25 posts tagged “books”

My sister was visiting last week and we were very go go go.  One of the first trips we took while she was here was to The Book Barn in Niantic, CN.  Very neat place!  The selection may not have been better than other book stores, but all in all, it was probably huge.  I sound unsure about this because of the most bizarre set up they have.  The books are scattered (loosely by genre) in sheds, barns, and houses throughout the property.  Very strange, but very cool.  Some are rubbermaid sheds, some are wooden barns.  Meandering through gardens to get to different sections.  Very cool place.  It was a few hours away from us, but definitely worth it.  My family doesn't like to browse book stores nearly as long as I do (I can spend days in one store, I don't know how they see everything!), but I would definitely go back.  I didn't think of taking any pics, but my mom did.  Here are a few to get the idea :)

Yes.  They had a goat.  Three, in fact.

We rushed out, to get to Gillette State Park before it closed.  I'm telling you.  It was 3pm and they hadn't fed me lunch, I was near dead, but it was still very enjoyable.  It was a castle, built by Gillette, who was an actor in the 20's, I believe.  The first actor to play Sherlock Holmes (on stage).  Relatively small, but all the stone and giant bulky wood things made it really neat.  The light switches, bars, doors, etc were all this bulky, rough cut looking carpentry.  It was really interesting.  And wow, did he have a view as well!  Over the Connecticut River.  Very nice :)  There were also 2 people there pretending to be him and his wife.  It was cute.

Short, but I haven't updated about books in ages.  Bad reviews, as usual, but just to keep myself up to date.

Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure

Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure

Sarah MacDonald
- Travel, Memoir
Short description/summary of the book: [From Back]

In her twenties, journalist Sarah MacDonald backpacked around India and came away with a lasting impression of heat, pollution and poverty.  So when an airport beggar read her palm and told her she would return to India-for love-she screamed “Never!” and gave the country, and him, the finger.

But 11 years later, the prophecy comes true.  When the love of Sarah’s life is posted to India, she quits her dream job to move to the most polluted city on earth, New Dehli.  Holy Cow is MacDonald’s often hilarious chronicle of her adventures in a land of chaos and contradiction, of encounters with Hinduism, Islam, and Jainism, Sufis, Sikhs, Parsis and Christians, and a kaledeiscope of yogis, swamis and Bollywood stars.  From spiritual retreats and crumbling nirvanas to war zones and New Dehli nightclubs, it is a journey that only a woman on a mission to save her soul, her love life—and her sanity—can survive.
My Thoughts:

This was an enjoyable book.  It was interesting to read about all the different religions and how they mesh together and her experiences with different people in and out of those religions.  The first part of the book somewhat annoyed me, which I believe it was supposed to, because she just kept complaining about the conditions, the heat, the pollution, the people, the staring, etc.  Maybe the things she described didn’t seem that bad after living in China, I can’t imagine it being much worse, but it started out a little ethnocentric.  I want to think she meant it that way, they are the thoughts that most westerners in those foreign places have at first.  The inability to understand other cultures. So, I got over it, but I still find it obnoxious.  The only other thing I didn’t like was she would be writing normally, about her experiences at some religious retreat (how great would that be?  Spending 2 years in India not having to work or do ANYTHING) and all of a sudden she would throw in a sentence of deep prose, it seemed very out of place in her writing.  Just throw in a pretentious remark here and there about the beauty of the wind caressing your face or something else ridiculous. 

