Reading

I’m doing a couple of reading challenges this year, so this is my page to record what I’ve read and some thoughts on the books.

June 2010

So I’m ridiculously behind in keeping track of my reading here. I have still been reading, although not as much in the last few months. Rather than go back and try to remember everything I’ve read, I just crossed off any that were on the list below and I’ll pick up where I left off.

I will say that I really loved A Day of Pleasure by Isaac Bashevis Singer.

February 2010

• Here it is February 7th and I’m adding my first book for February. Fear not – I have been reading plenty, but lately it’s been a stack of prereading books for my daughter’s third grade reading list to preview and prioritize.
• Cheaper by the Dozen
  What a great book! An interesting story and very fun to read. At one point I was reading together in bed with my daughter (doesn’t get better than that) and was laughing so hard that she was complaining because I was shaking the whole bed! Took me a while to stop laughing long enough to read the passage to her.
• Siam
  A story about a young wife of a government contractor in Thailand in 1967. Felt very ambivalently about this book. One reviewer called it Graham Greene from a woman’s point of view, but I don’t see that at all. Just meh. Whatever.
• The Swallows of Kabul
  This was better than Siam, but still not a compelling book. Perhaps if I hadn’t recently read The Kite Runner I might feel differently, since the settings are so similar. A well crafted story, but probably not one I’d ever recommend.

January 2010

• Night Train to Lisbon
  This received very mixed reviews on Amazon so I was curious to see what I thought. I enjoyed it – learned some Portuguese history and enjoyed watching the back story unfold.
• Interpreter of Maladies
  A collection of short stories by Lahiri; I have enjoyed all of her books that I have read, but this is the first of her short stories I have read. Excellent, as usual.
• Their Eyes Were Watching God
  An classic of Harlem Renaissance literature. It’s a good story and the author has a beautiful way with words. The phonetic spelling of the dialect really slowed me down because I had to almost read it out loud to understand it though.
• My Side of the Mountain
  Loved it! A story of a boy who set off into the Catskill mountains and lived on his own for a year. Anyone who loves the idea of leaving it all behind and fending for yourself will enjoy this story. It’s a kids book, so it’s a quick read.
• Death Comes For the Archbishop
  This struck me as quite a bit different from her other novels, but maybe that’s because it’s pioneering Catholic priests in New Mexico rather than pioneering Scandinavian farmers in Nebraska. A good story but not my favorite of hers.
• The Good Earth
  This was a reread, but I think I was in high school the last time I read it. Interesting to read it again as an adult.
• A Canticle for Liebowitz
  The history of Earth after a nuclear holocaust, as well as a commentary on Church and State and cycles of history.  Amusing and disturbing at the same time.
• The Far Side of the Mountain & Frightful’s Mountain
  I enjoyed the first book so much I went looking for the second two books. They were written by the same author, but thirty years later, and the message had definitely changed – to conservation. I’m certainly a supporter of taking good care of God’s creation, but don’t buy into the “peregrine falcons have rights too” approach. Disappointed.

Tried to read Reading Lolita in Tehran here, but put it aside. It’s simultaneously the memoirs of a literature professor in Iran and a lot of literary criticism. The narrative moves incredibly slowly, and her writing has so many clauses and asides in each sentence that I sometimes had to go back to the beginning of a sentence and reskim it to make sure I got it all. Not worth the effort.

• The Kite Runner
  A powerful and brutal story about two boys set against the political struggles in Afghanistan. The writing is so tight I couldn’t put it down, and although the story is a sad one, there is also triumph.
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
  A collection of letters tell the story, a thoroughly charming and belly-laugh-funny story I might add, of the German occupation of the Channel island of Guernsey during WWII. One of my favorites so far – sure to be read over and over.

Reading List

This is my planned reading list for the reading challenges I’m participating in. I left room for new discoveries along the way.