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Spadoink
Oct 10, 2005

Tea, earl grey, hot.

College Slice
Finished with a final tally of 57 out of a goal of 52 - amazing since I was encouraged to set a reading goal by a friend, as something "me focused" while dealing with my Mom's terminal cancer.

Going to aim for 60 this year. My Goodreads.

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Spadoink
Oct 10, 2005

Tea, earl grey, hot.

College Slice

Spadoink posted:

Going to aim for 60 this year. My Goodreads.

January update list .. :toot:

1. The Blade Itself - Joe Abercrombie
2. Burial Rites - Hannah Kent
3. The 100 Year Old Man who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared- Jonas Jonasson
4. The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
5. As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
6. All She Was Worth - Miyuki Miyabe
7. And the Mountains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini
8. The Unburied Past - Anthea Fraser


I recommended the 100 Year Old Man to everyone I (personally) knew who read, because it was just fantastic - not conventional, quirky, enjoyable, with some big smiles. I think it is one of those books that has universal appeal.

I read a Faulkner because I hadn't read anything from him since Uni. My experience remained the same - took me a frustratingly long time to get into the diction and narrative style, and only started "enjoying" it right before it ended.

All She Was Worth is about 20 years old, and is a Japanese mystery that has at its centre the consumer and credit industry. It remains very relevant to current economic issues, which I found disconcerting.

The Unburied Past was terrible, which is what happens 90% of the time when I just pick and choose off the library's "new" or "recommended" sections online. The whole thing is only 200 pages, of which there are two major plot lines (a stalking by a rapist/murderer, and the murder of the protagonists parents), and yet the author devotes craploads of space to minutia - there is a half a page where one character in Canada has written an email to another to set up a Skype call to discuss their children. She transcribes the entire email, including such stupid details such as "do you have Skype," "my username is [whatever]," the time difference is 5 hours, so I suggest we have this call at 4pm my time, 5pm yours" .. ALL OF WHICH IS IRRELEVANT TO THE STORY. The pertinent part is "character A arranged to discuss the children with character B. Over a Skype call [as if that detail even matters] they decided X." Ack.The plot was meh, the time and effort given to irrelevant details, though, made me angry.

And the Mountains Echoed was a great story - I had read Khaled Hosseini's two prior works, and was glad that while part of this story takes place in Afghanistan, it is not about Afghanistan in the same way the Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns was. A character early in the books writes a letter that states something along the lines of "well, everyone is aware of the history of what has happened to Afghanistan, so I'm not going to rehash that," which I took for Hosseini's approach to this book. A great weaving of the stories of seemingly disparate characters across geographies and time lines. His writing really pulls you into each character and their world.

Spadoink
Oct 10, 2005

Tea, earl grey, hot.

College Slice

Spadoink posted:

January update list .. :toot:

1. The Blade Itself - Joe Abercrombie
2. Burial Rites - Hannah Kent
3. The 100 Year Old Man who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared- Jonas Jonasson
4. The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
5. As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
6. All She Was Worth - Miyuki Miyabe
7. And the Mountains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini
8. The Unburied Past - Anthea Fraser


9. Before They are Hanged - Joe Abercrombie
10. Now You're One of Us - Asa Nonami
11. Last Argument of Kings - Joe Abercrombie
12. The Widow Tree - Nicole Lundrigan
13. Nigh Film - Marish Pessl
14. Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan
15. Half-Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan
16. The Lake - Banana Yoshimoto

Finished out the First Law series (books #9 and 11) this month. The first book (The Blade Itself) I found almost painful to read to start, but there has been so many Abercrombie fans that I thought it might get better, and it did. Before They are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings are definitely stronger. It did cause me to reflect - I think fantasy series sometimes suffer because so much needs to be introduced in the first book - the characters, the world, the laws that govern the universe, etc etc that the first book of a series can be the weakest. I read the Hunger Games trilogy over a weekend in December and found the same thing, so it was already on my mind.