Okay, but that was enough complaining, otherwise, I found the book enjoyable.  I wouldn’t consider it a travel book, she mainly just outlines her encounters with the religions and the retreats she goes on, a soul-searching book.  It was a good time to be reading it though, I was excited that in one chapter they start talking about bollywood movies and actors and I knew them all!  I was thrilled that my unemployment could be so productive.  I imagine that a lot of people would read the book and have no real desire to travel to India, but since the bad things didn’t sound that bad after China, it really made me want to go.   I love their culture.  The problem with normal traveling is that you don’t get to know that part of it, the people, the holidays, the culture.  Just the landmarks.  I wish I could find a job that let me live all these different places!  I envy journalists.
B+

A Confederacy of Dunces

Book Title:  Confederacy of Dunces

John Kennedy Toole

My Thoughts:   I’m conflicted on this book.  I enjoyed reading it while I was reading it (even though there was some vernacular, my biggest pet peeve in the world) but there really wasn’t much of a plot line and there wasn’t a single likable character.  Most of them disgusted and annoyed me in fact.  I can’t decide why I liked this book or why I found it enjoyable, but I did for the most part.  I don’t know how else to describe it.

B-

Moscow - 2042

Moscow 2042

Vladmir Voinovich
Short description/summary of the book: [Amazon]

In this book the Russian author Kartsev, living in München in 1982, makes a time travel to the Moscow of 2042. After the "Great August Revolution" the new leader "Genialissimus" has changed the Soviet Union ... up to a certain point. After Lenins dream of a world revolution and Stalins experiment of 'Socialism within one country', Genialissimus has decided to build "Communism within one city", Moscow. The ideology has changed somewhat, into a hotchpotch of marxism-leninism and Russian orthodoxy (Genialissimus himself is also patriarch!) The decay, from which the Soviet Union suffered, has gone further and further. The rest of the Soviet Union, where people barely survive, has been separated by a Berlin type of wall from the "paradise" of Moscow, where communism has been (sort of) realised. Within the wall everyone gets everything "according to his needs". Only their needs are not decided by themselves, but by the wise Genialissimus. And of course, most people have "ordinary needs", but a chosen few have "extraordinary needs". For the first class, life is dismall even within the priviliged "Moscow Republic". At last, the situation gets so desperate, that people throw themselves in the arms of a "liberator", a fellow dissident writer and (kind of) friend of Kartsev, the extreme Slavophile Sim Karnavalov(probably inspired by Solzjenytsin), who enters Moscow on a white horse and proclaims himself Tsar Serafim the First. Now a new kind of nightmare starts...
My Thoughts:  Fantastic book.  It read somewhat like a typical dystopian type novel, but it had a more humourous and satirical edge to it than many other in the genre.  I wondered if it was still a relevant novel to be reading after the fall of the Soviet Union and I like to believe that people aren’t that gullible, but you never can tell.  Very interesting read.
A

The Revolt of the Angels - Anatole France

The Revolt of the Angels

Anatole France
-Fantasy/Fiction
Short description/summary of the book:

The story of a revolution against God by a group of angels in heaven.  The author’s ironic comments on the subjects ranging from current morals and police ineptitude to the organization of the cosmos make this a hilariously funny but deeply serious book.
My Thoughts:   I thought it was a fairly interesting book.  A different take on ‘angels’ than is normal, which was interesting, but by the end of the book I had the feeling that not much had actually happened.  It had an interesting story about Satan, other than his back story, which I found interesting, there was a point when the renegade angels came to him to have him lead their revolt and he had a dream about it what would happen if he did that and won.  It was one of those 'power corrupts' type dreams I guess.  Plus, his reason for being down on earth wasn't bad, more enjoyable, helped people evolve, etc, I wouldn't want to go back either :P  Very interesting take though.
B

Kumari

Kumari

William Buchan
My Thoughts:   

Very entertaining and beautifully written book.  I enjoyed the main character, his story, attitude, feelings, etc.  But I usually enjoy reading about people wandering around in foreign countries.  The story is very melancholy and the ending is sad and sort of a non-ending, which is how life is I guess, which makes it okay.  Things never really end in life, they just transition.  I felt that the plot and characters were very realistic.  Very good  read.  I don't think I've read a book dealing with the English in India in the 30's, so I enjoyed reading about the life they had, and...well..it falling apart essentially.  Interesting comments on culture, imperialism, country, and the character of people.
A

