The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis

The recent release of "Prince Caspian" prompted me to re-read these childhood favorites. In fact I am certain that I have re-read them more than 40 times. Several of them are held together by packing tape and need to be held with care to prevent the last 20 pages from falling out.

Reading these as an adult is significantly different from reading them as a child. For one, as I child the blatant Christian bent of the books was completely lost on me. I just thought they were lovely stories about a magic world, which just happened to include a magical lion. How different they are from this perspective! I can't help but feel that they are at least somewhat racist too, particularly 'The Last Battle' and 'The Horse and His Boy'. I'm sure I will always love these stories that gave me such joy in my childhood, but I remain unconvinced that I will encourage my future children to read them.

Agnes Grey - Anne Bronte

I think I picked this up on the recommendation of Mimi Smartypants. As with most classical literature, I expected to have to slog through it. I think I finished it in two days. the writing style is clear and while the content is not fascinating, it is interesting enough. If you've ever had a horrible babysitting experience, this book is for you. In fact, it could be credited as the first "Adventures in Babysitting" or "Babysitter's Club" book.

Urban Shaman - C.E. Murphy

I think I pulled this off of the facebook shelf of a friend who shares my taste in fantasy novels and I wasn't disappointed. While it would be a stretch to call Urban Shaman good literature, it was a good read and I was entertained, which is exactly what I was looking for.

I particularly enjoyed the main character's atypical gender roles, sarcastic wit and quick sense of humor. I plan on looking for more C.E. Murphy to read.

Water for Elephants: a novel - Sara Gruen

I picked this up because it was written by one of the NaNoNovelists who wrote a pep-talk last year. My expectations were not very high but I have changed my tune.

I literally could not put this book down, I read it in one evening and stayed up far too late to finish it. It is now on my book purchase wish list. (Someone remind me to read it again shortly before NaNo this year!)

Essentially it's about a boy who drops out of vet school and joins the circus, but the story is also told from the perspective of that same boy as an old man in a nursing home when the circus comes to town. Main characters include a performer/love interest, a dwarf and his dog, a paranoid schizophrenic and an elephant.

King Rat - James Clavell (USS Book Club)

I have to bear in mind that the point of being in a book club is to read books that you wouldn't ordinarily read. This one definitely falls into that category. Based on what I typically read, can you really picture me reading about prisoners in a Japanese war camp? I thought not.

The guy who picked the book asked me if I like the book and I found I had to make a distinction. I didn't like the book but I thought it was a good book. It was interesting and well written, I didn't get bogged down and have to slog through to the end, and it made me think about things that I usually don't think about. (Apparently those are my measures for a good book).

The focus of the book is a man called 'The King'. While everyone else in camp(including many of the officers and guards) are hungry, dirty, dishevelled and often in need of medical attention, he is well-kept and has resources to spare. His business acumen leads to a power position and of course everyone wants to either suck up to him or topple him from power. Most interesting was what happened to The King and the people around him when the war ended and people stopped believing that resources were scarce (it didn't take the appearance of food to make them change the way they acted, just the belief that it was coming). It was an interesting peek into psychology and sociology of war camps.

Elantris - Brandon Sanderson

I picked this up after I found out that Brandon Sanderson would be writing the final Wheel of Time book from Robert Jordan's notes. I was curious about his writing style and how he would stack up against Jordan as a story teller.

Initially I was excited. The book had an interesting premise and good off to a strong start. By about the third chapter I was starting to get worried. I love fantasy, don't get me wrong, but I was overwhelmed by the excessive use of the unfamiliar vocabulary of his world. This did not bode well. Fortunately he backed off on the new words and settled down to tell the story to my satisfaction. Although it was slightly predictable, I was pleased with the overall concept and execution.

The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follet (USS Book Club)

What I liked:
- the storylines
- most of the characters (some of the baddies were especially well done, particularly William)
- the shifting viewpoints
- the Aliena and Jack love story

What I didn't:
- the endless descriptions of how precisely to build a cathedral (down to measurements. No one cares! Move on!)
- the ending (Phillip was happy about whipping the King? WTF?)
- the fact that I still have no idea why it was called Pillars of the Earth

The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay

I have wanted to read this book for a long time, for more than 10 years actually, since I first sang 'Mother Africa' with Wammick. I made sure to finish reading the book before watching the movie, but it turned out to be a bad plan because I got all worked up about all of the things left out of the movie and the addition of a female love interest (boo!). Overall I think I was happier with the book, but I will always love The Power of One soundtrack.

