Found by Davy Rothbart

Posted by melydia on December 25, 2012 No comment

Found by Davy Rothbart: This book is kind of amazing. Yes, it’s filled with assorted found items (mostly handwritten notes), but what gets me is how it looks like the whole thing was laid out by hand and photocopied, like a higher-quality version of a zine. It’s also not the sort of thing you can just casually flip through. I found myself repeatedly sucked into the stories of these strangers, at times sad and hilarious and maddening – sometimes simultaneously. It’s inspired me to look down from time to time to see what treasures lay at my feet. I also have a couple things I may yet send in.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

P.S. – Merry Christmas! May you find joy today. :)

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Posted by melydia on December 21, 2012 1 comment

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (unabridged audiobook read by Ari Graynor; 14 hrs on 12 discs): Clary is an ordinary teenager living an ordinary life until the night she meets a trio of demon hunters. They are just as surprised to see her as she is, since they are usually invisible to mundanes. She barely has time to get used to the idea of demons being real before her mother is attacked by one. With the help of shadow hunter Jace, Clary begins the search for her mother and answers to questions about her past. The writing is nothing special – things land “with a dull thud” and people let out breaths they didn’t know they were holding – and I saw every single plot twist coming a mile away. But the characters are fun and the world building clearly extensive. I admit, I was a little put off at first by the main character sharing a name (and hair color) with the author. Luckily, Clary didn’t come across as too glaring of an author insertion. I’ve heard the series goes downhill after a few books, but I think I’ll at least give it one more volume. This world is way too much fun to give up just yet.

The Daria Diaries by Anne D. Bernstein

Posted by melydia on December 18, 2012 No comment

The Daria Diaries by Anne D. Bernstein: I remember watching the show back when it was first on, but either I didn’t watch much or I’ve forgotten most of it in the intervening fifteen years, because parts of this book were quite unfamiliar to me. Or it could be that I’ve simply outgrown the high school angst and boredom that’s so smartly satired here. (Nah!) It was a nice distraction while I suffered from a nasty ear infection, but all in all I think this book would be better suited to a diehard fan of the show. Which is, to be fair, who it was written for in the first place. It doesn’t stand on its own that well.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman

Posted by melydia on December 14, 2012 No comment

The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman: I picked up this book because the cover was completely plastered with tiny text so ridiculous that I knew I needed it. This is more or less a book of trivia – trivia that is entirely composed of lies. And a weird obsession with hobos. It probably would be better read a little bit at a time rather than straight through like I did, but there were certainly some very funny tidbits of random. I think I was most amazed at the fact that pretty much every single footnote, no matter how absurd, actually did refer to another section of the book. Including, for example, beard trends. Look, I don’t know. If you think non sequiturs are funny, this is probably the book for you.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin

Posted by melydia on December 11, 2012 1 comment

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin: An emissary arrives on a planet called Winter, where the people are strangely unisexual. That is, they’re asexual until a certain time of the month, when they turn one gender or the other and, er, go into heat, as it were. This is the story of the emissary, who is a human man, as he attempts to convince the people of Winter to join the federation of human worlds. Winter, as its name suggests, is in the middle of a vast ice age. Like many classic SF tales, this is far more about the concept than the plot, but what a concept! The questions it raises regarding gender identity and its effects on society are legion. I wouldn’t say so much that I enjoyed it, but I did find it very interesting. Had the characters been a touch more compelling, it would have been un-put-downable.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie

Posted by melydia on December 7, 2012 No comment

The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie (unabridged audiobook read by Simon Prebble; 10.75 hours on 9 CDs): Thomas Lang somehow manages to get himself entangled in a high-stakes game of intrigue in this tale which comes across as almost a spoof of the spy genre. Lang himself is absolutely hysterical – I laughed aloud many times. His random commentary just tickled me. As for the story, I liked that I didn’t always know what was going to happen next, without feeling like everything was being pulled out of thin air. And, as usual, I am having a terrible time thinking of things to say about a book I really enjoyed, except to say that I enjoyed it. I wish Laurie would write more fiction.

