Since I last posted I have started making notes on the books I
read in an old-fashioned paper-and-pen notebook, which is part
of the reason I haven't posted about books; I feel like I've
thought about the books quite enough between reading them and
then making notes, I don't really want to face them again in
the blog. So I am trying to decide if I should give up blogging
about books at all. On the one hand I feel as if books are
the only thing of substance I write about, and I sort of
like putting my reading list out there and sharing the finds
and the books to avoid; I know there is at
least one person who gets ideas about books to read from my
list. On the other hand I
don't know if anyone else particularly cares what I read and
what I think about it, so maybe it's not worth blogging about
and I should stick to the paper book log.
Anyway, all that aside I would like to write about what I
read in the rest of 2006, for completeness.
The Baby Project by Sarah Ellis is a
young adult novel about a teenage girl who gets an unexpected
baby sister, and how the new addition pulls the family apart
and together.
SPOILER: Of course there is the obligatory
tragedy which forces everyone to confront their demons and
become better people. Tragedies in young adult fiction often
seem to heavy-handed and morose and obvious. "We must
have something terrible happen to these people to move the
character development forward." As opposed to the tragedy
happening because tragedies happen, which I suppose happens
in life, but I feel like fiction should be a little more sensible.
I don't know how an
author finesses that fine line of having things happen to move
the novel forward without it being obvious that this thing
is happening to move the novel forward, but it's nice when they manage
it. Which Ellis didn't here, but otherwise it's a good story
with well-drawn characters.
Reading Series Fiction by Victor Watson
seemed like a nice complement to the book about reading like a professor.
It's about series fiction for children, which apparently is an
under-studied genre in the world of children's literature. Watson
gives a nice overview, with lots of analysis of various series,
as well as effectively skewering Enid Blyton. This is a must-read
for anyone who is interested in children's literature.
Confessions of an Organized Homemaker by Deniece
Schofield is a book about how to get organized. I can't
remember the layout or concept of this book, but I wrote down a
bunch of good ideas from it, like keeping jigsaw puzzle pieces
in big Ziploc baggies and getting rid of the boxes (which always
fall apart, don't stack nicely and generally make life hard); keeping
all dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, rice, etc) in Tupperware
containers which stack neatly, rather than in the original packaging
(of course I use cheap and cheerful Gladware instead).
This was a useful book with lots of similar good ideas.
Johnny Kellock Died Today by Hadley Dyer
is a young adult novel set in Halifax in the fifties. I don't remember
much about this apart from a favourable impression and appealing
characters, and another tragedy but a much more finely drawn and
subtle one.
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
is a book about what makes people happy. This is very nicely
written; I enjoyed reading it not just for the content but
for the author's voice. It's an interesting book about
where happiness comes from, what makes us happy, how we deal with
tragedy, and how to make decisions that will make us happy in
the future. It's probably a good idea for everyone to read this
book. Everyone who wants to be happy, anyway.
The Car and the City by Alan Thein Durning
is an overview of how cars and cities work together, or rather
how they don't work together, and how we can create cities which
improve our lives and lessen our dependence on cars (which are
pretty much synonymous in my mind). Useful book, easy to read.
The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy Boston and
Autumn Term by Antonia Foster are both discussed
in the aforementioned Reading Series Fiction book. Green
Knowe is about a little boy who is sent to live with an ancient
relative in a spooky old house, and the friends he makes there;
Autumn Term is an excellent representative of the English
Boarding School genre. Both are very good and I will suggest the
girls read them when they are older.
I did not finish
Allergy: History of a Modern Malady by Mark Jackson. I thought
it would be more chatty, more lighthearted, but it turned out to be a
dense discussion of the history of allergies in medicine, and I gave up
after a couple of chapters.
Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith
and Cold Moon by Jeffrey Deaver were good
easy reading.
The March of Unreason: Science, Democracy and the New
Fundamentalism by Dick Taverne is a really nice comparison
of anti-scientific doctrines and beliefs with the old religious
fundamentalism. Taverne discusses the role of the media and
post-modernist thought in the mongering of fear of such diverse
bugaboos as multinational companies, pesticide, genetic modification,
and modern medicine. His arguments are sound and this book is very
thought-provoking. It's also nice to think that one doesn't have to
go around being scared and cynical all the time.
Kindred by Octavia Butler is an awesome
book. It's about a modern (well, seventies) black woman who is
sent back in time to the slavery-era South to save a white man who
will become her ancestor. Imagine the best possible book with that
scenario, and that's what Butler has written. I am glad to have
found this author because she wrote a lot, and you know I am always
running out of things to read.
I didn't read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell because
I wanted to, but because every else in the world has read it and I
felt left out. I'm glad I did, though, because it's interesting and
Gladwell is always a pleasure to read. It's more of that same brain
stuff like in Stumbling on Happiness and The Paradox
of Choice, and the more I know about how the brain works
the more in control I feel, and the more I understand about the
world.
The Fourth Horseman by Andrew Nikiforuk was
really disappointing. It's a book about plagues and pandemics, and I
love a good plague. One of my favourite units in History was on
the Black Death. But in my notebook I wrote "A discussion of various
plagues and pandemics through the ages, fatally marred by the author's
disdain for doctors, technology, and facts." It's a weird book;
at one point Nikiforuk talks with disgust about how underwear was
originally worn to protect more valuable outer garments from body
soil. Isn't that why we wear underwear now? I mean, except
Paris Hilton, for whom outerwear is underwear. He also
goes into a wistful reverie about the good old days when half of
children born didn't make it to age five, and old people were
really respected because there weren't so many of them. He speaks with
disdain about the "germ theory" of disease, the radical theory
that microorganisms are the cause of many diseases. And a cornerstone of
modern medicine. I think Nikiforuk is a kook in journalist's
clothing; this book was a jarring contrast the The March of
Unreason.
Little People: Learning to See The World Through My
Daughter's Eyes by Dan Kennedy is a book by the father
of a little girl born with achondroplagic dwarfism, about his
journey to understand why she was born different and what that
means for her future and for the world she will live in. It was
an interesting book and a good read. It was also fun to read the
bits about the Roloffs, because I know you watch Little People,
Big World every week like I do. Or at least you should.
Break No Bones by Kathy Reichs is better
than the last one — she's back to her usual formula and it's
working. Although I hope she resolves this husband/boyfriend love
triangle thing, it's starting to drag on.
So that was a lot of books and it took me a really long time to
write about them; was it worth it? I don't know; I'm just really
tired.
