Pie Not Included

Fat Kid Rules the World (by K.L. Going)

2008-09-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

A YA novel recommended in my workshop, where we read the opening scene, which is the main character on a subway platform, contemplating suicide. (We were talking about ways to establish character. Yep, that'll do it.) I loved the way the main character's fat was a throughline of the whole story--for instance, being the source of his crippling insecurity, which in turn drives the plot forward. But it isn't your typical "fat kid loses weight, gets the girl" type of story either. Instead, the fat kid meets up with a very skinny kid, a punk rock guitar player who wants to form a band with him. Not what I was expecting, but I found myself really rooting for Troy, and really not wanting it to end.

A Prayer for Owen Meany (by John Irving)

2008-09-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

Got totally absorbed in this book and finished it with tears in my eyes, although it is not nearly as "sentimental" as I'd feared--at least not in a bathetic way. I loved Owen as a character and the story kept me interested to find out what would happen to him.

Minor criticism time. I got tired of the narrator going on and on about Reaganite politics. (I know that was the point, that Americans get bored by stuff like Iran-Contra, but god I was bored.) I was way more interested in learning about his arrested sexual development, which Irving maddeningly does not confront. I get that the book is essentially an antiwar nove, but I enjoyed it more on the story level and less on the "message" level. But this is a minor criticism because it really isn't particularly didactic or messagey.

Here were my two big questions when it was over, regarding the concept of Owen as "God's instrument": 1. What was the higher purpose (or the effect, rather) of Tabitha getting killed with the baseball? Was it just to reveal Johnny's father to him? If so, that seemed not to have much of an effect, in the end. 2. Isn't that an awful lot of trouble for God to go to, just to save a group of kids, when he could just have had the psychopath get run over by a bus or something? I've talked about this book with a couple of people and there are interesting things to be said regarding the idea of fate, God's role in the world, and that sort of thing. But those were the questions I was left trying to answer.

At any rate, it's been years since I've read Irving, and I'm glad I picked this one up. Engrossing and very captivating.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (by Sherman Alexie)

2008-08-19T21:34:00.000-07:00

Absolutely and utterly charming. We talked about it in my YA novel-writing workshop and it's wonderful: funny, heartwarming. I think Melissa and Eliza both said how great it was; they did not lie.

The Road (by Cormac McCarthy)

2008-08-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

My Twitter about this was: "Just finished Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" and feel as if I've put my heart through a sieve. Good god."

I read this because Entertainment Weekly put it #1 on the list of best books of the past twenty-five years. Although that list was jacked up (I'm looking at you DAVE EGGERS) it made me brave enough to read a book that I knew was about a father and a son in a postapocalyptic world. Its spare, deceptively simple style reminded me of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, and of poetry. A beautiful, haunting book. I recommend it.

Perhaps in the world's destruction it would be possible at least to see how it was made. Oceans, mountains. The ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be. The sweeping waste, hydroptic and coldly secular. The silence. (Page 274)

I, Claudius (by Robert Graves)

2008-08-13T19:39:00.000-07:00

I feel like I've been reading this book forever. Not sure why it took me so long; the distractions of the end of the semester, I suppose. Multiple people got very excited upon hearing that I was reading this; they all mentioned the miniseries, too. Plus it's on numerous lists of great books (which was of course my motivation for picking it up in the first place).

I enjoyed it, but was slightly underwhelmed after all the hype. It's quite good, certainly; I want to read the next volume, and I kept thinking back to the time I've spent in Rome, and wanting to go back and revisit all the imperial ruins. And of course before that, to know what the real history of the times was. It's very good. I'm just not totally won over and I'm not sure why.

Breaking Dawn (by Stephenie Meyer)

2008-08-07T20:02:00.000-07:00

Basically this.

Mysterious Skin (by Scott Heim)

2008-07-13T10:18:00.000-07:00

I saw this movie when it came out, and it's just astonishing. One of those incredibly powerful, beautiful films that will disturb you and stay with you. The novel is just as good, and in fact, has one of the most amazing last lines ever. I recommend both very highly, although they do tackle subjects such as child abuse and male rape, very graphically, so not for the faint of heart.

Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction (by Sue Townsend)

2008-07-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

I think this is the last book in the Adrian Mole series, and it was a really funny and poignant one one. Adrian gets deeper and deeper in debt, does a series of incredibly stupid things, yet somehow clings to a shred of the reader's sympathy. There's a whole lot of stuff in here about the Iraq war but it's handled for the most part amusingly, until the inevitable happens at the end. A fun read.