Little Green Men

Little Green Men

Christopher Buckley
Genre: Fiction, Political, humour/satire

# of pages: 300
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].:  A
Short description/summary of the book:

In Christopher Buckley's hilarious fourth novel, Washington, D.C., is naturally enough a place of sex, lies, and videotape. Unfortunately for Little Green Men's pundit protagonist, John Oliver Banion, it is also the HQ of Majestic Twelve, a very, very covert government project. Since "that golden Cold War summer of 1947," MJ-12 has had a single mission--to convince taxpayers that space invaders are constantly lurking below what's left of the ozone layer. "A country convinced that little green men were hovering over the rooftops was inclined to vote yea for big weapons and space programs," the author thoughtfully explains.

But one disgruntled operative wants out. Nathan Scrubbs is fed up to the back teeth with the art of alien abduction--not to mention his cover as a Social Security flunky--so when his request for a transfer is quashed, he drunkenly decides to take it out on ubiquitous ultra-prig Banion, who happens to be on TV at the time. The ensuing high-tech kidnap, at Maryland's Burning Bush Country Club, is only one of the thousands of convulsively funny scenes in Little Green Men. Not that the novel isn't a skewed morality play of some sort: as Banion comes to believe in Tall Nordics and Short Ugly Grays, he is quickly removed from every A-list in town. But oddly enough, social and political disaster turns out to be as liberating as the finest alien probe. Let's just say that long before Banion and Scrubbs have a close encounter at the Millennium Man March on Washington, this Beltway barrel of monkeys attains a truly extraplanetary level of amusement.

My Thoughts:   This is the first book of his I’ve read, but I loved the movie ‘Thank You For Smoking’.  This book was just as good as that, again dealing with the inner workings of the government, though a little less believable than the premise of TYFS, as it is about government conspiracy about aliens, it was very funny and very satirical.  Though I imagine it is better if you have an interest in politics and government, it would probably be entertaining to just about everyone.  He has a great writing style and his ‘heroes’ are always entertaining and relatable.
I'm also under the impression that most people on my fl will really appreciate this book, so I'm recommending it, or any of his books (as I understand they are all just as good, interesting, and about Washington/politics).
A+

I read a lot of books, but then I go through these lists and realise how many I haven't read... I need to get reading!

Taken from writebrained

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own weblog / journal so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of William Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Attwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From a Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ranson
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Colour Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishigury
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

48/100  I fail :P

Each year I start a list of books in a word file.  I fell behind posting them last year, but I won't weigh you down with all of them.  Needless to say, I was disappointed in the amount I read because of school taking over my life.  Hopefully that won't happen this year (I did have a better head start at the beginning of last year before heading back into school though...)  Anyway, a book I finished a few days ago...

Alexandra: The Last Tsarina

Carolly Erickson

Book # 23

Saving Fish from Drowning: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

Amy Tan

Book Title: Saving Fish from Drowning

Author: Amy Tan
Genre: Fiction
# of pages: 474
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: B-
Short description/summary of the book: [from Amazon]

The title of the book is derived from the practice of Myanmar fishermen who "scoop up the fish and bring them to shore. They say they are saving the fish from drowning. Unfortunately... the fish do not recover," This kind of magical thinking or hypocrisy or mystical attitude or sheer stupidity is a fair metaphor for the entire book. It may be read as a satire, a political statement, a picaresque tale with several "picaros" or simply a story about a tour gone wrong.

Bibi Chen, San Francisco socialite and art vendor to the stars, plans to lead a trip for 12 friends: "My friends, those lovers of art, most of them rich, intelligent, and spoiled, would spend a week in China and arrive in Burma on Christmas Day." Unfortunately, Bibi dies, in very strange circumstances, before the tour begins. After wrangling about it, the group decides to go after all. The leader they choose is indecisive and epileptic, a dangerous combo. Bibi goes along as the disembodied voice-over.

