very simple

I did finish reading a third book while I was away, Devil in the White City. It was really interesting. I actually picked it up thinking that it was fiction, and only when I was a third of the way through did I realize that it was historical. It’s written incredibly well, and the weaving of the stories of the Columbian Exposition and serial killer H.H. Holmes worked perfectly. I definitely picked the right books to bring with me, as I wasn’t disappointed in any of them.

I did finish reading both A Conspiracy of Paper and Touching the Void so far. Conspiracy… was really great. lot’s of intrigue, a somewhat murky and unsatisfying (for the protagonist) ending (like real life). I’m looking forward to reading his more recent books, including the sequel. Touching the Void was really incredible. Even knowing how it ends (having seen Joe Simpson on Letterman a few months ago, not to mention that he obviously survived in order to write the book!), I was on the edge of my seat and couldn’t put it down until I was done. Just the sheer force of will required for him to stay alive under such extreme circumstances…amazing.

I’ve updated the "what I’m reading" list to include the list of 10 or so books that I’ve bought to bring with me on vacation. I’m going to need to use the big suitcase. I’ve also changed the title to reflect the fact that I’m clearly not reading all of these books at one time. I like to read a few at a time, but even this is a bit much.

I finished reading Angels & Demons last night, and all in all, it was pretty good. It started out kind of dumb – I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I find it annoying when people who are supposedly geniouses do dumb things in order to maintain suspense, and that’s how this book started out. But starting in the middle, the book took a few turns that genuinely surprised me, and by the end, I was really glad to have stuck with it. I mean, it was fluff, but it was pretty enjoyable fluff and Brown did a pretty good job of laying the groundwork for but not giving away the ending.

I also finished reading The Partly-Clouded Patriot, by Sarah Vowell. Very funny – I’ve heard some of her stories on This American Life on NPR, so I could "hear" her telling these in that particularly singluar voice that she has. She’s part of that group of essayists that includes David Sedaris and David Rakoff, both of whom I also adore.

In preparation for my trip, I’ve been putting together a pile of books to bring with me. I’m up to seven. I usually can get through at least one book a day when I’m sitting on the beach, so this should be enough to keep me busy. Some of these are books that I bought a while ago, and have never gotten around to reading, and others I’ve been picking up in various trips to the bookstore. I would love to also bring some of the other books I haven’t been able to finish, like Wolves of the Calla and Constantine’s Sword, but they’re both really thick and in hardcover, so not really optimal for packing.

I finished reading Middlesex today. It was the first book in some time that I haven’t been able to put down. Every spare minute that I could find, I found myself picking it up to read a few more pages. I never read The Virgin Suicides (also by Jeffrey Eugenides), but I adored the movie, and now I think I’m going to go back and read that one too. Maybe those people who award the Pulitzer actually know what they’re doing.

I finally finished reading Pride & Prejudice, and it was great. I’ve been totally addicted to the A&E adaptation of the book, going so far as to get in on DVD as soon as it became available, but for some reason I never got around to actually reading any Jane Austen. And maybe it’s my 20th century sensibility, but I kept wanting Mr. Darcy to just grab Elizabeth and kiss her already! It would have solved so many communication problems. But that was probably the point.

I am actually offended by this adaptation, but I’ll probably end up seeing it against my better judgment. I do actually want to see this one though, if only because Bend it Like Beckham was awesome.

Anyway, adding to my list of books that I’ve now purchased before finishing the other ones that I’m in the middle of reading are Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (okay, so it’s basically the mental equivalent of a romance novel without the romance, but I did like the Da Vinci Code, even if it did only take me about 5 hours to read) and the book about Paul O’Neill, the former treasury secretary (I’m interested in seeing what it actually says, rather than hearing over and over again the three quotes that the news media has chosen to constantly repeat – although I personally see nothing wrong with continually emphasizing that George Bush is a "blind man in a room full of deaf people"). I also didn’t get the point of this review in Slate. Does the author not understand the concept of a parable? or sarcasm? And if I’ve heard the statement before, it’s got to be at least somewhat common – I find it hard to believe that Kinsley is so insistent on taking it literally. To me he just sounds like an idiot who has never picked up a copy of Bartlett’s.

I finally finished reading Longitude. It was a good book, quite short actually. I don’t normally react this way, but I actually think that I liked the A&E adaptation better. Maybe it was because you could actually see the intricacy and the beauty of the sea clocks. That, and Michael Gambon needs to be better known. Who knows.

