Reading

That's right, a post about reading. Reading books. I've been doing a lot of that lately. Well, when not dealing with house stuff and traveling across most of New England. I have read 8 books in the past 2 weeks or so; most of them were good. I have joined a web site called Good Reads, which allows people to rate and review books they have read. Like Netflix, you can have Friends and you can see which books your friends have read and reviewed. I may never have time to work again.

My reviews from my latest reads:
The best, besides Harry Potter 7, which was good because it was the culmination of so much time and effort spent, were the graphic novels. I am a huge fan of this genre and I wasn't disappointed by either Goodbye, Chunky Rice or Maus: A Survivor's Tale. Both were well-drawn and poignant. It feels like an enhanced story, not only do you get the words that tell the story, but you get the author's vision of what that story looks like. And this isn't a subsitution for the reader's own imagination because I think that graphic novels cause a deeper level of reading. As a reader, I am looking into each panel to make sure that I have caught everything possible so I am sucked into the narrative in a way that can't happen with an all-text story. So cool.

I also read 2 books by Jodi Picoult, Salem Falls and Vanishing Acts. I found her book My Sister's Keeper an unexpectedly good read. Then I read Plain Truth, which I also enjoyed (I learned quite a bit about the Plain folks living in Pennsylvania). By the time I read these 2, I realized that Picoult has a formula: introduction, major event, trial, resolution. A reviewer of Salem Falls noted that it was like reading an episode of "Law & Order". I quite agree. I think that I have read enough of her books for now but I would be interested in picking up one of her books once enough time had passed that I forgot about her formula and it all seemed new and fresh again.

The last 3 books were Blue Screen by Robert Parker, Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller and Tithe by Holly Black. Parker's book featured one of his newer characters, Sunny Randall,not Spencer for Hire (RIP Robert Urich). Not much action in the book but I liked that Sunny meets another of Parker's new characters, Jesse Stone, and that her therapist is Susan Silverman, Spencer's long-time partner. All of Parker's characters will eventually make their way onto the page and I am intrigued to know if he meant it that way when he first created Sunny and Jesse, or if it just happened. I love the way he writes his main characters: tough, but literary, witty and self-aware.

I read Miller's book at the request of my sister-in-law, whom I love and respect. I still love and respect her, but I wish Miller would be swallowed up by a sinkhole so he can no longer ramble on about how cool christianity is. Be christian, that's fine. Be cool, that's fine. But selling christianity as cool, that made me want to scrub the inside of my head with a Jon Stewart/Michael Moore wirebrush.

And, lastly Black's book - a YA fantasy about a girl who communes with fairies. I like the idea of fairies, but reading about an angst-filled teenager who has a flop of a mom and no real substance in her life or thoughts, who talks to fairies, not that good. I also have found the writing overwrought and flowery.

I like reading so much, I should work in a library...