John Grisham’s The Brethren

From Cover: “They call themselves the Brethren: three disgraced former judges doing time in a Florida federal prison. One was sent up for tax evasion. Another, for skimming bingo profits. And the third, for a career-ending drunken joyride. Meeting daily in the prison law library, taking exercise walks in their boxer shorts, these judges-turned-felons can reminisce about old court cases, dispense a little jailhouse justice, and contemplate where their lives went wrong.

Or they can use their time in prison to get very rich–very fast. And so they sit, sprawled in the prison library, furiously writing letters, fine-tuning a wickedly brilliant extortion scam…while events outside their prison walls begin to erupt. A bizarre presidential election is holding the nation in its grips–and a powerful government figure is pulling some very hidden strings. For the Brethren, the timing couldn’t be better. Because they’ve just found the perfect victim…”

I don’t know how I feel about the novel. It was good, I was into it. It was one of those, “I can’t believe this is happening!!” or “Why did he do that?!?!” novel. Yes, I wanted to know where it was going, but it was so anti-climatic. Their weren’t any “WOW, Didn’t see that coming” moments, or anything of the sort. Yes, Grisham mainly writes for the suspense, but there was especially poor characterization. Grisham can do better than this. I was really disappointed with the ending, too. Bah, well, it’s just not his best!

A.J. Jacobs’ The Know-It-All

From Cover: “Part memoir and part education (or lack thereof), The Know-It-All chronicles NPR contributor A.J. Jacobs’s hilarious, enlightening, and seemingly impossible quest to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z.  To fill the ever-widening gaps in his Ivy-League education, A.J. Jacobs sets for himself the daunting task of reading all thirty-two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His wife, Julie, tells him it’s a waste of time, his friends believe he is losing his mind, and his father, a brilliant attorney who had once attempted the same feat and quit somewhere around Borneo, is encouraging but unconvinced.”

The summary was actually longer than that, but I thought it was a bit long-winded, and cut it short. What an amazing book, though! It was hilarious, and I learned so many random tidbits that had me shocked.  I have no clue how Jacobs managed to remember so much, but even reading his VERY condensed version, I’ve forgotten a ton. I’ll never forget the experience, though. Jacobs has a knack for getting the reader to laugh out loud. When talking about the article on Igor Stravinsky, he says the following:

“I love this. I can’t believe that less than a century ago, a ballet with some discordant notes could cause an actual riot. (If they heard my composition, by the way, they would have burned the theater down.) Nowadays, audience members at the ballet rarely riot. They are often too busy falling asleep. Or if they are really upset, they leave after the first act to get a nice pasta dinner somewhere. But they don’t riot.

It makes me feel nostalgic for when you could shock people with art. It was so easy back then. A couple of notes too close on the scale, a litle sex, and presto, outrage! Now, good luck shocking the audience. You go to the movies and watch teenagers having sex with parakeets or whatever, and you just won’t be treated to an uproar, a commotion, or even a man standing on a chair. Being a true artist used to be a lot easier, not counting that tuberculosis business.”

Not only did Jacobs make learning facts interesting, he also managed to provide random insights into his personal life that made the book even more interesting. I would recommend the book to any random fact lovers, or non-fiction fans, in general. I loved it.

Jodi Picoult’s The Pact

From Cover: “Until the phone calls came at three o’clock on a November morning, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year old Emily is dead–shot with a gun her beloved and devoted Chris pilfered from his father’s cabinet as part of an apparent suicide pact–leaving two devasated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desparate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew.”

I love how Picoult always manages to approach controversial issues, and get her readers really riled up about them. It was a beautiful story. My heart ached through the whole novel–I wanted so bad for Emily to come back to life, and make Chris all better. I hated to see the anguish in both of the families. It did seem like Picoult would forget about some of the characters, though, and then realize she did, and come back to them quickly, and briefly. That sort of bothered me, but the language and plot was so intense that it only occupied my mind for a fleeting moment. It was one of those books that make you yearn for a love so strong, and wonder if it really is out there. I fell in love with Jordan McAfree, too. There was so much Picoult was saying about him through his son, and his demeanor in the court room. Everyone in the book ended up learning so much, and through them, I did, as well. I love Picoult’s novels.

