What are you reading?

So, maybe no one is reading the book blog. Haven't seen much action on it.

I am still reading Home by Julie Andrews. It's pretty good - but it's not hard to put it down. I guess I need a page turner.

I've actually been buying magazines at the checkstand and reading them instead of books - at least this week.

I need a good long-awaited Harry Potter or something.

Or maybe it's just a phase.

Halfway through a trilogy

I just finished Enna Burning by Shannon Hale. She also wrote The Goose Girl. She is LDS, lives in Utah. The Goose Girl was really good - I thought - well written - kind of an adult fairy tale.

The second book is stretching it a little too far.

I may skip the 3rd book.

I'm not sure who her target audience is - if it's adolescent, it may take hold.

I did like the first one a lot though.

Too bad - but then sequels are hard - unless you are Maud Hart Lovelace or J.K. Rowling!!

Airplane fiction

Our recent vacation to South America revealed just how much time we spend in airports and on airplanes to get to places - I had brought along a book to read and assumed it would last the entire trip. Silly me - even though I didn't spend much time reading outside of the airport, I very quickly had that book finished.

I assumed I could find an English bookstore somewhere, but it wasn't that easy. I should have borrowed a book from Alice, but didn't think that far ahead - I was still reading The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice, and I guess I thought it would take forever to finish!! This was a pretty good read - about post-WW II Britain - somewhat lightweight, but well written and a nice plot line.

When we got to Chile, I combed the shelves there for an English book - Carla found a few - I ended up reading Dresses of Red and Gold by Robin Klein. It was an Australian adolescent novel - and quite "colorful" - pardon the pun - but it had enough "local flavor" to make it interesting - however, like most adolescent novels, it was indeed a "quick read." So I was back to needing another book.

I found a book on their shelves called A Name for Himself by Catherine Dunne - it had a strange plot line - it was Irish - and there is something about the Irish and literature that seems to go together. The ending was not what I expected. I wasn't finished before we left, but Carla said to take it and give it away - not to worry about returning it - so I left it in a hotel room in Lima - along with a copy of Good Housekeeping I had devoured on one of our flights.

I found a bookstore in one of the airports and bought a copy of Body Surfing by Anita Shreve. It was the perfect airplane read - pretty well-written, intriguing story line, an ending I hadn't guessed, and you could get absorbed in it and not think about how much time you were spending in the airport!

But I finished that one too - and we were then at the airport in El Salvador - and I was facing a 5 or 6 hour flight and an hour wait, so I went hunting for a bookstore with English titles - found one but the only choices were Stephen King and Sandra Brown - I went with Sandra Brown and that was a mistake - I'm not a Stepehn King fan, but I think he would have been better than she was - I fortunately fell asleep after the first 2 chapters - and I'm certainly not going to bother finishing it!

Dad handled it all well - had his Kindle with him - so when he finished the "thriller" that I can't remember the title of, he went on to the next book he'd downloaded - at my suggestion it was Home by Julie Andrews - since my book group is reading that for September - and he got really into it and is enjoying reading it. (I already had a copy - but had loaned it to one of the book group members because I hadn't wanted to carry a big paperback that I wouldn't mind discarding along the way.)

Next trip, I may just get a Kindle myself - one that has several good novels already downloaded. Although I did notice a number of travelers who had portable DVD players and were just watching movies!!

I am thinking that the next time I travel extensively, I am going to think out my reading plan ahead of time. In his book On Writing, Stephen King says to always have a book with you, because you never know when you will be stuck and need something to help you pass the time.

No truer words were ever spoken!!

Summer reading

I just came across this list: 50 best ever summer holiday books from telegraph.co.uk.

Some interesting picks. The author calls them "the books with the strongest narratives, most magnetic characters and most involving worlds. Books that will not let you down."

I am embarrassed to admit I've only read one of these books (Things Fall Apart). A few were already on my to-read list (Wild Swans; Love in the Time of Cholera), and I added a few more to my list (The Secret Agent; The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire), and I'm curious to know your opinion of the list or of any titles on this list.

I am pretty sure that no matter how hard I try, for the rest of my life I will always have a lengthy "to-read" list. Maybe that's not such a bad thing though.

Mom will appreciate this

Well, maybe she will appreciate it. I don't know. I haven't read Twilight but I thought they were interesting. Two blog posts on Twilight (by the same person):

Why I Think Twilight Sucks, and Other Important Thoughts

A sampling:

"You guys... I SO didn't get it. I thought it was very meh, starting with the main character, Bella (otherwise known as the Queen of Meh).

"(Ooooh, do you hear that sound? It's me, getting delisted from 50 Twilight loving blogs at once. But I CANNOT BE SILENCED.)

"Ugh. She was so boring and stilted and dead inside. I kind of wanted to slap her. My theory is that Bella actually has Aspergers Syndrome and also a really bad inner ear infection that destroyed her sense of balance."

And then a damage-control post, after apparently she offended a few too many people:


What My Opinion of Twilight Does Not Mean

A sampling:

-That I think you are stupid
-That I think your daughter is stupid
-That I think you have bad taste in books
-That I think my opinion should matter to you
-That my heart is made of stone
-That I am cold and dead inside
-That Edward should suck my blood so that I can understand the depths of his beautiful soul

etc.

Thought you might enjoy the perspective of other people who were less than impressed by Stephenie Meyer's writing skills.

The Twilight Phenomenon

There's a write up in the Calendar section of the LA Times today on the filming of the movie version of the best-selling young adult novel Twilight.

I'm conflicted about this - it's great to see a BYU English major grad achieve fame and fortune.

But it is so badly written, it's embarrassing!

Maybe I'm a snob, or maybe I've finally outgrown teen novels.

But The Historian, another novel about vampires, is so much better - and so much better written.

I haven't read any interviews with the author - maybe she, like many of us, said, "I can write a cheesy best selling novel!"

And then did!

(Maybe it's sour grapes!)

It mostly discourages me to see how quickly the reading public embraces bad writing. Okay, it's popular and has a good - but very predictable - story line. But people gush on and on about what a "great" book it is.

Maybe we need a new designation or some new adjectives for bad writing that resonates with the public.

Any ideas??

What is good literature?

And how is it different from a good story?

I finished Wish You Well. I said it was cheesy - it was. It had a somewhat compelling story though. And I wanted to find out how it ended.

But it really wasn't well-written. I've read better stuff in Good Housekeeping - and not even their giant fiction issue. And the "willing suspension of disbelief" had to work overtime to make it work.

(Dad is killed in a car accident. Mom is in a coma - but she can eat and drink and doesn't seem to get bed sores. And Mom and kids go to Virginia to live in the Appalachian mountains with Great Grandma. And the evil gas company illicitly mines for natural gas on Granny's property. And "Diamond Skinner - a plucky young lad who lives on his own and is always there to rescue Lou and her little brother Oz - is blown up when he runs into the mine - not knowing about the illicit activities of Southern Virginia Gas and Power. And the evil neighbor - who put the gas company onto the mine on Granny's property - burns down their barn - in the dead of winter. And then Granny has a stroke - and the gas company goes to court to get her declared mentally incompetent so they can get her land - that she earlier refused to sell to them - and the evil neighbor is on the jury - and the jury finds in favor of Southern Virginia - and you guessed it - Mom rises up from her bed of affliction and walks into the courtroom.)

I'm telling you the plot because you don't need to bother to read it.

I don't think that's what Eliot had in mind when he explained the concept of "willing suspension."

At least it was easy to skim.

I want to read Home - is it as good as the Times review said it was?