The handmaid's tale - Margaret Atwood

Every time I read this novel I am stunned by how brilliantly possible it all is; the progressive motion towards controlling the population and taking away all of their rights and freedoms in a gradual series of logical-seeming moves, some of which are taking place even today, in real life. Does this mean that we're progressing to a world without reading, without sex for purposes other than procreation, without blood-family? A world where one in four babies is born massively deformed and you can be killed for talking to the wrong person about something other than the weather? A world where even the people at the top are quite miserable and just pass the misery on down? We appear to be just a few fragile steps away from the world of the handmaid's tale. Hopefully we heed the warning.

Nickel and dimed : on (not) getting by in America - Barbara Ehrenreich

I'm not even sure how I found this book or why. The author goes under-cover as an unskilled labourer in different towns to find out how the other half lives. She then comes back to her regular life and supplements her first-hand experiences with data a research from other sources to demonstrate just how hard life is on the working poor.

What I found far more interesting was the personal annecdotes that illustrated how people in unfortunate situations lie to make themselves feel better about the things that are wrong in their lives. For the record, I'm not saying this is wrong (I've done it myself, on more than one occasion); I actually think that it's not only a great survival mechanism, but it also says something strong and sweet about the human spirit when we are able to find a silver lining in abysmal conditions.

Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

If nothing else, this novel both entertained and made me think, although I suspect that I was seldom thinking what I was supposed to be thinking. Typical.
_________________

"Hindus see the universe in terms of Karma, a process of constant circulation, which is to say that you don't really "end up" anywhere at the end of your life - not in heaven or hell - but you just get recycled back to the earth again in another form, in order to resolve whatever relationships or mistakes you left uncompleted last time. When you finally achieve perfection, you graduate out of the cycle entirely and melt into The Void. The notion of karma implies that heaven and hell are only to be found here on earth, where we have the capacity to create them, manufacturing either goodness or evil depending on our destinies and our characters." "Even in ones lifetime it's obvious how often we must repeat our same mistakes, banging our heads against the same old addictions and compulsions, generating the same old miserable and often catastrophic consequesnces." "That repetition of suffering - that's hell. Moving out of that endless repetition to a new level of understanding - there's where you'll find heaven". EPL p. 262

This actually matches my view of life incredibly well. All physical bits of our existance are recycled back into the natural cycles of the world (barring formaldehyde), why not our soul or consciousness? I wouldn't say that I believe this but I can say that I could believe this, I can make the logic work, which I can't with many other religions.

It also aligns well with what I want to believe. I like life. I like living it. I would like to keep on living it after I am dead. Heaven sounds boring; Hell sounds awful. I would like more life when I am done with this one, please.

The concept of 'The Void' scares me quite deeply. Once, when I was about 8, I tried to imagine being dead. Not being raised religiously I had no concept of any kind of afterlife so basically I started by removing my senses: nothing to see or hear or smell or taste or feel. Just consciousnes floating in a black void. This wasn't so bad: I could recall and ponder things that I had experienced in life. But wait, if I was dead I couldn't think or be aware or anything! (At this point I was starting to panic.) There was just nothing and I didn't even know it was nothing! (Panic rising...) There was no 'me' to be aware and no one was aware of me! At this point I burst spontaneously into tears and sobbed uncontrollably (and inexplicably to those outside my head) for hours. I cried for several hours and sunk into a deep depression, unable to articulate to anyone what had scared me so badly. (This is the first time I logiced myself into a depression, but by no means the last.) Finally, after about 6 hours of sobbing I was able to blurt out "I don't want to die". I was given the usual comforts applied to a child, that I was safe and no one was going to hurt me, but no one had any clue that the crisis was more of a metaphysical nature.
_____________________________________________

Sometimes I can only get a to a specific point by the long way around. If I get to a nice place quickly I'm always a bit suspicious and skeptical. Easy and nice? No way, it can't be real. You have to suffer to get to a good place. I'm the same way, sometimes, with a philosophy. If you said to me, "you might as well have fun because worrying doesn't change the outcome" I would wave you off like a pesky fly but the following very circuitous argument worked on me:

"What's it like in hell?"
"Same like heaven. Universe is a circle."
"Then how can you tell the difference between heaven and hell?"
"Because of how you go. Heaven, you go up, through seven happy places. Hell, you go down, through seven sad places. This is why it better for you to go up."
"You mean, you might as well spend your life going upward, through the happy places, since heaven and hell - the destinations-are the same thing?"
"Same in end, so better to be happy on journey."