Once in Myanmar, finally, they are noticed by a group of Karen tribesmen who decide that Rupert, the 15-year-old son of a bamboo grower is, in fact, Younger White Brother, or The Lord of the Nats. He can do card tricks and is carrying a Stephen King paperback. These are adjudged to be signs of his deity and ability to save them from marauding soldiers. The group is "kidnapped," although they think they are setting out for a Christmas Day surprise, and taken deep into the jungle where they languish, develop malaria, learn to eat slimy things and wait to be rescued. Nats are "believed to be the spirits of nature--the lake, the trees, the mountains, the snakes and birds. They were numberless ... They were everywhere, as were bad luck and the need to find reasons for it." Philosophy or cynicism? This elusive point of view is found throughout the novel--a bald statement is made and then Tan pulls her punches as if she is unwilling to make a statement that might set a more serious tone.

There are some goofy parts about Harry, the member of the group who is left behind, and his encounter with two newswomen from Global News Network, some slapstick sex scenes and a great deal of dog-loving dialogue. These all contribute to a novel that is silly but not really funny, could have an occasionally serious theme which suddenly disappears, and is about a group of stereotypical characters that it's hard to care about.

My Thoughts:

Would you believe that this is my first Amy Tan book?  I never thought her books even sounded interesting (mother daughter relationship in a Chinese-American family?  -_-), but this one sounded great and interesting and was, all in all, an enjoyable read.  Thanks for the book Lady Jane!

Hard to say what I thought about this book.  It held more weight when I thought it was based on a true story, however, reading through an interview, she said that the Note to the Reader at the beginning was, alas, fictional.  It starts off somber, with the funeral of the dead narrator, which continues to inject a dark humour into the book.  When I was reading it, the story line was going along, but there was always this foreboding, even when nothing was really going wrong, since you knew something was going to happen, and also, when the omnipotent narrator would often say ‘If only they knew what was going to happen.’  All this darkness overshadowing the entire story, storm clouds waiting to burst, expect the worst.  And it brought back a very unsettling feeling of the idea of going somewhere on an innocent vacation and having something happen and never coming back (a distinctly real worry my stay in China invoked in me).  When thinking back, perhaps this feeling the book tried to bring about was just a little too strong, maybe she pushed it a little too much, because, in the end, it didn’t really seem to amount to much.  The characters, who were at first interesting, sort of became static.  It was interesting, when their journey started, to see how they interacted with each other, a common feeling of being put into situations were you become ‘family’ to people you don’t really know.  It was interesting to get into the minds of the characters through the narrator, though somewhat bizarre.  I really did enjoy the descriptions of the travel and the country (and the parts of China that I had been too!), but the expectations I had at the beginning of the book for darkness and mystery and despair were unfulfilled.  The darkness was, at best, dark humour, which was usually out of place; the mystery was, really, no mystery at all; the situation they found themselves in was, really, not that bad (not enough for all the damning comments and all those, ‘Dun dun DUUUNNN’ moments, I could almost hear that in my head) and the emotions seemed 2 dimensional.   You had a hard time, at the end, identifying with the situation and the characters, it just stopped seeming real.

So, all this dark and foreboding and, in the end, (hope I don’t spoil anyone), everything turned out fine, no one died, was hurt, had a bad experience, and everyone lived happily ever after.

I don’t know if I would be as damning as the reviews on Amazon, I really did enjoy this book and some of the characters while reading it, but it sort of fell apart at the end.

It did, however, remind me what I always disliked about those tourist groups we would run across, damn Americans, lol.
Currently reading : School books :P  Machiavelli, textbooks, etc.

~Nikki
(Amazon Store

 Book # 22

Watership Down: A Novel

Richard Adams

Book Title: Watership Down

Author: Richard Adams 
Genre: Fiction
# of pages: 475
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: A+++
Short description/summary of the book: (Amazon)

The story is about a band of rabbits---Hazel, Bigwig, Fiver, Dandelion, and Bluebell---who set off from their comfy holes to find a new rabbit warren on the plains of Watership Down. They leave their original warren because Fiver (a small, brooding rabbit with 'The Sight') has a vision of it being destroyed. Not surprisingly, soon after they leave, they find out that the warren HAD been destroyed by big hrududil (tractors) that dug up the ground and killed all those who remained behind.

