Uglies - Scott Westerfeld

I don't know anything of this author, but Britanie was reading Uglies when they visited for Thanksgiving. It's a post-apocalyptic YA fantasy, where, in an effort to create equality (supposedly), everyone is given a massive cosmetic operation at the age of 16, which gives them all the markers of beauty - symmetry, large eyes, etc. etc. The people are physically separated based on their stage of life, and the main character is Tally Youngblood, who can't wait to join her friend who, when he turned 16 a few months before she did, had his operation and went ahead to live the party-life of all the "New Pretties."

It's an interesting book with plenty to think about, like independence versus societal integration. It's a little heavy-handed at times (maybe that's intentional, so even inattentive young readers get the point) and the characters work better when they're doing something rather than being something - by which I suppose I mean the dialogue seems a bit forced. Still, it's a good story! Thanks, Britanie, for the recommendation! I'm looking forward to, well, finishing it, obviously, but also reading the sequels.

Timeline - Michael Crichton

I've never read any of Crichton's stuff, but Kenyon's friend loaned him Timeline and I figured I'd give it a shot. It was pretty entertaining. I'm reading more pop fiction than I know what to do with these days! I often get annoyed with books that are set in the everyday world but don't accurately relect reality, and the scientific gaps in this book annoy me - which I suppose may seem odd considering how much completely imlausible sci-fi and fantasy I read. I guess I just get annoyed when books don't follow their own rules enough to be consistent within themselves.

Overall, it was fun, though, and he'd done a lot of research both into the science of the technology and the historical period his characters visited. Thanks to the Bill Bryson book I'd just read, it was a lot easier to both follow the scientific theories he was exploiting and see where exactly he strayed from plausibility. It was presented like a tv movie, with lots of logical leaps, one crazy situation after another, and characters recovering in minutes from life-threatening injuries that would have long term consequences - if not for the demands of the plot. Still, if you're able to forget that the person now running through tunnels, climbing roofs, and dodging arrows sprained their neck and nearly drowned an hour ago, it's not so bad.

The Host - Stephenie Meyer

Invasion of the Body-Snatchers from the perspective of the body-snatcher. Interesting premise interestingly fleshed out. The psychology of the characters doesn't always work, and I think she starts going interesting places and then wimps out and just barely touches on them or over simplifies. I'd elaborate, but it's been, like, three weeks since I finished it and that's WAY too long for me to remember things like plot points and character names, much less partially developed themes of humanity and the complications or existence of true altruism. I think it's a better book than Twilight or its sequels.

More Terry Pratchett

It turns out you can put things on hold at the library! OK, I knew that already, but I went a little crazy with the Terry Pratchett Books the other week. So, over the last little while, I've read The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (a young adult novel and possibly one of his best), Hogfather (Pratchett's take, or twist, on Christmas), and Equal Rites (an earlier Discworld book and not quite as polished as his later stuff).

My favorite and, I dare say, the best of the three is The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. It has interesting themes of humanity, transcendence over our basic nature, and idealism. Funny how sometimes YA novels are the most laden with that kind of thing.

Add to this list Carpe Jugulum and, shortly, Mort. I think this will finish my Pratchett phase for now! I probably won't be reading too much between now and Christmas, but we'll see. I'd like to read The Snopes trilogy (Faulkner) and East of Eden (Steinbeck) but they take a bit more of a commitment and attention span than the books I've been attempting (the 'finish it in a week if you read less than an hour a day' variety.) I need some suggestions.... Allison asked about The Host - I've got it on hold at the library, but it had quite the waiting list and will probably take a while yet.

A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson

You know how they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing? This book might be lethal. I finished the book feeling like I really had a clue - like I understand Life, the Universe, and Everything. Or, that I at least wouldn't be out of my depth if I had to find out more about the (many, many) subjects it addresses. Basically, it presents what we think we know about the universe and, briefly, how we figured it out, including summarizing difficult theories and concepts using engaging analogies (e.g. if an atom were the size of a cathedral, the nucleus would only be the size of a fly) and introducing the fascinating. often controversial historical figures in science, complete with all the juicy details textbooks leave out.

