709 pages
21. Cutting for Stone 667 pages

Total Count to Date: 9,456 pages

Kelly: The Hunger Games

You guuuysss! I’m so excited by all of the recent blog posts! Yay for books!

Soo my last blog post left off with me on book #28, “Falling Man.” Well, I didn’t love it. It wasn’t poorly written or anything, in fact, it was written quite beautifully. But it was depressing, and lonely. It was a novel about 9/11 and it’s emotional aftermath. It told the story of a man (Keith) who was in one of the towers when it happened, and how it affects him, his young son, and estranged wife. It was just so depressing. The most interesting thing to me was how the young son was affected by the tragedy, but the author didn’t cover that aspect of the story as much as I would have liked him to. Anyway.

THE HUNGER GAMES. Sooo I read these books in a matter of days. I won’t get into details regarding plot and stuff, because Alex did that here. Obviously I enjoyed the books because, like Alex, I kind of love all things dystopian, post-apocalyptic, and/or sci-fi-ish. However, there were things in the stories that I reeeaallly disliked, which is what I’m going to bitch about right now…Okay, so in the first book, Katniss is one tough-ass bitch. At first, I kind of felt like she was sort of HarryPotter-ish, because she was thrust into this spotlight as sort of a beacon of hope and courage. She was The Chosen One, but not really because she wanted to be. But by the end of the series I likened her to Bella from Twilight, because she couldn’t make up her mind over two boys vying for her love and affection, and she became this almost perpetual damsel-in-distress. If my book has a supposed heroine, I want her to behave like one! Be tough as nails, take no prisoner! But as the stories progress, she develops into this whiny, annoying, selfish girl. Now I know that she obviously has to endure some really messed up stuff with all the games and the Capitol, people dying and whatnot, and I suppose that kind of thing would really mess me up, too. But it just got so annoying. Anyway. That was really my big complaint, aside from the whole love triangle thing. Two boys in love with the same girl, throwing themselves at her mercy, and she can’t make up her mind, she loves them both so much, but so differently! So. Overplayed. But. I am glad I read them. They sucked me in, and while the premise is completely terrifying/disgusting it did hold a bit of scary truth. Maybe some of that stuff isn’t so far-fetched…

So those were books 29-31, and I’m currently in the middle of Jeffrey Eugenides “Middlesex,” and have also started Nicole Krauss’ “Great House.” Alex was talking to me about “The Cloud Atlas” over tapas, and it totally intrigued me, and reading his post just made me even more interested! So that may be my next read… I think my page count got messed up somewhere along the way, but I’m not sure how/where, so my count may actually be a little off!

Current Page count : 8,347

Matt: Haven’t been able to put these books down

Hey!

Just made my way through 3 books I couldn’t put down (and by just I mean over the last 2 months.) Anyways, I will send all three of these books along highly recommended in the sense that I could not put any of them down,which for me is all I need to spot a good book. So if you’re looking for something to curl up with this fall, check these out.

Freedom – Jonathan Franzen  

Freedom, while not what I was expecting, was an engrossing read and extremely well written. The novel follows the seemingly perfect family of the Berglunds, a well to do suburban family in Minnesota with a doting mother, hardworking father and intelligent children. Their life is turned upside down in a story of temptation, love lost, political freedoms, teenage love, dreams destroyed and a family navigating through an ever changing world. The characters truly come to life through Franzen’s writing and grow and develop in often unexpected ways. I didn’t really feel for any characters, other than Walter and Patty’s daughter Jessica, but Franzen writes in such a way that really allows you to feel what the characters are going through and allows their emotion to come to life. Franzen really captures modern America and a truly unique perspective of America life that really makes this worth the read, whether you end of liking the characters of not.

Zeitoun – Dave Eggers 

I have found it interesting to read books that focus on events and times I have lived through, as I often read non-fiction or books taking place on times I have never lived through. Eggers, in Zeitoun, take an extremely personal look at the events around hurricane Katrina through the eyes of a Muslim family. The story shows both the best and worst sides of our nation and at times made me absolutely sick to my stomach to live in a nation such as this and at other times gave me unbelievable hope in what the future might hold. The novel was absolutely compelling, eye-opening and revealed to me facts about an event that has come to define the last decade than I have never even considered possible in this nation. I absolutely fell in love with the Zeitoun family through Eggers writing, which made the events that transpired in this all the more heartbreaking and which drives me to urge everyone to pick up this eye-opening writing.

