some more travel reads

Currently re-reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by my beloved C.S. Lewis. I have recently realized that I read The Chronicles of Narnia the way that you eat potato chips while watching TV. You don't even know that you keep putting them in your mouth. Your hand just keeps reaching for them.

That is not to say that I don't appreciate them. Not at all. I'm trying to say that they are such good old friends that I turn to them without much thought.





Also currently reading The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I like it so far! It's about a boy named Nobody (nicknamed Bod) who lives in a graveyard. Okay, that's not a lot of detail, I know ... but I'll tell you more about it when I've finished!









I recently swept through The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster for the very first time. It was wild and wonderful, like a trip through the senses. It was a clever and tongue-in-cheek children's story, but one that I think is probably going to be appreciated moreso by adults, who will catch more of the humor.

It reminded me of a funny version of The Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman. Both books wake you up to words, sounds, smells. Go read this one right away!





Also currently re-reading Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis, the first book in his space trilogy. Dr. Ransom is abducted and taken aboard a spacecraft to the planet Malacandra. I read this book and can't quit thinking of how brilliant Jack Lewis is. I know I say that all the time, but ...









Re-read The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis, the first book in the Narnia series (chronologically, that is!) about the creation of Narnia. One of my favorite books in my favorite series.











To satisfy the 15-year-old girl in me, I read The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart. The main character Ruby makes even boy-crazy me look tame! The book details Ruby's conversations with her "shrink" as they move systematically through a list of Ruby's boyfriends. Believe it or not, it was actually pretty good! Probably too many boys involved (is that really me talking???), but a fun read. I think I'll read the other books in the series.







Couldn't help myself ... re-read Deathly Hallows one more time. That makes it 2.5 times through this book in the last short while. I'm out of control. I can't wait for the HP7 movie to come out later this month, and my co-worker Josh is STILL getting through this book (nearing the end finally!), and I actually kind of want to read it again, at least the battle of Hogwarts stuff. Something is wrong with me.








Also read Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko, which was a fun YA lit read set back in the time when Alcatraz still had prisoners. The main character Moose's family lives on the island, and the story deals with his transition to living there and his family's experience with his sister Natalie, an autistic young lady in a time before autism was discovered. Good read!

more travel season reads

Travel season means lots of time spent in my car, which means lots of hours of audiobooks!


Is anyone here really surprised that my favorite reads of the last couple weeks are both written by the incredible C.S. Lewis?

Yesterday I read The Great Divorce, and it was really stunning. A fictitious view of the limbo between heaven and hell and the choices people make there. While reading this one, I was once again struck by that same old thought of how delightfully brilliant Jack Lewis is, and I wish that I could think the way he did. I loved this book, once I got into the flow of it. It's very dialogue-based with very little description (hey, sounds like a book by me!), so I had to just drill in on the conversation, and once I did, I was walloped. I love you, Lewis.


I also zipped through The Last Battle again recently, listening to it while going on walks around South Dakota. For those of you who don't know, The Last Battle is very likely my favorite book (do you like how non-committal I am?). It's the seventh and final book of the Chronicles of Narnia, and it's the absolutely perfect way to conclude the series. I have one question about the theology of the book, but all in all, I adore this book. If you haven't read The Chronicles of Narnia before, what are you waiting for? You should be ashamed of yourself. :-)





Yesterday I finished The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson, a story about a girl who wakes up from a year-long coma with no memories of her family. That sounds interesting enough, but I was pleased to find that it actually took place in the future--something like 2086. It had lots of secrets and twists in it, and while I was somewhat dissatisfied with the ending, I appreciated the creativity in this book and all the bioethicial questions it brought up.






David Sedaris has a new book out! It's called Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, and it's not really like anything he's ever written before. It's a book of stories about animals but with that hilarious David Sedaris kick to them all. I zipped through this book, and it was good, but it made me really miss Sedaris's laugh-out-loud memoirs. If you could do with a little irreverance and a lot of laughter, go read Me Talk Pretty One Day or Holidays on Ice. Or, well, really anything written by him. He's a comic genius.







I was especially intrigued by Newes from the Dead by Mary Hooper because it is based on a TRUE STORY about a girl named Anne who was hanged but then "came alive" on the dissection table. Um ... yeah. I had to give this one a go. Not the greatest writing, but still very, very interesting ...








Finally, I also just read Damage by A.M. Jenkins, a story about a popular kid with depression. It was ... depressing. But a good description of what it feels like to suffer from depression. I suppose if I were going to give a recommendation for a "good depression story" (sounds like an oxymoron, but really, it's not), I'd suggest that people read Ordinary People by Minnesota's own Judith Guest.

Steve Hely, the author of the novel How I Became a Famous Novelist, used to be a writer for the David Letterman Show, and honestly, this book is just power-packed with hilarity. It's seriously like every sentence is funny. He reminds me of Anne Lamott, or even moreso, David Sedaris, both of whom can make me laugh outloud.

This book is about a lazy bum named Pete who decides to write a famous novel to upstage his ex-girlfriend at her wedding.

If you are a writer, you will especially enjoy this book as Hely completely lambasts writerly cliches.