As you might guess from the title, it covers SO MUCH. It's not a short book, and it took me several months to get through it, but that was mainly because nearly every sentence has at least one new idea, concept, fact, theory, or interesting bit of historical gossip in it. Sometimes it takes a while to really absorb it all. The book reads more like a novel (or, probalby travelogue, since that seems to be the author's normal genre). It's a must read. If I'd read it early in my college career, I'm sure I would have been inspired enough to take several unecessary science classes or change my major to, like, biochemistry or something riduculous (until I flunked out, that is). At the very least, it would have left me more impassioned and interested in the science classes I DID take, including chemistry and physics (which I didn't care enough about to even remember I actually took them, most of the time).

I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes science (so they can tell me if he's as accurate and impartial as he mostly seems to be) and especially to anyone who never felt up to it - this is all the good stuff you knew they were hiding behind the boring nonsense they shoved at you in class. I emerged quite a bit greener than I entered, so if you don't want to care about environmental protection and species preservation, there are several chapters you'll want to skip. It's also very evolutionary, of course, but I figure the Gospel is large enough to accomodate Truth, and so there can't be any real contradictions, just misunderstandings.

Making Money - Terry Pratchett

Phenomenal. Pratchett is just so witty. This is one of his most recent books, and I'd put off reading it for a while - it's a direct sequel to one of his other books, and I'd worried that he was getting lazy and formulaic. Silly me - it doesn't matter if he is (which he isn't), because he's just so funny. So many laugh-out-loud (literally) moments, and so many quotable lines. I'll dredge up a few if I get a chance.

[Name Redacted]

Another of Kenyon's coworkers provided a Twilight alternative in the form of their favorite romantic Vampire book. I got through it quickly, but I rather despised it. It was written like one of those gritty "private eye" books, where the main character is emotionally distant, a tough chick (since this one was female). The pacing was cheap, a thrill-a-chapter with no growth, contrast or movement. Things didn't make sense, and I was left with the impression that the author just wrote whatever came to mind at the time. It's the first of the series, and while this one was fairly clean with just a couple bad words and the typical vampire violence, it turns out later books in the series get pretty explicit. So, this one's a no-go.

Castle in the Air - Diana Wynne Jones

Sequel to Howl's. So sweet. I was halfway through the book before I realized we actually were going to see characters from the first book.

Making Money - Terry Pratchett

I love this guy. His books aren't perfectly constructed pieces of literature, by any means, but he's just so funny. I love his wordplay. His writing is grown-up oriented but PG at worst (although he does some great kid books, too), which is refreshing.

Moist von Lipwig returns to attack the failing banking industry, after resurrecting the Ankh-Morpork Post Office in Going Postal. I had several laugh-out-loud moments, and felt cosmically in-tune with Pratchett with the main character expressed his distaste for any day "that has two four o' clocks in it." When Will was a newborn, I realized that I could handle a heck of a lot of sleep deprivation and disorderliness, but I could not handle being up at both 4 a.m. and 4 p.m. Any day where that happened was a bad, bad day.

More Diana Wynne Jones

Since I liked Dark Lord so much, I picked up Year of the Griffen (sequel to Dark Lord of Derkhelm) and Howl's Moving Castle for our recent California trip. I loved both of them. YoG takes up 8 years after DLoD and is a fun romp about youth, rejuvination and intellectual freedom from contraints. I saw the movie of Howl's first and loved it. The book is vastly different but still good in a different way.

Dead Until Dark - Charlaine Harris

I'd heard about this because of the similarities to Twilight, and there's a (nasty) new HBO show based on the series. It's a murder mystery series where the main character is a young woman who can read minds, falls in love with a vampire, and learns how to use her ability (or disability, as she calls it, since everyone in her rural northern Louisiana town thinks she's crazy because of it) to solve crimes - for humans and vampires. There's even a love triangle with a werewolf - I think it was actually written before Twilight. It's clever and entertaining enough, but the language and content is quite...adult. I'm not sure whether or not I'll read the sequels (there are 8 or 9 books with these characters).

