Okaaaay…I’ve gotten a little behind on chronicling what I’ve been reading. Playing catch-up:
Book 14: Cutting for Stone by Cutting by Abraham Verghese.
Two friends with very different personalities and reading tastes independently told me that they finished this book in a sitting or two. This book was a good read, but it took me much longer than two sittings to get through. I think it probably had to do with the fact that my two friends are both doctors and Verghese is a doctor. He writes with great animation and detail about medical conditions, illnesses and surgical procedures. The entire novel is more or less set in clinics and hospitals. I enjoyed all of that, but it was a foreign world to me and so took me longer to digest. Verghese has an impressive resume in both writing and medicine. He left a tenured position at a medical school in Tennessee to attend the Iowa Writer’s workshop. He is board certified in three specialities and now teaches at Stanford Medical School. Too bad he’s not very accomplished. There’s a good write up about him in Stanford alumni magazine.
Book 15: Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell
I borrowed this from the Berkeley Public Library on my Kindle. When the book is available, all I have to do is click and zoop-bloop. It’s on my device. I love that. I can see why they made a movie out of Winter’s Bone because it pretty much reads like a screenplay. Plucky teen girl heroine. The Ozarks backwater (if I say “Ozarks” do I also need to say “backwater?”) where everyone cooks and deals crank. A single story arc. Very, very tense. Has anyone seen the movie?
Book 16: A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by YiYun Lee
Beautiful short story collection. It garnered oodles of praise when it came out. Finally got around to reading it. The praise she’s received is well deserved, I’d say. Majorly kickass writer. Oh, and English is her second language. Nice.
Book 17: The Natural by Bernard Malamud
I listened to this as an audiobook (also from BPL). I’m a rather avid baseball fan right now, so I loved Malamud’s wonderful descriptions of the game. I hated the ending, though. Boo.
Book 18: Drifting House by Krys Lee
This is a first short story collection from a friend from writing school. The stories are well written and they are dark, much darker than something like Winter’s Bone, which is scary and violent, but also has a heroine who is able to prevail over her circumstances. The most beautiful parts of this book are the descriptions as characters dance on the edge of exaltation and madness. Krys has said in interviews that she grew up in a home “with violence.” She dedicates the collection to her sister. “To Amy, who knows.”
Book 19: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Another audio book from the BPL. Oh my goodness. I love Fitzgerald’s prose. Listening to it being read made me enjoy it even more. Fitzgerald struggled with personal failure, his wife was looney and they were both drunks. But the mofo could write. If you are at all partial to Fitzgerald, I strongly recommend listening to him being read via audiobook. I’d also love to see this play. There’s a Gatsby movie coming out next summer, but the book is so alive in my imagination right now…I hate how the book is rendered in this trailer. And Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby? Nooooooooooo!!!!
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Bora's Notebook 