Challenge Your Assumptions
New commenter John clued me in to a really cool-sounding challenge: New Notions Five. Here’s what it’s all about:
Monthly Archives: April 2007
Three Character Meme
Found this meme courtesy of Amy, the Sleepy Reader. Name up to three characters . . . 1. You wish were real so you could meet them:
The Rule of Four zzzzzzzzz
The Superfast Reader hates to give up on books, but somewhere around page 140 of The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason I went all “life’s too short and my TBR stack too big for this crap.”
Who Stole Feminism? by Christina Hoff Sommers
Synopsis: Hoff Sommers debunks “gender feminism” and the scare tactics its proponents use to promote their radical agenda. Review: Susan Faludi’s Backlash came out when I was in college, and had a tremendous impact on me. Today, I consider myself a feminist with reservations. I’ll speak out wherever I can against injustice against women, but where feminism aligns itself with the culture of death in our society I stop being a supporter. My feminism has grown into a hatred of injustice against all who are…
Emotional Reads
I like to be moved by literature, which is why I don’t go crazy for metafiction or postmodernism or overly intellectual fiction (Don DeLillo, Thomas Pyncheon, etc.). Such was the book I read yesterday for work. Otter asks, What are the five books in your library (or memory) that stirred the greatest emotive reaction in you? What I mean is, what five (or more) books most brought you close to tears, laughter, anger, whatever?
The House of Stairs by Barbara Vine
Synopsis: A woman haunted by the uncertain onset of a genetic disease sees a woman from her past, and struggles to fill in the gaps between truth and lies from a time in her life marked by violence and murder. Review: House of Stairs is yet another knockout from Barbara Vine, the British crime writer who pens the Inspector Wexford mysteries as Ruth Rendell. The tease here is that Vine isn’t going to reveal the identity of the murder victim until the final pages, and…
Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
Synopsis: When a troubled teen on probation for vandalism is falsely accused by a fellow student, he comes face-to-face with the demons raised by his troubled family life. Review: My love for Laurie Halse Anderson’s books knows no bounds, and Twisted is just as good as her astonishing debut Speak. In Twisted, she steps inside the head of a young man for the first time, and she gets it dead-on, not shying away from all the things about teen guys that are icky and messy…
On Becoming Fearless by Arianna Huffington
My review of Arianna Huffington’s On Becoming Fearless… in Love, Work, and Life appeared on BlogCritics today. I usually don’t read books like this, but it actually wasn’t terrible.
Blindness by Henry Green
Synopsis: A young man on the verge of university is blinded in a freak accident. Review: Henry Green’s later books Loving, Living, and Party Going were referenced quite a bit in Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, but I chose to start with Blindness because it was listed in the infamous 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. It’s a slim volume, and I breezed through it, though Green’s marvelous turns of phrase caused me to pause and relish.
The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams
Synopsis: After the death of the beloved king, a land falls into chaos and war, and one young boy finds that his destiny is inextricably linked with that of his people. Review: The Dragonbone Chair is the first in an epic fantasy trilogy that borrows from Arthurian legend and the myth of Prester John, among others, in a vaguely medieval world where dragons are not yet a memory. I found book one to be a very slow start to a series that got rave after…