books 8-11
8. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. This was one of those books I'd been thinking of reading at some point, but wasn't sufficiently motivated to actually go looking for it or anything. It was sitting in the new books section of the library last time I went so I picked it up. It was okay, but nothing special. I was interested in learning about the whole geisha way of life, but I don't really trust that the depiction was entirely accurate.
9. Rabbithead by Rebecca Dart. I picked this comic book up because the title and cover looked cute, but it wasn't as cute a story as I was expecting. The layout with different characters branching out into their own series of panels was interesting. It's pretty short and has no words, so I'm not sure it should count as a book, really.
10. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. This is another book I wasn't really motivated to bother reading, but two of my housemates just read it and were so enthusiastic in forcing their copies on the rest of us that I read it. I have to admit, I'm a book snob, and the worst kind, in that I'm automatically suspicious of anything for which large numbers of people loudly proclaim their love, so I wasn't really trying to love the book. Multiple people stopping me on public transport to tell me how great it was didn't help, either (of course, if the book were more obscure, that might endear it to me). It's not that it's a bad book. I liked it more than Memoirs of a Geisha, for example, but only greatness could live up to the hype. The plot points were rather too neat for me. Now I have to return the book without being forced to be more enthusiastic than I really am.
11. Atonement by Ian McEwan. I read Saturday recently and quite liked it, although again it didn't live up to the hype. This one was supposed to be a better book. I'm only on page 90, but I'm already getting very impatient for the thing that has to be atoned for to happen.
Once again, Andrea has posted a book-related meme just in time for inclusion in this series:
A new version of 23rd and 5th.
Instructions:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that cool or intellectual book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
Atonement is right here, so I'll skip ahead for this. Maybe I'll find out what the heinous crime is!
"He went over it again and it looked the same. There was no way out, he would have to speak to her. He put his hand over the bell push."
guess not...
posted by Lucy @ 6:12 PM
9
comments
9 Comments:
I read McEwan's The cement garden, and I highly recommend it. It has much psychological interest, if you are into that.
I avoid reading books everyone else loves. I never will read Kite Runner because I too am a book snob, plus I seek out non-fiction for my tales of afghanistan.
I'm going to leave mine here: from Henry Roth's Call it Sleep, the irate father of the protagonist at the fickleness of a colleague:
"He wouldn't say anything! He wouldn't even ride home with me -- had to go somewhere -- some lame excuse! And that marriage-broker affair!"
Ug--I felt the exact same way about the Kite Runner. I didn't want to like it, I liked it for a minute, and then not so much again by the end. Book snobs unite!
'Nother book snob (BS, as we call ourselves) who was given Kite Runner by my mom, and it's sitting in (the bottom) of a huge pile of books.
thanks shrinkykitten. I ended up loving Atonement so I'll try that one.
Kermit, that's an intriguing passage. Would you recommend the book?
Yay for book snobbery! I'm feeling like a bad BS now, though for actually reading some crappy books.
Sheepish, it can definitely stay at the bottom of the pile until you have nothing else left to read.
Lucy - The book's very good. In brief, it's the story of a Jewish-American kid growing up in Manhattan in the 19-teens; he has a furious father and mother who's incredibly attached to him (and he to her). It's a very modernist take on the immigrant-growing-up story: there are some stream-of-consciousness excursions into the protagonist's thoughts, and, because many of the characters speak Yiddish to each other, their speech is rendered in "normal" English, while when they actually speak in English, it's presented as accented dialect: "Wadda yuh wan' I shul do?" for example. So in the passage I quoted above, the father's actually speaking in Yiddish. Anyway, it's a bit long, and in my opinion drags a bit in the middle, but the first and last sections are very powerful. So it's an investment of time/emotional energy, but I'd definitely recommend it.
LOL YOu'll have to let me know when you need another book meme so I'll have time to dig one up.
do you have enough book memes for a new one every week or so? :)
oh, and thanks Kermit, it does sound interesting
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