Cod by Mark Kurlansky

Posted by melydia on November 23, 2012 No comment

Cod by Mark Kurlansky (unabridged audiobook read by Richard M. Davidson; 7.75 hours on 7 discs): Apparently cod has a long an illustrious history I had absolutely no idea about. I’m not sure I’ve ever knowingly eaten cod, to be honest, but I guess it used to be a big thing. My favorite parts were the social and linguistic effects of this fish. The history and bizarre political maneuvers were pretty fun to learn about as well. The recipes, however, did nothing for me. Probably of more interest to foodies.

A note on the audio: There are a whole bunch of recipes interspersed in this book, with a big collection of them at the end. Which would be interesting to peruse, I suppose, but it lost something on audio.

So Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld

Posted by melydia on November 20, 2012 No comment

So Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld (unabridged audiobook read by Scott Brick; 6 hrs 33 min 6 on discs): Hunter is sort of a Cool Detector – that is, he looks for things that are novel and shoots them off to a certain major brand to see about incorporating it into future designs. The story opens with him meeting Jen, who has tied her shoelaces in a particularly unusual way. When Hunter’s boss disappears, he and Jen find themselves chasing a group of sort-of anarchists. It’s a somewhat interesting take on what makes something “cool” or popular, and why trends fade so quickly, but being someone so totally not fashion-conscious in any form, I couldn’t always relate. I’ve never seen a pair of shoes, for example, that I just had to have. That’s an utterly foreign idea to me. All the same, the story itself was kind of fun and Westerfeld always spins a decent yarn. I just wasn’t the right audience.

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Posted by melydia on November 16, 2012 No comment

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green (unabridged audiobook read by Jeff Woodman; 7 hours on 6 discs): I came into this expecting to love it, as I have loved every other John Green book I’ve read. And I did, though there were parts that hit uncomfortably close to home. Colin is a prodigy – that is, he learns and retains information extremely well and quickly. He is not necessarily, he maintains, a genius (someone who comes up with truly original ideas). When the 19th Katherine in a row dumps him right after high school graduation, his hilarious friend Hassan takes him on a road trip that ultimately lands them in Gutshot, Tennessee. I picked out the love interest in about three nanoseconds, which was kind of annoying, but the characters themselves were so much fun it didn’t really matter. I fell a little bit in love with Hassan, but that seems par for the course with me and Green’s secondary characters. This book says a lot about self-centeredness and being special, lessons I took a long time to learn. In short, I wish I’d read this, like, fifteen years ago. Too bad Green is almost my same age, and probably hadn’t learned these lessons yet fifteen years ago either. Oh well. I’ll get a TARDIS and remedy this at some point, I’m sure.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Angelica by Arthur Phillips

Posted by melydia on November 13, 2012 No comment

Angelica by Arthur Phillips (unabridged audiobook read by Susan Lyons; 13 hours on 11 discs): Constance Barton has had enough miscarriages that the doctors now forbid her to have intercourse with her husband, for one more pregnancy will likely kill her. She begins to fear his every touch, but when a strange spirit seems to be attacking their daughter, she starts to see connections between it and her husband’s behavior. She hires a spiritualist, but it may already be too late. The story is told from four points of view, one after the other, each adding a new layer to the confusion. Is there really a ghost or is it hokum? Is the spiritualist a charlatan or can she really help? Much of the drama stems from the Victorian mores and inability to discuss anything frankly, which is kind of annoying to my modern sensibilities. I kept hoping for something truly interesting to happen, but in the end, it really didn’t. I was kind of meh about the whole thing, hoping for something a little bit more epic. Ah well.

The Food of the Gods by H.G. Wells

Posted by melydia on November 9, 2012 No comment

The Food of the Gods by H.G. Wells: Two men create a substance to accelerate growth in any living thing, which is fine for vegetables but gets a little out of hand when wasps the size of dogs plague a nearby village. Things really start getting weird when one of them has the brilliant idea to feed the stuff to his infant son. This is a decent premise, but turned out not to be one of my favorite Wells stories. The characters fell a little flat and the story sort of unraveled as if Wells had this great idea and then had no idea what to do with it. It wasn’t bad so much as it just didn’t really hold my interest.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America by Julian Montague

Posted by melydia on November 6, 2012 1 comment

The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America by Julian Montague: This is one of those books shelved in the humor section only because most bookstores don’t have a WTF section. It is, in short, exactly what the title suggests: a study of shopping carts that have escaped their shops and parking lots. The subject matter is taken so seriously and each cart categorized so meticulously that it’s difficult to accept that this is all truly meant as a joke. I read the entire thing, though, and actually quite enjoyed the photography. There’s a certain beauty to the urban decay represented here. My favorite category, of which there was far too little, was “complex vandalism” – and more specifically, the cart somehow launched atop a street sign. I don’t know that I would necessarily recommend this book to anyone, but I suppose there is a certain sort of person whose book collection would be incomplete without it. Find them, and give them this book.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Posted by melydia on November 2, 2012 No comment

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith: Tom Ripley is sent to Europe to find Dickie Greenleaf and convince him to come home to his parents. The men were acquaintances once upon a time, and Dickie’s father, at the end of his rope, finances Ripley’s trip. Instead of admitting that the two barely remember each other, Ripley slowly inserts himself into Dickie’s life, ultimately deciding that he, Tom Ripley, is more deserving of such a life. The ensuing series of close calls and further deceptions makes for quite the suspenseful read. I kept turning the page, wanting to see how Ripley would get out of this particular scrape, and whether, in the end, his caper would succeed. Definitely recommended if you like (somewhat disturbing) psychological thrillers.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Posted by melydia on October 30, 2012 No comment

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs: Thank goodness there’s going to be a sequel. I devoured this book quite quickly, desperate to know what happens next, and the story felt like it ended kind of in the middle. I mean, I suppose it could technically be thought of as “open-ended” but I cannot wait to hear the rest of the story. I love the characters. Basically, this is a tale written around olde-timey photographs. Jacob grew up hearing his grandfather’s fantastic tales of the children he knew when staying in a Welsh orphanage during World War II. After his grandfather’s death and mysterious last words, Jacob journeys to Wales to see if he can find any of these people still living. The photographs were a great addition, though all of them were (somewhat needlessly) intricately described in the text as well. This book, full of abandoned houses and time travel and unlikely companions really captured my imagination. I’ll definitely be reading it again someday.

ATC Sunday

Posted by melydia on October 28, 2012 No comment

Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer

Posted by melydia on October 26, 2012 No comment

Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer: I think, perhaps, that this book was not quite what I thought it was going to be. What I wanted – and this is no fault of the author’s – was a book debunking specific “weird things”. While I got a decent amount of that in the (fascinating) chapter on Holocaust deniers, by and large it was more about the psychological and emotional reasons people believe things that don’t make any sense. Which is fine, as far as that goes, but it seemed to keep returning to the same few theories each time. I guess you could say he was making his case with additional evidence, but I got a sort of “okay, I got it, move on” feeling about the whole thing. In short, it’s an interesting read but probably something you’d more enjoy reading a chapter here and there rather than straight through.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

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