two/seventy-five

Once upon a time I read The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank, and I thought, "Meh." I liked it, but it did not blow my mind or change my world. As time passed, I forgot what I actually thought about it and instead, after reading several reviews that classified it as standard chick-lit, decided that's what it had been and forgot about it.

I decided to give Bank's second novel, The Wonder Spot, a go, mostly because I could get it for free in one of the book club sign-up things. Also, I like the title. I read it warily, afraid that it would end up being chick-lit at the end, with a wedding or a baby or a weight loss that would reaffirm the protagonist's place in the world and wrap everything up in a bow, and that I would despise myself for wasting my time with it.

Instead, I found myself liking the book quite a bit. Bank writes from a place she knows, and the conversations flow believably and Sophie, the main character, is definitely not a one-dimensional cut-out. There really isn't a particular plot; the novel is mostly the story of Sophie's life. Huge chunks of years are skipped, but Bank doesn't think the reader is stupid -- she gives enough clues that you can figure out what happened in the time you missed, but doesn't feel it's necessary to spell it out. Sophie is likeable and relatable and by the end, you feel like you've just read a long letter from a friend.

I'm going to have to dig out Girls' Guide and see what I think about it now.

query

A Million Little Pieces -- fact or faux?

Ah, The Smoking Gun . . . I always forget how much I love their bulldoggedness until a really juicy story like this comes along. I still have to finish the article, but the first page has been very interesting.

one/seventy-five

Well, if we ignore the pesky fact that this isn't technically the first book I read this year, I can say that the new year started off right. I love Ann Patchett's writing. She always chooses the perfect word, the perfect phrase, the twist in the storyline that's exactly right.

The Magician's Assistant starts off with a death, that of a magician named Parsifal, and follows his assistant, Sabine, as she struggles to make sense of it all. It's full of dream sequences and flashbacks and it's a little hard to get into all the dreaminess at first, but when you do, it all clicks together and the book seems almost . . . magical. It's like fantasy, but not. It's beautiful.

I read some reviews on Amazon that reflected disappointment in the story's outcome, but I think it was just right for the story. Everything doesn't have to be tied into a perfectly clean bow at the end of a book for it to be good. I enjoyed the potential, the way it was left open, the way almost anything could happen.

Yeah, it's safe to say I recommend this one.

new year, new goal

My reading goal for this year is seventy-five books. I'd like to throw a little poetry into the mix, maybe devour a couple of plays. It seems ambitious, but I think I can do it.

And on we go . . .

poor neglected book blog

Here's a link to help you feel a little more loved: here's a guy checking out the covers of some of the books that show up in the most current NY Times Book Review. I'm a whore for good cover design, and I love to shred bad cover design, so I think it's a pretty fun little blog. Nothing too in-depth, but a good way to waste a few minutes and get some design nerd laughs.

fifty-two/fifty-two

Cheating just a smidge, because I finished this one on January 1. But really, it was so depressing that I'd like to leave it in 2005.

I've read Anne Tyler before: Back When We Were Grownups. I liked it, but wasn't blown away by it. It annoyed me a little -- I think I found Tyler's dialogue irritating, but I can't remember for sure, I just remember a vague sense of annoyance.

Anyway, The Amateur Marriage tells the story of a boy and girl who fall in love, get married, and have a few kids. That's it. It covers the WHOLE thing, sixty years in their lives. And the first half of the book was good. I especially enjoyed the setting; Tyler is a good writer, I'm not denying that, and she made me feel what is was like to be caught up in the fever of the war. But after all the cute meetings and outside descriptions of the couple, she starts telling everything from their perspective, and man, two more unlikeable people you'll have a hard time meeting.

Almost everyone in the book is unlikeable, and not one of them is interesting enough to make up for it. Add to that one of the most depressing stories I've read in a while, and I just . . . bleh. I didn't like it, is what I'm saying.

Tyler is a spot-on writer as far as letting you understand characters' motivations, and setting the mood of the story, but this one just ended up being too gray for me.

fifty-one/fifty-two

Assassination Vacation is the third book by Sarah Vowell that I've read, even though it's the first one of hers that I heard of. I was waiting patiently for it to come out in paperback. I love the covers on her books, they rock, to put it simply.

I've gotten used to Vowell's sarcastic writing style now, and I've grown fond of it. Vowell has a sort of fascination with assassinations, and knows all sorts of quirky facts (as well as normal date-and-place facts) about our presidents. This book focuses mostly on McKinley and Lincoln's assassinations, but it's really all over the place. It's scattered in a fun way. Vowell travels on a sort of "best of" assassination tour, dragging friends and family along with her from time to time, and the whole thing seems like a good time, even given the subject matter.