Goodreads is turning out to be better than my local library at auto-suggesting things I might like, however, because I have read several Japanese authors at this point, it just keeps churning out more and more suggestions in that area, hence Asa Nonami and Banana Yoshimoto's inclusion on this list. I think I've read about a half dozen different Japanese (non-Haruki Murakami) books in the last three months or so, and I am seeing a very restrained, reserved style of writing and depiction. I can't remember exactly how the promotional blurb on The Lake went, but it was described as something along the lines of Banana Yoshimoto writing "quietly" and with a "light touch," which seems to be a bit of a trend. I found The Lake to be quite simple, but excellently executed. Now You're One of Us was interesting but not great, and is definitely an example of Japanese writer's "restraint" - I mean, this book was described as harking to Rosemary's Baby or Rebecca, but turns out to be about an incestuous orgy-having family who drug women and brain wash them into submission, which is quite lurid material, but presented in a really mundane way, up until the orgy and murder and pseudo-kidnapping which is still treated pretty lightly by western standards.

Night Film was the first book in a long time to give me the creeps, in a really good, what the hell is going on, kind of way.

The Widow Tree and Half-Blood Blues are both by female, Canadian authors for those of you looking to bulk up the xx chromosomes on your reading list. They were both excellent excellent excellent period pieces, and Half-Blood Blues was the Giller winner, for darn good reason. Half-Blood Blues flips between the 1937-1940 and 1992, focusing on Sid Griffiths, a blues bassist from the USA and his friends and bandmates as they move between Germany and France, with the Nazi regime penning them in. The Widow Tree takes place in Yugoslavia after the war, in the mid-50s or so, and is darkly moving, historically accurate and compelling, and just layered with compelling characters, moving narrative, revenge, betrayal, heart break and so on. Read both!

And everybody should read Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore. It is another genre-crossing book, and will probably appeal to fantasy, mystery, contemporary and lighter-fare readers. Occultism! Some kind of maybe magic? A book store! Googlers! Delicious!

Spadoink
Oct 10, 2005

Tea, earl grey, hot.

College Slice

Poutling posted:

I'm disappointed to hear about Asa Nonami. That book has been on my to-read list for a while, the only thing preventing me from doing so is the lack of availability in e-book format (I'm almost entirely digital these days, mostly to save space in my already too crowded living space). Would you still recommend it as worth a read, or would you say that it's Takashi Miike lite?

Glad that you enjoyed Night Film. There's a lot of haters out there but I really liked it and I would say it was one of my best reads of 2013. It's also one of those rare mystery books with a satisfying conclusion that really pulled together all the major themes of the novel.

Takashi Miike lite would probably still give a too-dark/heavy impression. I requested this book without knowing much about it, so I wasn't expecting anything in particular from it. I wasn't sure where it was going, but when the "dark twist" type stuff started being revealed it elicited more of a disappointed "really?" than a shocked reaction from me. It seemed like the author was artificially shoehorning what should be really shocking, darkly insidious plot matter into another "quiet" novel. I thought it might be a ghost-y story up to that point. I don't know. Its short, so it has that working for it if you are unsure about whether to read it or not.

Night Film was an odd read, but really well executed. Except for the constant use of italics. If an author doesn't trust the reader to have a high enough reading skill to understand emphasis in regularly written words, then I begin to doubt the author's skill as a writer. Seriously, Pessl, stop using italics. If I was your editor I'd ban them from your work moving forward.

Spadoink
Oct 10, 2005

Tea, earl grey, hot.

College Slice

ToxicFrog posted:

I liked Penumbra right up to the end, and then the ending was so bad that it retroactively erased all enjoyment I'd gotten up until then. The one-two punch of the incredibly stupid scene where they turn the full might of Google on the cipher followed by it turning out to be a simple Ceasar cipher that they should have been able to break in seconds just completely killed it for me.

