Monday, January 30, 2012

Book #6: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

This is the first book that I've read this year that was already on my book list. All the other ones I heard about from other book blogs or other recommendations, but of course, The Grapes of Wrath is a classic and one that I'd always intended to read but never actually done so. After reading East of Eden and Travels with Charley last year, I wanted to get some more Steinbeck so I'd asked for this for Christmas. This was actually the first book I started this year, but it's taken me this whole time to finish it because it's so big and heavy (in multiple ways).

In On Writing, which I read in the middle of this, Stephen King says something like, "Don't feel bad if you can't write anything as good as The Grapes of Wrath your first time around." I laughed when I read that because I was about halfway through with this book and I was struggling with it because of all the breaks in the narrative where he inserts those chapters of generalizations and descriptions of all the migrant people, and I told Tommy that it was just too much for me to want to finish. But I ended up getting back into it as the book wore on-- you can't HELP but feel for the Joads and be horrified by what they're going through. Every time they find another job, they get all hopeful again, and every time they get shot down and run out of money again and are back where they started. And they lose members of their family all along the way. Everything just seems so pointless and hopeless. But the more I think about it, the more hopeful the ending becomes and the more the symbolism of rejuvenation sticks out. And that's what I liked about East of Eden too.

I think I'm going to need to read a few quick books next to balance out this heavy one, but I'm still really glad I read it. It IS a real must-read.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Book #5: Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman

I've never read anything else by Anne Fadiman, but I LOVED this book. It's a book about books (a bunch of essays about books, actually), and it's tiny, and it's exactly what a reader/lover of books would enjoy. She writes about organizing her books, deciding what books to keep and throw away, writing in them, reading them, and writing ABOUT them. It made me want to read more and then read and read and read some more. It reminded me of how much I really love reading essays written--not academic essays (after I graduate, I'll never do it again!), but personal essays. Fadiman is a beautiful writer, too, and she made me want to try my hand at writing some essays. I had to write some during an essays class I took at BYU and I actually really enjoyed it--a creative writing style I could get into, I think. It's a little like blogging, but more official.

The only slightly negative thing about this book is that she totally makes me feel like an imposter--I've barely heard of a lot of the books she references, and I'm not sure I'd even enjoy them--and my small library of 2.5 bookshelves seem totally inadequate. But of course, she and her husband are both writers for a living, so their whole life revolves around reading and writing, so I can't feel bad that I don't really compare.

Book #4: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

This was the first audiobook I listened to for the year. It's actually a pretty depressing book, about a young man who went into the Alaska bush to live off the land for a summer and ended up starving to death. It's a true story too, written by an investigative journalist who wanted to find out about how this kid died and what he was wanting to do out there.

I enjoyed Krakauer's writing style, but I thought he added in too many details about Chris McCandless's wanderings before he went to Alaska--it started to drag for me--and a random couple of chapters about his own Alaskan adventure when he was about the same age. The book wasn't very long, but I guess I thought it could have been even shorter. Krakauer also takes all of the potential "suspense" out of the book, by announcing that McCandless died while he was in Alaska in the very first chapter, so you don't actually wonder if he's going to make it--you just keep hearing about how it happened and what went on. It was really interesting, though, because it happened in 1992, while I was alive. But I'd never heard about it before. This is a book I recommended to Tommy because it seems so boy-ish (wait, no, I should say "manly") and he likes these adventure-type books.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Book #3: On Writing by Stephen King

I've never read ANY of Stephen King's books. After reading this book, I realized why--they're all horror/creepy books, and that's just not my style. This book obviously isn't fiction, so it doesn't fall into those categories, and I really enjoyed it. The book is really meant for people who are looking to write their own books, as advice and information about writing, and although I don't necessarily fall into that category (right now) I still found it interesting.

The first half of the book is straight memoir--a brief autobiography of sorts, in small vignettes about his growing-up years and different elements from his life that contributed to him becoming a writer. This part of the book was my favorite--I love human stories as much as the next person. The rest of the book was his idea of how to become a good writer, with really straightforward tips and ideas about how to improve your writing style and opportunities. I agree with a lot of what he says (as a reader, not so much as a writer since I'm not one), and love how he's totally focused on the STORY above all. Something that totally intimidates me from ever even thinking about wanting to write anything is the English-major idea I have that books need to have themes, and metaphors, and symbolism--that books need to be LITERATURE if they're worth being read at all--but that's not true. If you have a good story, all the rest of that will come along (or it won't, and nobody will care). Good to know, and good to think about.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Book #2: Wolves, Boys, and Other Things that Might Kill Me by Kristen Chandler

This was a pretty good, actually realistic non-apocalyptic YA novel. The last few YA novels I read recently were The Hunger Games trilogy and Matched and Crossed over Christmas break (Callie was reading them, so I borrowed them and got sucked in) and I thought they were so similar and started to think that ALL YA novels these days are about either vampires or our future world. This book was normal, about a girl living right outside of Yellowstone and her environmental escapades trying to save the wolves (and of course, falling in love in the process). I kind of got lost in all of the wolf information, although I might have just been reading too fast to pick up on all the nicknames and numbers they were referring to the wolves by. (I read it in about 3.5 hours.)

I think a YA novel would be kind of fun to write, to be honest. But I really don't like how they DO all seem to make their love stories so quick. Obviously, they can't write everything that supposedly happened over an entire year, but it just irritates me how both the boy and girl just seem to fall in love with each other without any real reason to be doing so. It makes me want to write a realistic love story to show them how it's done. BUT I'm also pretty sure it's partly the fact that I was the slowest mover on the planet and it just seems weird to me for people to fall in love without really knowing each other, but it's not weird to most people--particularly to the audience this book is reaching out to.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Book #1 of 2012: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

I'd heard a lot about this book for the last year or so, but it had never occurred to me to just check it out from the library and read it. Obviously, most of the hype was of the "Look how awful she is to her children!" type. I'd read a few excerpts from the book before so a lot of it felt familiar, and I knew exactly what she was going to be like before I read it. All in all, it was a really quick read, with a lot of interesting anecdotes and generalizations about Chinese vs. Western parenting (although Chua makes it clear that she knows she's generalizing). But I do think what she says about how permissive Western parents are (again, generalizing) is true, and there's a lot to be said with being more strict.

Of course, I don't think it's necessary to go as far as she does, calling her children garbage and making them practice the piano six hours a day. She's right--that DOESN'T sound fun, or worthwhile, in my opinion. While I think music lessons are good and I intend to put my kids through the same torture my mom suffered through with us, it's also not necessary for them to be the best at their instrument, playing at Carnegie Hall when they're in middle school. Whatever happened to being well-rounded?

I never felt like I really agreed with Chua, even while reading from her perspective the whole time. She didn't do a very good job of establishing ethos with her readers, considering that the book was written for a ton of other Western parents who she keeps railing against. No wonder so many people were offended--her tone is totally dismissive of anyone who disagrees with her, whether it be her daughters, her husband, or her hypothetical readers. All the same, Chua is a good writer, and, like I said, it was a quick read. I'm glad I read it.