The Girl Who Played with Fire – Stieg Larsson

Larsson once again produced a compelling piece of writing in the second installment of his trilogy. Just as with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I was unable to put this book down as Larsson’s writing runs full steam ahead with twists and turns that dive deep into the world of the Swedish media, law enforcement, politics and sex trade. So, if you are looking to pick these books up I suggest you make sure you have a pretty clear schedule. This trilogy is an absolute must read for those who want a beyond expertly written thriller. I am about to sink my mind into The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, and since this one ended with a major cliff hanger I’m going to have to go since I cannot wait to find out what happens next.

Happy reading!

Alex: Dance With Dragons and The Cloud Atlas

Hey folks,

This post is dedicated to the two most recent books I read,  Dance With Dragons and The Cloud Atlas.  Dance With Dragons is the fifth book in the fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, which the TV show Game of Thrones is based off of.  I’ll be brief with game of thrones because as usual, summarizing the story of a fantasy series is a definite time investment, which I can’t afford because I’m really excited to blog about the second book on this post, which I literally finished reading seconds before starting this post.  Dragons picks up the story of warring royal houses in the fantasy world of Westeros.  The world is not a pretty fantasy world.  Incest, zombies, betrayal, 50% of the main characters getting killed off by this point in the series, and unpredictable plot twists make this setting irresistible.  My favorite part of George R.R. Martin’s storytelling is his ability to keep you guessing as a reader.  ”Oh, I’ll just not include a character in an entire book of the series.  Oh wait, make that not including half of the characters in an entire book of the series.  I’ll just make my readers wait FIVE YEARS to find out what happens to Arya Stark!”  Yeah.  Its sweet.  And instead of making me angry as a reader, it makes me feel squirmy and engrossed.  Characters will be missing from the narrative for hundreds of pages, only to pop up unexpectedly, and often so changed from when you met them the last time, that you need the entire chapter to orient yourself to the nuances of their character again.  If any Song readers are reading this post, I think they’ll understand what I mean by this.  His story is gritty and harrowing, but I’ve never rooted for characters more than when I’m reading his books.  Great stuff!

Cloud Atlas.

Cloud Atlas is a sprawling narrative documenting the lives of six humans throughout the history of humanity.  I was about to being writing an inspired synopsis of the story here but after about 1000 words I deleted what I had written because I had only gotten through the second chapter.  The Wikipedia entry does an extremely concise job of it:

The novel consists of six nested stories that take the reader from the remote South Pacific in the nineteenth century to a distant, post-apocalyptic future. Each tale is revealed to be a story that is read (or watched) by the main character in the next. All stories but the last one get interrupted at some moment, and after the sixth story concludes at the center of the book, the novel “goes back” in time, “closing” each story as the book progresses in terms of pages but regresses in terms of the historical period in which the action takes place. Eventually, readers end where they started, with Adam Ewing in the Pacific Ocean, circa 1850.

The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing

Pacific Ocean, circa 1850. Adam Ewing, an American notary‘s account of a voyage home from the remote Chatham Islands, east of New Zealand. The next character discovers this story as a diary on his patron’s bookshelf.

Letters from Zedelghem

Zedelgem, Belgium, 1931. Robert Frobisher, a penniless young English musician, finds work as an amanuensis to a composer living in Belgium. This story is saved in the form of letters to his friend (and implied lover) Rufus Sixsmith, which the next character discovers after meeting Sixsmith.

Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery.

Buenas Yerbas, California, 1975. Luisa Rey, a journalist, investigates reports of corruption and murder at a nuclear power plant. The next character is sent this story in the mail, in the form of a manuscript for a novel.

The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish

United Kingdom, early 21st century. Timothy Cavendish, a vanity press publisher, flees the brothers of his gangster client. He gets confined against his will in a nursing home from which he cannot escape. The next character watches a movie dramatisation of this story.

An Orison of Sonmi~451

Nea So Copros (Korea), dystopian near future. Sonmi~451, a genetically-engineered fabricant (clone) server at Papa Song’s diner (a proxy for McDonald’s), is interviewed before her execution after she rebels against the capitalist totalitarian society that created and exploited her kind. The next character watches Sonmi’s story projected holographically in an “orison,” a futuristic recording device.

Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After

Hawaii, post-apocalyptic distant future. Zachry, a tribesman living a primitive life after most of humanity dies during “the Fall,” is visited by Meronym, a member of the last remnants of technologically-advanced civilization. This story is told when the protagonist is an old man, to seemingly random strangers around a camp-fire.

