Books Read:

Books Purchased:

The original Polysyllabic Spree

(This post was brought over from emilyw.vox.com. Click here for the original post and comments.)

The Dangerous Book for Boys

Conn Iggulden

Ok, I’m not a boy. But I could not resist buying this book today. It’s so awesome.

Brilliant design. Fun and very informative topics, that include:

• The seven wonders of the ancient world
• Five knots every boy should know
• Making a bow and arrow
• Famous battles
• U.S. Naval flag codes
• Navajo code talker’s dictionary
• Understanding grammar
• Girls
• Making cloth fireproof
• Secret inks
• Navigation
• The Declaration of Independence
• Dog tricks
• Coin tricks
• Seven poems every boy should know
• How to play poker
• A brief history of artillery
• The Ten Commandments
• Common trees
• Five pen-and-paper games
• The game of chess
• Books every boy should read
• growing sunflowers

This UK bestseller is now available in the US. Modified slightly – mainly the topics covered in sports and history sections.

The Official Website: http://www.dangerousbookforboys.com/

(This post was brought over from emilyw.vox.com. Click here for the original post and comments.)

Water for Elephants

Sara Gruen

This week I finished Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

I love where books take me – across America on a train with a traveling circus, stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the restaurant at the end of the universe, on an investigation into the death of a neighborhood dog, and countless more.

I’ve found that the books that most surprise me most by securing a place in my heart and list of favorites are the ones that are about subjects I never thought I was interested in reading about.

A few other examples, besides the subject of this post, that come immediately to mind are Life of Pi and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

If you had asked me if I wanted to read a survival story about a young boy who escapes a shipwrecked boat only to face months stranded on a boat with a dangerous tiger (Life of Pi), I probably would have said no thanks.

But thank goodness I frequently push my expectations aside and jump into books that fall outside my main interests. That’s one of the greatest benefits (and pleasures) of reading.

What this is leading up to is that Water for Elephants is a book about a circus. (But oh so much more.) I was most certainly circus neutral before reading this book.

Sara Gruen is an incredible writer. Each character is vivid and real. Our hero, Jacob Jankowski, captures your heart in the beginning and never lets go. It’s interesting, fun to read, happy, thoughtful, moving, inspiring, and poignant, all rolled into one must read novel.

One of the things that impressed me most was how well she writes older characters. Their thoughts and feelings seem spot on. She handles all aspects of old age truthfully and with grace. How Jacob doesn’t like to look in mirrors because he doesn’t recognize himself at 90 (or 93, he can’t remember). How he doesn’t feel that he is a part of his children’s lives anymore, now that they’re old with grandchildren of their own. His troubles with his memory.

The majority of the plot, though, is flashbacks to his youthful days as a young man who finds himself with nothing to lose, and so, rather randomly, finds himself working for a traveling circus. The relationships that he develops are powerfully real – we develop them right along with Jacob.

A blurb from Joshilyn Jackson (Author of Gods in Alabama) says it better than I can: “Gorgeous, brilliant, and superbly plotted, Water for Elephants swept me into the world of the circus during the depression, and it did not let me go until the very end. I don’t think it has let me go, even now. Sara Gruen has a voice to rival John Irving’s, and I am hopelessly, unabashedly in love with this book. Read it.”

Here’s a great interview with Sara Gruen that’s fun to read after finishing the novel. (It’s also the one in the back of the paperback edition.)

(This post was brought over from emilyw.vox.com. Click here for the original post and comments.)

My friend Elisa is incredibly nice and got me a signed copy of A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I wasn’t feeling up to going to the signing last night, but I heard it was great and absolutely swamped with fans. It was too crowded for him to personalize the books, but I’m happy just to have a signed copy.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

(This post was brought over from emilyw.vox.com. Click here for the original post and comments.)

Karma and Other Stories (P.S.)

Rishi Reddi

There’s no cure for a rotten morning like buying three new books and three new magazines on your lunch break.

I’ve been enjoying stories of Indian Americans since I discovered Jhumpa Lahiri, and this collection, Karma and Other Stories by Rishi Reddi, looks very promising.

From a Booklist review:
This excellent debut collection is deceptively easy to read. The stories of Indian Americans navigating their way through two cultures can be read in one or two sittings, but they deserve to be pored over slowly. Each story manages to include information about Indian culture, without seeming remotely pedantic or expository. The details make the stories specific to Indians, but the emotions and characters make the stories universal. A teenager tries to gain his father’s protection, while also asserting himself. A devoted wife and mother struggles to find her own identity. A hip twentysomething copes with her best friend’s upcoming marriage and her own failed relationship. A great recommendation not only for fans of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake (2004) but also for fans of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s elegant studies of a culture that is both familiar and foreign.

I’ve been very into short story collections lately.

The other two books I purchased were the two Salingers I haven’t read:
-Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour – An Introduction
-Nine Stories

I also left the store with InStyle Homes, Better Homes and Gardens, and House and Garden – because, well, what can I say – sometimes I just want to look at pretty rooms in magazines.

Needless to say my day got better after this.

(This post was brought over from emilyw.vox.com. Click here for the original post and comments.)

Franny and Zooey

J.D. Salinger

It was incredible to read Franny and Zooey right after finishing Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer. It helped me realize how extraordinarily talented J.D. Salinger is.

I loved the story as well, especially the conversation at the end between Franny and Zooey on the phone – it was beautiful. But the writing was outstanding, and what ultimately gave it a place on my long list of Favorite Books Of All Time. There are countless examples of Salinger’s mastery of Dialog, Detail, Gesture, Sentences, and Character.

Here are some of my favorite examples:

“Lane spotted her immediately, and despite whatever it was he was trying to do with his face, his arm that shot up into the air was the whole truth.” (p. 7)

“But he got up from the piano bench too restively for it to have been a real gesture of dismissal.” (p. 133)

“At one of the bookcases, he gave a misaligned book an orderly little push with his thumb, then passed on.” (p. 136)

“At first piecemeal, then point-blank, he let his attention be drawn to a little scene that was being acted out sublimely, unhampered by writers and directors and producers, five stories below the window and across the street.” (p. 151)

“Tears, presumably, were imminent, if not already on the way.” (p. 150)

“When he moved again, it was as though marionette strings had been attached to him and given an overzealous yank.” (p. 182)

Salinger’s Nine Stories now holds a place high up on my To Be Read List. I’m also going to give Catcher In the Rye another chance – reading more for the writing rather than the plot, which last time (and only time) I found it hard to relate.

But first – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire awaits my attention, waiving at me from my bookcase reminding me of my quest to re-read all of Harry Potter’s adventures before his final one this July.

(This post was brought over from emilyw.vox.com. Click here for the original post and comments.)