For some reason, this finally made sense to me. If we're worm food either way, we might as well enjoy the time we have. Something just clicked in my brain this time, I guess I'm done with beating my head against the wall on this one and am finally ready to understand and move forward.
_____________________________________________

Mosquitos - If you sit outside for two hours while ravaged by mosquitos, at the end of the night you will have much more than 20 mosquito bites. Clearly the author has never been to Canada.
_____________________________________________

Unpeel - If the peel is the outer layer and removing the peel is called 'peeling' what are you doing when you 'unpeel' someone? Are you taking their clothes off or putting them back on? (This almost falls into the realm of 'unthaw' with me, but not quite.)
__________________________________________________

"The Bhagavad Gita - that ancient Indian Yogic text - says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection." EPL p. 95

While imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, you can admire without becoming or following.
_____________________________________________

"And if Venice is sinking, I'm going under, 'Cause beauty's religion and it's christened me with wonder." Spirit of the West

The section on Venice reminded me of this song. Spirit of the West lyrics are sometimes bloody genius.
_____________________________________________

"You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight." EPL p. 115
_____________________________________________

Lord of Emperors - Guy Gavriel Kay

The first half of the second book left me no more impressed than the first book did (that sentence made me dizzy). It isn't until the middle of the book that you start seeing some of the typical Guy Gavriel Kay qualities; the example that illustrates a detailed analysis of a situation that you can apply to your own life which he just slips in as if it's nothing. Brilliant!

Toward the end of the book it is also finally explained why there was so much detail in the prologue-like bit: it finally becomes relevant, if you can remember it 1,000 pages later.

I have to say that part of the enjoyment of The Sarantine Mosaic comes from the knowledge of the world in 'Lions' and the little comments that link the two together. I am torn between recommending that readers pick up 'Lions' first so that they can enjoy these and recommending that they build up to 'Lions' so that the other books don't disappoint.

I admit that I got part of what I came for with this book: I enjoyed the strong female characters and the heart-rending illustration of a true love-match. The plot was complex enough to not be too predictable. However, I felt some of the failings of the Fionavar Tapestry and Ysabel too, the distance from many of the characters, the unconvincing love match at the end. There are a few gems to be pulled out, moments crafted to perfection, but they were too few for my taste. Give me Lions, any day.

I plan on re-reading these within the next year. I'm convinced that several of my opinions will change on a second reading, now that I have a better grip on the characters.

Sailing to Sarantium - Guy Gavriel Kay

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Guy Gavriel Kay (particularly 'The Lions of Al-Rassan' and 'Tigana') but for some reason I have put off reading the Sarantine Mosaic. On the glowing recommendation of another fan, I finally picked them up.

Initially I was put off by the lengthy prologue (which is not acually called a prologue, but it should have been). I spent the first book and most of the second wondering why it was included.

I realize that the character names are meant to be historically accurate but I found most of the characters difficult to distinguish since their names all sounded so similar. I suspect re-reading would solve this problem as I've now figured out who most of them are. I felt like I needed a chart.

By the end of the book I was not particularly involved but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and went on to the next. (I did enjoy the relationship between the Emperor and Empress though.)

The Glass Castle: a memoir - Jeannette Walls

This novel was recommended and lent to me by a new co-worker. It's quite different from my usual fare; memoirs are not usually my cup of tea. It had a definite 'Angela's Ashes' type of feel to me, not quite as grim and sorrowful, in fact at some points it was almost comical, but it had the same kind of downward spiral into grinding poverty.

I wonder what sort of take the homeless would have on this book, since it contains two characters who claim to want to be homeless. Part of the book are just too bizarre to wrap the mind around, and parts ring true, despite surface differences.

At times I had trouble putting it down. It was a compelling read but I'm not sure what message I took home.

The mermaid chair - Sue Monk Kidd (USS Book Club)

Superbly written; I think I found one word in the entire book that I would change (and in case you haven't realized it by now, I'm incredibly picky). I do wish that the husband had been more likeable, it would have increased the conflict and my empathy for him and would therefore have improved the book and made the main character's later decisions make more sense and feel less like sheer laziness. I have a feeling that the husband's main purpose in the book, since he was a psychologist, was the following contribution:

“When a person was in need of cataclysmic change, of a whole new center in the personality, for instance, his or her psyche would induce an infatuation, an erotic attachment, an intense falling-in-love. Falling in love was the most ruthless catalyst on earth. But typically you fall in love with something missing in yourself that you recognized in the other person.”

The Salmon of Doubt - Douglas Adams

Compiled posthumously by his wife this novel is a bit backwards in that the whole is less than the sum of it's parts, perhaps because it was not assembled by the hands of the master.

Note to self: contains many excellent motivational quotes on writing. Remember this for next year's NaNo.

The curious incident of the dog in the night-time - Mark Haddon

After so much hype about this book I was expecting to be annoyed by it but it exceeded all expectations. I couldn't put it down. It was funny and sad and thought-provoking and well written; all of the things that a good novel should be.

Slaughterhouse-five : the children's crusade : a duty-dance with death /

Four months later I do not recall any deep thoughts I had about this book. Only one thought remains: this was not what I expected.

