August: Weeks Three and Four

Books Bought:

• History and Theory of Anthropology (Alan Barnard)
• The Anthropology of Music (Alan Merriam)
• The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-one Issues and Concepts (Bruno Nettl)
• Music as Social Life (Thomas Turino)

Books Read:

• My Education (Susan Choi)
• Love is a Four-Letter Word (ed. Michael Taeckens)

Okay, reading in August became difficult. (Life in flux, see two posts ago.) I bought my textbooks for my Intro to Ethnomusicology class. I've started reading the Nettl book, and it's great. I appreciate anyone who can write an academic book that is not the least bit dry. 

Here are my textbooks amongst other homework detritus.

I finished reading two books this past weekend that I've been working my way through over the past few weeks. I'd read a review of My Education in The Week and thought it seemed interesting (plus, Choi has been a Pulitzer finalist before), so I added it to my library list. Perhaps not coincidentally, the subject matter was quite similar to the memoir/movie An Education - taboo love affair between a student and an older person. I appreciated the writing more than the plot. I know some have called it verbose and melodramatic (the writing AND the plot, I guess), but I think those critics just probably don't remember what it's like to be an intelligent person caught up in loving someone you shouldn't (instant recipe for melodrama). 

Love is a Four-Letter Word is a collection of short stories about break-ups. Like any good short story collection, some are sad, some are funny, some are serious, some are clever. I think I found this book on the sale rack at a store a few years back - if I'm remembering correctly, after my own giant break-up. I probably should have read this book then, but it's an enjoyable read even if you're completely satisfied with your current love life (or lack of). 

August: Weeks One and Two

Books Bought:

• The Satanic Verses (Salman Rushdie)
• The Three Weissmanns of Westport (Cathleen Schine)
• Brat Farrar (Josephine Tey)
• And Another Thing... (Eoin Colfer)
• Silent Spring (Rachel Carson)
• The Little Drummer Girl (John Le Carre)
• Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books (Aaron Lansky)
• See, Mix, Drink (Brian D. Murphy)

I spent the first week and a half of August at home in Texas...which means I visited my favorite used book store THREE TIMES. But I only bought books the first two times - that means I'm improving, right? Also, let me just brag about how I got the first six books on that list for a total of $6.21. Thank you, Rice Village Half Price Books, and your wonderful $1 fiction shelf.

If there's one thing I can't resist, it's trying new mysteries (after reading everything written by Agatha Christie, what other choice do I have?) - and if there's another thing I can't resist, it's books about books. I've read reviews of a couple of Josephine Tey's books (not the one I bought, however), so when I saw one on the $1 shelf I decided to try it. As for John Le Carre...well, I haven't read Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy yet, but I just finished watching the old TV adaptation (as well as the new movie) and am pretty much 100% sure I'm going to love the book, so I ended up buying another of his books, too. I also couldn't resist buying Eoin Colfer's sixth installment to the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy." Outwitting History is a book about books - enough said. See, Mix, Drink isn't a usual purchase for me, but Matt and I had just seen the book at Urban Outfitters for three times the price, so we decided to each buy one and learn to make drinks. I like the book because it's not just recipes, but includes diagrams and charts for each drink, too. I love diagrams and charts!

I was enjoying being home so much that I had little time to read (unusual for me). I'm still halfway through A Game of Thrones, as well as several other books, so we'll see what I manage to actually complete in the last two weeks before school starts!

July: Weeks Three and Four

Books Read:

• The Interestings (Meg Wolitzer)

The end of July was pretty crazy - moving to a new apartment, dog-sitting, and driving back to Texas, to name the big things. I kind of temporarily forgot about this blog, which was actually OK because I haven't completed very many things. Whenever my life is in flux I tend to hop around between different books. With that in mind, this list is necessary:

Currently Reading:

• The Great Animal Orchestra (Bernie Krause)
• A Game of Thrones (George R. R. Martin) *apparently if you're a fantasy writer it's hip to have the double "R" thing going*
• The Gift of Fear (Gavin de Becker)

I am LOVING A Game of Thrones (I know, I'm getting into this a little late in the game) - such complex characters! That's all I can say about it so far, other than I'm hooked.

A note on the only book I finished in the past couple of weeks: The Interestings is a great book if novels about ordinary people are your thing. I personally love them; in this case I especially enjoyed the ordinary people described because the relationships in this book started at a high school summer camp for the arts, which I can completely relate to as I spent every summer in high school at music festivals. I just realized that it's slightly ironic that the word I used to describe the characters is "ordinary," but perhaps that was the ultimate message of the book, anyway.

Amazon Kindle Deals!

Some of you may know that I own a Kindle - and love it. I still predominantly read physical books, but I love the convenience of e-books - as a kid, I used to bring five or six books on long car rides so I had a variety to choose from; now when I travel, I bring fifty or sixty books! 

Amazon is pretty great about having cheap e-books - the trick is to keep an eye on their Kindle Daily Deal page. Four new e-books are offered each day, but they also have monthly deals. I was browsing today and noticed that a few books I really enjoyed are $3.99 or less, so I thought I would share those with you! (Note - you can also purchase these e-books for iPad or other tablets; you just need to have the free Amazon Kindle app.)

