Atwood, Margaret. The Blind Assassin. New York: Anchor, 2001. This is the second Atwood novel I've read and I love her. She's scary-smart, ultimately depressing, but the story stays with you and you just keep thinking about her stories and her characters and the issues she addresses. I can't really say what it's about because that would kind of give away the twist at the end that can't really be called a twist because you see it coming about two-thirds of the way through.
Bombeck, Erma. If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, Then What am I Doing With the Pits?. New York: Fawcett Crest, 1983. I used to love Erma Bombeck because she's hilarious. Reading it now, I realize the problem with her writing--what makes it funny is that it's true and what makes it depressing is that it's true. The experiences she shares make you realize that so much of what she's talking about is actually funny, it's just absurd. I'm not sure if that's supposed to make you laugh and relieve some tension, or stop and re-examine everything about your life before you find yourself completely wasting the entire thing.
Fforde, Jasper. Lost in a Good Book. New York:Penguin, 2002. This is the second Thursday Next novel that I've read and I love it just as much because it has all kinds of things that I love: literary allusions, British people, time travel/manipulation, genetically resurrected dodos, and all kinds of other crazy stuff. Even though a whole of the plot buildup was pointing to the ending, I was a little surprised by it. I need to find the third book.
Herbert, Brian and Kevin J. Anderson. Dune: House Corrino. New York: Bantam, 2001. Okay, I've finished the prequel trilogy to the Dune series. I'm pretty excited. Watch out now!
Hornby, Nick. High Fidelity. New York: Riverhead Books, 1995. When I first started reading this, I wondered why the movie wasn't set in England. As I got further into it, I realized it was because if everyone was British, they couldn't have used John Cusack and Jack Black and then the movie would've been as bleak and dark as the book. Oh man, that main character is way more charming and funny when he's John Cusack. A good book, but I was unsettled. I don't know how else to phrase this. Breakups do bad things to people. Depressing British stuff.
Lafayette, Leslie. Why Don't You Have Kids? Living A Full Life Without Parenthood. New York: Kensington, 1995. I bought this for a dollar at the library sale. It was in the parenting section and I saw it just briefly as I was headed toward the children's fiction. Odd, right? Not so much. So I got it because we haven't been too harassed about the whole "When are you two going to have kids?" thing because we haven't been married too very long and our parents aren't really pressuring us for grandbabies or anything, but there have been a few awkward encounters where I have to either bite my tongue or give our standard response ("When we can afford to buy one on the black market."). I thought this might help. It didn't really. She had a lot of valid points, but I think this was intended for people who are a little bit older. We're very happy with our life right now as it is, but we haven't made the decision to be childfree, so........I didn't really need all that much validation from this book. I wanted to blog about at length, and I tried a couple of times, but then I'd stop because I worried about offending some people. (Oddly enough, my parents were not among those I was concerned with offending via my lack of offspring.) Cody and I are happy without kids, but some people aren't. Plus, I don't that we'll always feel this way. Plus, I don't want to write out something about wanting to be childfree forever and then be reminded of it 5 years and 3 kids from now. (I doubt that'll happen, but my dad tends to print these things off.) But plans change and people change their minds and you just never know. Moving on to the next book.
Puzo, Mario. The Godfather. Greenwich: Fawcett, 1969. I really liked this book. I want to rent the movie. Not all of them or anything, but this was an amazing story. Terribly violent and disturbing and sometimes I was scared to keep reading because you know horrible things are going to happen, but then I kept reading it. I'm glad I did.
So that's the book list for this month.
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