I've been reading again!

It's been a few weeks since my last post here and in that time I've polished off four more books. Granted, they weren't difficult or even very big books, but I enjoyed most of them.

I picked up the Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World One Correction at a Time by Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson. Being the sort of person who enjoys proof reading (though rarely on my own work) I thought this would be right up my alley. The story is based on Jeff and Benjamin's road trip around the US searching for and correcting typos and grammatical errors. For the most part it was cute and kind of funny. The verbose language and writing style seemed a tad on the pretentious side at times. My newsroom background made this slightly more irritating than it would have been otherwise. I'm a fan of saying things concisely. Don't get me wrong, I love a beautiful description, but I found the tone of the story was written in such a way that they were using words for the sake of it. It got on my nerves. Regardless, it was an interesting story and I giggled at just about every typo and error they encountered on the road trip. Plus, the end had some interesting reference material explaining why certain grammar rules apply.

After this one, I picked up Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern. The book is just a series of chapters each starting with a quote from his dad followed by the story that lead up to that quote. After each chapter there are a number of other random quotes. I was laughing out loud multiple times during the two days it took me to polish this one off. In reading some of the brief quotes to Brad we were both in tears. I would absolutely recommend this one to anyone who needs a good laugh. I'll also be watching the show starting this fall with William Shatner.

Mare and I started reading Emma by Jane Austen after this, but as we're having a bit of trouble getting through it, I swapped quickly and briefly to the Big Love by Sarah Dunn. The story is about a girl whose boyfriend goes out for mustard and calls to say he's not coming back. I don't have much to say about this chick lit book other than Meh. Pass.

Next, on my Mum's recommendation I swapped to something non-fiction and read Outliers: the Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. The book examines what makes people successful. It was a really interesting read and somewhat satisfying to discover that successful people have an awful lot of factors contributing to their success beyond the typical "rags to riches" story. I particularly liked the explanation that for anyone to become a professional or expert at something they have to commit 10,000 hours to practicing. That tells me that if I put 10,000 hours into scrapbooking (I'm about halfway there) I'll be a pro. Not that that will get me anywhere, but it'll be fact. Ha! Definitely an interesting read though.

Three More for the Shelf...

So after reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I found myself mildly annoyed to find that I absolutely had to read the next one. The Girl who Played With Fire was consistently more exciting than Tattoo. It was exciting just about all the way through and I very much enjoyed the character development. It ended on somewhat of a cliff hanger, yet it still felt like it wrapped up nicely. Nothing drives me up the wall more in books than a story that has a sequel and is left hanging at the end of the book. I have great admiration for a novelist who can leave a story open to continuation without feeling like the story cut off mid sentence.

After Fire I took a brief hiatus from the Girl Who books and read something different on the kobo for a change. I picked up The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. Disappointing. It started off threatening to make me sob like I did in Marley and Me as Enzo the dog told about getting old. The rest of the story, as told by Enzo, followed his owner Denny's marriage, birth of his daughter, death of his wife, and resulting custody battle with the in-laws. The book was full of meanness and Denny constantly being beaten down by life. It was not an upper. I sort of enjoyed Enzo's character voice, but for a dog who was being written as a dog, he bordered into way too human at times. I for one, am a big believer in dog personalities, but Enzo became almost creepily person-like at times and then would flip back to being totally dog-like on the next page. The book was also peppered with analogies to car racing and techniques that I assume were supposed to be a metaphor for life and the trails and tribulations, but I'm not a fan of car racing and was big-time bored by these chapters, despite Enzo's enthusiasm with recalling specific racing moments. I would give The Art of Racing in the Rain a pass.

I did finish it in about two days however, which left me without a book and drawn back to the Girl Who saga, promptly buying The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. The final book in the trilogy did not disappoint. The excitement and intrigue and conspiracies ran throughout and there was just enough bad-guy behaviour to make it really satisfying when the good guys got a leg up every now and again. References to the first book occasionally really reinforced for me that Larsson had intended to write the story in three parts and that it wasn't just a coincidence that after the success of his first book he wrote two more. I'm totally with the rest of his fans who feel his untimely death was a terrible shame.

