OT- Books

[Veronica]

I didn't like the ending to Wicked. It was almost like he just got tired of writing.

V.

[SadieKate]

Well, heck, now what do I do? From my gigadawanda bedside pile of books I had pulled Wicked, Small Wonder (Barbara Kingsolver) and Snow Lake (Mary Lawson). I was tossing around the options.

So what do I read first?

[Veronica]

Personally, I think Wicked is skippable, especially if you have lots of other options. It was okay, but not great.

V.

[Nanci]

Editorial Reviews
From The New Yorker
At the start of this chronicle of a single bike race, the author glances up from his gear to assess the crowd of spectators. "Non-racers," he writes. "The emptiness of those lives shocks me." In immediate, living prose, Krabbé, a novelist as well as a cyclist, takes us with him, inch by inch, as he rides the hundred-and-thirty-seven-kilometre Tour de Mont Aigoual, a course through the mountains that is better known as one of the cruellest stages of the Tour de France. He imagines an official collecting his clothes "after I've died in the race" recalls a champion cyclist who suffocated to death while climbing one particularly nasty hill; and insists that "being a good loser is a despicable evasion." Along the way, he lays bare the athlete's peculiar mixture of arrogance and terror, viciousness and camaraderie, and the result is one of the more convincing love stories of recent memory.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

*************

Interestingly, this is the author who also wrote "The Vanishing" and "The Cave."

[WrensMom]

I didn't like the ending to Wicked. It was almost like he just got tired of writing.

I agree, but overall I still liked the book. I like those kind of books with a different take on the same story you already know, kind of like the oldie-but-goodie, Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley. If you have never read that one, I recommend it.

[WrensMom]

I am reading Alias Grace right now by Margaret Atwood, and I am really enjoying it. It's about a woman convicted of murder 100 years ago. You go into this
other world. Excellent writing.

That sounds pretty cool. I may have to check that out. I liked The Handmaid's Tale by her as well. I'm really not much of a fiction person, but sometimes the mood hits.

[Rakekay]

I just finished The Kite Runner. Originally I thought I wouldn't really like it, but I LOVED it. Highly recommend it.

[Deanna]

I really enjoyed Life of Pi, everybody in my book group did too, though we all had a difficult time getting through the first section (before they get on the boat). The ending was a little disturbing if you believe "he did" but if you believe his story, not so much. I love that aspect of the book, that reality is dependent on who's experiencing it. I also loved the idea of all the "lost" critters in urban areas. I thought of the book the other night when we heard some LARGE animal crawling through the bushes outside our bedroom window.

I read Wicked quite a while ago. I don't remember being overly impressed. I consider it a good brain cleanser for after a more involved book. Now that the author has a whole series of fairy tale retellings it just seems sort-of gimmicky.

[Tuckervill]

I took the whole tiger business in Life of Pi as metaphorical. Can't remember now why I thought that, because it's been a few years. But I liked it.

Didn't they make a movie of it, too?

Speaking of book group type books, one of my favs that I wouldn't have read otherwise is Gate to Women's Country, by Sherri S. Tepper. Anything by her is thought provoking.

Karen

[pyxichick]

I love non-fiction too. Especially natual history or travel writing.

I'm reading Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin (an autistic woman who was featured in one of Oliver Sacks' books.) It attempts to explain how animals think and why they act the way they do. Very interesting.

Some of my favorite non-fiction books:
A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman;
Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard (both essay-type books);
The Happy Isles of Oceania by Paul Theroux (travel essay by kayak)
Songlines or In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin (fictionalized non-fiction)
Tracks by Robyn Davidson (travel essay about a solo trip with camel across Australia)
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby (mountaineering in Afghanistan-- very harrowing story)

I can't wait to hear about more good non-fiction books to add to my list!

[mimitabby]

Personally, I think Wicked is skippable, especially if you have lots of other options. It was okay, but not great.

V.

I agree about Wicked. it was like... huh?? big deal!

I am reading Alias Grace right now by Margaret Atwood, and I am really enjoying it. It's about a woman convicted of murder 100 years ago. You go into this
other world. Excellent writing.