1984 - George Orwell

It seemed about time to read this classic, and unfortunately it fits very well with the extreme micromanagement going on in one part of my life. I can see why this is a classic, and a brilliant one at that. If you haven't read it yet, go pick it up. Nothing I can say at this point will really contribute to the discussion, beyond the observation that no one should wait until they're 30 to read it.

Robert Fullghum

I find every so often I return to Robert Fullghum when I'm in need of some positive thinking. His stories restore my faith in humanity, if not in certain specific people, and make me feel a bit younger, less cynical and pessimistic. I found that I needed this very much at the beginning of September and so I burned through the following:

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It

True Love

Uh-Oh

Maybe (Maybe Not)

There. I feel a bit better now.

P.S. Don't Forget to Fart

Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine

Yes, you read that right: Douglas Adams, author of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. 'Last Chance to See' lives in the non-fiction section, rather than science fiction.

Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine travel all over our planet trying to find the last few individuals of endangered species. If you've read 'The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul' (I think it is), you know that Douglas Adams has a special place in his heart for the dodo, which made this transition from spaceships to endangered species a little easier to swallow.

In 'Last Chance to See' not only do you find stories of the search for each species, but photos of them when they could be found and insights into the local cultures and politics, as well as the obstructions in the path of those who are fighting to save the last precious few. Sometimes it's money, or time, or genetics, or the creature's own self-destructive properties. If you didn't know that 'survival of the fittest' isn't always a good thing, you will by the end of this book. Douglas Adams gives insight into the natural beauties of this world and how much poorer we will be when they are gone from it.

I was surprised to find that I was left with a startling emotional attachment to a small elderly sweet potato on a clifftop in New Zealand. This is the beauty of Douglas Adams' writing.

The Guy Not Taken - Jennifer Weiner

This is a selection of short stories which don't really differ in any way from any of her other novels. The style and content are comparable and therefore predictable. I'm underwhelmed.

The Birth House - Ami McKay

I think this book was a little too built up for me. It was pretty good but not amazing. I enjoyed all of the herbal remedy and midwifing stuff, as well as the basic story line. I found the characters interesting and the events of their lives pulled me in and kept me reading. While it didn't make my Top 10 list, I would still recommend it.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling

This is actually a multiple book entry as I re-read the Harry Potters running up to the last book's release. Then we went and picked the book up at oneish (after a fun wedding celebration).

I'm not going to go into a ton of detail yet, I don't want to spoil anyone. I enjoyed most of the book, including Dumbledore's added humanity but the epilogue was just too trite for me (I know she put it in so that she wouldn't be endlessly bugged about what happened next, but bleh!). I was very upset about one of the deaths and thought that the first death was way underplayed, but overall it was a very satisfying book.

Goodnight Nobody - Jennifer Weiner

I read it. I don't really remember it aside from being disappointed. I guess I need to remember to update this more often.

Sweetness in the Belly - Camilla Gibb

While I wouldn't say that this is in the top 10 novels I've read, nor would I call it a well-written favorite, it is a fascinating look at a world that I never even knew existed.



Lilly's world-travelling British parents are killed leaving her alone, a white orphan in Ethiopia. She is raised by Muslin Sufis, and falls in love with an Ethiopian doctor. Somehow, during the famine and political uprising in Ethiopia in the 1980's she ends up back in England alone, living among the many refugees. It covers religion, politics, feminism and more wrapped up in hope, heartbreak and the idea of home.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards

I absolutely could not put this book down, especially coming on the heels of a strange dream about bearing twins. It's the story of a couple who have twins, a perfectly healthy boy and a girl with Down's syndrome. The husband, a doctor, tells the nurse to take the girl to an institution and tells his wife that the baby girl died. The nurse can't give the child away and leaves the city to raise her on her own. This split-second decision has consequences for the rest of their lives and beyond, affecting them all in ways that noone ever anticipated.

The Fifth Elephant - Terry Pratchett

I can't seem to read just one Terry Pratchett novel. This is another old favorite.

The Last Continent - Terry Pratchett

I wanted some nice light reading for Cuba so I brought along a couple of Pratchett favorites. I think this one is my all-time favorite Pratchett novel. I features death by pineapple, a continent somewhat like Australia, the wizards and Rincewind and my favorite quote "Even so, there is no excuse for putting pineapple on a pizza." I may make a T-shirt.

Bloodletting and Other Miraculous Cures - Vincent Lam

I think my problem with this book is that my expectations were too high. The stories were okay and some were even interesting but the characters were not particularly engaging and I didn't find the book as a whole to be at all cohesive, although it seemed to be attempting to be cohesive. Overall, I was disappointed.