{"id":1129,"date":"2005-11-29T08:01:12","date_gmt":"2005-11-29T12:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/2005\/11\/29\/catching-up-3\/"},"modified":"2007-07-28T22:59:29","modified_gmt":"2007-07-29T02:59:29","slug":"catching-up-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/2005\/11\/29\/catching-up-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching up…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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So I thought I would begin my re-entry into blog life by catching up on the books that I managed to read while I was away…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Jane Austen Book Club<\/strong>: Thought I would enjoy this, as I thoroughly enjoy all things Jane Austen (and yes, I did go see the umpteenth adaptation of Pride and Prejudice the other night), but I found it it be just…I don’t know. boring? amateurish? Yes I get that each of the characters in this book is "modeled" after a particular Austen character, but frankly, I would have preferred more "book club" time and less "meddling friend" time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Birth of Venus<\/strong>: Again, somewhat overrated. I didn’t get some of the characters’ motivations, and I would have preferred slightly more focus on the art, rather than the "romance novel" aspects. I found myself often having to google the historical characters and referenced artists in order to fully understand what the characters were talking about. That being said, I read it pretty quickly. But I had to remind myself that I was basically reading a "fancy" romance novel, rather than true historical fiction. And I’m still trying to figure out who the "artist" is supposed to be.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Everything is Illuminated<\/strong>: Now this was a book. I had actually bought it a few years ago, and it ended up in the pile of books that I kept intending on reading and never getting around to. Well, when I was in Italy, I ran out of the books I brought with me, so I went to the bookstore and this was one of five english-language books that they had (the others all being Grisham novels that I had read years ago). So I thought, why not?<\/p>\n

Seriously. I couldn’t put it down. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but I was utterly mesmerized at how wrong I was in my assumptions. And I really felt as if I was reading from the points of view of the different "writers" – Foer captured their voices so well. This of course, led me to immediately pick up his new book when I got home…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close<\/strong>: I read this one over the Thanksgiving holiday. and I’m still in awe of it. The connections, the adventure, the overwhelming sadness of a little boy trying desperately to grasp the last clues left by his father who was killed on the "worst day". Again, Foer manages to capture the voice of a character who is so far removed from himself that you forget that you’re reading a novel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Memoirs of a Geisha<\/strong>: This was actually my plane reading back and forth to London on this last trip, because I only travel with paperbacks. I’ve been meaning to read it for years, and again, just never got around to it. But having to follow my rule never to see a movie until I’ve read the book, it was finally time. And it was fantastic. Yet another author who so thoroughly captures a voice that is far removed from his own life. I was enthralled. And compared to Birth of Venus, this<\/em> is how you write a book that encompasses sex and duty and love so fully without making your reader feel like they have to hide the cover when they’re in public.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I thought I would begin my re-entry into blog life by catching up on the books that I managed to read while I was away… The Jane Austen Book Club: Thought I would enjoy this, as I thoroughly enjoy all things Jane Austen (and yes, I did go see the umpteenth adaptation of Pride […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-1129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6ZBi-id","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}