Thursday, June 17, 2010

Fables Volumes 1-3; The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner; Mouse Guard Winter 1152; Blockade Billy; Van Alen Legacy; Stones Into Schools; Furious Love

I know it looks like a lot, but with the exception of the last three, they were all pretty short.
"Fables Vols. 1-3" by Bill Willingham was great fun, probably the best graphic novels I've read yet. Snarky and full of black humor as the classic characters from childhood stories are thrust into the modern world to live among us regular folk and try to pass themselves off as normal.
Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" novella "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner" was, quite honestly, a waste of time. Without Bella and Edward and Jacob, Meyer's writing isn't really that interesting. It's the characters I care about more than her prose or plot, and the characters in this one just didn't hold my interest. At least it was super short, so I didn't waste too much time on it.
"Mouse Guard Winter 1152" by David Petersen was better than the first one I read a last month. There's more meat to the plot and I found myself actually caring about the little woodland critters and what happened to them. "Fables" is still better, though :)
Stephen King's novella, "Blockade Billy", was actually pretty good because it was about baseball but it wasn't so long that it bored me, and it had an interesting twist in the end that, although I saw it coming, King executed masterfully.
"The Van Alen Legacy" by Melissa de la Cruz was the latest in her Blue Bloods series. More action and intrigue kept my interest better than the previous volumes, but of course I'm so lost with the convoluted storyline from having not really paid attention previously that I did find myself going "huh?" a couple of times. It really didn't matter, though, it was still enjoyable.
Greg Mortenson, author of the brilliant "Three Cups of Tea", returns with "Stones Into Schools", about how his nonprofit, The Central Asia Institute, has helped build schools for girls in Afghanistan. Brilliant and inspiring, I sincerely wish there were more people in the world like Mortenson. We should clone him and fill the world with his amazing selflessness and compassion. Now here's a man that should win a Nobel Peace Prize. He deserves it.
And finally, Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger's absolutely brilliant and amazing look at Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton's marriage in "Furious Love". Wow, what a powerful love story. Taylor gave them access to her private letters from Burton, which they quoted from liberally in the book. Beautiful and heartbreaking how their love was so passionate, so all consuming, that it literally destroyed them both. Now I'm in the mood to rewatch "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?".

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Bitter is the New Black; Such a Pretty Fat; Destination Morgue: L.A. Tales; The Sound and the Fury: William Faulkner and the Lost Cause; Anything Goes; Roses

Oh lordy am I behind. I've sort of been losing a lot of myself lately, I feel like life is coming apart at the seams and I'm scrambling to hold onto the strings. I actually contemplated giving up on this, but I think I might regret it someday if I do, so along I'll plod. Here goes.
Two by Jen Lancaster, which were really funny and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of her books. First was "Bitter is the New Black", about how she and her fiance both lost their high-paying, high-powered jobs and in their poverty discovered the important things in life. It sounds sentimental and sappy, but it really wasn't. "Such a Pretty Fat" was her account of how she set about losing weight and getting into shape. It wasn't quite as funny, because it's a topic that hits entirely close to home for me, but I have to give her major credit for talking so openly about such an intensely painful subject.
"Destination Morgue: L.A. Tales" by James Ellroy was sheer masterpiece. I saw him a few months ago at the L.A. Times of Festival of Books and he is such a dynamic speaker. I've read a few of his books (highly recommend "My Dark Places") and I've wanted to read more. "Destination Morgue" was an intriguing mix of nonfiction and fiction, starting off with a few short stories of unsolved L.A. murders and how they've affected him, and the last half of the book was a collection of short fiction staring an L.A. detective and his lady love. He skillfully wove real life characters into the fiction and his abrasive style and hardcore slang make Ellroy second to none.
"The Sound and the Fury: Faulkner and the Lost Cause" by John T. Matthews was a short little critical interpretation of Faulkner's masterpiece. If I'm not reading Faulkner then I want to read more about him and his brilliance, and this one was very good, highly readable and he had some interesting insights as to the Compson household. Nothing I haven't read before, obviously, since I've read so much about "The Sound and the Fury", but interesting nonetheless.
"Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties" by Lucy Moore was a fun little read about the decade that defined excess and opulence before it all came crashing down. History seems to always repeat itself, even if we do our best to remember it. Her stories about what was going on in the '20s, everything from Jack Dempsey to Charles Lindbergh, drew parallels to what was going on over the last decade before we lost it all.
And finally, "Roses" by Leila Meacham. I've heard really great things about this book: a sweeping, grand epic about love and revenge set in the lush background of my favorite locale: Texas. It was good, but it fell short of my expectations. I was thinking more like "Giant" by Edna Ferber (I should have known better) but it was pale and weak in comparison.