murder, madness, and magic.

Finished a few books recently.

Devil in the White City – This book is a historical fiction about the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1893. It focuses on 2 unrelated characters – the architect behind the building of the fair and a serial killer in Chicago at the time. Not really knowing anything about the Worlds Fair, I thought the book was extremely interesting. So much happened at the fair! The beginning is significantly more dramatized than the second half, but definitely worth a read.

Julie and Julia – I disliked this book, but only after I was finished reading it. My biggest problem is that this cooking project that Julie Powell takes on ends so meaninglessly. I thought the point of the challenge was to gain some meaning in her life, or help her figure out what she wants to do, or something. But in the end, not counting she got a book deal, she’s back exactly where she began – in a crappy temp job, in a crappy apartment, without any plans to do anything different and now she’s fatter. This, compounded by the fact that she whined/complained/freaked out in every single chapter and talked less about the food than everything else in her life – the book was too self-absorbed for me to really like. I pretty much just think she was crazy.

The Magicians – Young adult fiction about (what else) a boy who goes to school to become a magician and then has an adventure. Of course, it feels like Harry Potter – except more apathetic and dirty and college-like. The book breezes by school in the first half, and our magician characters tumble into the real world to be “starving artist” types in NYC. The second half then is the adventure – where the characters venture into a world much like Narnia. Again, it’s typical fantasy adventure – except more dirty and confusing and “real”. I’m working on getting the second book, so we’ll see how that goes.

holiday reading.

The Strain – Sure it’s about vampires. But it takes on a whole new approach. Rather than “this is how it is” science, del Toro makes it a disease, an infection. The main character is a doctor who works for the CDC and he teams up with an ex-professor of folklore. A the first book of a series, this one is mainly just about the beginning of the end – when the “virus” is first infecting humans. I brought the next two books in the series back to California – hopefully it stays interesting.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – A fun read. A boy goes in search of more information about his recently deceased grandfather. The boy learns that the crazy stories his grandfather told about “peculiar” children were true and of course adventure ensues. My major disappointment was the end. It came shockingly fast and without resolution – almost in the middle of the biggest piece of action. As far as I can tell, this isn’t the first of a series, but it definitely felt like it set up for another book.

The Dark Fields – This is the book that the movie Limitless was based on. If you saw that movie, the book is very similar. Not much science. Mostly flat characters. Plot moves along fast. The only difference is the ending is a bit more depressing.

90 day Geisha: My Time as a Tokyo Hostess – I should have known, but this was an awful book. I was expecting funny stories and adventures. Similar to any of those ‘look at this crazy experiment I’m trying” books. But the stories are boring and shallow. I couldn’t get a feel for anything – the people, the place, how she felt about it, what she did.

book bumming.

I’m switching my book links to Goodreads because I have come to love that site. It’s absolutely perfect for keeping a list of books I want to read because the phone app allows me to scan barcodes. So I can walk through a bookstore and just scan all the books that look interesting. It’s pretty great.

Atonement – While I don’t remember being thrilled watching this movie, I did enjoy the book. I think this is because so much of the story focuses on the main character’s interpretation of events that she doesn’t understand – that’s easier done in writing than in a movie.

Accidental Billionaires – The story of Facebook’s founding and the basis of The Social Network movie. Essentially, this book is just like the movie. Except it gives off a really weird overly masculine and sexual vibe. The books gives the impression that all characters are interested in getting girls – and it keeps using somewhat sexual descriptions when it’s totally unnecessary (example: describing the rowing boat as “phallic” – really??). Also, it made Mark Zuckerberg seem more lucky than strategic when it came to making Facebook successful.

Super Sad True Love Story – I was hoping this would be good, but it was not. Taking place in a weird dystopian future time (which is actually the most interesting part of the story) – where America’s indebted to China and people are addicted to tiny personal computers that rank them on everything – it’s a really depressing love story. An older man in love with a younger, completely detached woman. But it’s depressing because they’re in love in a “desperate to need someone” way. The characters weren’t likable enough that I could really feel bad for them when things don’t work out. Also, it’s partial told in email messages, which was similar to trying to read a story told through text – whiny and full of slang.

