What Emily is Reading

Name: Emily
Age: 19
From: Bay Village, OH
Occupation: doing way more than I actually have time for and still somehow enjoying life

Currently Reading: Italo Calvino's If On a Winter's Night
a Traveler

Why? I'm technically reading it because it's assigned for my Media Aesthetics class. Luckily for me, it's also the best book I've ever read.

Thoughts: In the realm of my class, this book is pretty much perfect. It pretty much manages to include and play out every single theme we've looked at over the year, in a really incredible way. As for plot summary, I can't really say too much here because of the construction of the book. It's a postmodern novel, a good deal of which is written using the second person, kind of like some sadistic choose-your-own-adventure. It skips in and out of more conventional third person, though. I'd say the most important thing about this book is its ability to make you really consider your role as a reader.

Other book recommendations: The Sirens of Titan, The Awakening

More From My Dad

My Dad's an avid reader. What can I say? More from him:

I just finished The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. [Ed: Jo recommended this one too! See below] A great book about life in an America fractured by nuclear accidents, pollution, and internal strife, and then taken over in a coup by religious fanatics. Wonderfully written, but very grim--be prepared to be depressed--although she does end it with a ray of hope for humanity. (Some time ago I read another of her post-apocalyptic books, Oryx and Crake (actually I listened to a recording of it while commuting), which is even more depressing but somewhat more plausible, because of her attention to certain details.)

Now reading Prague, by Arthur Phillips, about five twenty-something Americans among those who (apparently) flocked to eastern Europe after the fall of communism in the early 1990s, to take advantage of job opportunities in an exotic place. Despite the title, all the early action is in Budapest. I'm interested in the characters, but I think Phillips over-writes (as in the start of a chapter: "When the Monday sun hoisted its first yolk-yellow arc over an eastern hill of Budapest..." I think that's a sarcastic comment about air pollution, but I'm not sure). We'll see.

What Joanna Is Reading Right Now

Name: Joanna
Age: 21
Where from: Chicagoland
Occupation: student

Currently reading: Black Boy (Richard Wright)
Why this book: Part II ("The Horror and the Glory") was assigned in a course as an illustration of Black Communism, and I liked those chapters so much that I went back and started reading the first half ("American Hunger").

Thoughts: Wright describes the physical poverty and emotional isolation of his formative years in a way that's completely compelling without being pathetic, or too painful to read. This is an essential perspective on America and her social ills (chiefly racism, but with a fair amount of commentary on materialism and misplaced individualism), from a man whose passion for writing is not only the central point of his narrative, but also evident in every line. Wright somehow manages to turn his autobiography--normally a pretty self-indulgent activity--into a philosophical and historical statement that transcends the personal, yet never loses its narrative momentum. This goes on my list of "books more people ought to have read."

Other Recommendations: The other book on that list is Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, for people who enjoy novels with evident implications for our current reality. Also, Gilead (Marilynne Robinson), for everyone. Period.

What My Dad Is Reading Right Now

Name: David Datz
Age: 60
Where are you from? Born in Brooklyn, NY, grew up in Scarsdale, Memphis, St. Louis, and Burlingame, CA, now live in Altadena, CA.
Occupation/how you spend your time: Information technology project manager and systems analyst, local library trustee, and kids' soccer coach.

Currently reading: The Last Detective by Robert Crais

Why this book? I sort of alternate between a "literary" novel and a lighter, crime/mystery novel, and in the latter category I had run out of authors I knew about. A friend recommended Crais.

Thoughts on the book: It's a tense, taut, unrelenting crime drama. It's also sort of grim and dark. Not at all witty, like Robert B. Parker or Raymond Chandler (the master), and sometimes melodramatic. But if you want a diverting page-turner, it's great.

Other book recommendations: Before the Crais, I read Oil! by Upton Sinclair, the basis for the movie "There Will Be Blood." It was published in 1926, with a lot of observations about capitalism, socialism, and communism. From the perspective of 2008, it's interesting to see where Sinclair was right and where he was wrong. In some things he was very wrong, and I was disappointed to discover racism among his traits. But a lot of his observations ring all too true for our own time.

What My Roommate is Reading Right Now

Name: Amanda
Age: 21
Where are you from? My mother
Occupation: student and intern extraordinaire

Currently reading? The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman

Why this book? My mother gave it to me for Easter because I love Alice Hoffman books.

Thoughts on the book: It’s kind of disappointing so far because it’s not as poetically written as a lot of my favorite Alice Hoffman books. I think it’s going to get interesting, but so far she’s been describing a lonely woman, and that gets old after twenty pages. I think it’s weird in an Alice Hoffman novel to have a lonely individual woman, because normally [Hoffman] either takes a great family or couple and f-s it up, or takes a funky couple or family and shows the beauty behind the funky...kinda.

Other book recommendations: Not Virgil’s Georgics. Especially the first 42 lines. [Ed: She just had to memorize them for class. Seriously.] But, on a positive note, [I recommend] the Reader [by Bernhard Schlink], and they’re making it into a movie.

What I'm Reading Right Now

Who I am: Arielle
Age: 21
From: Los Angeles, CA
Occupation: student

What I'm reading for fun: The Pact by Jodi Picoult

Why this book: It was recommended (and then lent) to me by my roommate

Thoughts on the book: Well, the blurb says that it is based on a suicide pact between two teenagers. I'm about 50 pages in, and so far it's as to be expected...bleak. But it has sucked me in, since it starts with the suicide pact and then jumps back and forth in time to fill in the blanks of how the teenagers grew up together and how this came to be. Sad subject matter, but I'm definitely sucked in. I recommend it, if you can handle the heaviness.

Additionally: The last book I read was Picoult's Plain Truth, which was about a crime that takes place on an Amish farm. Really interesting description of the culture clash that occurs between the Amish and non-Amish.

Welcome to my blog

Welcome to Bibliophilesque, a blog devoted to books of all kinds, but mostly fiction. I will be talking to friends, family, and random strangers about what they are reading now and why, and I'll occasionally write about what I'm reading. So enjoy.