New Moon and Eclipse, by Stephenie Meyer

2008-07-13T10:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am continuing to devour (ha, ha) the Sweet Valley Vampire books. They model terrible behavior to teenage girls, and I kind of think each one should come with an essay by some feminist critic so that these teenage girls and their insane mothers (the "Twilight Moms" or whatever) can figure out that stalking is not sexy and that the vampire dude is emotionally abusive and that you can live just fine without a boy to love you. And yet I LOVE READING THESE THINGS. The second one is so emo, it's hilarious. The love triangle is really dumb because there's no contest at all, and it's a really stretch to make it seem like Team Jacob has a chance. Wait, you have no idea what I'm talking about at all, do you? Nevermind. Save yourselves!

Twilight (by Stephenie Meyer)

2008-06-19T20:39:00.001-07:00

Yeah, you knew it would happen. In this case you can blame Jenfu for coming to Vegas and innocently passing her copy along to me so I could enjoy the cheesy, breezy, Sweet Valley Vampire fun. A really fun and compelling read---I'd heard (I think in Entertainment Weeky) Meyer described as "not a great writer, but a great storyteller." I actually don't even think she's all that bad as a writer; I kind of love the way she describes so much minutia. The sexy vampire plot is the perfect angsty, fantasy, forbidden love story for a teenage girl, and even though I'm not a teenager anymore... I mean, I watched the new NKOTB "Summertime" video. I'm not immune you know. Also, it's kind of hot. I will admit I found the sexy vampires kind of hot. Sorry, everyone. Did I meantion I read Finnegans Wake?

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (by Junot Diaz)

2008-06-02T13:13:00.001-07:00

Read this for book club number two, although we didn't talk about the book so much at the meeting. I loved reading it, though. It won the Pulitzer for fiction in 2008 and I can see why; it's energetic, inventive, unique, and feels "important" because of its exploration of the Dominican Republic and the Dominican diaspora. (I hadn't known much about Dominican history, and the likeable characters, especially Oscar, and the humor and the style, especially the Spanish/Spanglish sprinkled throughout, were the spoonfuls of sugar that helped all that fascinating history go down. I didn't even know who Trujillo was. Thanks, Junot Diaz.) To sum up: highly recommended both as an important work of literature and as a moving tragicomedy.

The Haunting of Hill House (by Shirley Jackson)

2008-05-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

Scaaaaaaary. Loved the (unreliable, of course) narrator, loved the details, loved everything. God, Jackson is such an amazing writer... what else is there to say? I mean, here, just read the first two sentences.

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

SO GOOD.

Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (by Sue Townsend)

2008-05-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

I don't think Adrian ever drinks a cappuccino in this book! Anyway, Adrian is the male answer to Bridget Jones, although this book doesn't have as clear of a story arc as the Bridget books seem to. Ian bought this to read on the plane on our last trip, and I snagged it once he was done. I find Adrian endearing enough to want to keep reading the series, but the number of loose ends in each book is disconcerting!

The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts (by Tom Farley, Jr. and Tanner Colby)

2008-05-14T12:27:00.000-07:00

I love insider SNL books (I want a sequel to Live in New York so bad) and I really enjoyed this, sad thought it was. It's personal recollections of many people who knew Chris Farley (including the real Matt Foley!) and gives lots of background, for good and bad, about why his life turned out the way it did. Ultimately, he emerges as a very sympathetic figure, but at the same time it didn't seem in any way whitewashed.

I did wonder why Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider, among others, weren't in it. And there really weren't a lot of women represented--his mother and sister were interviewed, but neither of their interviews made it. It very much reads as a male point of view, but since SNL really was a boys' club when Farley was there, it makes a certain sense. Anyway, loved reading this; if you're into SNL at all, pick it up.

Ten Days In The Hills (by Jane Smiley)

2008-05-05T19:56:00.000-07:00

I was chatting with Ian about this book and it came up that John Updike had reviewed it. Ian claims that Updike called it a "fuckfest" but he may have been paraphrasing. Still, it's basically a fuckfest, with a bunch of rich celebrities and privileged people having a lot of sex and feeling sort of guilty and talking about the war in Iraq. If this sounds exciting to you, let me know and I'll send it to you. It was definitely an entertaining airplane read, I'll give it that. (Also, I found the Zoe character to be unrealistic. She is portrayed as a black actress who has all these white leading men in the olden timey days of Hollywood. When Denzel and Julia didn't so much as kiss in The Pelican Brief? I don't think so.)

Strip City (by Lily Burana)

2008-04-13T13:17:00.000-07:00

I believe it was on the advice of Wendy that I decided to read this one after not being wild about Diablo Cody's stripper book. I definitely enjoyed it more, although it's still not the perfect stripper book. (It's still not as good of a read as Jenna Jameson's How To Make Love Like A Porn Star.) Is it the author's navel-gazing ambivalence? The distracting use of verb tenses? Not enough nitty gritty details? Maybe. Still, a fun stripper book and certainly better than Cody's. Plus, I couldn't put it down, so Burana must have done something right!