Haha - I've given up on expecting satisfactory endings, so this didn't bother me. I saw the actual ending coming for a while in the book, and found the use of google as kind of hilarious. The Google environment is always held up as some kind of mythic of workplace (they get hammocks! and nap rooms! and other things that no one in a regular corporate office ever gets!), and I enjoyed the depiction of Google as some kind of free wheeling creative-play kindergarten. Heh. Of course Google would fail - if this was a teen drama, google would be the quarterback, with bright white teeth and a 4.0 gpa and a red sports car and a hot girlfriend. The obvious favourite never wins - the underdog, a person rather than a behemoth, had to crack the code.

Spadoink
Oct 10, 2005

Tea, earl grey, hot.

College Slice

Spadoink posted:

9. Before They are Hanged - Joe Abercrombie
10. Now You're One of Us - Asa Nonami
11. Last Argument of Kings - Joe Abercrombie
12. The Widow Tree - Nicole Lundrigan
13. Nigh Film - Marish Pessl
14. Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan
15. Half-Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan
16. The Lake - Banana Yoshimoto

17. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion
18. Paprika - Yasutaka Tsutsui
19. The Ghost Bride - Yangsze Choo
20. The Crimson Labyrinth - Yusuke Kishi
21. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman - Richard Feynman (TBB's March book of the month)
22. On Such a Full Sea - Chang-Rae Lee
23. The Republic of Wine - Mo Yan

What an odd month. The Rosie Project was fluffy, breezy reading about an autistic genius who is extraordinarily socially inept looking for a wife and accidentally falling in love. My mother-in-law would probably love it, which isn't an unhelpful review, even though you don't know my mother-in-law. I'm sure a lot of you have a friend/relative who can sub in for her - reading all the Jody Picault and Nicholas Sparks they can get their hands on.

Paprika was full of Japanese weirdness, surreal situations, sex, and, annoyingly, poorly understood mental health depictions. The book was written in the 90's, and I know mental health issues are not to be expected to be taken 'seriously' in a book that involves getting trapped in a dream/waking world and trespassing in the minds of people who are dreaming, but I do get frustrated when mental health issues/causes/treatments are portrayed so crappily. A lot of folks don't know about or understand mental health issues, and would take the information in this book as possibly well-researched and accurate. Japan is a fairly restrained country, and mental health issues have historically been taboo. So when this book notes that it is "well known" that untreated anxiety can develop into schizophrenia (in older and middle age men, no less), I get pretty angry. Not everything in a book needs to be meticulously researched and true-to-life, but this is akin to stating that an untreated broken leg can give you cancer. Its just wrong, and possibly harmful to people's understanding. Granted, the psychotherapy that goes on in the book is both Freudian and Jungian, outdated at best, and thoroughly discredited at worst.

The Ghost Bride was very enjoyable, a nice blend of historical fiction and fantasy. I enjoy books with strong female leads, and, in this case as well, the questing aspect of the story. On Such a Full Sea shared these qualities, except in a dystopian future setting. Both were really quite strong, and very entertaining.

As I wrote on Goodreads about The Republic of Wine: I can't legitimately give this book a rating - I didn't particularly enjoy it, but as per the translator's introduction, I knew that I was missing so much both in the translation and in my unfamiliarity with Chinese culture and tradition. In Chinese, it is supposedly a great, controversial satire with numerous classical references, puns, and the like. In English it was just strange, clunky, and not engaging.

I will add here that it also contained an unusual amount of donkey dick and monkey butt. Heh.

Spadoink
Oct 10, 2005

Tea, earl grey, hot.

College Slice

Mahler posted:


7. Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami. Man, I’m not even going to try to explain this one, or even enumerate the genres it’s riffing on. Probably not the best place to start with Murakami. It was good!


This was the first Murakami I read, and it was absolutely magical - I had no idea what his writing was like, and believe I had read somewhere that he was "the Japanese Hemingway" or something like that (I do love Hemingway, but I can't see where the comparison comes in). This is a much better first book than, say, IQ84. A friend of mine picked up IQ84 and now won't go anywhere else near his other writing, she is so mad at that book :(

Spadoink
Oct 10, 2005

Tea, earl grey, hot.