NOW, I'm onto The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World one Correction at a Time by Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson. So far, so good!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

At my mum's recommendation I picked up the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson...about 10 days ago. In general mysteries/suspense aren't my favorite genre, but I was sucked in by the hype, and in general I didn't feel disappointed. The first half was a bit slow for my liking, but the second half really grabbed me and sucked me in. I was lucky enough to be able to read for long periods of time Thursday, Friday and Saturday while we had our garage sale and while things were quiet. I didn't find it terribly suspenseful, but I also didn't want to put it down. So much so that i postponed cleaning up from the garage sale until I finished it yesterday afternoon. There characters were interesting and I honestly had no idea who the murderer was until it was presented to me, which must be the mark of a good mystery. While it was definitely a gruesome novel with some truly terrible crimes, it felt like justice was served and I was pleased with the outcome. The last couple of pages annoyed me though...and while I wasn't planning to read the sequel right away the last two pages made me go to my computer and purchase the Girl Who Played with Fire and download it to the kobo which I started yesterday. I guess my other books will have to wait.
I've heard there are critics that felt there was too much description ("I don't care what they had for breakfast", etc) and I completely disagree...however the one thing I will say is that if all people in sweden drink as much coffee as the characters do, I'm surprised more people don't have ulcers! It almost made my stomache churn to think about another cup of coffee.

Water For Elephants

Following my journey Through the Looking Glass I decided it was time to read one of the "tangible books" that people have lent me (as I find I now have to refer to books that aren't on my kobo), so I picked up Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. The story is about a young veterinarian in the 30s who finds himself traveling with a train circus. I'm finding that I'm not actually a big fan of books that take place during the depression, but I still did enjoy this one. There was plenty that was upsetting - animal and people cruelty - but the it all seemed rather matter of fact and somehow better that way. I kept thinking as I read that it wouldn't be long before it was made into a movie. Low and behold as I was looking for a picture of the cover for this blog entry, I found that it has been made into a movie for release next year. The story ends well enough which was a relief as it always seems to be a bit of a crap shoot as to whether a book filled with trouble and badness will end well. More interesting (and significantly more disturbing) was the afterward where the author talked about her inspiration for the book and the history of train circuses and elephants. The moral of the story, as far as I can tell, is don't piss off and abuse an elephant: not only do they remember, but they seem to get more angry about it as time passes...though I couldn't blame sweet Rosie for what she did.

Two Classics

As a way of encouraging the other to actually read the classics, Mare and I have previously decided to read them together. We set goals for reading for the week and go over our thoughts when we chat. The book(s) we tackled this time were Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. We had only intended to read Alice but were both astounded at how quickly we were able to fly through it. What started as "we'll read 5 chapters by Tuesday" quickly turned into "I think I can finish it before Tuesday, you?" A truly bizarre story, I felt like it was fairly disjointed and nonsensical. I had heard once that it was a parody of British politics and government at the time it was written, cleverly disguised as a children's novel. Unfortunately I know nothing of British politics and government at the time, so I rather felt it was lost on me. I was even more confused by the total lack of most things from the movie (either the animation or the new tale), but it seems most of those things were actually from Through the Looking Glass; another truly bizarre disjointed story. I had thought at the start that it made more sense than Alice but by the end (which took me two days to reach) I was not so sure. Frankly, I'm still not sure.

Two on the Kobo

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger was the first book I read on my Kobo. It was excited when it came out last fall and wanted to read it right away, but wasn't willing to purchase it on hardcover: too expensive and too difficult to balance a hardcover comfortably in bed. But my kobo solved both of those problems for me and I was able to read it happily. Well, as happily as a person can read a strange story about two generations of twins and their obsessions and deceits. I did very much enjoy the novel and the characters, even when they displayed their particularly evil and deceptive sides. The end left me feeling a bit cut off. It was another book that just sort of stopped suddenly.

Following Symmetry I proceeded with a book taht I bought based solely on the title. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender caught my eye online and I read the exerpt and found I liked the writing style and premise of the story. This one I tore through over the weekend. The story, about a girl who finds she can taste people's emotions in the food they make, was a delight. Granted, it did get pretty weird about halfway through when Rose discovers her brother has a "special skill" all his own, but the story had such a poignant touch of reality and the day to day life of a "typical" family living in the suburbs of california, it was really enjoyable. Definitely a good read for the summer.

Into the Wilderness

I wrapped up Into the Wilderness last night. I did enjoy it, though there were parts that were just a bit too long winded descriptive for me. As a whole though, the novel moved along at a good pace and had a lot of interesting characters (though it was unnerving when I read the list of "important characters" at the start of the novel and it spanned several pages). One particular chapter early on made reference to Ian Murray, Claire Fraser and Jamie Fraser who are characters from the Outlander series (which is my very favoritest!) and I became both intrigued and very nervous. It was interesting to have them name-dropped, but I was very concerned that meant they would appear later on and I'm not ok with someone else writing about them. I also don't really see the point in having them name-dropped as it was just a bit confusing. The main character, Elizabeth, was a bit too prim and prissy for my liking at the start but, as I hoped she would, she did develop as the story went on into a stronger willed character, less constrained by society.
I guess all in all, it was a good story and I am curious to read the following books (three more I think?)