So my summer reading has consisted of some planned literature, science fiction, adolescent lit, NY Times best sellers, and lately, just random books from off the shelf. It looks like a lot, but hey, it’s part of my job to read so I can help others find connect to books. Plus, I have the summer off from teaching and I read 1-2 pages a minute. Here’s what I’ve covered in the last 2 months and the gist of my opinion on each.
Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind, and Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card (All part of the best science fiction series I have ever read. Card has won all of the major fiction and science fiction awards for his books. These books are addicting, as they are both accessible while saying quite a bit about war, religion, children and adults, education, social structure, racism, etc. These are a must read for anyone who can at least tolerate science fiction/fantasy.)
Enter Three Witches by Caroline B. Cooney (a version of Macbeth for junior highers, author of Face on the Milk Carton. I don’t recommend it for adults, as it’s low level writing, but it’s a good primer for students who will later read Shakespeare in high school)
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards (If you like an interesting premise that is reduced to mediocre by repeating itself over and over [think of something like "previously on Lost" happened every 40 pages] with too many cliche descriptions [up to 4 adjective noun pairs per line...she got into the powder blue car, her platinum hair and perched hat peering out the cracked window...], be my guest. The only reason I finished it was because I hoped it was going to get better and so many people I know have read it. Frankly, thinking about the premise from the back of the book would have been enough.)
Water for Elephantsby Sara Gruen. Not bad for a NY Times bestseller. The story was interesting and her style and characters kept me reading, but there were holes in her jumps from the past to the present. It seemed to struggle between seamlessly passing back and forth. Also, some of the implicit messages startled me. By implicit, I mean the things you say without saying them outrightly or meaning to say at all. Her conclusions with her main characters seemed to support an unhealthy, but unfortunately pervasive view of how our culture (does not) value/view the elderly and mentally disabled.)
The Bean Treesby Barbara Kingsolver (Perhaps the most surprisingly good read of the summer. Kingsolver is going to be read as literature for this era. Her writing and characters are significantly better that the bestsellers, and she’s not going to throw out the cheap thrills many current authors do for shock value and entertainment. She can paint characters in few lines, and you feel like you know all about them, nuances and all. She has one of the best writing styles I have come across among the current writers, and I use her in my creative writing class as a mentor author.)
Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway (This is a good starter if you’re interested in checking out the writing from the Lost Generation from WWI to WWII. Hemingway moved writing to an entirely new level with his iceberg writing style. His writing is very simple at the surface level–very few big words or long sentences–but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He writes each detail so that it really says something, and then something more, and then something more. It just depends on how long you want to linger. This book is 80-120 pages long depending on the detail.)
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (This book is a hoot. It’s a short, fast read. I don’t even know where to begin. It’s about the childrend of the man who made the atom bomb and a country whose life revolved around a religion that it made up, and everyone wholeheartedly believes it even though every one knows it’s completely fabricated, until ice-nine froze the entire continent. It’s a satire, spoof, comedy…whatever you want to call it.)