Kenyon read it, too, since a coworker loaned him a copy just a few days after I put it on hold at the library. He HATED it. Part of that was retaliatory - his coworker hated Twilight, which Kenyon liked, and offered this book as an alternative. He thought it was boring and the characters were shallow and uninteresting, I think.

Dark Lord of Derkholm - Diana Wynne Jones

I totally enjoyed this book. It's young adult fantasy, but it's also a satire of fantasy - the inhabitants of a magical world have been forced to enact stereotypical fantasy roles and activities in order to provide entertainment for tourists from a world like ours. The characters' responses to these roles are pretty funny. There's a lot of heart and humanity in the story - emotionally, it's actually pretty deep. It was so fun to read, and gave me plenty of real things to think about beyond, you know, the elves, griffins, and flying horses and whatnot.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See

This was an excellent book. It's set very convincingly in 19th century provincial China and written as the memoirs of an 80-year-old women recording her memories in the secret women's writing developed in that area. The narrative voice is consistent and authentic sounding, and the story is detailed and human with interesting, flawed characters. I'd heard of foot-binding, but I didn't really comprehend the risks, the extent of the resulting deformity, or what the final product was (feet 4 inches long, coming to a point, with the four small toes broken and bent to curve under the foot and the bones of the arch broken and forced upwards). Terrifying, and also just one of the ways in which women of that society were crippled (girls and women left the upper rooms of their homes only a handful of times per year).

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle - Avi

A quick read, young-adult novel. The protagonist is an 18th (early 19th?) century thirteen-year-old girl stuck crossing the Atlantic alone on a ship with a cruel captain and a mutinous crew out for revenge. Naturally, she ends up rejecting her stuffy Victorian upbringing, donning sailor's garb and joining the crew. It was a fun, extremely well-written and engaging message of empowerment.

Foundation Trilogy - Isaac Asimov

The Foundation Trilogy was...intriguing. Covering 500 years and half a galaxy, the books show key moments in the progression the Hari Seldon Plan. The Galactic Empire is failing, and Seldon, using the mathematics of "psychohistory," sets events in motion that will allow the early formation of a new, second empire, limiting the "barbarous" intervening years to 1000 rather than the 30,000 it would otherwise take for things to settle.

What Asimov accomplishes in a literary sense is, in itself, quite interesting. The snippets of life story, the narration seeming quite intimate as it follows the perspective of a series of characters, although always third person. In the first book, you see the Plan start to unfold, how Hari Seldon has set things up to progress in certain ways. In the second book, even larger obstacles arise, and it becomes apparent that one of them is something Hari Seldon could not have included in his calculations. The solution to that problem introduces another, largely unknown element of the Plan earlier than was intended, which leads to the third book, in which things looks like they're about to implode, with one faction of Hari's set-up trying to locate and destroy another faction. In short, the author manages to draw the reader into a series of protagonists while covering an immense expanse of time and flipping the plot around and turning it end over end, just when you think you know what to expect. It works, for the most part.

What I was most disturbed by was that I was firmly pro-Seldon throughout the book - he knows what he's doing, he's leading the galaxy in a better path, good of the people, and all that. In the end, though, it turns out that what he was really doing was preparing the galaxy to accept a new, mind-manipulating ruling class that he had formed in secret. At the end of the trilogy, everything seems to have worked out well for the Seldon Plan, and things are on track for the formation of the new empire on schedule. Having been born and raised with democracy as one of the highest ideals, I found the end of the book rather chilling, although I'm not sure that was the author's intent. To put it casually: sure, the ruling class means well NOW, but if they ever decide to exploit the people of the empire, there is absolutely nothing left stop them. It's the old AP English credo, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