Felice Picano’s Like People In History

From Alibris: “A saga of four decades in the lives of two men and their lovers, spouses, relatives, friends and enemies. Second cousins and lifelong friends, Roger and Alistair share many things, including handsome model and poet Matt, whom they both love.”

It was a beautiful book. I loved Matt, and Wally. I loved how Picano implimented two plots that were occuring simultaneously. You could really see how the gay movement developed, and people’s reactions to it. It was a tear jerker. I fell in love with the characters, and loved the language. I’d recommend it to anyone who’s looking for quality gay fiction.

Steve Martin’s The Pleasure of My Company

Daniel Pecan Cambridge lives in a small apartment building, and spends a lot of mornings making sure the wattage of all lit lightbulbs in his home is equal to 1125. He makes “exciting” trips to Rite Aid to observe Zandy the pharmacist from afar, and conversates seldomly with his upstairs neighbor, Philippa. Even with the lack of excitement in the life of the main character, Martin manages to engage the reader in a very interesting story. The Pleasure of My Company is a fictional account of exactly how OCD feels. Daniel Cambridge gets so caught up in his OCD that he forgets to look for love, to keep a job, and even to contact his grandmother. It’s clear early on how severe it is,

“My counting habit continued into college, where its real import, purpose, and power were revealed to me. The class assignment seemed trifling, but the irresistible counting work seemed vital not only to my well-being but to the world’s. I added textbook page numbers together, divided them by the total page numbers, and using my own formulas, redistributed them more appropriately. Page 262 of Science and Environment could become a more natural page 118, and I would razor-cut the leaves from their binding and rearrange them to suit my calculations.”

But Daniel’s life seems to take a turn for the better when he applies for the Most Average American essay contest. Martin manages to make even the most minute parts of life seem very important, and I found myself laughing through a lot of the book. Daniel was so like-able, despite all of his odd quirks. I enjoyed the novel immensely.

Dennis Cooper’s My Loose Thread

From cover: “Larry, a teenager wrestling not only with his sexuality and a physical relationship with his younger brother, but with the very point of his existence. He is numb to most of what surrounds him. As the book opens, Larry is paid $500 by an older student to kill a fellow pupil and retrieve the boy’s notebook. It seems simple enough. However, once Larry ventures into the notebook, complications arise…”

It’s a difficult book to read. I was confused by it because it’s basically a book of mania. In that sense, Cooper did a good job. It was hard to follow what the main character was feeling, but that was the point. I couldn’t believe what was going on with all of the kids from the highschool. It’s like when you’re watching T.V. about mischevious juveniles, and thinking, “Where are their parents??” I had a lot of mixed feelings about the book. If it was any longer than it was, I probably wouldn’t have gotten through it. The unique suspense of it kept me hooked for the few hours it took to read. I have to say, Larry was an interesting character.

Walter Dean Myers’ Monster

From back of book:”Steve Harmon’s black. He’s in jail, maybe forever. He’s on trial for murder. He’s sixteen years old”

Clever how they mention the whole “Steve Harmon’s black” thing first in their brief description of the novel. That was one of the aspects of the book that bothered me. I think it polarizes a race by saying things like, “She didn’t want to testify against so and so because he’s black” or “He’s black so juries are even harder on him.” That’s a whole different issue, but I’d say it’s a huge part of the book. Frankly, I thought the book was terrible. I’m not one to read YA novels, and that might be why I hated it. The whole “screen play” format was really irritating. Myers would use small sections to explain what was going on, like “Cut to: some person doing some thing”, and they were hard to understand so I had to figure what was going on through small clues, and dialogue. The plot was boring, you could basically figure out what was going to happen after being 20 pages into the book. Honestly, there was nothing I liked about it. I’m still trying to figure out whether Steve Harmon had anything to do with the murder or not, and maybe the jury was wrong, or what. Hmph.

Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason’s The Rule of Four

From Flap: “Princeton. Good Friday, 1999. On the eve of graduation, two students are a hairsbreadth away from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomochia Poliphili, a Renaissance text that has baffled scholars for centuries. Famous for its hypnotic power over those who study it, the five-hundred-year-old Hypnerotomochia may finally reveal its secrets–to Tom Sullivan, whose father was obsessed with the book, and Paul Harris, whose futured depends on it. But as the deadline looms, research has stalled–until an ancient diary surfaces. What Tom and Paul discover inside shocks even them: proof that the location of a hidden crypt has been ciphered within the passages of the obscure Renaissance text.

Armed with this final clue, the two friends delve into the bizarre world of the Hypnerotomochia–a world of forgotten erudition, strange sexual appetites, and terrible violence. But just as they begin to realize the magnitude of their discovery, Princeton’s snowy campus is rocked: a longtime student of the book is murdered, shot dead in the hushed halls of the history department.”

To be honest, it seems that they wrote the summary before they even wrote the book. I didn’t see all of the “strange sexual appetites”, etc. looming in the ancient text, but hey, whatever. It’s like they forgot to add that in or something. You know those books that make you frustrated because you just can’t decide whether you liked them or not? Well, this is one of them. I was confused 70% of the time. It’s like the two authors would come upon a new idea, and realized they hadn’t sufficiently explain something in the past, so they would jump back into the past for a few chapters and randomly come back to the present with the least indication of what was going on, or even what time period the reader should imagine themselves in. Also, I’m not a Renaissance scholar, so I would have appreciated it if they put the whole ancient text thing in more simple terms. The book was just very Da Vinci-Esque. You know, OH! look at the corruption among the people during the Renaissance, oh no! That kind of thing.

The ending was cute, though. And the overall plot had so much potential, if only it could have been realized. I liked the characters, but at some parts, it felt like a hollywood movie. I was picturing Tom Cruise running from a burning car in mission impossible because that’s just how it made me feel, if that makes any sense. If you liked the Da Vinci Code though, and would like to read something better than it, check it out.

Orlando Library Fall Sale

One of my favorite times of the year definitely has to be when all of the fall sales start springing up at local libraries. They are so fun. Prices are great, and I always find something good.

Yesterday I went to the fall sale at the downtown Orlando library, and found some really good books. I picked up Blessings by Anna Quindlen. I’ve heard really good things about her from my past manager, and the plot was intriguing. Raven and Willow by V.C. Andrews. Anytime I can find a cheap book by her that I don’t have, I have to pick it up because I’m slowly building up my collection again. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Everyone keeps talking about it, and I want to check it out myself. I didn’t realize how thick it was! My Loose Thread by Dennis Cooper. I hadn’t even heard of this novel before then, but it looked like it could be interesting. The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell. It’s been on my book list for a while, and I was really happy when I saw it there. Out of My Head by Didier Van Cauweleart. It’s the unfinished manuscript of the novel, and the premise looked interesting. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson. The cover pulled me in, and the plot made me want to buy it. I think I’ve heard someone say they liked it before..

All of that for 6 bucks! It was crazy, but I was very happy.

Neil Gaiman’s American Gods

From Back Cover: “Shadow is a man with a past, but now he wants nothing more than to spend a quiet life with his wife and stay out of trouble. Until he learns that she’s been killed in a terrible accident.

Flying home for the funeral, as a violent storm rocks the plane, a strange man in the seat next to him introduces himself. The man calls himself Mr. Wednesday and he knows more about Shadow than is possible. He warns Shadow that a far bigger storm is coming. And from that moment on, nothing will be the same…”

I’ve never read a book quite like this. It’s the first fantasy novel I’ve ever read, other than Harry Potter, but for some reason, I think that’s different. I found myself confused for a good half of the novel because there was so much going on. Gaiman had all of these side stories that had me forgetting what I just read because it became so complex. I grasped the bulk of the novel, though, and I must say I did enjoy it. I loved the ending, and I loved Shadow. The book says so much about American culture, and I loved the satire. I might have to check out some of Gaiman’s other novels because it was nice to deviate from the norm, and read something so much different from what I usually read.