A Reading Diary

I enjoyed reading this!  You know that you have it bad when you start reading books about people who read books. I will defend myself though by saying that by reading such books I am put on to books that I may not have looked at or heard of any other way.   I treasure these pointers that take me in an important direction. Important because of what I gain from each book that I read.  The selection was eclectic, and I have read about half of Manguel’s choices, I look forward to looking at the others and then coming back again to his book to re-read what he said about them.

Rite of Passage

Yet another of those post-Earth books with a different vision of how we (Earthlings that is…) all manage to survive the apocalypse… except this time there is no Earth (it has been destroyed in an unexplained manner).  Again we have survivors, somewhere in the not too distant future, who have evolved into their own separate cultures, one of the ship people and the other of the Colons (people who made it planet side).  The division is thus, and the protagonist lives on one of these ships, which is a world in an asteroid, a floating, cruising world, that goes between colonised planets, trading knowledge and science for material goods.  It all sounds good, though perhaps a little unfair for those planet side who no longer have the technology of the ships, and we are shown, through Mia (our strong female protagonist), the changing of perceptions, and the evolutionary changes of a people who, despite their advantages in technology, have lost some things  in their place, like art, music and literature.  Rite of Passage was very well written, riveting in fact, and some points were made that I thought were very interesting and applicable today.  Well worthy of it’s Nebula.

A Little Bit Janeish...

I have to admit that as far as these novels go, I have been disappointed  with Grange’s diaries because I don’t see much more than what is really already there in Jane Austen’s books. The biggest allure of reading such novels is getting something more, something ’tasty’ from the other side, some tidbits that make us love our romantic heroes even more than we already do, something...that we don't know already.  That doesn’t happen in these books (I have read two other diaries).  What did happen out of the ordinary in this book is a prelude, which is a nice change from what I have already read by Amanda Grange.  This prelude really was written very well, and for that alone I would recommend this book to fans of Jane Austen's Persuasion. 

The Importance of Being Earnest

What I thought meant one thing all of this time, the importance of being earnest, sincere, eager?...is actually a play (tee hee) on words.  Because it is all about being called Earnest.  An enjoyable half hour spent in my reading chair.  I have always loved reading plays because so much more is left up to your imagination.  Now I need to see if I can get my hands on the movie with Colin Firth!

Logan's Run

Hoo boy was I pleased to find that this was a novel!  I loved the movie and even, as a kid, played some sort of chasing game with the Logan's run theme (I think my character name was Cassiopea 12 or something really glamorous like Geraldine 5).  All very silly of course, and sobering as well because this is a pretty scary dystopian story.  At the time there were lots of them along that kind of theme.  I'm talking about the television show of course, since the movie would not have been suitable for television at the time.  I got to see the movie a few years ago on Turner Classic Movies, and was pretty excited about that.  But not as excited as finding the book!  I have rarely ever found a movie or television show that was actually better than it's book, and Logan's Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson did not disappoint.  I didn't want to put it down and when I had to, very quickly picked it up again as soon as I was home from work.  I have to admit that I found certain things in the movie that did not make sense, like the murder of people who were at the limit of their life span in a carrousel (like the Roman circus) for the poplace to watch as entertainment, it seemed unnecessarily cruel to me to do that, considering that everything else seemed so technologically advanced., so why the barbarism?  Well guess what?  It's not in the book!  Just good old Hollywood or whoever filmed the movie trying to "improve" on what the authors wrote.  It has mostly been my experience that these kind of changes rarely improve anything. 
So take it from me...just go and read the book! 

Dregs

Situated in Norway, this Scandinavian mystery was not as grisly as some of the others I have read this year.  What it did do instead wass keep me guessing, almost until the end, which was great.  Horst managed to surpise me twice by his twists and the final conclusion as well as also making it seem that the police detective protagonist was older than he actually was.    I will be looking for more from this author and hopefully more of this storyline.

The White Tiger

DH bought this for me one Christmas, and the first time I tried to read it I had to put it down after a while because I absolutely loathed what was happening to the protagonist. 
Four years later I looked at it again, surprised to see how far I actually had got (about half way) before I turned away.  So I was a little anxious about having to re-read so much especially when I might be overcome again with that intense feeling of anger that repulsed me the first time. 
Distance and time, I guess, heals all wounds, so that this time I was able to read the first part with equanimity.  I felt a deep sadness about the fact that what Adiga had written was probably pretty close to the mark of what conditions actually are like in rural India. 
I’d like to believe that I have more insight now into a part of Indian culture, but not the whole.  I have read too many other influences to believe that this is all India can be or is.    Paramahansa Yogananda and Mohandas Gandhi at the least tell me something else.  Despite knowing this, the book depressed me anyway because it was such a faithful description of the ugliness in all of us (though there is more ugliness in some than others).