Wish I could keep up with this–or that I could download thoughts directly from my head–but at least I will try to continue to list titles. So, to catch up:
Charlotte Brontė
Jane Eyre, 1847
Read on my Sony Reader. One of my all-time favorites.
Arthur C. Clarke
Dolphin Island: A Story of the People of the Sea, 1963
Re-read because of a query that came up on Project Wombat. Led me to this page about Mary Watson.
Michael Crichton
The Great Train Robbery, 1975
Sphere, 1987
Crichton is so darn readable, but he holds up less and less well as I get older. I don’t think I’d actually read GTR before; it over-relies on contemporary slang for color, but I enjoyed that part most of all.
Mark Doty
Dog Years: A Memoir, 2007
Large print, read on the elliptical trainer. Well-written if a little self-indulgent.
Sue Grafton
T is for Trespass, 2007
Grafton writes as well as ever but my taste for her is fading. Is time passing so slowly in Santa Teresa (it’s now January 1987) because she doesn’t want Henry to die of old age? Not that I blame her–he’s a great character. Suprisingly action-filled ending.
Maria Dahvana Headley
The Year of Yes: A Memoir, 2006
It took me a while to get used to the author’s voice, but I loved it! Fascinating, especially to see the world through the eyes of someone who is constantly propositioned (I grew up in NYC and thankfully had a very different experience) and apparently has very little need to sleep. She crammed an incredible range of experience into her 21st year.
Ursula LeGuin
Powers, 2007
One of the strongest of her novels in years. Truly great. The “Annals of the Western Shore” almost live up to the Earthsea books.
Nigel Marsh
Fat, Forty, and Fired, 2007
Ehhh… Wanted to like it, but I had to skim big chunks. The comparison to Ray Romano on the jacket flap is right on.
Jean Shepherd
In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, 1966
I hadn’t actually read this all the way through before, but I remembered “Hairy Gertz and the Forty-Seven Crappies” making me laugh out loud in the bookstore. Still somewhat funny, but no long rip-snortingly so for me. The photo on the back of the book makes him look totally unlike his author personality. Now that we have YouTube and Google Images I have a better sense of him–check out this clip.