Snow (by Orhan Pamuk)

2008-04-13T13:11:00.000-07:00

I read this for our recently resuscitated book group, and it resulted in a really great conversation. Some of us hated it, some of us loved it, some of us couldn't get through it--but it seemed like we all had something to say about it. I personally liked it a lot--the complexity of it (politics plus poetry plus femininity plus identity) and the postmodern elements of the narrative.

It seemed like the more you know about modern Turkey, the more you liked the book--at least in our group. I don't know a lot about Turkish history, don't get me wrong, but I was in Istanbul in 2000 and our tour guide talked a lot about Ataturk, and was at pains to emphasize the "Westernized" and progressive nature of the Islamic culture there. She emphasized it so much, it seemed like she was glossing over something--and this book seems to peek a little bit into the complex issues that make up modern Turkey.

God, this makes it sound boring. I think the story (full of murder, love, betrayal and intrigue... and poetry)is as suspenseful and well told. It is definitely not a boring, dry book. And yet I don't think it's for everyone. So... there you go. Read this in a book group!

Then We Came To The End (by Joshua Ferris)

2008-04-09T16:53:00.000-07:00

As good as you've heard. Really, this book is fantastic. It's like the perfect storm of a novel--stylistically interesting, funny, relevant, perfectly pitched, totally inventive and original. One of those books that's so good, it's exciting. (Like Black Swan Green.) It's even set in an ad agency, which is where I spend my days. If you and I share any overlap in taste at all, go read it.

And then I came to the end (ho, ho) and got to the best part--Ferris's list of favorite books. Seriously, I almost died. Not only is Pale Fire on there but seriously, EVERY SINGLE BOOK ON THAT LIST, if I read it, I loved it. The list includes Pale Fire, We Have Always Lived In the Castle, Slaughterhouse-Five, Mrs. Dalloway, White Noise, and Catch-22 (this book really reminded me of Catch-22. I was going to write this review and say that TWCTTE was like Catch-22 minus the war, plus advertising, but it turns out, all the critics have already pointed this out). Humor (especially black humor), quirkyness, and unreliable narrators seem to be the throughlines there. I certainly do enjoy all of those things.

The only book on Ferris's list that I didn't love was The Ambassadors, and honestly, given Ferris's endorsement and the fact that I otherwise adore Henry James, I'm totally willing to give it another shot. (I have a feeling Ferris studied in in grad school, because I do remember reading that it has a perfectly symmetrical structure, or somthing like that--if I investigated that, maybe I'd appreciate it more.) Anyway, that's how much I liked his book--and I am totally going to read every single book he recommends that I haven't already read.

To sum up: read this book. I won't spoil it for you. Go read it.

Candy Girl; Sit, Ubu, Sit; The Full Cupboard of Life

2008-03-30T18:05:00.000-07:00

With the authors this time, the three books I finished today are: Candy Girl (by Diablo Cody); Sit, Ubu, Sit (by Gary David Goldberg); and The Full Cupboard of Life (by Alexander McCall Smith).

I thought Cody's book, like her screenplay for Juno, was "deffo" trying a little bit too hard to sound original and hip and smart. It's also more than a little disingenuous. For instance, she starts talking about stripper names and glosses over the fact that at that point, her name wasn't even Diablo. And don't tell me one of her motivations for stripping wasn't "to get material to write a book." I'd love for there to be an honest memoir about stripping; this wasn't it. On the other hand, it's "deffo" entertaining and fun, and she's not a bad writer by any means.

Goldberg's memoir I really enjoyed; I'm a huge Family Ties fan, and if anything, I would have loved the book to be twice as long and hear more stories about the show. (I don't even think Tina Yothers was mentioned by name.) More gossip, Gary! It's essentially a love letter to his wife and to Michael J. Fox, and succeeds on both counts. Oh, and a love letter to his dog, Ubu, too. I CANNOT BELIEVE what happened to that dog. (Don't worry, it's not tragic for the dog.)

The third one is another Ladies' Detective agency book, and I enjoyed it more than the previous two! (There's not a whole lot to say about this series, but I'm enjoying it.) And now I need to go back to grading papers. (I was "grading papers" at the bookstore today, which is why I read those three books in the first place...)

Seven Books

2008-03-26T18:53:00.000-07:00

Because I couldn't fit them all in the title:

#1, The Other Boleyn Girl (by Philippa Gregory); #2, Morality for Beautiful Girls and #3, The Kalahari Typing School for Men (by Alexander McCall Smith); #4, Survival in Auschwitz (by Primo Levi); #5, The Heart of the Matter (by Graham Greene); #6, The Virgin's Lover (by Gregory again); and #7, The Gum Thief (by Douglas Coupland).