I did pick up a copy of Middlesex today, It’s pretty good so far. I’m not sure why, but I was somewhat ambivalent about reading it in the first place. It’s gotten nothing but good reviews, and it’s ordinarily the type of book I’d snap up in a heartbeat. Maybe my ambivalence is just reflective of the general theme of the book. (wow. how’s that for somewhat obnoxious meta-commentary!)

In other news, you may have noticed that I’m trying to make this entire site conform to a specific style. I’ve already made everything orange (my favorite color). Today I’m changing all the titles in the blog to dates, and the titles will become subheadings. Most of the time, I just can’t think of a snappy title, and I think this will take the pressure off.

I finally finished reading Kavalier and Clay (Ok , I finished it a while ago, but never posted about it). It was pretty good, but it did drag at the end, as evidenced by my voracious reading of the first 95% and then not being able to read the last 50 pages to save my life. I think I read three other books before I finished!

I did read the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime. It was slow at first, and it took me 3 tries to pick it up and really get into it. but once I did, wow! totally engrossing…

I also read both Good in Bed and In Her Shoes, which were great, if a bit fluffy. Galileo’s Daughter was much harder to read, but well worth it.

I should also mention that I was on vacation for a week in Prague, which helped with the reading time.

I’m currently reading three books – Longitude (by the woman who wrote Galileo’s Daughter), Pride and Prejudice, and Stephen King’s new brick of a book. I haven’t read a lot of his recent stuff, but I was addicted to the Gunslinger series when I was younger, so I wanted to keep on going with the story…I got a good chunk of it read over Thanksgiving.

In a continuation of my mini-book review from yesterday, I just got onto Barnes and Noble.com and bought a few more items. First, I got sucked in and bought Pamie’s new book, "Why Girls are Weird". For those of you that don’t know, Pamie is a recapper at Television Without Pity, and maintains her own website, Pamie.com. She also happens to be one of the funniest writers I’ve encountered. So even before I begin reading, I highly recommend this tome.

Then, in order to fill out my order, I bought a few other things – "The Curious Tale of the Dog in the Night Time" (it got good reviews, so I thought I’d give it a try) and "Neuromancer" (A book I’ve been meaning to read for about 10 years now, and finally decided to go for it – partially egged on by the fact that one of the other good books that I read in Mexico was his new hardcover "Pattern Recognition").

I still haven’t finished Kavalier and Clay – I keep fearing that inertia is setting in, but since I have about 50 pages left, I’m hoping to overcome it. My other thought when I was brownsing at B&N today was that I was going to order all of the books that my English teachers in high school forced down my throat and reread them. Somehow, even when they were really good books, I somehow could not read them when they were an assignment. The very fact that I was required to read them drained any interest I may have had. I don’t really know why that is. And, it’s not like I didn’t want to read – while I was trying to come up with cover stories as to why I hadn’t read the assignment, I had probably read at least two or three non-assigned books off of my parents bookshelf. I’m the girl that got really excited at the $25 gift certificate to Waldenbooks that one of my parents’ friends would give to me every Chanukah (and in the 1980s, that could actually get you almost 2(!) hardcover books).

I used to be a completely voracious reader. I was the kid in junior high school that other kids would make fun of, because I’d bring extra books to school to read during my free time (and during class, when the teachers were too boring for words). I’d say that, through college, I kept up that level of leisure reading. But once I hit law school, and even moreso when I started working full time (or more realistically, more than full time by any normal standards), I slowed down a lot. I’ve largely limited my book reading time to vacations and long weekends.

As a consequence, the quality of the books that I started reading went downhill – I have a stack of books sitting on my shelf that i haven’t gotten to yet, because I know I can’t finish them in a day or two. Sure I read the Harry Potter books and a few of Oprah’s picks, and I read 6-8 magazines a week, but nothing that really challenged me as a reader. Up until recently the only long "intellectual" book that I read was The Power Broker by Robert Caro, and that was in the summer of 2000. I mean, in college I used to read everything from postfeminist theory (for fun!) to Pynchon.

But recently, I’ve started reading like crazy again. It started with my vacation to Mexico in March/April. I ended up reading 6 books, and sure, some of them were fluff, but one of them was Seabiscuit. Quite possibly the best book I’ve read ever. It made me cry, and I read it from start to finish with no breaks. And currently, I’m almost done with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which totally deserved its Pulitzer. I’ve been dragging it with me everywhere, opting to take the bus instead of the subway so that I have more time to read.

I’m actually beginning to think that I’m ready to tackle that copy of Infinite Jest that’s been sitting on my bedside table since 1996. Of course I may need a crane to get it on the bus, since I actually own it in hardcover.