tumbly. by dotsara!

Progress: 10 down, 30 to go (list)

Which: Persuasion, Jane Austen

The shortest read time (2 days) and the first saw-the-movie-first of 2011. I’ve seen parts of the Shouty Rochester¹ version, but it’s the 2007 BBC version (see also…) which is fixed in my brain. And I’ve seen it enough that reading the book turned into a series of, “oh, I see what they did there with that bit” and “hey! I thought Benwick said that!”

Parts of Persuasion which are great:

• character histories bubbling up via conversation and not info dumps
• Anne Elliot
• second chances that are a teensy bit contrived, yet fully earned
• the book-long reminder to be aware of whose advice you take and why
• Wentworth’s letter (are you kidding me? eek!)

Parts of Persuasion which could do with a punch to the throat:

• Sir Walter Elliot. DISLIKE

So, y’know: will read again. (:

¹ Shouty Rochester = Ciarán Hinds as Rochester in the. most. wretched. Jane Eyre adaptation I’ve seen. There is no humor in his Rochester, not to mention Samantha Morton’s smug (?!) Jane (with too little spine), and so their relationship comes over as mostly abusive and gross.

Progress: 9 down, 31 to go (list)

Which: The Wettest County in the World, Matt Bondurant

It took me a while to warm up to this book. The 3 brothers I was interested in from the off, but the way Bondurant executes his time shifts kept me off balance until more than halfway through the book.

Also? Sherwood Anderson is the most annoying character (based on the author) I’ve read in a very long time. Honestly, with the whinging over Hemingway and Faulkner and the letters to his wife. I rolled my eyes nearly every time one of his chapters got started.

I’m still a little knee-jerk about Bondurant’s unquoted dialogue. It might be unfair, but that’s a Cormac McCarthy thing for me, so it felt like an affectation here. But! I like the book a lot (really!). Great story, believable characters, and little flashes of Southern Gothic? I’m there.

In progress.

The Wettest County in the World is… odd. Something about it makes me squinty, despite my interest in the Bondurants. Maybe it’s the unquoted, mid-paragraph dialogue. That’s McCarthy territory, sir (and thus far, you are no McCarthy).

Progress: 8 down, 32 to go (list)

Which: Kingdom Come, Mark Waid & Alex Ross
(recommended by Jeff)

My superhero knowledge is pretty thin: movies & tv shows? Yes. Actual issues of the source material? Not so much. And this is the second graphic novel I’ve read (the first: Watchmen) where that doesn’t seem to matter. Oh, I’m sure there are references lost on me, but for the most part: all the context I need is right there.

What impresses me most about the story is the allegory that’s inescapable, but not hamfisted. The way McCay and Spectre glide between settings (Superman and Wonder Woman here, Batman and Lex there, undisciplined “metahumans” […I know] everywhere) keeps everything rolling without confusion.

And the art! It’s so beautiful. The light and the angles and the expressions… and the way Spectre and McCay show up on very nearly every page… so good.

Progress: 7 down, 33 to go (reading…)

Which: Old Man’s War, John Scalzi

I actually read the lion’s share of Old Man’s War on the Kindle, but! acquired a copy for signing purposes when 2 of my coworkers went to the Nebula Awards (…I know!) last weekend. Hee.

If you’ve read Whatever for any length of time, you already know Scalzi’s sharp and funny as hell. And when you start with the premise of 75-year-olds signing up for military service? In space? There’s no way you’re not going to crack up and thoroughly enjoy yourself.

In short: go read it! (:

Progress: 6 down, 34 to go

Which: Jumper, Steven Gould

A couple of months ago, a coworker recommended Jumper in spite of my “yeah but the movie…” expression. Know what? He was right: the movie? Rubbish. The book? Not too bad.

It definitely feels like a first novel a few times: no explanations here, dragging its feet a little there; but honestly, at least there’s no whiny Anakin or Samuel L. Jackson running around chewing up all the scenery, so. (:

Progress: 5 down, 35 to go

Which: The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
(recommended by Bruce)

Any book that starts with a literary detective called Thursday Next has to be good, right? Spoiler: it totally is!

The permeable barrier between the world contained within a book and the world outside of it is, in a word, awesome. The way literary characters wait around to enact what’s being read (in every copy of a given book…mind-bender) is sort of the bookish equivalent of Toy Story exposing the secret world of toys when you’re out of the room. (:

(And look at Bertha Mason! Making herself useful!)

Sunday afternoon

This is what happens when the internets goes down for a few hours, you’re bored with your book, and the movie you were watching (Gatsby, 2000) was too silly to sustain itself (or you).

Results? Better grouped shelves (the Shakespeare, Milton, Campbell, Orwell, and the annotated bible w/ apocrypha makes me laugh a little) and about 20 books to be unloaded. Woot!

Progress: 4 down, 36 to go

Which: The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
(Borrowed from ticjones)

I never expected a non-fiction book would make me read faster to find out what happens next sooner. But with the 1893 World’s Fair trying to out-Eiffel Paris and the slickest mf I’ve yet read about operating at the same time? You’re going to read faster.

Both halves of this book would be really good on their own but together they pack a serious punch. Larson gives a master class here on the cliffhanger sentence as the 2 stories alternate chapters back and forth—which could be confusing but isn’t, he works it.

Um, all that said, the serial killer business is a bit graphic the first half of the book—not Tarantino-graphic, but clinical and creepy for that sterility—so I don’t recommend stopping on an H. H. Holmes chapter if you’re reading at night…