The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon

A very interesting book. I think the authors did a great job of adapting the 9/11 commission report to graphic novel format. The graphic novel seemed just as immediate and horrifying as the text version. Very well-done. Highly recommended.  

Grease Monkey by Tim Eldred (graphic novel)

Many, many thanks to my reading buddy Joanne, who recommended this excellent graphic novel to me. I could barely put it down. It tells the story of a young mechanic named Robin who works with an expert mechanic named Mac, keeping the ships of a kick-butt squadron of female fighters in good shape. I can't even do the book justice -- the writing is fantastic, the sight gags are good, and I'm telling you this even though I don't much care for the way Eldred portrays the ship's library. (The head librarian is named Ms. Ann Thrope!  And she has a bun and a bosom the size of a ship's prow! C'mon, how stereotyped is that?)

 

Anyway, you MUST READ this book. If you're still not convinced, check it out online at http://www.greasemonkeybook.com/ -- you can read the first couple of chapters there, and then I bet you'll be hooked.

Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler

This is the first published Bryant and May mystery (the geezer duo), but it's the third one I've read. I enjoyed it, but I think if I'd started with this one I might have been a bit confused, because it keeps switching between the present time and wartime London. Still a good read, though!

The Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Franzen

I never read The Corrections, Franzen's fiction debut (you remember, the one that caused all that flap with Oprah because he said he wasn't sure if it was a good thing that she picked his book for her book club?), but he is certainly a good writer. Some of the chapters resonated with me more than others. (I especially liked the chapters where he discussed bird-watching.) But there were certain parts of the book that just lost me, for instance, when he spent several chapters quoting stuff in German and then translating it. Just couldn't get into that part. So, I practiced the gentle art of skimming and was done with this book in no time!

Julie & Julia, by Julie Powell

What a fun memoir! I must admit I skipped over some of the more gruesome parts involving trussing chickens and skewering lobsters and the like... but overall I just really enjoyed this book. I would definitely recommend it.

I Remember Running by Darcy Wakefield

The full title of this book is "I Remember Running: The year I got everything I ever wanted -- and ALS." 

 

In short, to-the-point chapters, Wakefield leads us through her journey as she finds her true love, discovers she has ALS (aka Lou Gehrig's disease), and struggles to deal with the slow disintegration of her body. As a former English professor, she really knows how to use words well to describe the emotional roller-coaster of trying to live well with a terminal disease.

Never Been Thawed (movie)

What a weird movie. It's a "mockumentary" about a group of Christian frozen-food enthusiasts in Arizona who are planning a convention to showcase their frozen entree collections. Anyone who has enjoyed Christopher Guest's movies would probably like this one too, except the language gets a bit blue in parts. But even that's kind of amusing. It's twisted and funny and I liked it a lot.

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

I confess that I picked up this novel wondering whether Haddon would be able to match the success of his previous book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. But he did! I really enjoyed this book. All the characters are really struggling to try and do the right thing, so even when they screw up (as they do often), I was still rooting for them. It was a book that was almost impossible for me to put down. I wanted to know what happened to the characters and I wasn't willing to stop until I found out.

The Devil's Feather by Minette Walters

British writer Minette Walters has always been an excellent writer of psychological suspense, but this book is even better than the others I've read by her. Journalist Connie Burns is abducted and tortured while she is on assignment in Baghdad. She is released three days later, and refuses to talk to anyone about what has happened to her. Soon afterwards, she goes back to England to try and recover from the trauma. She rents a secluded house in a small village and tries to put the past behind her. Meanwhile she gets caught up in a mystery involving the former owner of the house, an elderly lady who was found by a neighbor in below-freezing weather by the fishpond. Was the neighbor somehow involved? Who can Connie trust? Will she be able to overcome the fears and psychological trauma of her abduction? This book truly kept me on the edge of my seat, until the very last page. I highly recommend it.

Cockeyed: A Memoir, by Ryan Knighton

Wow, this book was fantastic. Knighton teaches creative writing at a college in Canada. He was diagnosed in his teens with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that left him functionally blind by the time he was in his early 20s. He may be blind, but he still has a great eye for detail. He tells his story in a funny and powerful way, expertly eliciting emotion from his readers. Parts of the book made me laugh out loud and other parts made me sad. I can always tell when I've read a particularly good book because I am compelled to read bits of it to other people -- and this book is definitely like that. I'm very grateful to my friend Trisha for recommending it to me -- and now I'm recommending it to you! Go forth and read!