College Slice

Corrode posted:


At the moment I'm reading Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (recommended in this thread I think)


I read Half Blood Blues earlier this year, and then it was featured on CBC's Canada Reads competition. I've subsequently been working my way through the rest of the Canada Reads books from this year's competition, and would also recommend Rawi Hage's Cockroach, which was passionately (and tearfully) defended in the competition by Samantha Bee.

Spadoink
Oct 10, 2005

Tea, earl grey, hot.

College Slice

Spadoink posted:

17. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion
18. Paprika - Yasutaka Tsutsui
19. The Ghost Bride - Yangsze Choo
20. The Crimson Labyrinth - Yusuke Kishi
21. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman - Richard Feynman (TBB's March book of the month)
22. On Such a Full Sea - Chang-Rae Lee
23. The Republic of Wine - Mo Yan

24. Seeing - Jose Saramago
25. The Red Wolf Conspiracy - Robert V.S. Redick
26. Cockroach - Rawi Hage
27. The Wreckage - Michael Crummey
28. Annabel - Kathleen Winter
29. The Rats and the Ruling Sea - Robert V.S. Redick
29. Red Rising - Pierce Brown

Seeing was the first book by Jose Saramago that I have read - I watched the movie adaptation of Blindness with Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo, and was worried that not having read the book would have me at a disadvantage going into Seeing, but I think Saramago sets it up well enough that you needn't be familiar with Blindess to read Seeing. None of the characters are referred to by given names, and there is a narrator providing voice and opinions on the action of the story. The basis of the story hinges on another unusual event - during the federal elections in an unnamed country (such as Portugal, for example, the narrator suggests) the majority of the capital city's population casts blank votes. It creates a crisis of government, fears of a revolution, and starts as a satire that slowly unwinds into something less easily defined.

The Red Wolf Conspiracy and The Rats and the Ruling Sea are two of a series. The Red Wolf Conspiracy was one of those books I requested from the library, and then when it arrived I could not fathom why I had requested it. I started reading it a few times and had to stop - due to the over-the-top ridiculous naming conventions. It was so bad, I was embarrassed to be reading it in my own living room. On the third or so try, I just went with it and found myself enjoying the story. Its a little all over the place, with talking animals, magical humans, unexplored realms, tiny sprite-like creatures and "the fate of the world" resting on a not-very-ladylike general's daughter and an orphaned outcast with a magical gift that is as much a curse. While not original, it is enjoyable.

Cockroach was one of the Canada Reads contenders this year - the story of an immigrant scraping by on the margins in Montreal. I found the story interesting, but couldn't understand Samantha Bee's heartfelt, tearful defense of the story on Canada Reads .. until I hit the end, and burst out crying at something that, were I to describe it, would seem totally un-tear-worthy. In those moments, the whole of the book swept up on me, and was transformed.

Annabel was also a Canada Reads contender. For the subject matter (a hermaphroditic child is born in the 60s to a family in rural, coastal Labrador), it was a strangely calm book. The Wreckage was another based-in-Newfoundland book, with a totally realistic depiction of the Catholic vs Protestant sentiment that used to permeate Newfoundland. For :canada: goons that are not aware - the public school system continued to be denominational up until the mid 1990s, with every school district being legally obligated to offer a Catholic and a Protestant option, which led to small districts having ridiculous divisions (If you were neither, you ended up at the Protestant school). It also has a great, and realistic, depiction of outport life in the 40s during the first few chapters, and caused me to bake tea buns since they mentioned about 3-4 times in the first couple of chapters.

Red Rising is Gattaca through a Hunger Games filter, with a dash of Brave New World, set on Mars. Awesome. I really had fun with this book, that was written for adults but keeps getting the YA tag affixed (I guess teenagers killing and brutalizing each other is more PG than R these days .. ahaha). Go read it, it'll take part of the day on the weekend, and then we can all get to talking about it :v:

Spadoink
Oct 10, 2005

Tea, earl grey, hot.