The Psychopath Test – Psychopaths are intriguing, so any book about them, about what distinguishes them – it’s gotta be at least a little interesting. This book wasn’t exactly anything new if you’ve ever read anything about psychopath before, but it was a quick fun read.

fiction.

I’ve been trying out the whole borrowing library books on the Kindle thing. It’s been working pretty well. There are a few weird things like automatic returns – meaning no renewals and no returning early – that I figured out perusing the FAQs. The collection isn’t as large and my Kindle can’t have the books transferred wirelessly, but it does save a trip to the library. So now I’ve got a mix of reading on the Kindle and reading actual books.

The Weird Sisters: I chose this one because I kept passing it on the new fiction display at the library. It’s about three sisters who don’t get along and how they all come home when their mother gets cancer. I liked it overall. However, the author did a really strange narration, which bothered me the entire book. She spoke from a first person plural point of view even though it wasn’t narrated by a character. This made it seem, when the book talked about two of the sisters that you were the third sister (even though you weren’t). I guess it helps you step into the characters’ shoes better, but it kept throwing me off.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: This was one of those books I constantly see – at the library, at book stores, at book sales, in people’s houses. It’s told from the perspective of an autistic boy. I can’t judge how genuine the main character seemed, as I have no real experience with autism. But overall, I didn’t really like the book. The story wasn’t that interesting and the characters not too likable.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson: Oh man, this is straight young adult fiction. Two boys, two totally different lives, same name – so naturally their lives start to become intertwined. One’s a shy kid, dealing with getting a girlfriend and losing a best friend. The other is a depressed kid, dealing with being gay and having a boyfriend for the first time. Interestingly, the book’s written by two authors – each writes one of the boys. Conclusion: I think I’m getting too old for this kind of YA book. If you’re not, it was good – especially the end.

Lace Makers of Glenmara: A quick read about a girl who visits a small town in Ireland and brings with her a little bit of freshness to the tradition in the town. It was one of those “find what you really want in life” kind of plots. But I think the book/plot moved too fast to have any good character development.

The Walking Dead Vol 1: Yi and I read this together and I liked it.

space.

San Francisco has this One City One Book project, where the library encourages the city to all read the same book. They have various programs, author readings, book discussions to supplement the reading as well. This year, San Francisco chose Packing for Mars, by Mary Roach.

I love her! I read her other three books – Stiff, Spook and Bonk. Her books are hilarious and interesting. I’d highly recommend Stiff, which is a book about “the curious lives of human cadavers”. Essentially Roach investigates what happens to cadavers – from practicing surgery to crash testing to being studied for forensic science. Spook (about the afterlife) and Bonk (about sex) were not as good. In my opinion, it was their subject matter. There’s not a whole lot of hard science on the afterlife and sex research is actually pretty boring and/or disguised as something else. But since I like her writing, why not try out her newest book – even though I’m not all that interested in space.

Well, this book definitely redeems the two I didn’t like. It’s doesn’t cover your typical space travel topics. Instead, it covers the more human aspect of living in space – what NASA had to be concerned with if they actually wanted to send a human up. Roach covers what personality traits and tests would-be astronauts go through. She looks at motion sickness and vomiting, isolation and confinement, crash testing and animals in space. But what I really liked was all the very human parts of space travel, especially when it was new. Who knew if any of our internal organs depended on gravity? Would something stop working once a human got into space? What about bathing and going to the bathroom (there’s a whole chapter) and sex and food? She covers it all with her standard jokes and interesting facts and totally expected view of a normal person doing this research (example, she goes on a parabolic flight that allows for testing in zero gravity during which she reveals the only notes she took were “Yippee” and Woo!”)

Totally read it.

cells.

It’s been a while since I’ve written about what I’ve been reading. Partially it’s due to the fact I’m reading The Song of Ice and Fire series – or trying. I’m only part way through the second book. But I haven’t digested it enough to decide what I think yet. But I did buy and read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I’d been seeing it on a whole bunch of best seller lists and I found it pretty fascinating.