A note on the audio: I really wish Laurie had read this himself, but Prebble did a fine job (as usual). Except his American accent was kind of…bad. Especially for the female characters. But that’s okay. I still had a great time.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

101 Things in 1001 Days

Posted by melydia on December 6, 2012 No comment

A little less than three years ago, a friend of mine convinced me to join her in the Day Zero Project, also known as 101 Things in 1001 Days. The concept is simple: write a list of 101 things you want to do over the next 1001 days, then do them. The amazing thing is how well this works at forcing me to actually do a bunch of things I’ve been meaning to do but just never seem to get around to. Like visiting a lighthouse or installing a bird feeder. The goals can be as simple or complex as you want, though I’ve found that the most important thing is to make them measurable. Just like New Year’s Resolutions, vague things like “exercise more” tend to be forgotten.

Today is my 1001st day. It has been quite the lesson in priorities. I only completed 62 things, but I also discovered a number of things I didn’t actually want to do as much as I thought I did. A new 1001 days starts tomorrow, and yes, I already have my list. Care to join me on this crazy journey? Follow along on my 101/1001 blog.

For a complete run-down and wrap-up of my first 101 Things, click here.  There will be a shiny new list up tomorrow!

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Posted by melydia on December 4, 2012 No comment

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (unabridged audiobook read by Bianca Amato and Jill Tanner; 15.75 hrs on 13 discs): Vida Winter, an author of Agatha Christie-level fame and popularity, is old and ailing and finally ready to tell the truth about her life after fifty years of telling each would-be biographer a different, obviously fabricated version of her childhood. She chooses Margaret Lea, a young woman with painful secrets of her own, to record the tale. Lea becomes entranced with the story, as did I. It is about twins, and ghosts, and madness, and love. The characters are at once repellent and oddly compelling. I would advise a strong stomach for parts, but by and large I absolutely loved this story. The ending was so satisfying I had a goofy grin on my face for quite a bit of the last couple chapters. My only confusion was that I couldn’t figure out what time period it was supposed to take place in. Lea uses pencil and paper to write, and relies on almanacs and handwritten letters to genealogists for her research. But cars and trains and telephones are commonplace items. Winter’s tale, which begins with the birth of her mother, spans nearly a century, but never once is there a single mention of either World War. No matter where you were in England at the time, surely the wars were something that impacted everyone. So that was a bit of a mystery, but quite a small one. I’ll have to keep an eye out for Setterfield’s next novel.

A note on the audio: Both readers were excellent. I listened to Amato Her Fearful Symmetry, which was also about twins and ghosts. Kind of an odd coincidence. (Evidently I also listened to Tanner read Atonement – I thought I recognized her voice!)

The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Posted by melydia on November 30, 2012 1 comment

The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte: Lucas Corso is a book detective – that is, he finds and authenticates various rare volumes for wealthy collectors. In this tale, he finds both an original manuscript of a chapter from The Three Musketeers, as well as The Nine Doors, a manual for summoning the devil that was supposedly burned some four hundred years ago. While verifying both texts, Corso comes across some unusual differences between the engravings of the three existing copies of The Nine Doors. People start dying, and Corso keeps running into characters from The Three Musketeers come to life, and the whole thing gets pretty weird. When I was about two thirds of the way through, I was describing the plot to my husband, who commented that it sounded quite a bit like The Ninth Gate. Sure enough, that film is based on the book, except all the Dumas bits are removed and the ending changed. I hated the ending to the movie. The book is better in that respect, but while I was completely rapt up until the last couple chapters, the Big Reveal left me a little cold. But hey, loving an entire book save two chapters is better than I can say about many others.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto

Posted by melydia on November 27, 2012 2 comments

As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto: In the late 1960s, the Reimers give birth to identical twin boys. When one is mutilated in a botched circumcision, they follow the advice of psychologist John Money to have the boy surgically castrated and raised as a girl. Money believes that people are sexually neutral at birth, that gender identity is entirely the product of environment, not biology. Identical twin boys give him the perfect opportunity to prove this theory. The “girl” rebels from the start, knowing something is wrong, but still the experiment continues, growing more disturbing over time. The psychologist even has the twins engaging in pretend sex play, nude, while he takes pictures.

This is not a novel. This actually happened. The whole thing is both highly disturbing and undeniably compelling. I was absolutely appalled at much of what went on under the guise of medicine, and at what lengths Money went to in order to confirm his cherished theories. The good news is that much of this led to changes in the field of sexual psychology, but that doesn’t make it less infuriating to read about. Definitely recommended if you’re at all interested in gender identity, but it’s a bit hard to take at times.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

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