I just finished "Freedom". Totally get what you mean about the narrative shifts. I found myself thinking of a slightly burned cake- just when you take a bite and its good, you chew abit and get a burnt bitter taste- not bad enough to spit out so you swallow take another bite and its goood and then burnt and you get where I'm going. His eye for detail and his descriptions are marvels ( the description of the sisters' apt in New York was too spot on for me- i laughed out loud!) But then we get a whole long chapter on the son Joey and I still can't figure out what the caused the kid's epiphany. Patty both fascinated and aggrivated me ( something I think was intended). Walter w all his limitations was in the end the only "good" character. ( I really would have liked more about the daughter Jessica but the dang book would have rivaled War and Peace for length w one more character/chapter POV!
A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and Caucasia by Danzy Senna.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Caucasia is a very intriguing book. I am currently teaching a course of women's literature about passing, so I'm reading a lot of novels that deal with the subject.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Just started The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I like it, but i wanted a quick read to kick off my summer reading and it is more dense than I had assumed it would be.
uncageg, one of my professors in grad school has worked with Verghese for years as an editor. We read My Own Country in her class (Folklore and Medicine) and watched the movie. Cutting for Stone is on my post grad school reading list.
Right now I'm reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban trying to get through the series one more time before the last movie comes out.
I'm currently working my way through The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks (some light summer reading), but have plenty to keep me occupied this summer. My local library recently had a summer book sale where I got 14 books for $8, and my copy of Catching Fire recently came in the mail. I can't wait to start that one -- I read The Hunger Games in March but didn't want to read the next one until I could get a paperback copy.
Simultanously (as ever) Falling Man by John Dellio-for work related to some other 9/11 work I may teach next year, so far it isn't gripping me but the moments he captures are quite effective.
The Versuvius Club-Mark Gatiss, finally now getting to read his novels and I love it! Fabulous wit. I have such an intellectual crush on the man anyway so I'll spare you the gushing.
Maybe I'm on nobody's side
http://phdconfessions.blogspot.com/
I'm part of the way through A Singular Woman by Janny Scott. It's a biography of Obama's mother. I'm finding it to be fascinating. She had so many dimensions and lived an unusual life. She clearly had an extraordinary love for her children and was dedicated to them receiving the best possible education, but at the same time, she made choices, as a mother, that were (are) controversial. (Full disclosure: I'm "reading" this as an audiobook. I have a much longer commute now that we've moved and I get motion sickness when I try to read print. And YES, I'm a tad defensive because this is an ongoing argument in my family as to whether listening to an audiobook is really reading.)
Sueleen Gay: "Here you go, Bitch, now go make some fukcing lemonade." 10/28/10
I'm reading "The Love Story Behind Gone with the Wind", about the relationship between Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh. Long (about 600 pages), but very readable and engrossing.
yoda, I was going to read "My Own Country" first but the evening I was told about these two books, standing in the SRO line for Book of Mormon, I didn't get a ticket and went over to see "The Normal Heart". I decided to read Cutting for Stone First after that. I didn't know there was a movie.
"Cutting for Stone" is good but pretty detailed. It is going to take me a while to get through it.
I am in the middle of A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin. In the past 7 weeks I have read A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings. I have book 4, A Feast for Crows on deck. I can't put them down! Book 5, A Dance of Dragons comes out in July. It takes him YEARS between books, so after that, I will be a sad little pup.
Pretty pretty please don't you ever ever feel like you're less than f**ckin' perfect!
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
I have been wanting to read 'Some Sing, Some Cry" but while I was moving, the stores seemed to run out of the hardback and the paperback doesn't come out until September.