The trials and tribulations of Hazel and his band of rogue rabbits carries the story along at a leisurely pace, not rushing to get the story out, giving rabbit history and mythology a few well-deserved pages, too.

After Hazel and his fellow bunnies set up their new warren on Watership Down, though, they find that they have a serious problem: no does (females)! Without does, their new warren is doomed to failure, so they set about trying to locate some breeding stock. But what they encounter is a terrible warren known as Efrafa run by the overbearing and callous General Woundwort. The battle between Watership Down and Efrafa is terrible and exciting reading, even for adults.

My Thoughts:

I hadn’t read this book in, it has to be about 10 years.  It was my favourite book for AGES and I finally decided that it was time to read it again.   The name had popped up recently (a few times) and I just couldn’t resist.  I RARELY reread books.  Very, very rarely.  But I have to say, either this book is just that amazing, or it was so long ago I don’t really remember it well enough, but I never got tired of it.  And thing is, I did remember it while I was rereading it and it still never got old or boring.  I loved it just as much as the first time on a totally different level.  It was really interesting to read it now, with all the knowledge and life lessons I have gained in the ten years since reading it the first time.  Even though it is about talking rabbits, I would never consider this a children's book.   The themes and adventures can be slightly disturbing at times (yet unobtrusively), and it really has a depth that you would never think this type of book could contain.  I adore it.  It is back (and will never fall off again) of my favourite book of all times list.

Currently reading :  Saving Fish from Drowning, Amy Tan

Watership Down on Amazon

Book # 20

Phantastes: A Faerie Romance

George MacDonald

Book Title: Phantastes : A Faerie Romance

Author: George McDonald
Genre: Fantasy
# of pages: 320
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: B
Short description/summary of the book: Amazon.com  (from people always more eloquent than myself)

This is an enchanting work of high fantasy, lyrical in its composition, spiritual in its nature, and enlightening in its effect on the careful reader. As the subtitle says, Phantastes is a Faerie Romance For Men and Women. The Fairy Land in which Anodos, the narrator, ventures is not the fairy land of youth's innocent dreams; rather, it is an otherworldly plane full of great beauty and terrible ugliness, impish little fairies and horrible, teasing goblins, nurturing spirits and malevolent entities. Anodos' discovery of a fairy inside his deceased father's old desk leads to his unplanned journey into this world of wonder. Interestingly, upon entering Fairy Land, Anodos leaves the beaten path and makes his way through the woods all on his own. He meets a diverse cast of characters along the way, reckoning with dark beings who threaten his spiritual well-being while also finding great and needed comfort at crucial times from nurturing maternal forces. His own shadow takes on perhaps the most malevolent influence of all the beings he deals with. He often finds himself compelled to sing, and his songs are powerful enough to free a beautiful White Lady from inside a statue; he remains infatuated with this lady for a long time, trying desperately to find her; his love for her, he comes to realize, comes in large part from his feelings of having been the one to free her, and an important point the author seems to be suggesting is that the love of a giver is much more pure than the love of a benefactor.

Much of this story is allegorical; Anodos basically comes to know himself and to see the world more objectively as a result of his journeys. He often resorts to tears, yet he also raises his voice in song to uplift others. He discovers the power of brotherly love and the beauty that is all around, yet he cringes at the sight of the shadowy creatures that would do him ill. His journey is challenging because he naturally falls prey to feelings of pride and egotism, but his losses and sorrows eventually coalesce themselves into something of beauty, for it is these experiences that help him grow more spiritual. Much has been made of MacDonald's religious beliefs, but Phantastes to me calls forth no religion other than spiritualism and personal growth and maturity. Good and evil do not exist in Fairy Land, except in the sense that there is both good and evil in each individual spirit.

