and she reads

Well, I'm sick today and called in to work so I'm hiding in bed with a laptop and books. Here's some of what I've read recently.

I know Nick Hornby is "lad lit" or whatever you want to call it but I tend to really enjoy his writing and his books. Granted, they may not be literary masterpieces but you don't really want to read a literary masterpiece every single day. He's very talented at making people and relationships feel real. I don't know if its because of his own new experience with kids but the 6 year old in the book felt authentic as well - somewhat annoying and crazy but you like him anyway.

Another fun book to read. Explores the idea of all the different cultures bringing their gods to a new place and how the gods survive.... but it's funnier than that sounds. For a thick book it kept me entertained the entire time.


I have to admit that my knowledge of history is very lacking sometimes. I know that there is some animosity between Japan and Korea and I had a vague idea that Japan had controlled Korea at some point but I had no idea of the specifics. Its interesting what you can learn from childrens' historical fiction. The narration was split between Sun-Hee and her older brother Tae-Yul. It covered the last few years of WWII before Japan surrendered.

I had tried and failed in the past to read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Since then I've read some books of his essays and really enjoyed his writing. So, I thought, why not give it another try. It's a huge book (1104 pages total), really very very large, but I thought, hey, I've read big books before. I love big books. This will be a challenge but I am "a reader" and I will read this book.

But.... I failed. I mean, I could have persevered for the next month that it would have taken me to get through it but I really read for enjoyment and I was spending more time trying to figure out if I even like the book than I was reading the book. I found myself not reading anything because I would have to read this book. Around pg. 100 I started getting interested but around pg. 200 I realized I was not interested enough. Sad.

On the other hand, I loved this book and zoomed through it in a weekend. Granted, it was a very lazy weekend. Yay, for post-apocalyptic novels. I just love that genre for some reason. Anyway, this was quite good. Its sequel of sorts to her earlier novel Oryx and Crake which I wish I had reread first. I love her inventiveness about what the future will bring. Very dystopian.

So, why is Margaret Atwood not labeled sci-fi? Or only sometimes? In my library's catalog, Oryx and Crake is her only book labeled sci-fi and then only 2 of 3 copies are. One is in regular fiction. So why is this sequel not sci-fi and why isn't Handmaid's Tale or the Blind Assassin? I think it's because she is "literary". Sci-fi just can not be classy. I wonder if it has to do with gender as well. Women don't read sci-fi/fantasy. Women do read Margaret Atwood. Therefore Margaret Atwood can not be sci-fi?

Combining my children's books for this post, I also recently read The Graveyard Book. Loved it. I thought it was interesting how sophisticated the concepts and vocabulary were in this novel. I understand why it is shelved mainly in our teen section even tho I read it for my children's materials class. Basically it was the story of a boy growing up in a graveyard while the man who killed his family hunts him down. Needs to have a sequel and needs to be a movie. But please, no 3D, I am so tired of 3D.

Let's see if I can remember everything I've read in the last few days.

No, I did not read the one with the movie cover. This was a very desolate, sad book. I read it in just a few hours. It is missing a lot of exposition about the story - how the characters came to be where they are. The reader has to fill in the blanks a lot. It will be interesting to see what the movie is like.

This one was pretty cool. It was obviously riffing off of Harry Potter and Narnia and maybe even Oz to an extent but the main character is a unfulfilled young adult who has the same problems any other sullen young adult might have despite the fact that he is a magician. Generally pretty dreary but fun to read something that's magical without being sparkly.

Technically the next two are for my children's class. Fractured fairy tales this week.



I liked both of these, the Fairest is a retelling of the Snow White story. Ella Enchanted is Cinderella. I liked Ella's character much better. The Fairest protagonist was only concerned with being pretty and the story kind of snuck in a moral about not being concerned with pretty but... it was too little, too late after she obsessed about it the whole story. I love that they are both characters with more than one dimension. It really added a lot to the fairy tale idea.

I think I'm missing something but I'm not sure what... This is why I'm writing these things down now.

Super traditional tellings of Mother Goose. Someone commented on the forums about the political incorrectness of some of the stories and was completely shot down by everyone saying they were silly. I should have helped them out but couldn't find a proper stance to take.

Basic rendition of the story. Wolf gets boiled alive and eaten by the pigs in the end.... weird.

Cute story. This one came the closest to having a strong female character however she's old so probably not a big role model for 4 year old girls obsessed with princesses.

Beautiful illustrations but it's still an odd story.

I love tall tales. This one had a bit of the modern to it in a weird way. He added an addition to his parents house (one day after being born cause he just grew that fast) and added a "jacutzi".

Aesop's Fables are so abrupt. Oh he won, now it's over. Weirdly short, obviously moral. I don't know how these still appeal to kids.

mmm.... I love a good thriller sometimes. I sped through this super quick. The main character was very compelling too - an unlikeable victim of a crime. And I don't usually guess correctly when guessing the killer but I definitely wouldn't have this time - I'll leave it at that.


Unfortunately this book did not make the cut. I was probably only 20 pages in when I decided to stop reading. It seemed very existential-ish to me. The main character in the first story was called only "the average man". Meh. Strange how the order you read books in changes your opinion of each book.