Christopher Moore: Lamb

I can easily say that Lamb was not only the funniest book I have ever read but also one of the best. I came across Christopher Moore in a book store one day, read the dust jacket and promptly headed off to the library to pick him up. I really don't know how it is that it took me this long to learn about him but I'm sure glad I did.

Lamb is the story of Christ, told by his childhood pal, Biff. It not only addresses his childhood, and eventual crucifixion but also the missing years in between his teaching in the temple and his eventual return to Nazareth. It features Mary Magdalene (Maggie), Joseph of Arimetheas, the apostles, a yeti, some yaks, Chinese concubines and some demons. "Levi known as Biff" narrates the tale of how he and Joshua (Jesus) head off to China and India during the missing years. They spend time with Buddhist monks, untouchables (Jesus finds great joy in poking all the untouchables he can - the irony is just too much for him)and learn all kinds of skills in their search for the three wise men.

Here are some of my favorite parts:

- After polishing off six Chinese concubines, the Demon Catch says to Biff "Hey kid, you're a Jew, aren't you? It's been a long time since I've eaten a Jew. A good Jew sticks to your ribs. That's the problem with Chinese, you eat six or seven of them and in half an hour you're hungry again."

- Joshua refused to take up any of the weapons, in fact, he refused to practice any art that would bring harm to another human being. Two of the monks devised for Joshua a regimen of weaponless fighting that involved no offense or striking at all, but instead channeled the energy of an attacker away from oneself. Since the new art was practices only by Joshua , the monks called it Jew-do, meaning the way of the Jew.

- "Josh, look! That guy is trying to lick his own balls! Just like Bartholomew, the village idiot. These are my people, Josh. These are my people. I have found home."

-The Kama Sutra sayeth: When a man applies wax from the carnuba bean to a woman's yoni and buffs it with a lint-free cloth or a papyrus towel until a mirror shine is achieved, then it is called "Readying the Mongoose for Trade-In."

- Shortly after the visage of Mary appears on a wall, Biff believes he sees her face again:
"Look, there's another message from your mother!"
"That's not my mother."
"But look, in the elephant poop, it's a woman's face."
"I know, but it's not my mother. It's distorted because of the medium. It doesn't even look like her. Look at the eyes."
"I guess you're right. The medium obscured the message."

I could go on and on with little snippets from this book. I was laughing out loud every couple of pages, and for a book to make me laugh out loud is pretty rare. I can't wait to read more Christopher Moore.

Ian McEwan: Atonment

*%$@#* movie trailers.

Was just getting into this book (even though I've had it on my current reading list for months...it was my bath book and a girl can only bath so many times a week) when I went to a film and saw the trailer for Atonement the movie. No matter how much I close my eyes and cupped my ears, the gist of the whole damn book was revealed and I have now lost all interest in finishing it.

It was like I walked in on a sexy new lover trimming his armpit hairs. The magic is gone.

David Mitchell: A Cloud Atlas

I've never been a huge science fiction fan and Cloud Atlas, while nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke award, didn't really read like science fiction...well some of it didn't anyway and I guess that's where it gets complicated.

This book is unlike any other book I've ever read. It actually consists of six stories, all nested together and has been compared to the Russian dolls that all fit inside one another. With the exception of the middle story, each story is cut off part way through (one of them mid-sentence) only to be picked up again later:

1 2 3 4 5 6 6 5 4 3 2 1

I found it challenging to have to start a new story, with a new voice, and a new perspective each and every time and there often wasn't a lot connecting the stories together. I really enjoyed it though, perhaps because it was so challenging. It was so unique in its approach to story telling that I was compelled to keep going, even when I found some of the language to be difficult. A couple of the stories were set in the future or post-apocalyptic times and the language had obviously evolved (or regressed) to a point where it no longer sounded like English. I would have to re-read sentences in my head in order to really understand them and at times I found this taxing. The plot was interesting though and even though the stories were being interrupted you still felt a real connection with the characters.

I have to be honest and say that I'm not sure I really got it. There was certainly a connection between all the characters and this was hinted at throughout but at the end I didn't really understand what that connection was. I have been on a few websites looking for the greater literary significance which I have obviously missed and it appears that there isn't any. Reincarnation is obviously a thread that runs throughout the 6 stories and there are hints that the different characters may actually be the same soul but it's not very clear and it doesn't really play into the story either way. I felt sort of happy that I wasn't missing any obvious statements but a little disappointed that there weren't any to miss.

It's good to read a different genre and this book was different in almost every way. I liked it and although I will most-likely never become a sci-fi junkie it's good to give the old brains cells a stretch every once and awhile.

Dave Eggers: What is the What

Dave Eggers has always been one of my favourite writers. The first thing I read of his was A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and I fell in love with his wit and his style. He and Jonathan Safran Foer became my ideals of modern American writers and I have been following both of them ever since. It was odd then that I hadn't really heard about What is the What until my younger brother handed it to me to read. I am very glad that he did.

This book is not traditional Eggers (if he could ever be called traditional) in that he is telling a true story told to him by Valentino Achek Deng, a Sudanese refugee. It's a very interesting way to tell a story...Deng told his story to Eggers and Eggers took it from there. I imagine he added a few details and peppered it with enough literary techniques to make it read like a novel, as opposed to a biography. The end result is an honest, insightful and sometime heartbreaking story of a young man who is basically on his own in the world after his village is destroyed by war.

