So I haven’t read a non-fiction, non-parenting book in years. Actual years. (Which makes me feel a little sheepish for the grief I give people who don’t read a single novel in a year, or the scorn I (privately?) feel for those who shrug novels off as ‘just made up’. Not sheepish enough to change my view, obviously, as these non-novel people are clearly Bad). But I kept seeing Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity on best-of lists, and, more promisingly, described as ‘novelistic.’ So off I went and read it. Continue reading
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Non-fiction? What?
Filed under Bestseller, New York Times Notable, Non-fiction, Prize Winner
The Tiger’s Wife: Yet Another Accidental Re-Read
It must be that I have good taste? And as a consequence keep picking the same books? With Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife I noticed early on that the story was familiar. I even checked the archives here to see if I’d reviewed it before, finding nothing, I figured I must have started it at some point, but never finished it. Nope. I’d read the whole thing before, and I read the whole thing again. And again it was like the first time. Sigh. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
I’m Re-Reading Harry Potter. And I am having Feelings.
Guys. I’ve started re-reading the Harry Potter series. I’m probably going to just do one Big Harry Potter post, but I thought I should let you know it’s happening and it’s great. And feeling full. Realizing that it’s been nearly twenty years (!) since I last read the series, I figured I could rely on my terrible memory having forgotten most of the books, and – happy days! – it has! I’m midway into Chamber of Secrets now and the whole thing is a revelation. I probably should have waited until R. is old enough to enjoy reading them together, but let’s be real, if I read them to him again in eight years or nine years I’ll have forgotten all over again. Except maybe there’s a particular Feeling to be had of reading books to your kid that you remember loving. We’re still firmly fixed on picture books that I decidedly do not remember reading as a toddler, but I guess there is a particular joy in reading him books I do recall (we’re deep into Peter Rabbit world right now, and if you haven’t read Peter Rabbit lately let me spoil some things for you: a lot of things get shot, eaten and dismembered in ways that R. does not seem *at all* troubled by and his indifference is A Little Alarming). I DIGRESS.
So for now the re-reading is kind of magical (hardy har). Remembering (or trying to) where I was when I read them for the first time, the conversations with S. J. and J. about the new books coming out (or maybe that was just dressing up for the movie?). Which is to say, I’m sure much of my enjoyment this time around is fuelled by nostalgia and not… literary merit. WHICH IS NOT TO SAY THEY AREN’T GOOD. Dial down your outrage and your temptation to light up the comments section (as if that’s ever happened). They are definitely propulsive and well-imagined and the simple moral is satisfying in a world that seems so obviously Good and Evil today, too.
So yeah, I’ll give you one Big Review when I finish all seven (maybe? Or maybe throughout? I don’t know), but for now I’ll just ask you for your First Harry Potter Reading memory: when did you read it? Have you returned to the books since? Is it all clouded by the movies?
Yours in Potter-dom.
Filed under Fiction
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls: Abandon.
Anissa Gray’s first novel (only novel?) The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls was not for me. It bored me. The characters bored me, the plot bored me, the whole thing – so I stopped reading halfway through it. Maybe if I committed more time it would get better, but there is too much to read. Continue reading
Filed under Book I'll Forget I Read, Fiction, Worst Books
Literary Vice 