College Slice

Spadoink posted:


24. Seeing - Jose Saramago

25. The Red Wolf Conspiracy - Robert V.S. Redick

26. Cockroach - Rawi Hage

27. The Wreckage - Michael Crummey

28. Annabel - Kathleen Winter

29. The Rats and the Ruling Sea - Robert V.S. Redick

30. Red Rising - Pierce Brown




31. The Yiddish Policeman's Union - Michael Chabon

32. River of Shadows - Robert V.S. Redick

33. Night of the Swarm - Robert V.S. Redick

34. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck

35. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

36. Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami

37. Persuasion - Jane Austen

38. The Executioner's Song - Norman Mailer

39. Perdido Street Station - China Mieville

The Yiddish Policeman's Union was picked up after spying a fellow commuter reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and being intrigued by the book jacket. Since TAAOKC did not interest me specifically, I picked up The Yiddish Policeman's Union instead. It was an interesting conceit, a noir novel set in an alternate reality where Israel was never created and a bunch of Jewish refugees post WWII ended up in Alaska, but I found the overall narrative a little flat. Maybe it relied on the conceit too much to the detriment of the story and characters? I'm not sure, but something just didn't line up correctly for me.

The two Robert V.S. Redick books were the final books in a quartet fantasy ship series that was pretty terrible. The story was okay, the ending unsatisfying, but the thing that bothered me the most was the continuation of straight-up print errors. Placeholders where names should be. Things spelled wrong. The whole series was a total waste, but I have a 'completion-compulsion' which motivated me to finish the series regardless.

I had been avoiding The Good Earth for a long time, I'm not sure why, and am glad I finally picked it up. Farmer in pre-revolutionary China makes good through hard work, with bumps along the way. It coloured my reading of it to note that Pearl S. Buck was banned from China by the Communist government after the revolution. She was invited to return with Nixon on his historic trip, however, the Chinese government still refused to grant her entry.

In Cold Blood was next. I enjoyed it, though I could hear Capote 'telling the story,' and altering bits to fit a nicer narrative structure.

I love Haruki Murakami, and was very happy with Kafka on the Shore. I'm glad I didn't just tear through his whole back catalogue after discovering his work a few years ago, as I get to mete out my enjoyment over a longer period of time. More compelling narrative with touches of surreal weirdness. Also, talking cats.

Despite holding a Bachelor's degree in English lit and taking all the lit classes I could get my hands on in high school, I have never read Jane Austen. I never wanted to. It seemed to me that I already knew the plot of all her books just from existing around other people who may have once read the book cover to a Jane Austen work. I read Persuasion to see if I might have been wrong, but I found I was right. By reading one Jane Austen book, I have now read them all. Smart, sensible heroine who is unlike her family/others around her, with the exception or one close friend/family member, has sense, heart and feeling, and by virtue of that sense, heart and feeling, attracts the love and affection of a smart, sensible, man, who may have mistook her looks, words, actions, previously as indicating that she was not full of said heart, sense and intelligence and/or not interested in a man of estimable virtue such as himself OR she may have mistook his looks, works, actions, previously as indicating that HE was not full of said heart, sense and intelligence and/or not interested in a lady of estimable virtue such as herself. Victorian sensibility conquers all. Ugh, terrible. Happily for you, you have now also read all of Jane Austen.

The Executioner's Song was not the fastest 1000 pages I have ever read, as Dave Eggers tried to convince me it would be, in the introduction to the edition I picked up to read. This was mainly due to the fact that the size of the book prevented me from reading it on transit, which is where almost half of my reading takes place. It was a surprisingly compelling narrative, and my highest recommended read from this batch of updates. More true-to-life than In Cold Blood, the book is about Gary Gilmour, a murderer in the state of Utah, who in the late 70s, on being sentenced to death, tried to rush his execution date and bypass all the appeals process that a death-row convict usually takes part in. A fascinating study of so many of the parties involved in the story that just sucks you in and holds you. From Gary, his mom, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, to his girlfriend, her family, the legal teams on both sides of the case, the newsmen and women who chased such a big story, everyone is fleshed out and realized, and they are all, absolutely impossibly, interesting. I don't know how Mailer managed it, but he did. Fantastic, fantastic.