Here's what caught my eye today:

• Animal Dreams (Barbara Kingsolver) - I read this a few years ago (I think my freshman year at Baylor) and it immediately became one of my favorite books. I probably need to reread it because I don't remember much about it (which is why I don't include it in my mental list of favorite books anymore), but I do remember that this is an incredibly heartfelt book. Currently available for $1.99!
• In One Person (John Irving) - I wrote about this book in an earlier blog post this year (February, if you're interested), so I won't repeat what I've already said. I admire John Irving for his willingness to write about controversial topics, and this book was no exception. Currently available for $2.99!!
• The Sirens of Titan (Kurt Vonnegut) - Vonnegut's books are frequently featured in the Sci-Fi Kindle Daily Deal. The Sirens of Titan is probably one of my top three favorites by him - the book description on Amazon describes it as an "interplanetary Candide" which I think is perfect. If you're a Vonnegut fan and haven't read this one, here's your chance! Currently available for $1.99. 

Enjoy!

July: Weeks One and Two

Books Read:

• And the Mountains Echoed (Khaled Hosseini)
• The Bookman's Tale (Charlie Lovett)

I'm writing this post early (or late, depending on how you look at it) because this week has been taken over by moving! Both of the books listed above are new releases. I loved Hosseini's new book - more than The Kite Runner, perhaps not quite as much as A Thousand Splendid Suns. It's pretty different from both of those, though - it's only nine chapters (long chapters), each of which is told from the perspective of a different character. It's more like a collection of short stories that overlap in one way or another than one continuous plot. As usual, Hosseini's writing is beautiful, but one of the interesting things about this book is the number of times he mentioned the idea of story-tellers feeling guilty for borrowing the stories of real-life people for their own gain. I read a short article recently that discussed his own guilt about his success...he said, "I wrote about people in Afghanistan who suffered for a long time, and their stories made me very successful. That has left me with a sense of debt. Writing is an act of thievery. You adapt experiences and anecdotes for your own purposes." (The Week, July 5) 

I was expecting The Bookman's Tale to be similar to one of my favorite books, The Shadow of the Wind, but it was more like National Treasure from a bibliophile's point of view. After spending a year immersed in the world of historical musicology (and working at a music library), I really appreciated the detail that went into this book (Lovett is a former antiquarian bookseller), perhaps even moreso than the story itself. This is a book written by a book lover for other book lovers - I enjoyed it! 

June: Week Four

Books Read:

• Silver Girl (Elin Hildenbrand)
• The Kitchen House (Kathleen Grissom)
• A Natural History of Dragons (Marie Brennan) 

This was a week for light summer reading...well, except for The Kitchen House, I guess. Silver Girl is a straight up beach read...it was ok - a little melodramatic, but a good vacation read. A Natural History of Dragons had the potential to be a really cute read (about a female protagonist in a Victorian-style fictional country who wanted to study dragons, which was of course totally inappropriate for a lady), but the plot never really went anywhere, so that was disappointing. 

I would recommend The Kitchen House to pretty much everyone, especially if you liked The Help (the book version). The Kitchen House examines slavery in the late 1700s/early 1800s from a different perspective. There are two alternating narrators - Lavinia, an orphaned Irish girl who is sent to live in with the kitchen house slaves until she is old enough to be married off, and Belle, a kitchen house slave who is the white master's daughter. The chapters narrated by Lavinia are always longer - this is mostly her story - but the Belle chapters are important because Lavinia (especially when she is younger) doesn't understand everything that is going on. Great book - I flew through this one! (With that said, I would be interested to know how historically accurate this book is - I wish there had been more historical information about indentured servants, for example.)

June: Week Three

Books Read:

• Modern Music and After (Paul Griffiths)
• Inferno (Dan Brown)
• Revenge Wears Prada (Lauren Weisberger)
• Under the Tuscan Sun (Frances Mayes)

Simple review of the week: yes, no, no, yes. 

Ok, Modern Music and After actually took six weeks to read (the length of my summer theory class). I didn't expect to say this, but I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about twentieth-century art music. That's who the book seems aimed at, rather than theorists or musicologists. Also, although a musical background certainly helps, I would imagine that someone without any background would also enjoy this book - just skip over the analytical paragraphs (not that much time is spent on actual theoretical analysis). I'll admit it: there was a large chunk of twentieth-music that I couldn't stand before I took this class and read this book, including the majority of Messiaen's music, which I am totally ashamed to admit now! Contemporary music is SO IMPORTANT, and I fervently believe that anyone is capable of learning to appreciate (if not enjoy) all of the music discussed in this book. 

Now to the two new releases: Inferno initially looked like it was going to be the best since Angels and Demons (the only Dan Brown book that I've enjoyed), but it turned out to be a huge disappointment. I won't go into detail because I know a lot of people want to read this book and deserve a spoiler-free read. I'll just say that after a year of graduate school, Brown's writing style absolutely grates on my nerves. Also, I think it seems like he tried to escape his usual formulaic plot structure, but failed...which is almost worse than not trying in the first place. 

My response to Revenge Wears Prada: was this even written by the same person?? This is nothing like The Devil Wears Prada. I don't even really know what to say, actually. 

Luckily, I get to end this post on a good note. I have always enjoyed the movie Under the Tuscan Sun, so after rewatching it last week I decided I should read the book (which I already owned and just hadn't got around to yet - I am really bad about being a book hoarder). I knew going into it that it was totally different from the movie, which was good because I was able to enjoy this book as a separate entity. I don't read a lot of travel memoirs, but I loved this one...I thoroughly enjoyed Mayes's thoughtful descriptions - remember the scene in the movie where the fictional Mayes writes a postcard for someone and he is totally peeved because his mom will never believe he wrote it? That's how Mayes writes in this book, but it's never wordy or self-indulgent. Reading this book makes me wish I had enough money to buy a villa in Tuscany...maybe one day?