I also read The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury this week. Interesting loosely interconnected stories about space travels to Mars. I wanted to love it, and while I enjoyed it, The Martian Chronicles had a difficult time holding my attention. In my opinion, if you want the ultimate book-reading adventure in space travel, you need to turn to good ol' Jack ...

C.S. Lewis' space trilogy-- Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength-- are absolutely incredible.

OOSP will make you think. Perelandra will explode your brain (it has been something like four years since I first read it, and I think I am only now ready to re-read it). THS, my favorite of the trilogy but also the hardest to get into, will make your mind whirr and take a second look at "progressiveness."

These books tell the story of Dr. Ransom, a philologist who travels to Mars and Venus, and what he finds there. The third book takes place on Earth. These are theological sci-fi books and incredibly brilliant.

Brilliant. Oh Jack Lewis, I love you.

Summer reading, had me a bla-ast ...

What I read this summer ...

Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel

Having loved Life of Pi and The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, I was thrilled to hear that Yann Martel had put out a new book. Reviews were mixed on this one though.

What is it about?

Oh, a writer. And a taxidermist ... writing a play ... about a stuffed donkey and a howler monkey ... in the Holocaust.

Beg your pardon?

Yeah, I know, right? Martel studied philosophy in college. It's a very different sort of book. But I give it my thumbs up.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

FAVORITED! Oh my goodness, I read this for the first time in the summer of 2009, and in the last year, I think I must have read it something like 8-10 times. It is really THAT good. One of my top ten favorite books.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

I was interested to hear that the American version of this book (and Stanley Kubrick's film) only had or used 20 of the 21 chapters that Burgess wrote. I read the full 21 chapters.

Very jarring book about a 15-year-old criminal. It was shocking, as I said, but totally worth the read. Burgess uses a lot of slang, so that you almost have to learn a new lingo, but I was surprised to see how--as I was nearing the end
of the book--I was actually thinking in these terms! I was going to viddy the veck's malenky litso in the car next to mine, ya know? :-)

Brainwashing plays a role in this book, and it's neat how the reader is--in a sense--brainwashed into learning this new Nadsat-speak.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

Beagle is brilliant. This is one of my top ten favorite books, and I don't care if that makes me a total geek. It is really just so, so lovely. If you are a sucker for beautiful imagery, READ IT NOW.

"Wonder and love and great sorrow shook Schmendrick the Magician then, and came together inside him and filled him, filled him until he felt himself brimming and flowing with something that was none of these. He did not believe it, but it came to him anyway, as it had touched him twice before and left him more barren than he had been. This time, there was too much of it for him to hold; it spilled through his fingers and toes, welled up equally in his eyes and his hair and the hollows of his shoulders. There was too much to hold — too much ever to use; and still he found himself weeping with the pain of his impossible greed. He thought, or said, or sang, I did not know that I was so empty, to be so full."

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Another one of my very favorites. I read through the Chronicles of Narnia the way you swallow your prescription drugs ... routinely. I listen to LWW, then back to Magician's Nephew, then Horse and His Boy, and on. The Last Battle is my favorite.

This is for sure my favorite series. If you haven't read them yet, what is wrong with you?

The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

Reading these through for the second time was so interesting because I caught a lot of stuff that I hadn't before. Rowling is brilliant.

Why can I not be brilliant?

And British?












Devil in the Details by Jennifer Traig

This was a hilarious book about obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is, of course, what my own novel is about. It was interesting to compare Traig's scrupulosity to my own and to my main character Neely's.

A very funny book. You know, one of those that makes you jealous that you can't write such funny things. Then you have to convince yourself that you don't actually want to write such funny things--it's just not your angle. Then you can finally feel better about your loathsome, boring, unfunny self because you know how to write poignant things. Which is way better ... right? Bueller?

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

This is another book that I read on repeat. It's delightful.

Stargirl is the book I recommended to Nicole from my small group, who does not like to read.

Did she like it?

Of course she did.

You people need to learn to trust me.

The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis

Brilliant, brilliant. Lewis chews on the old "problem of evil." If God is good and all-powerful, then why do bad things happen? Is God not powerful enough to stop them? Or is He powerful enough to stop them but not good enough to do so?

This question used to trip me up in the past. But the way that Lewis just calmly peels back the layers of the onion is incredible. I love this man.

Identical by Ellen Hopkins

Not as quality as many of the other books I read this summer, but it was interesting, nevertheless. A young adult book dealing with incest and sexual abuse. I listened to it on the 4.5 hour drive to a wedding and the 4.5 hour drive back, so it was really just unloaded on me. Very disturbing.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

My co-worker Kyle read this book then began to read it again. Repeat. Four times. I'm not even joking. He read it four times in a row.

Now, if you haven't noticed yet, I am a repeat offender myself. I read through Narnia and The Book Thief as if I got amnesia every six weeks, but I don't usually read straight through a book and then re-read it immediately.

So I knew something was up with this book.

It was incredible writing. And terribly sad. And chilling.

You should read it.

What I could not stomach this summer ...

The Shack by William P. Young

I tried. I really did. I endured the absolutely terrible writing quality for 5 whole chapters, but at the end of 5 chapters, I really threw in the towel. I'd be interested to hear what people liked so well about it.