Perdido Street Station was Perdido Street Station. I enjoyed the literary aspect to the writing, and was not surprised to see that China Mieville has some serious academic cred under his belt. Also, the Weaver was pretty great. I'm not really going to say much else - there's a whole thread discussing his work, but I went into this book blind and was pleased with the result.

Spadoink
Oct 10, 2005

Tea, earl grey, hot.

College Slice

Spadoink posted:

31. The Yiddish Policeman's Union - Michael Chabon
32. River of Shadows - Robert V.S. Redick
33. Night of the Swarm - Robert V.S. Redick
34. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
35. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
36. Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
37. Persuasion - Jane Austen
38. The Executioner's Song - Norman Mailer
39. Perdido Street Station - China Mieville

40. The White Bone - Barbara Gowdy
41. The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden - Jonas Jonasson
42. Sylvanus Now - Donna Morrissey
43. The Birth House - Ami McKay
44. The Face of Another - Kobo Abe
45. Through Black Spruce - Joseph Boyden
46. World Without End - Ken Follett

The White Bone was by far Barbara Gowdy's best work that I have read. Amazing, really - Barbara tells the story of a family of elephants, from the point of view of the elephants themselves, imagining them as intelligent and communicative creatures. I thought the premise sounded so lame when I originally was recommended this book about 2-3 years ago, but it is absolutely incredible. Add it to your list if you're looking for more non-American, non-male, non-lovely authors to read :)

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden was charming and entertaining. Very much in the vein of Jonas' other work, "The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared."

Sylvanus Now and The Birth House were my 'longing-for-home' books, as I'm a Newfoundlander and spent a decade in Nova Scotia. The Birth House was the better story of the two, set in Scot's Bay, Nova Scotia, the hometown of my bestest university friend, and a place dear to my heart. Sylvanus Now was great for giving a sense of outport fishing life, and the evolution of the outport and dissolution of the fishing industry in Newfoundland.

The Face of Another was absolute garbage - the premise is interesting, but the 40+ years that have elapsed since it was written have caused some serious cultural drift to set in.

Through Black Spruce is probably already showing up on CanLit/Multicultural Lit course lists, and for good reason. Literary and engaging, this is the story of Annie and Will Bird, niece and uncle, and their journey. The story travels from Moosonee to New York, from deep in wild of James Bay to under the Gardiner in Toronto. I am now reading The Orenda and am equally spell bound.

World Without End was about 500 pages and 60 awkward sex scenes too long. The writing was terrible, full of "tell, don't show," and so repetitive that I assumed Ken Follett was writing for the +60 year old crowd with no memory. I can't remember "The Pillars of the Earth" being this bad, but it was written about 20 years before World Without End, so maybe his writing has devolved.

Spadoink fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Oct 2, 2014

Spadoink
Oct 10, 2005

Tea, earl grey, hot.

College Slice

Spadoink posted:

40. The White Bone - Barbara Gowdy
41. The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden - Jonas Jonasson
42. Sylvanus Now - Donna Morrissey
43. The Birth House - Ami McKay
44. The Face of Another - Kobo Abe
45. Through Black Spruce - Joseph Boyden
46. World Without End - Ken Follett

47. The Orenda - Joseph Boyden
48. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage - Haruki Murakami
49. The Magician's Land - Lev Grossman
50. The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
51. Funny Boy - Shyam Selvadurai
52. Born Standing Up - Steve Martin
53. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
54. The Rez Sisters - Tomson Highway

Another mixed-bag month. The Orenda continued to be as spell-binding as Through Black Spruce, and heartbreaking, and educational (I had to look up Huron-Iroquois conflict and got to learn about the Beaver Wars). The Orenda is set in the 16th C, and is told from varying points of view, from Bird, a Huron leader, Christophe, a Jesuit "crow" (as the Huron's name them), and Snow Falls, a Iroquois girl who is taken from her murdered parents and "adopted" by Bird. It was the winning book on CBC's Canada Reads this year, and for good reason. Set in the pivotal moment when the French, Dutch and English are still making deals with various native peoples in the north-east US and Upper Canada areas, you have a compelling historical tale where the Hurons and Iroquois are trying to win trade routes, negotiate these new "crows" with their weird spirits, and deal with new illnesses, war, and crop failure, while winning over the Europeans for access to their shining wood (guns).

