Book List: three months in
I'll be updating my 2010 Reading List (primarily composed of books I uploaded to my Kindle in February) as I read through it, in no particular order.
And since I've gone ahead and created a post to make that announcement, I'll go ahead and list what I've finished thus far, as well as brief reviews:
The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett – I paid a visit to the former chair of the Shorter College Humanities Department recently and we naturally flung books to read at each other before parting. This was his contribution to my stack - a generations-spanning chronicle of the Englishmen and women involved in the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge. The writer was previously known for his work in the thriller genre, but this radical departure quickly became his bestselling work and has even spawned three board games and a television series, as well as a sequel novel. For good reason, too: I recommend the book to any fan of historical fiction. If Follett does say so himself: "It recreates, quite vividly, the entire life of the village and the people who live there. You feel you know the place and the people as intimately as if you yourself were living there in the Middle Ages."
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan – The movie looked like a great deal of fun, but in general I’m a firm believer of reading the book first. This was the first real disappointing read of my batch, though in all fairness that's largely because I turned out not to be the target audience; the reading level on this one's far below, say, the Harry Potter series, on which by the way it is far too shamelessly based (the gods' children all attend an annual summer camp where they train, for cryin' out loud). What I did enjoy enough to finish the story was how well Rick Riordan handles the central theme of parental abandonment. Naturally, it's that very redeeming feature at the core which the movie mishandles as badly as possible. Instead of keeping Percy Jackson in the dark about his completely mysterious god of a father, alternately longing to meet Poseidon and hating him for leaving, the film adaptation (1) shows Poseidon in the first minute of the film, so that we don't have any of that pesky curiousity bugging us as we take in the special effects, (2) has everyone Percy knows assuring him that Daddy loves him and is kept from his side by forces outside of his control, and (3) even has Poseidon's voice repeatedly guiding Percy through danger. Oy.
The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway - This actually wasn't on my reading list. A copy was included gratis by the curriculum publisher from which my school purchases all its materials and I stole it for a night. Coincidentally, two of Ernest Hemingway's other famous novels actually are on my list.
The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton - I uploaded all 30+ of her novels onto my Kindle for .99. That never ceases to tickle me. That aside, I can't really recommend this one. It's not unenjoyable, but the book is written in a Victorian tradition that most modern readers will find silly and unsatisfying: the morality tale about the girl who foolishly engages in one or more Ill-Advised Activities, like putting off marriage too long or flirting with men so they buy you things. The consequences of these crimes is almost unfailingly homelessness and death in her twenties. The contrived nature of these dire ends can be hysterical, but they're never engaging. Fortunately, Edith Wharton moved on from such stuff to write The Age of Innocence, which is a mature and engrossing study of both an unconsummated extramarital affair and New York's high society at the beginning of the 20th century, fabulously written. Go check it out.
Nothing to Envy, by Barbara Demick – The true accounts of six North Korean refugees, who describe life beyond the DMZ and how they escaped it. Any account of the horrific and inexcusable conditions in which people in North Korea are trying to live out their lives is bound to be moving, but living as I currently do in the Koreans' southern republic - surrounded by this proud race and witnessing the society they're capable of achieving when not trod into the mud by a dictator - each story in this book feels barbed with greater poignancy. To see an ajumma happily teasing her toddler as she shops for dinner at an overstocked supermarket, then to read about a practically interchangeable woman watching her own baby die of starvation and incapable of even acknowledging the fact, truly impresses on one just how monstrous the crimes of Kim Jung-il and his cronies are.
The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, by Dr. Robert “The Bible Geek” Price – A biblical scholar’s assessment of the four gospels’ authenticity by one of the infamous (in Christian circles, anyway) Jesus Seminar's founders. Dr. Price is the very opposite of a fundamentalist Christian; ometimes there seems to be no passage in the Bible which he considers believable. I don't agree with all of his opinions (I find it likely that a historical Jesus has at least walked this Earth at some time), but he always provides a very dense, informative, and witty read. Plus, he's a fellow comic book geek. What other Biblical scholar can you find who quotes recent issues of the Justice League of America?
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