I'm lumping these seven books together because I read them all over the course of our two-week vacation--mostly on the long plane flights. I figure I might as well just run through them all real quick before I forget my opinions about them.

I thought #1 was riveting, and I generally strongly prefer nonfiction, like Antonia Fraser's books, to historical fiction. I actually never read historical fiction. But for some reason I picked this up as a good airplane book, and it totally was. I couldn't put it down! In fact, I went into every English-language bookstore we passed looking for more in the series. But The Boleyn Inheritance was a big book with huge type, and I skimmed it and it seemed inferior, so I bypassed it in favor of #6, and I was quite frankly disappointed with that one too. All Elizabeth seemed to do was whine, "I'm so afraid! I'm so afraid!" Queen Elizabeth should show some spunk, even early Queen Elizabeth, even Gregory's version of Queen Elizabeth. So very wrong.

Anyway the reason I was in the bookshops in the first place was #2 and #3. I listened to the first two books in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series on audio, which I loved, and which took a while. It turns out that if you're reading the books on paper, they take about ten minutes to read. The series continues to be charming but--and I think I mentioned this before with the series--there are often issues brought up that get resolved way too easily and with a lack of detail. It's not that I want overblown drama, but early on in #3, a rival detective agency starts up. What a perfect plotline for some good drama and tension! But you hear virtually nothing about it again until it's quickly resolved in half a chapter at the end. Weak.

#4 was a book Ian brought along because we visited Auschwitz on our trip (although we did not go to Monowitz, where Levi was.) Obviously this book is harrowing, masterful, and totally beyond critique.

#5 is a reading list book, and the protagonist (Scobie) is quite a Javert character--or almost. (I love Inspector Javert, by the way. My absolute favorite Les Miserables character by a mile.) They are both police officers with a very rigid moral code that basically destroys them in the end. But with Scobie, you somehow don't feel for him as much, because he's clearly an idiot. Javert is just...stubborn. Scobie's decisions seems less consistent and comprehensible. (Trying not to give too much away here.)

#7 is charming--another book purchased in a Prague bookshop, Coupland's latest about a couple of people (a middle aged guy and a young Goth girl) who work at Staples and strike up an unlikely friendship by correspondence. I especially enjoyed the story within the story, Glove Pond, which is very Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? If you like the average Coupland novel (and I find him very love-him-or-hate-him in general) you'll enjoy it, I bet.

The end!

Schuyler's Monster (by Rob Rummel-Hudson)

2008-02-28T16:16:00.000-08:00

Reading this book was a crazy experience, since I first started reading Rob's blog just before Schuyler was born. I remember all the events in the book...and lots of events that didn't make it into the book! I'm so, like, totally inner circle.

I wasn't sure how this book would read, but I found it to be a level beyond what Rob has done in his blog. More sophisticated and more restrained, on the whole. I think Rob and his editor really made the right choices most of the time.

I really am curious to know how the book reads to people who haven't read Rob's blog for all these years...if the People review is anything to go by, probably pretty positively! Not that I'm surprised--his story is incredibly compelling.

Good job, Rob! Remember I knew you when!

Lives on the Boundary (by Mike Rose)

2008-02-28T15:24:00.000-08:00

Read this for class; discussing with my students. Will get back to you!

Pnin (by Vladimir Nabokov)

2008-02-18T13:48:00.001-08:00

I know; it's absurd that I hadn't read this book, Pale Fire's precursor and cousin. I can't wait to read the criticism of it, especially how it relates to Pale Fire (I noticed lots of overlap--solus rex, butterflies, reflections, and autobiographical details of Nabokov's life--and of course Pnin the character makes a cameo appearance in Pale Fire). It appears to be, at face value, a charming character study of the sympathetic titular character. But of course, there's a narrator--and to what extent he is unreliable remains to be seen. He seems to be an unsympathetic version of Nabokov himself... very intriguing.

Helping Me Help Myself (by Beth Lisick)

2008-02-15T22:11:00.001-08:00

Yep, this is the third book I finished today! It was fabulous. There's a whole thing in there about coincidences and I experienced it firsthand a few days ago as I was reading the book. I was composing an email to the author in my head and debating if I should or could send it to her, and then I picked up the book and read about her agonizing about sending an e-mail to someone she'd bumped into backstage at a show... anyway, I still haven't sent the e-mail. Read the book.

Catherine the Great (by Virginia Rounding)

2008-02-15T19:23:00.000-08:00

Yes, I finished two books today! I've been reading this one for a while. Not as absorbing as Antonia Fraser's books, but Catherine is certainly a fascinating figure. On the whole I ended up admiring her quite a bit, and it's interesting to read what was going on in Russia while Marie Antoinette was living and dying in France. Also, one of her granddaughters was Queen of the Netherlands!

I don't have anything thrilling to say about this book. A serviceable book about a very interesting and admirable woman.