Tag Archives: book reviews

On Writing by Stephen King

Posted by melydia on November 18, 2005 None comments

On Writing by Stephen King: I have read very little King in my time – The Gunslinger might be the only one – but he is prolific and popular but not too pretentious, so he is worth listening to. This is a book in two sections: memoirs and writing advice. The memoirs felt a little tedious, but I understand why they were included. Your life – especially your childhood – is what shapes your writing.

Many writing books are either discouraging (you will never get published unless your father owns Random House) or full of shiny happy talk about creative orgasms (anyone can write brilliantly – just let it flow). King finds a happy medium between the two. While he does lay down some strict but reasonable ground rules about grammar, editing, and reading (if you don’t have the time to read, he says, you don’t have the time or the tools to write), he is also full of solid advice and real encouragement. This book was recommended to me as something every aspiring author should read. I concur.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Posted by melydia on November 10, 2005 None comments

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott: This is more or less a distilled version of one of Lamott’s writing courses. In it she explains the importance of shitty first drafts, short assignments, and writing partners, among other things. She shares many intimate moments from her life, both writing and otherwise, as well as her responses to the usual questions from her students. This book came recommended as one of those books that every aspiring writer must read. In a way I agree with this: Lamott is brutally honest about the trials and tribulations of writing without sounding bleak or condescending (like some other people I have read). On the contrary, she’s very funny. Her descriptions of her anguish as she waits for a response from her agent and her suspicion that all her friends are having a party behind her back are great, mostly because I – like most writers – have definitely been there. She puts a humorous spin on the artistic angst that comes with the territory. You may feel like every other writer on the planet sits down at their computer with a sunny disposition and a thousand ideas that pour out like liquid gold onto the page, but that’s simply not true. Lamott’s entertaining wit helped remind me that all this nonsense really is normal, and the only remedy is to get back to writing.

However, this book did not fill me with the heaping piles of inspiration that other writing books have in the past. Some part of me is now filled with the newfound fear that I am neither brave enough nor honest enough to churn out truly excellent fiction. But in the end, perhaps that’s not really the point. After all, if you’re not writing because you want to write – if you just want to be published and receive all the attention and reassurance that you believe it brings (which it really doesn’t) – then maybe you should be rethinking this whole writing thing. To the artist, the creation of the art, however anxiety-ridden or frustrating or exhausting the process may be at times, is its own reward. Sure, it may never be published and nobody but your family may ever read it, but you still can change lives. Maybe even your own.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

A Void by Georges Perec

Posted by melydia on November 2, 2005 None comments

A Void by Georges Perec, translated by Gilbert Adair: This was originally a novel written in French without use of the letter e, which was then translated into English under the same constraints. I sort of suspect that this little literary game was the main reason it was published at all. This was the kind of book I would have liked to read for a class, where someone would stop and explain what was going on every few chapters. It was far too tedious and heavy on the smug cleverness for my patience as a casual reader. I got about sixty pages in, then realized I was skipping and skimming more than I was actually reading, so I gave up.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan

Posted by melydia on October 27, 2005 None comments

The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan: I almost put down this book after the first fifty pages or so, but I’m glad I stuck with it. I had two major concerns that turned out to be unfounded. This book was neither a recycled Joy Luck Club nor a tiresomely preachy precautionary tale about the dangers of keeping secrets from your loved ones until it’s too late. Sure, it starts off with secrets being kept by a Chinese woman, Winnie, from her Chinese-American daughter (and vice versa) but the bulk of the book is Winnie telling her daughter the story of her life in China during WWII. It reads like your grandmother telling you about her childhood in the old country: very personal and occasionally exaggerated, with a lot of unimportant details – much like all human memories. A few times I tired of the constant “oh my life in China was so horrible” refrain, but the ending is satisfying, uplifting, and very much worth it. I don’t know if I’ll actively search out more books by Amy Tan – I can only read about women who escape oppression in China so many times – but her lyrical prose and poetic metaphors were very lovely. If I ever find something by her with a vastly different plot I’ll scoop it up immediately, just to immerse myself in her gorgeous writing style once again.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns

Posted by melydia on October 16, 2005 None comments

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns: Will Tweedy was 14 years old and living in Cold Sassy, Georgia, in the summer of 1906 when his grandpa came home one day to announce he was marrying a woman half his age, not three weeks after the death of his first wife, Will’s grandmother. The town, of course, is scandalized, and continues to be so as the story wears on. This is more of a “slice of life” depiction than much of a story – the author starts with a setting (the town of Cold Sassy) and a premise (Grandpa’s new bride), and meanders through clever little anecdotes and asides for a while until the author decides it’s time to end the story and starts killing off characters. This is not a bad story, just a fairly standard one. I don’t have very strong feelings about it either way. The constant backcountry dialect got kind of old, but I feel that way about all books narrated in dialect so that’s not exactly serious criticism. On the other hand, I could hear all the characters in my head with no problem. In the end, if you like this era of historical fiction, you’ll enjoy the feeling of living in Cold Sassy; if you prefer more plot-driven stories where everything happens for a reason, you might want to skip this one.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Posted by melydia on October 5, 2005 None comments

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold: Susie Salmon was murdered at age 14 in the early 1970s. Susie herself narrates this story as she looks down from heaven, starting with her death and following her family over the next decade. My feelings about this book are fairly tepid. It’s well-written but a little heavy on the grief and family drama. While this is understandable given the circumstances, I felt like I was reading a cross between “Cold Case Files” and “The Wonder Years,” with a dash of “Seventh Heaven” thrown in. I also felt like the author couldn’t decide between supernatural fantasy and gritty realism, never quite reaching a happy medium either. A decent read, but don’t go into it expecting a murder mystery. It’s a touching family drama through and through.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan

Posted by melydia on October 1, 2005 1 comments

The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan: Have you ever read something that filled you with such furvor that you wanted to write your own thoughts along those same lines, but whenever you tried you found you did nothing but repeat the original article?