The story telling was so creative.  I was constantly wondering what the significance of these people’s lives were.  Something that was not mentioned in the wiki summary was the presence of a shooting star tattoo on each of the protagonist’s bodies.  It was implied throughout the book that a single soul was traveling through time and living out each of these stories.  I’m actually kind of at a loss for words on how to express my feelings about this book, but like I always do, I’ll turn to the quotes.  The first comes at the end of Zachry’s story, where he explains what the cloud atlas means to him:

“I watched clouds wobbly from the floor o’ that kayak.  Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an’ tho’ a cloud’s shape nor hue nor size don’t stay the same, it’s still a cloud an’ so is a soul.  Who can say where the cloud’s blowed from or who the soul’ll be ‘morrow?  Only Sonmi the east an’ the west an’ the compass an’ the atlas, yay, the atlas o’ clouds.”

I got chills reading this.  Also, this excerpt from the final passage in the book.  A dying Adam Ewing reconciles his existence as he is about to die:

“He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!

Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?”

 

Read on,

Alex

P.S. If any readers would like to talk about this book with me, I feel much more moved to chat about it than blog about it.  Cheers!

1. God Emperor of Dune 423 pages
   
2. Oliver Twist 672 pages
   
3. Strength in What Remains 272 pages
   
4. The Towers of Midnight 862 pages
5. The Hunger Games 384 pages
6. Catching Fire 391 pages
7. Mockingjay 400 pages
8. Wizard’s First Rule 848 pages
9. The Handmaid’s Tale 392 pages
10. X-Men: The Second Coming 392 pages
11. Finishing The Hat 443 pages
12. The Geography of Bliss 325 pages
13. Riddle of the Sands 264 pages
14. Neuromancer 288 pages
15. Heretics of Dune 448 pages
16. Dance With Dragons 1040 pages
17. Cloud Atlas: A Novel 544 pages
18. The Fates Will Find Their Way: A Novel 256 pages (finally a short one!)

Total Count to Date: 8,100 pages

Molly: Confusez-moi

I totally thought I’d blogged once between this post and my last post…oops.  Pardon my ball-dropping.

Since said post, I have finished AOCYEUBY by David Lipsky and was TERRIBLY sad to see it end.  That book was so beautiful and did a great job bridging the gap between fiction (which I love) and nonfiction (which I struggle with) by focusing exclusively on the humanness and dialogue of two real-life people.  I not only recommend this book but I urge friends to snag a copy at their earliest convenience.  :)

I’ve also finished reading 3 other books (well, kind of 4): Distant View of a Minaret, Siddhartha, Red Highways, and Story People.  The last of those isn’t REALLY a book in the sense that it isn’t top-to-bottom filled with text, but it is in book form so I count it as a fun little extra reading treat on the basis of exposure to new material.  The first was a compilation of stories authored by a(gasp!) woman author in Egypt who uses the narratives to reveal the theme of women’s oppression in the Middle East.  Aaaand of course I enjoyed it.  I also love it because I picked it up from a charming little place called The Book Thing when I was living in Baltimore this summer.  The whole establishment runs on the premise of free book browsing & taking.  High five & ardent plug for you, Book Thing.

I enjoyed Siddhartha too.  It’s simple but a classic for a reason & definitely worth sticking one’s nose into.  Red Highways was recommended to me by a dear friend and for great purpose; it is an NPR personality from San Francisco who packs up her life and lets the wind blow her across the country to have heart-to-hearts with people for the main purpose of finding out what issues they care most about and why (and how that shapes their partisan/political identity).  It had some beautiful passages in it and was full of some great bridge-building moments, which I deeply appreciated.

And now: I’m mid-two books, The Dharma Bums (which I’d once started and failed to make it through, so yay for second chances!) and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (which Kel apparently read but I don’t remember seeing that brief paragraph in an earlier blog post… #sister moment!).  The latter is one I’ve been lent by co-founder of this blog (Alex)’s mother after our trip to his motherland last weekend, simply because I opened the book out of curiosity and was hooked after page 2.  Why, you ask?  I’ll share:

“The heaviest of burdens is…simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”

Aso, page 4 of the book contains a sentence that goes a lil’ somethin’ (or a whole lotta somethin’) like this: “In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine,“ which is obviously the inspiration to my boi Foer’s bestselling book.

Enough to sell me.  Can’t seem to put it down.  Page totals to come!