January Reading

All right, well, I still don't have time to write something thoughtful about what I've been reading, so I'm just going to list what I've read so far:

Book #1 of 2006: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers. I probably don't have to write anything about this anyway, since everyone in my age range has already read it. Thumbs up from me.

#2: The Quiet American, by Graham Greene. I liked this, as well. I mostly read it because I was traveling to Saigon and the book is set there, and I wanted to be as big a cliche as possible. I thought I was so clever picking this up on my way over there, and then when we got there every little street child was selling bootleg copies of the book to tourists. Not quite as clever as I thought I was, now, was I?

#3: Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson. I know she's a Whitbread winner and all, but I Did. Not. Like. This. Book. It was good enough for me to finish it, and the story line was all right, but the thing that bothered me to no end was the author's incessant use of parentheses, usually as an aside showing what a character was thinking. But it wasn't one character who did this: It was all of them. It was so distracting and unhelpful and annoying that I couldn't see past it.

#4: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami. Now this book, on the other hand, I loved. Wow. It's sort of hard to describe it. It's partly a mystery about a guy whose wife disappears, partly a dreamy fantasy, and it's lyrical and interesting and philsophical. Since I read it and have gushed to friends, I have come to understand that it is rather trendy to be a lover of Murakami. That's all right. I can't wait to read another one of his books.

I know I am slacking on keeping this blog up to date and interesting (not that it ever was the latter), but I'm going to try harder. I just don't have as much free time as I used to, I guess.

Onward!