Book Log – Eragon

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Eragon by Christopher Paolini

I bought this book for a slew of good and bad reasons.

I was at my son’s Scholastic book fair, and we had a pile of books, way more than we should be buying because I have a really, really hard time saying no when it comes to books because they’re books and saying no is like telling them not to do homework and at that point the booklust hit critical mass and I needed to get something for myself and I was idly looking around when this cool looking hardback with a neat looking dragon drawing was there, displayed prominently like it was a big deal and it was either that or Super Diaper Baby or Twilight or something equally bad.

But the hardback, Inheritance, is apparently the last of a trilogy, so I grabbed the first one which was an attractive blue and had just a cool of a picture of a dragon.

And it was okay.  I can’t think of a fantasy series I really liked… the Myth and Discworld series are fun, but they’re not serious fantasy.  There was an interesting series I can’t recall right now that was a bunch of authors all contributing intermingled stories… [pause for Amazon search]… oh, yeah… Robert Lynn Aspirin’s Thieves’ World.  I liked those okay.

What I did enjoy was a well defined description of how magic worked in this world that provided good, “believable” limitations, which help in keeping the story interesting.  Even the much lauded Harry Potter series was deficient in this respect.  You often end up thinking “Why didn’t he just [insert magic thing here]?”

Even more remarkable is that it was written by a 15 year old who self-published at first, and then got picked up by a large publisher and sold a whole lotta’ books.  So… inspirational.

Book Log – Absurdistan

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Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart

To be sure, Shteyngart is a good writer.

He succeeds in making a fat, entitled, child of a Russian gangster sort-of sympathetic.  The book is vaguely reminiscent of A Confederacy of Dunces in that respect.

There’s also some sort of satire going on here in the fictional country of Absurdistan, with the very real characters of Halliburton and oil and “rebuilding” and government contracts and oh who knows what else.

This story is both amusing and disturbing and often gross (seriously… I don’t need to ever read again such detailed and vivid descriptions of the body of an enormously fat man ever again).

But really… the man is a good writer.

Book Log – Speaking with the Angel

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Speaking with the Angel by Nick Hornby and others

So I bought this collection of short stories because… Nick Hornby.

Also, it benefits Autism.  Or rather, those with Autism.

It’s a collection of stories from a bunch of writers and Colin Firth.

“NippleJesus” was great.  “Walking into the Wind” was very David Sedaris (i.e. good).

In general, this is a fun collection of stories.  I think Colin Firth should stick to acting, and I am forever ashamed by my inability to enjoy Dave Eggers, but overall, this is a good read.

Book Log – The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

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The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Brady Udall

I thought his Lonely Polygamist was a masterpiece, and this earlier work is pretty darn good, too.

We follow the life of a half-Native-American/half-Caucasian boy who had his head run over by a mailman at the age of 7.

And, um… hmm.

Okay, I’m thinking of ways to describe this book, but they all sound depressing in my head.  It’s not a depressing book… it’s just a roller-coaster of hardship with interesting characters.

Brady Udall has a deft touch with his characters.  He can make them gritty without being depressing, though in hindsight, they really should be.

Good book.  I’m going to pick up anything else he’s written, ’cause he’s 2 for 2.

 

Book Log – Zot!

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Zot!: The Complete Black and White Collection: 1987-1991 by Scott McCloud

Curt Holman thought I might enjoy these, and I have enjoyed his non-fiction works on Comics in general.  I picked it up used during an Amazon buying binge a few weeks ago.

It’s an odd little ole comic, this is.  It’s rough, and not super sophisticated.  But it’s got an interesting feel to it.

Like Heroes and Misfits, it toys with the “What if Superheroes were in the real world?” motif.  How can you be in the right place and right time to find a crime to stop?

But it’s actually not about a superhero all that much.  The folks around Zot! actually become bored with his crime-fighting, and the focus of the narrative is often around people chatting while Zot is off-panel battling.  So, it’s about people.  Young teenagers, to be exact.

And those guys are always… interesting.

 

Book Log – Middlesex

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Middlesex by Jeffrey Euginides

From Wikipedia:

The Bildungsroman is a term coined in literary criticism, which purportedly defines a genre of the novel which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood, and in which character change is thus extremely important.

So I learned, or re-learned (as it seems vaguely familiar), that term today.

Middlesex sat on my To Be Read shelf for an embarrassingly long amount of time.  It languished amongst intimidating non-fiction-books-that-seemed-like-a-good-idea-to-buy-at-the-time, like Evolution’s Rainbow and The User’s Guide to the Brain.  Someone, somewhere had recommended it, and it came up on paperbackswap.com, so I snagged it.  A long time ago.

I didn’t really know what it was about; I had a vague sense that it had to do with a hermaphrodite.  I am pretty indifferent about learning about hermaphroditism, and thus I never buckled down to tackle this one.

But… then I saw that John Allison (Scary Go Round, Bad Machinery) listed it as one of his three favorite books.  He knows good stuff, I think.

And he’s right.  It’s a great story.  Several great stories, actually, as we follow three generations of the main character’s family, the conceit being that we are following the path of the defective gene that leads to the main character’s status as an “intersex”.

The writing is strong, the characters are rich, and I wish I’d picked it up sooner.

There’s a lesson in here about selecting reading material.  There’s a big category of topics that I personally label “meh.”  I had zero interest in learning about geishas, but I loved Memoirs of a Geisha.  I need to stop caring as much what the book is about, but rather to how good it is.  Because a good book can make you interested in anything.

Probably.

Book Log – REAMDE

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REAMDE by Neal Stephenson

I mentioned this before, but REAMDE is reminiscent of Stephenson’s Zodiac, which was the first of his novels I read.  I enjoyed Zodiac, but I didn’t go out of my way to find other Stephenson works at the time.  I judged it a good eco-thriller, which are not typically my fare.

REAMDE is a good thriller.  Stephenson writes extremely well, and has some good characters and, well, thrilling moments.  But it’s not what I love Stephenson for.

So, it’s a very good book, but it’s just an okay Stephenson book.

The action spans from the terrain of an online Worlds of Warcraft style game to China to the wilds of the Canadian/US border.  The storyline is at once outlandish and plausible, a testament to Stephenson’s adept plotting.

Hopefully he’s gotten this one out of his system, though, and we can get back to the really good stuff.

 

Book Log – Around the World in Eighty Days

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Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

I was casting about for something to read on Gutenberg.org, and realized I had never read this much-referenced book.

I’m a bit confused, because I seem to remember there being a hot air balloon involved in references I’ve seen, but there was no hot air balloon in the actual story.  I’m going to have to figure that out.

But the story itself is fun, albeit short.  It’s a pretty good read.