The book is about how a poor black woman’s cells, taken without permission or knowledge, have made a huge contribution to science and medicine. But it’s not just about what was done with her cells – including helping to develop the polio vaccine and gene mapping. The author – Rebecca Skloot – explores the woman’s family, her background and her story. So the book parallels what’s happening with the cells with what’s happening with the family.

I found two things most interesting. First, the inevitable issue of human subjects in medical research. As Henrietta’s cells were taken, grown and used without her knowledge, Skloot explores several topics such as informed consent, ownership of pieces of your body given more medical research, as well as sketchy experiments – like the Tuskegee syphilis study. The second thing I found interesting was how mistrustful Henrietta’s family/friends were of Johns Hopkins, and really, the medical field in general. They’re poor, mostly uneducated, and black. They didn’t understand Henrietta’s cancer, why they gave blood samples years later,  a lot of the research the cells were use in, or how to find more information. It’s a point of view that’s so different it’s hard for me to imagine.

The book was definitely worth a read.

if you cry, it’s a good one.

Time Traveler’s Wife – Definitely enjoyed this one and then end had me crying my eyes out. And it wasn’t tainted at all by having seen the awful movie. My only problem with this story is that I keep feeling that Clare (the wife) is waiting her entire life. I’m not one to need a strong female character, but in this book, it bothers me that waiting is the only thing she does. It’s a lot like in New Moon, when depressed Bella is passes six months in six empty pages.

A Scanner Darkly – Unfortunately, this book wasn’t for me. It was just too many drug trips and not enough character connection. After a while, I felt like I was reading just to finish and then the end wrapped up way too fast.

Harold and Maude – read it in about one day. If you’ve ever seen the movie – the book is just like it. I don’t know why I expected anything else.

Homebody – by Orson Scott Card. It was a quick read but nothing special. I didn’t really connect with the characters and it’s got the whole “supernatural in the real world” thing that I dislike.

Upcoming: Game of Thrones, Squeezed, Lace Makers of Glenmara

stories.

Since I live right by a park, it’s so easy to go outside to read for a few hours. Also, the San Francisco Library has awesome book sales (books are $1), so that makes me want to buy a whole bunch.

Here Lies Arthur – A story of King Arthur from the point of view of an orphaned girl, taken in by Myrddin – Arthur’s bard/advisor. This version takes away a lot of the mystery – painting Arthur as a warlord and making all the magic just fairy tales. In general, I always like putting legends into a more realistic setting, but this book just wasn’t working for me. I’m not sure if it was the style, or the fact that the plot moved along either too fast or too slow or something altogether.

Sandman Slim – A book about a guy who just spent the last decade in Hell, and now he’s back for revenge on the group that sent him there. We’re talking demons, dark magic, angels, etc. I wasn’t terribly impressed. Given the amount of fantasy that I read, magic shouldn’t bother me as much as it does. But mixing magic into otherwise real world settings really turns me off.

SuperFreakanomics – Pretty much exactly what you would expect. I think I read too many of these books and they all start to run together after a while.

A Wild Sheep Chase – This was my first time reading a book by Haruki Murakami. I was a bit hesitant at first, since his books don’t really seem up my alley. The storyline was ok – the end, a bit too unreal for me. Basic plot is about a man who needs to find a mysterious sheep with a star on its side. But, overall, I really liked it and I plan on reading more of his stuff.

Upcoming: A Scanner Darkly, Harold and Maude, Homebody, The Time Traveler’s Wife, the Game of Thrones series, Revolutionary Road.

side note: This whole unemployment/new city is slowing any sort of inspiration for writing in this blog. Things originally slowed down when I was planning to leave my job (didn’t want to write about that), then moving (too busy to write), then settling in. So now, I’m settled in and I’ll be trying to get back in the habit. Be prepared – the next couple posts are most likely going to be about food and movies and books.