I've been reading a TON lately. Here's where I tell you which books I've read in July and whether you should give 'em a whirl or not.

Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland

(from Amazon.com) Liz Dunn isn't morbid, she's just a lonely woman with a very pragmatic outlook on life. Overweight, underemployed, and living in a nondescript condo with nothing but chocolate pudding in the fridge, she has pretty much given up on anything interesting ever happening to her. Everything changes when she gets an unexpected phone call from a Vancouver hospital and a stranger takes on a very intimate place in her life. From here the plot of Douglas Coupland's Eleanor Rigby skyrockets into a very bizarre world, rife with reverse sing-alongs and apocalyptic visions of frantic farmers. The style and plot paths are very identifiably Coupland--slightly mystical, off-kilter, and very, very smart. Ultimately a novel about the burden of loneliness, Eleanor Rigby takes its characters through strange and sometimes nearly unimaginable predicaments.

This book was entertaining and a quick read. I guess I recommend it. I kind of suck at this 'review' thing.

Weeds by Edith Summers Kelley

(from Amazon.com) Coming of age is a shock to almost anyone's system but imagine being like Kelley's character Judith Pippinger: spirited, creative, strong, yet facing nothing more fulfilling in life than the poverty and deprivation of a rural life. As with any lifetime, the human spirit provides moments of beauty, laughter and power-reserves upon which Judith must depend to survive a failing marriage, a disastrous love affair and the impending death of one of her daughters.

This book was so good. I read it in one day. I loved it. I love gritty, salt of the earth stories. Excellent.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

(from Amazon.com) The story follows 100 years in the life of Macondo, a village founded by José Arcadio Buendía and occupied by descendants all sporting variations on their progenitor's name: his sons, José Arcadio and Aureliano, and grandsons, Aureliano José, Aureliano Segundo, and José Arcadio Segundo. Then there are the women--the two Úrsulas, a handful of Remedios, Fernanda, and Pilar--who struggle to remain grounded even as their menfolk build castles in the air. If it is possible for a novel to be highly comic and deeply tragic at the same time, then One Hundred Years of Solitude does the trick. Civil war rages throughout, hearts break, dreams shatter, and lives are lost, yet the effect is literary pentimento, with sorrow's outlines bleeding through the vibrant colors of García Márquez's magical realism. Consider, for example, the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, whom José Arcadio Buendía has killed in a fight. So lonely is the man's shade that it haunts Buendía's house, searching anxiously for water with which to clean its wound. Buendía's wife, Úrsula, is so moved that "the next time she saw the dead man uncovering the pots on the stove she understood what he was looking for, and from then on she placed water jugs all about the house.

Obviously an excellent book. Classic

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

(from Amazon.com) Prep is the story of Lee Fiora, a South Bend, Indiana, teenager who wins a scholarship to the prestigious Ault school, an East Coast institution where "money was everywhere on campus, but it was usually invisible." As we follow Lee through boarding school, we witness firsthand the triumphs and tragedies that shape our heroine's coming-of-age. Yet while Sittenfeld may be a skilled storyteller, her real gift lies in her ability to expertly give voice to what is often described as the most alienating period in a young person's life: high school.

Ok, it was a mediocre story. Comparing this to JD Salinger makes me want to vomit, though. Just sayin'.

The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek To Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz

(from Amazon.com) Cavalry officer Slavomir Rawicz was captured by the Red Army in 1939 during the German-Soviet partition of Poland and was sent to the Siberian Gulag along with other captive Poles, Finns, Ukranians, Czechs, Greeks, and even a few English, French, and American unfortunates who had been caught up in the fighting. A year later, he and six comrades from various countries escaped from a labor camp in Yakutsk and made their way, on foot, thousands of miles south to British India, where Rawicz reenlisted in the Polish army and fought against the Germans. The Long Walk recounts that adventure, which is surely one of the most curious treks in history.

Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Also, read this with a hankie or a tissue.

The Attack by Yasmina Khadra

(From the New Yorker) Dr. Amin Jaafari, an Israeli Arab, seems fully assimilated into Tel Aviv society, with a loving wife, a successful career as a surgeon, and numerous Jewish friends. But after a restaurant bombing kills nineteen people, and it becomes apparent that his wife was the bomber, he plunges into the world of Islamic extremism, trying to understand how he missed signs of her intentions.

This book was really good. I didn't want it to end. Another page turner.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

(from Amazon.com) The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule.

I thought this book was wonderful. I cannot wait to pick up A Thousand Splendid Suns by the same author.

Tonight, after meeting Jon and his friend Kevin for dinner, I picked up another book that I'm super excited about. Amy Karol's (angry chicken) book Bend the Rules Sewing I just had to have it after taking a peek over at the flickr page devoted the projects from the book. Click here to see all the great stuff.

At some point I'll be back to show you my own sewing projects: a quilt and 3 sundresses for Devan. I've also got a knitting project to show off: I'll give you a hint, it starts with "socka" and ends with "palooza" but right now I'm tired. So tired. And no, I don't work for amazon.com, it's just a handy site to get info on books.

Labels: blogs, books, makin' things: arts and crafts