Doubtless, some will not like MacDonald's 19th-century, florid style. There is action in this novel, but it definitely takes a back seat to exposition and philosophical musings. Some will surely find Phantastes exceptionally boring, but those readers willing to follow Anodos deeply into Fairy Land will embark on an enlightening, touching read that will almost surely make them better persons for having taken the literary journey.

My Thoughts:

A really fantastic book.  If you like Tolkien or CS Lewis, I have no doubt that you will enjoy this book.  It has an older feeling than a lot of the fantasies today, it doesn’t try and be something it is not, it really goes back to the heart of the fantasy genre.  It isn’t by any means predictable or corny though.  It is the story of Anodos, fallen into a faery land and wandering around without an aim.  Adventures that he has, creatures that he sees, his own shadow that plagues him, and the search for something that he isn’t aware of yet.  There is a very strong bitter-sweet feeling to the book, it isn’t your childhood waltz through magical land, more of an allegorical soul-searching journey through the awesomely beautiful and terrifyingly dark.
Quote :

Afterwards I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of painful thoughts, is to dare them to do their worst, to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired; and you find you still have a residue of life they cannot kill.

Book # 19

The Time Traveler's Wife

Audrey Niffenegger

Book Title: The Time Traveler’s Wife

Author: Audrey Niffenegger
Genre: Fiction/Modern
# of pages: 536
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: A
Short description/summary of the book:

From Publishers Weekly
This highly original first novel won the largest advance San Francisco-based MacAdam/Cage had ever paid, and it was money well spent. Niffenegger has written a soaring love story illuminated by dozens of finely observed details and scenes, and one that skates nimbly around a huge conundrum at the heart of the book: Henry De Tamble, a rather dashing librarian at the famous Newberry Library in Chicago, finds himself unavoidably whisked around in time. He disappears from a scene in, say, 1998 to find himself suddenly, usually without his clothes, which mysteriously disappear in transit, at an entirely different place 10 years earlier-or later. During one of these migrations, he drops in on beautiful teenage Clare Abshire, an heiress in a large house on the nearby Michigan peninsula, and a lifelong passion is born. The problem is that while Henry's age darts back and forth according to his location in time, Clare's moves forward in the normal manner, so the pair are often out of sync. But such is the author's tenderness with the characters, and the determinedly ungimmicky way in which she writes of their predicament [...] that the book is much more love story than fantasy. It also has a splendidly drawn cast, from Henry's violinist father [...] to Clare's odd family and a multitude of Chicago bohemian friends. [...] It is a fair tribute to her skill and sensibility to say that the book leaves a reader with an impression of life's riches and strangeness rather than of easy thrills.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
My Thoughts:

I know I’m a little behind on the times and it’s shocking that someone hasn’t read this book…

I don’t read a lot of modern fiction, so I’m always a little surprised at the way it is written.  It’s always so easy to get through and the people and situations and conversations seem so familiar and real. 

The time traveling was really interesting.  Unlike many references to time-traveling, you don’t sit there wondering how it is possible, or pondering all the different theories of alternate planes and whatnot (at least I didn’t). It wasn’t too hard to wrap your head around the jumping time zones once you realised that most of it was chronologically through Clare’s life, and it was always interesting to piece together what was happening to him later in his life when he would visit when she was younger. 

I really got attached to the characters and seeing as how this turns into one of the more depressing books I’ve read, I’ll admit, I was crying at the end.

I’ll also admit that I am a snob, especially a book snob, so when I decided to read this (it was recommended to me by a few people) I was kind of embarrassed to be seen with it.  I have issues with reading books that are popular….they are usually pretty dumb (to appeal to the masses), but I have to say, that I really enjoyed the premise of this book.  I can see why it would be popular, the writing style is so smooth and easy, probably because it is modern fiction, but like I said, I’m not used to reading that.  But I’m definitely glad I wasn’t embarrassed enough to not read it at all, I really enjoyed this book.

From what I gather though, it is a hit or miss with people, but it is worth picking up to see if you like it.