That said, I also started thinking about it practically in context of the upcoming election. With the vacillation we're seeing on the virtues of experience vs. being "refreshingly free from the stain of politics" and the discussion on whether either of the privileged, millionaire candidates can really understand the situation of the majority of Americans, it makes you wonder. Do we want officials we can identify with, and who we can easily believe could identify with us? Or do we want to be led by the brightest and the best our country has to offer? Regardless, what I like about our system of government, and what the near caste-system proposed by Asimov lacks, is that the people have just enough power to try their options, and make changes if things get too bad either way. Let's hear it for checks and balances!

Breaking Dawn - Stephenie Meyer

The final piece of the Bella/Edward story stirred up quite a bit of controversy among fans, from what I hear. I'm more and more convinced that Teens and The Internet are a dangerous, nasty mix - of course, from my limited experience with online fan sites a few years ago, the most irrational, illiterate, volatile fans are probably 40 year old professionals.

ANYWAY, I am so torn about Stephenie Meyer's books, especially this one. On the one hand, I'm totally addicted. On the other, it's not like there's a ton of literary merit to the books. My biggest problems are with the clunky exposition, inconsistent characterization, and lack of dramatic impact (the build to the climax is a bit weak - it drags in parts and jumps in others).

My conclusion is that her writing is candy. It's enjoyable, easy to eat too much of it too quickly, and you don't have to work hard to get through it. She is always so explicit in her writing, you never have to wonder what's going on, because she tells you EXACTLY. There is very little left to the imagination (or for the logical workings of the mind to figure out). I think the word 'anvilicious' applies. You could pick up the book for the first time, start reading in the middle, and not miss much of the emotional or dramatic context, since the author always brings it up for you.

The biggest problem with this book, interestingly, is that despite several conflicts, problems, despair! horror! agony! etc. etc., it's essentially one big happy ending - to the point where satisfying dramatic resolution is sacrificed. I'm understating things when I say that a third of the book is spent setting up and anticipating a huge, mortal battle - that never happens. Big relief for the characters, kind of a let down for the readers. Not that I actually minded it. This whole series is one big daydream/fantasy written down on paper, and so the fantasy conclusion works. For me, anyway.

Eclipse - Stephenie Meyer

Same engrossing experience as the previous novels. The conversation between the two romantic rivals was pretty darn fun. Based loosely on Wuthering Heights, in case, again, you couldn't tell from the more-than-half-dozen references to the book, including Eclipse characters reading quotations from it and explicitly comparing themselves to Wuthering Heights characters.

New Moon - Stephenie Meyer

Not bad, fun read, again. Elements of the plot are ripped from Romeo and Juliet, in case you couldn't tell from the 6 explicit references to the work, or the passage where the protagonist compares her situation, in detail, to the play. But, it's R&J with all the meaning, including social and psychological commentary, taken out of it. The climax of the book is interesting, but I found it kind of lacking impact after the first initial rush. I think the author needs tighter control of her pacing. Still, I had a great time reading it and think the author's great at drawing you in.

Twilight the Movie

I get a little obsessive when I find a new distraction, which, in this case, means that I've spent time on Stephenie Meyer's website and have looked up whatever information I could easily find on the movie version of Twilight that's coming out later this year. (Seriously, it's not coming out until December, but with all the previews, teasers, and sneak peeks they've got out there, I'm fairly certain I've seen 90% of the movie, including all the key scenes.)

I think the movie will probably be OK, maybe even pretty good. A lot of the commentary out there among fans (which I've only heard about second hand, really) is that Edward isn't pretty enough. Ha! My concerns, i.e. what I'd like to see in the movie that I doubt they'll have captured, based on the previews, are as follows:

1) Humor. The book is funny, the banter is occasionally witty, or supposed to be. The subject is dark, but the novel feels light. I wonder whether the movie will have that tone, or if it'll be more daytime drama than Veronica Mars (or whatever it is the kids are watching these days).

