Tagged With: Reading

I’ve been out of books for about a week now and I’m grouchy as a bear at a baiting. My similes are also suffering. Does anyone have a book to recommend? I don’t care what genre, as long as it’s totally engrossing. And ideally not too gross; no Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. (Side note: … Continue reading »

I remember once, in high school — it was just after French class, not that that matters — I got in a conversation with two or three other girls who were earnestly trying to convince me that the female orgasm couldn’t have been invented until the Renaissance. No way, they said, were ladies having a … Continue reading »

I just finished reading Blue Latitudes, Tony Horwitz’s nonfiction best seller about Captain Cook. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Horwitz presents a ton of information about Cook, from his globe-encompassing routes to small details about the man (Cook was tall, and did not seem to understand the point of religion). He also travels to many of Cook’s … Continue reading »

Before I lost the book, I was reading Michele’s copy of Eclipse, the third in a series of vampire/werewolf/teen novels by Stephanie Meyer that we both enjoy. (The first two were Twilight and New Moon.) The above description (vampire/werewolf/teen) is intentional: in these books, teenage girls really are the third monster. The books chronicle the … Continue reading »

This weekend I read a bunch of Roald Dahl’s short stories for adults. His stories are told in a voice I associate with Thurber: that boozy, 1950s war-of-the-sexes voice, where male characters are only interested in sex and drinking and female characters are only interested in nagging their husbands and drinking. It’s so far from … Continue reading »

The Changeover is a soothing read because nothing really bad happens. I mean, bad things do happen, but you’re removed from the emotion of the scene because of the beauty of the writing. It’s similar to the way Michael Ondaatje can write an emotionally-charged scene that actually calms the reader down — although I’m not … Continue reading »

I finished The California Feeling sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk outside our house while Gene changed the oil on his bike. I felt cliched all over again: lolling around on the filthy city ground, happy as a hippie in the sun and shit. (I mean, I hope not shit. But not everyone is thorough about … Continue reading »

Monday found me lounging in the sun by my parents’ pool, sipping a strawberry margarita and reading The California Feeling by Peter S. Beagle. Self, I said to myself, you could not be more cliche right now. Beagle is known for his fantasy novels, especially The Last Unicorn, but in my opinion he saves his … Continue reading »

I’m reading a book I bought at the library sale this weekend. The book is translated from Danish, and one part reads: “He was bitter that it was the forensic odontologists and not him who were the big stars…” In pencil, a previous owner has neatly crossed out that “him” and in a spidery cursive … Continue reading »