After I finished Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey, I swore I would never read another book like it again. While it was incredibly well written, it left me feeling hollow and sad by the end. I didn't realize when I started What is the What that it might make me feel the same way.

This book taught me a lot about Sudan and its history and helped me to put what is going on today into perspective. The things that the boy goes through on his journey across Africa are harrowing and made me feel bad about humanity and what people do to other people. It made me feel powerless and hopeless...not good things. At the same time I couldn't stop reading because I became so attached to the people in the book and invested in their future, in everything turning out all right.

Like a lot true life stories, especially those set in Africa, not everything turns out okay. But you do feel like it might be all right in the future, like there is at least a chance for everything to be okay. I needed that at least.

The book was good and it stays with you well after you have set it down for the last time. Eggers write the story very well but does not write it like the Eggers I know and love. It's hard to be sardonic when children are dying and I understand that. I am glad that I read this book and although it made me feel uncomfortable at times I feel like I'm a better person for having gone there - and that after all, is the point.

Bill Bryson: Made in America

I love Bill Bryson and I have to say that this was probably one of his best. Made in America is a big one but it's worth the read. Starting with the arrival of the Spanish and Western Europeans in America it navigates through the history of American English. It's full of cute anecdotes, reevaluation of some commonly held myths about the founding of America and basically, where words come from. I'm an amateur etymologist and so of course, I found this book fascinating and at times, very funny (like most of Bryson's work). I would highly recommend this book as it's a light but interesting jaunt through American history with a twist. Please don't confuse the word light however with "shirt". The book is long - 434 pages long. If it were a novel I wouldn't find 424 pages too long but in this case I felt like I was learning so much and encountering so many interesting facts that I wanted to share with other that at times I felt like I had to play catch up with the book. Does that make sense?

The only bad thing I will say about this book is that the ending was weak. Very weak. It was annoying to read this whole thing only to have it run out of things to say at the end. Rather than closing the loop and bringing the book back around to the evolution of language and where we are headed in modern day English, Bryson sort of just pooped out. It wouldn't have been a difficult book to end in my opinion so I was frustrated when I got to the end of what was a long journey only to find that the author had left me alone.

Khaled Hosseini: The Kite Runner

After reading Rohinton Mistry's book "A Fine Balance" I swore I would never read another book like it. I was afraid Kite Runner would be as equally sad and haunting (it took me months to recover from A Fine Balance) and I wanted to feel hopeful at the end. Against my better judgement I opened it up and jumped in and it only took me two or three pages to get caught up in the lives of the characters and the beautiful words that described an even more beautiful place.

Set in pre-Taliban Afghanistan, the story opens with the lives of two little boys. One, an upper-class Afghani, Amir, and his little servant friend, Hassan. Told through the eyes of Amir it is a story about trust, friendship and courage. Amir is given many chances to do the right and honorable thing and he never does. Eventually he betrays his friend so viciously that neither he or his friend Hassan ever really recover.

The characters are well-developed if a little unbelievable and you really feel for Amir, even as you are forced to watch him do the unthinkable to an almost implausibly kind little Hassan. At times I felt physically uncomfortable and wanted to scream through the pages "Do the right thing Amir!" Tell the truth!"...but Amir would have ignored me anyway. He does redeem himself although true to real-life, it's a little too late.

I didn't feel hopeless at the end of the book and I felt proud of Amir but I still had an overwhelming sense of sadness and felt discouraged about humanity in general. I appreciated the insight I gained into the history of Afghanistan and the cultural heritage of that ravaged country but I also felt dirty at the end...like I had accidentally stumbled into someones most vulnerable moment and was forced to carry that around with me. Which I suppose means the author did his job.

All in all The Kite Runner was a good book. It relied a little too heavily on foreshadowing and what I always call the "Duhn Duhn Duuh" effect. The dangling sentence so obviously meant to draw you further into the plot...like, "That was the last time I saw Hassan smile." It was a bit much but other than that I found the prose to be well-crafted and descriptive. I could see the dusty roads of Afghanistan, the stricken face of a little boy and the rage in Amir's father's eyes. I felt like I had been somewhere...I just feel fortunate that I was able to leave it behind.

Stephen Glass: The Fabulist

When I was in journalism school we did a lot of reading and talking about Jason Blair and in doing so, Stephen Glass would usually come up as a footnote. I'm not sure if it was because Jason Blair wrote for the New York Times rather than the New Republic like Glass, or whether it was his sins were greater or more brazen but he seemed to get the lion's share of the press. Although I'm sure Stephen Glasss didn't feel that way.

The Fabulist is a novel...not an autobiography. Although it sure reads like an autobiography. I have to say that I found the book well written and extremely funny..."laugh-out-loud funny...the side-splitter of the season!" (Sorry...thought I was writing a movie review there for a second.)I can see how someone like Stephen Glass got himself in so deep.

He is a good writer and probably very charismatic. Inside though he desperately needed approval from everyone in his life. His parents, his girlfriend, his fellow journalists and his readers. So, when the story fell short, he filled in the blanks. He was a hot-shot who wrote witty, political and hard hitting stories. He was in way over his head. And, he was a fabulist who could spins yarns that were both believable and entertaining. People wanted the stories to be real, which is partly what kept Stephen Glass in business for so long.

In reading his "novel" you really feel for the guy. Of course it's told from his perspective...and he is a self-admitted liar. But, I digress. It's comical and a fairly easy read and it makes you think about journalism and the fine line between a good story and a good yarn.