2) Special effects. Maybe I'm just jaded because they've released a behind-the-scenes look at the peak action scene of the movie - and the special effects seem a little mundane. When I picture the story in movie format, I think post-Matrix style effects, with a touch of The Ring, would be well suited to capturing he impossibly quick movements of the vampires.

3) When it comes down to it, I really would love to see the whole series done in Anime. I think it'll be difficult to capture the alien-ness of the vampires in film - they do a bang-up job trying to imitate humans, but when it comes down to it, they aren't human, and there are interesting, subtle things that give them away. I doubt the movie is going to make the vampires look different enough, or in the "right" ways. But we'll see.

Twilight - Stephenie Meyer

I freely and proudly admit that I'm not highbrow when it comes to my literature preferences. But, bad writing bothers me, and I can get kind of snobby. I'll read almost any genre, including fantasy, sci-fi, teen lit, etc., but it's got to be well written. (One of these days, I've got to sit down and figure out exactly what that means to me...)

It's so hard to find good, interesting, fun books, especially without an excess of language or other yucky content, that when I find an author who doesn't rely on that kind of crap, I latch on tight. There's nothing I like more than finding an author whose writing I like, and then reading everything they've ever written. Authors like Agatha Christie and Louis L'Amour are gold mines. If the author's good enough, the necessary similarities and repetitions just provide a comforting sense of familiarity, without becoming too predictable or boring.

I'd heard of Twilight (it's big among LDS women, I believe - the author graduated from BYU) but I had really low expectations. I knew it was popular, and becoming more so, but I still thought it was probably pretty crappy - glorified Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction, if that means anything to you. When both of Kenyon's sisters mentioned/recommended it in the space of a few weeks, I started considering it, and I took a peek at one of their copies. The best phrase I've heard to describe it is instantly addictive. I bought a copy a few days later (it's impossible to get at the library) and tore through it. Two weeks later, I've read all four books in the series. Kenyon's almost done, himself. I started out reading them out loud to him, and he got into them, and it's been really fun, like having a two person book group.

I'm sure (VERY sure) that I'll write more about all of them later, but for now, I'll just say that I'm embarassed by how much I like Twilight. They're pretty clean, and while they're FAR from perfect, they've been easy to read, entertaining enough, and it's kind of fun both getting into them and picking them apart.

The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls

This is a memoir, recommended and loaned to me by my sister-in-law. It was a fun, quick read - I started in the car to the airport and finished before we came back from Vegas last weekend. The profanity is a bit much if you're sensitive to that - her father's an alcoholic and gets a little colorful in his rages.

I came away from the book most struck, admist the alcoholism, homelessness, and starvation, by the family's sometimes-devotion to reading and studying. Obviously I don't want to make my kids dig in school trash cans for food while I hoard chocolate bars, but I do like the idea of being a little more free, a little more expansive, in the things I learn myself and teach the kids.

My Hippocampus

Over the weekend, my sister-in-law asked me about a book. I didn't think I'd heard of it. As she talked more, I realized that I had not only heard of it, I'd read it - and in the last year. I didn't remember a thing about it - title, author, subject, anything - without heavy reminders.

I think that's sad, and so, in an effort to actually retain something from the things I read (or watch, for that matter), I'm starting a new blog. My goal is to at least record title and author for everything I read, and if I get a chance, I'll write a summary, opinion, recommendation, or other thoughts. It's always easier to remember things when you process them in a variety of ways, utilizing as many senses as possible. I'm hoping that by spending a few extra minutes working my thoughts out through my fingers, a little more will seep into my sorry, shriveling little brain.

I'm not sure why I think this is something I'll be able to devote any resources to, especially as I'm having a hard time keeping up with the dishes, not to mention home improvements and my other dusty blog. Still, the only way to get something done is to do it, right? So here goes.

Incidentally, sorry about the weird green blog templates. I have a thing for green blogs, apparently. I'm just going with it.