A little book update.

I haven’t read a lot of books lately. I’ve been so busy reading all your blogs….who has time for novels? Well, that and all the rest of my life just keeps getting in the way. (I do have a mandatory rest period in 3 weeks—it’s called recovering from surgery, so I’ll read a ton then okay? In fact if you’ve noshed on any great reads recently, I’m taking suggestions. The good ones and the crazy ones, thanks.) Maybe I’ll get my book blog updated then…maybe not.

I’m sharing three books with you. Two I’ve finished and the one I’m currently reading.

Book the first:

Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

I kept getting digital suggestions to read this book. After reading (and absolutely LOVING) Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert; everything from Amazon.com to my local library’s suggestion database kept shoving Life of Pi at me. I finally consented and added it to my libray hold list. I didn’t even bother to read the cover synopsis. I just dug in. And I found out pretty quickly that it’s kind of a quirky, even odd book. It starts out in India with a young boy who is busy finding religion everywhere he turns. He manages to get adopted into three different major churches. Hinduism, Catholocism, and Buddism. Plus his family runs the small zoo of the Ponicherry area, and you get the feeling that it’s his fourth creed. The animal kingdom deity. From this point the boy is thrust into an amazing journey that at first isn’t quite believable, and then turns completely magical. But by that point you don’t care, you are happy to be along for the ride. Possible or not. About half way through the book, I finally read the end cover and then I really took a good look at the jacket design…And NOW I know what people are referring to when they say, Richard Parker.

Book the second:

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls.

Again, I’ve gotten so many pleas (this time by real humans) to read this book. ‘You absolutely MUST read this, YOU will LOVE it!’. I didn’t even get to the point where I put it on hold. My neighbor just walked over and said she read her library copy so fast that she was ‘lending’ it to me. I couldn’t say no to that, and started reading it. It’s kind of a painful read. I always have such a hard time truly believing folks can think so unbelievably different from the way I do (not in an uppity way, I mean when I hear about abuse and such, I have a hard time understanding why/how that happens). And while nothing truly awful R-rated happens to the children in this family, there is a lot of neglect in the name of ‘they’re better off if they figure it out for themselves’. The book is very well written, and hard to believe that it’s a memoir and not a work of fiction. Surprisingly you don’t hate the parents, which is probably because the adult author doesn’t hate them either. I’m still not sure I understand the whys and hows, but I’m working on it.

The last book (I haven’t finished it yet...):

Fablehaven –book 1, by Brandon Mull.

It’s juvenile fiction, fantasy. But since my daughter read the first two books in the series in about two days flat, and I actually got to shake the author’s hand at a book signing, I figured I better read the dang thing, eh?
So far it’s really interesting. I knew the premise (my daughter had mentioned some of the ‘cool’ parts to me before), I knew it was about two young kids who visit their grandparents for the summer and explore a fantasy world that exists in the backyard. I’m enjoying reading it nearly as much as my kid did (but not near as fastly as she did). It’s perfect for that car pool time. 20 minutes blips.

Now for a teaser...

On my nightstand:

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. A birthday gift from a thoughtful friend.

And because I love books and lists, here's some favorite authors. I could never truly rank them. Please don't ask me. That would be like naming my favorite recipe.

Barbara Kingsolver
Amy Tan
Geraldine Brooks
Alice Walker
Jane Smiley

Are you detecting a pattern? Closet feminist anyone...?

I'll find some men for the next list. I'll have to think hard...
Wait...

David James Duncun (one of the best books I've ever read--The Brothers K)
Wallace Stegnar
Orson Scott Card
Khaled Hosseini

Whew. That was hard work.