Heavens to Betsy by Beth Pattillo

The Reverend Betsy Blessing is an assistant pastor at a church in Nashville. She's smart and funny. She's also lonely, wondering what God wants her to do, and unsure if she wants to continue as a pastor, since many of her congregants appear to think a man could do the job better. I enjoyed this book a lot -- it reminded me of "At Home in Mitford" for a younger, hipper crowd. I'm looking forward to the second book, "Earth to Betsy," which we also own at the library.

The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

This was a really unique book. It was almost hypnotic, in the way it was written. It tells the story of a changeling boy and the human boy whose place he took, and the two characters alternate viewpoints every other chapter. I really enjoyed the book, though I felt the ending was a bit anticlimatic. Anyone who enjoyed "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger would probably enjoy this as well.

Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer (graphic novel)

When you stop to think about it, superheroes must have bad days too. And man, are they having a bad day in this book. I wasn't all that familiar with the characters, although anyone who's read comic books will have a passing familiarity with them -- Green Arrow, the Flash, Superman, etc.  But what's great about Meltzer's story is that you really don't HAVE to know the characters in order to feel for what they are going through. And what was even more interesting to me is that the book acknowledged that prior actions taken by the superheroes, with the best of intentions, may have gone really wrong and caused the problems they were facing today.

 

In short, I really enjoyed this graphic novel. It was an interesting story, very well-drawn, and extremely compelling. (Plus, for those of you who like closure, it has a clear beginning and an end. :)

Digging to America by Anne Tyler

"Read this book! You'll love it!" everyone kept telling me. So I finally picked it up, fearing that it could never live up to the expectations that had been building up. But I did enjoy it, very much. I will now join the crowd of people recommending it!

Good Night and Good Luck (movie)

Saw this movie last night. I didn't like it as well as many critics did. While the whole Edward R. Murrow-Joseph McCarthy fight was certainly interesting, I'm not sure it was enough to sustain a movie. I think it might have interested me more as an actual documentary, rather than a "Based on a true story!!" film. The storyline was kind of thin, and it seemed like they just threw in random characters so they would be able to say "Cate Blanchett was in this film!" Well, sure she was, but WHY? Her character and her storyline didn't really add much. And she was the token "strong woman" in the film (and pretty much the only woman, except some random jazz singer who kept showing up and belting out tunes), but the men STILL sent her out to get the newspapers. Hmph.

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

Wow, what a great book, and almost impossible to set down. Dragons, epic sea voyages, swordfights, and compelling characters all combine to make this a great book. And it's nice that it's a paperback, so you can tuck it in your purse and haul it out when you are waiting in line at the bank! (There are at least 2 sequels, and they were good, but I didn't enjoy them as much as I did the first one.)

Next of Kin by Joanna Trollope

Another good book about a family that's falling apart and how its members gradually figure out a path through the wilderness that is life (if I may use so bold a metaphor!).

Girl's Guide to Being a Boss (without being a bitch) -- Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio

Disappointing. Too simplistic and unreasonable, at least for me. It felt to me that the authors were saying "Don't screw up! Don't screw up! Just don't!"   And, if there's one thing that I know about myself, it's that I will find a way of screwing up somehow. So what I really wanted was a book that would acknowledge that I am going to screw up, and help me figure out some ways of minimizing the damage when that happens. The overall portrait that the authors paint of a successful female manager reminds me more like a robot than an actual person. "Do this. Don't do that. Be firm. But not too firm." Sounds like a road map to disaster. So, I guess I'll just have to continue my struggle on my own -- this book is not going to provide any magic answers.

The Long Tail by Chris Anderson

Everyone's talking about the Long Tail, an idea that originated in an article Anderson wrote for Wired in 2004, then expanded into book form. Anderson argues that several factors, including the ease of mass production, combined with the Internet's profound impact on product distribution and advertising, are changing the face of business today. It's a really interesting book, and well worth reading, but if you want to just get your feet wet, you can try reading the original article (Wired, 10/2004, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html).  

Car Talk: The Hatchback of Notre Dame (audio book)

Few things put me into a good mood faster than hearing Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, guffaw hysterically about nothing in particular. This is an hour-long compilation of some of their favorite calls-- and it certainly did make the commute go by quickly! I highly recommend it.