That’s been me all over the place with The Demon-Haunted World. I want to ramble about the wonder of science, the importance of skepticism, the fact that school all but completely robbed me of any desire to learn, the dangers of pseudoscience, the intrinsic value of basic research even if it doesn’t lead to a specific application right away…but Sagan says it all, and he says it better than I ever could. This is one of those amazing books that made me think long and hard about a lot of things. It made me want to know more about the universe, to revisit old assumptions and condescensions, to step back a moment and drink it all in.

Sagan speaks as one with a giddy love for the scientific process, one whose healthy skepticism does not make him stodgy or closed to new ideas. Much of the first half of the book is spent more or less on aliens – not only explanations for much of what is attributed to extraterrestrial activity, but why people assume aliens at all. He does grump a little about the dumbing-down of American entertainment and its lack of accurate science, but coming from someone who prizes knowledge so highly, I can understand his disappointment at the popularity of shows like “Beavis & Butthead” and “Dumb & Dumber.” Likewise his unhappiness with dwindling popular and government support of science research and education.

This book is absolutely astounding. It’s one of the few that I recommend to anyone, even (and perhaps especially) if it challenges some of your closely held viewpoints. It did mine.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

Posted by melydia on September 14, 2005 None comments

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow: The premise was what caught my eye. Julius lives in Walt Disney World in the not-so-distant future, in a world ruled by the Bitchun Society. That society has managed to eradicate both death and money: if you die you simply restore yourself using a quick-grown clone made with a backup of your brain, and all wealth is based on reputation – the higher people’s opinions of you, the more you can “buy.” The world is not run by governments, but rather small committee-like groups called adhocracies. This particular story revolves around the ad-hocs that run the Hall of Presidents and Haunted Mansion in the Magic Kingdom.

I spent a little too much of this book feeling exasperated – Julius is hot-headed and does some pretty stupid stuff for no particular reason – but things work out in the end, and it’s short enough (just over 200 pages) that it’s worth the minor amount of effort required to stick it out. It’s a clever little what-if story and I enjoyed the sly pop-culture jokes (like the name of the Bitchun Society, for one). If you’re looking for something that deals with the headier questions of immortality, economics, and social interaction, this book would probably be a bit too shallow for you. However, if you’re interested in a quick bit of light Sci Fi, check this one out.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

And She Was by Cindy Dyson

Posted by melydia on September 10, 2005 None comments

And She Was by Cindy Dyson: Brandy is a young woman who drifts through life, moving from man to man, following each wherever he takes her. At the start of this book she has just followed the latest all the way to Dutch, a tiny town on the Aleutian Island of Unalaska. Intertwined with her story is that of several generations of Aleutian women, each sacrificing so that her people may live. The first half of the book is kind of slow, paddling around in shallow waters to thoroughly set the scene. After that it picks up, both the story and its characters gaining depth as Brandy begins her slow transformation at the edge of the world.

This is an atmospheric book, in that it involves highly detailed characters with highly detailed backstories living in a highly detailed world, but not a whole lot actually happens. It is not the kind of book that keeps you up at night, dying to read just one more chapter. This is not necessarily a bad thing – this is a good book to curl up with on a quiet afternoon and just let yourself travel to the Aleutians of twenty years ago.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Posted by melydia on September 5, 2005 None comments

Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman: Three books (Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night, and Dragons of Spring Dawning) that comprise a single story, so I’m reviewing them all together. I’m not usually interested in multiple-author series fantasy, but this trilogy is one of my fiance’s all-time favorites and he wanted to share them with me. These books were inspired largely by a role playing campaign using the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons system. I wish I hadn’t known that beforehand, because too often I caught myself imagining not elves fighting dragons, but people rolling dice. It didn’t help that the map was obviously drawn on hex paper. Luckily, this feeling subsided almost completely after the first book.

This was a nice bit of “bubblegum fantasy” (not my term, and not meant to be derogatory either). Full of stereotypes – the half-breed with torn loyalties, the duty-obsessed knight, the healing priestess, the grouchy old dwarf with a heart of gold, the fearless thief who provides comic relief, the mysterious mage, the huge brute of a man who’s always hungry – but they are comforting and familiar, not shallow and cliche. Likewise with the plot: a group of unlikely heroes go on a quest to save the world. In this case, they are looking for a way to defeat the evil dragons and their minions through the discovery and/or recreation of the legendary dragonlance. Cheesy? Perhaps, but the characters are well-written and the action is almost nonstop. If you like your fantasy traditional and epic, this trilogy’s for you. As for me, no matter what other genres I read and adore, there will always be a part of me that yearns to go a-questing. These books fill that need.

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