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki was okay, but Murakami's new stuff keeps falling short of his earlier works. I can't remember anything about The Magician's Land really, it was candy fluff, but I seem to recall being entertained. The Crying of Lot 49 was an interesting conspiracy read, and it holds up as a time capsule of the era in which it was written (mid-60s).

Funny Boy is a "novel in 6 stories" about a young Sri Lankan Tamil as a child in the late 70s and early 80s. I live in a very Tamil-heavy neighbourhood in Toronto, and while I know vaguely of the civil war in Sri Lanka and the violence against the Tamil minority (and of the Tamil Tigers), I had not engaged in the history in any way. The book was a fantastic piece of writing, with the struggles of a boy coming to recognize he is different (gay, or a "funny boy" as per the title), but has the backdrop of the escalating tensions between Sinhalese and Tamils, and word of riots and violence against Tamils happening around the country. Again, it prompted me to take to the internet and learn more about the civil war and the historical tensions between these two ethnic groups. A very quick and compelling read, add it to your list if you're looking for more non-American, non-white authors :P

Born Standing Up read like Steve Martin telling a story, which is what it was, but I could visualize him narrating the whole thing. An interesting read, mainly for Steve Martin fans - it doesn't really offer a wider perspective on life or stand up, or fame, just a humourous narrative of Steve's early life and stand-up career.

Me Talk Pretty One Day is the first Dave Sedaris I've read, and it was absolutely hilarious. I drove my husband crazy reading in bed and laughing out loud, while he was trying to sleep, and almost missed my subway stop one morning, as I was too engrossed in the story I was reading. I was hooked from the first story, of Agent Samson and his forced speech therapy.

Lastly, The Rez Sisters is a play by Tomson Highway, who is a Cree author best known for his plays (I'm currently reading the follow up to The Rez Sisters, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing). I'm not much for reading plays, normally, but Tomson Highway wrote one of the books closest to my heart, Kiss of the Fur Queen. He was mentioned at some point in Joseph Boyden's novels, either in a thank you, introduction, or book flap, I don't recall, but it did prompt me to revisit my hesitation over reading his plays. I don't really know what to write about the play other than to say it felt like an "important" read, to me, if that makes any sense. Highway was inspired by Michel Tremblay, and has become to Native Canadian storytelling as Tremblay is/has been to Montreal and Quebec.

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Spadoink
Oct 10, 2005

Tea, earl grey, hot.

College Slice

Spadoink posted:

47. The Orenda - Joseph Boyden
48. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage - Haruki Murakami
49. The Magician's Land - Lev Grossman
50. The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
51. Funny Boy - Shyam Selvadurai
52. Born Standing Up - Steve Martin
53. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
54. The Rez Sisters - Tomson Highway

I finished my 60, though I had to count a book I wasn't originally going to include (The Call of the Wild) because I was too slow on my final book uptake. Final books of the year

55. The Call of the Wild - Jack London
56. Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing - Tomson Highway
57. Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe
58. The Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac
59. The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks
60. Yes Please - Amy Poehler

Dry Lips was probably the best of the bunch, poignant and captivating in a deeper way than the Rez Sisters. The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat is a fascinating collection of clinical tales about various brain issues and how they present, very quick reading. Yes Please was no Bossypants, in the land of SNL-lady memoirs, and I took issue with Amy's insistence that we all have something inside us that tells us we are too old looking, too fat, too skinny, too tall, etc. Guh. On to 2015.

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