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Tue Apr 20 04 / 6:02 AM
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The City Of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
I picked up this book because it was in the children's section with a beautiful bronze cover and it was about the end of the world. I am intensely interested in end of the world themes, maybe because I am not really a people person. It's not the death and destruction I like, but life and what it's like after it's all over and the world is almost empty.
Ember is a city underground, and it's inhabitants have lived there for enough generations to fill 250 years. They don't know why they are there anymore, and they don't know about anything past the darkness outside their city. When the vast storehouses start to run empty, two 12-year old children take it upon themselves to figure out how to leave the city for whatever may lie beyond. Even though the world they find above ground isn't described until the sequel The People of Sparks, the echo of the writing lets you know that it will be empty, and that the people of Ember have lived through the end of it.
It's a novel about real life in a science-fiction setting, which is everything I want my life to be. Almost as good as a John Wyndham book.
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The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau
I burned through The City Of Ember so fast I ran out to get the sequel in hardcover, and I never buy hardcover. But I read it only because I loved the first one, and not because it was any good.
There is no mystery now that the people of Ember know why they lived where they did. The above ground world is a mystery to them, but not to the reader. We see the empty cities from afar, but never go in. The author makes us stay on a farm with the surviving descendants of the end of the world, considering the obvious decision of whether the people of Ember and the people of Sparks will repeat the mistakes of war, or learn to let the first hurt go unreturned.
I returned the book.
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Reading Lolita In Tehran by Azar Nafisi
I have yet to finish this memoir, even though it has lain on the floor beside my bed for a month or two or three. I decided to read it and own it because it seemed socially important and because I loved Lolita by Nabokov.
The problem is that the title only applies to the first chapter, in which the author discusses the work of Lolita with a secretive group of women who are no longer allowed to be interested in such literature. The rest of the book is not so much about reading such literature in Tehran as it is about the conflicts and revolution that brought about the ban on such literature in the first place. And that's just not what I wanted to read about.
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Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
A historical novel destined to become an Oprah title (if it isn't already), but undeserving of that dubious honour. It contains all the features of an Oprah pick: a quick read, female protagonist, forbidden romance, not a deep literary find - but the author turns these elements into something worth reading, and decidedly unfluffy.
This is the story of Griet and how she came to be captured in a famous painting by the 17th century artist Vermeer, as imagined by the author. It is a story created by looking at a painting, and imagining the entire life story of how the subject came to be painted. The story Chevalier comes up with is fascinating and beautiful, and the details of life at that time are reportedly authentic. It is a historical romance with real substance, a short biopic of a real artist, and a compelling look into the creation of art.
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The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson
This book falls into a specific category that I read a lot of, but doesn't really have a name. They are historical, scientific, and biographical all at once. They aren't as easy to read as fiction, but are friendlier than true histories, science texts, or biographies. They are written more for learning random things than for the art of writing and reading. They make you well-rounded.
This particular title was fun enough to read, and I went through it quickly, but it was a book that tried to take two seperate subjects and place them in the same context, when even the book itself showed they didn't have much to do with each other. The White City is the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, and the unbelievable untried feats of engineering and architecture that went into building it are awesome. The Devil is a now-famous serial killer who operated in Chicago at the same time, but not in any manner so intertwined with the fair as the title suggests.
Still, a worthwhile read for either of the subjects, with each of them serving as an engaging distraction from the other.
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On Writing by Stephen King
A fast and enjoyable read, but more like a memoir than a guide to writing. Stephen King fans can pick it up as an official autobiography and ignore the two or three chapters dedicated to writing as a craft. A summation of the writing tips:
- read a lot
- write a lot
- have good grammar
- story is more important than plot
- always omit needless words
Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around. By art he means popular fiction.
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Bringing Down The House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas For Millions by Ben Mezrich
This is a cool book in a novel-esque format. Besides being an interesting true story to talk about, it teaches you the basics of card counting for blackjack. On a deeper level, it not-so-quietly makes you believe in getting rich quick and the stupendous potential of being young and smart. I recommend this book more for guys than girls, and especially for programmers and engineers and other such types who don't usually read for leisure but want to.
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Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
When I was younger I had an unending appetite for reading. In university I had to read required texts at the same pace I used to read for fun, and somewhere among the Milton and the Canadian History and the Oceanography, reading became simply one of the things I could do for entertainment, and not the one thing I'd rather do above all else. It makes me wonder where that desire I used to have went.
Reading Middlesex gives me back some of that feeling. It is a book that will give you joy while reading it. When you have finished it, when you are trying to discuss it with others, that quality of joy drifts away. But while you are flipping the pages, awake in bed hours too late, the words and the story and the characters become so fluid that they wash over you and you realize that this is the reading that people who love reading do.
Middlesex is a 100-year history of a Greek family who passes on a recessive gene for hermaphrodism until the birth of Calliope in 1960, and her rebirth in 1974 as Cal. It follows Cal's grandparents and parents and finally Cal through their young and adult lives, and even if you don't care about the burning of Smyrna or the race riots in Detroit or the sexual culture of 1970s San Francisco or any of Cal's family, you will still want to read about them.
I guess this is why Middlesex won a Pulitzer Prize. If it turns out you don't enjoy reading it, you can at least feel satisfied that you will be more well-read after doing so.
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With every intention of reading:
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Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
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The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, And The Quest For The Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene
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A Brief History Of Time by Stephen Hawking
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God's Secretaries: The Making Of The King James Bible by Adam Nicolson
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In The Skin Of A Lion by Michael Ondaatje
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