Books of the Week
It's been a big reading week for me, so I'm combining everything into one big book post. There's lots of variety this week: contemporary fiction, sci-fi, graphic memoir, and non-fiction. I've been keeping a list of every book I've read this year, and this week brings the total up to forty-one!
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood - Margaret Atwood is one of my favorite novelists ever, and one of the few among my favorites who is still writing. The first of her novels that I read was The Blind Assassin, which is brilliant, and I've read several others since then, as well as some of her stories and poetry. The three central characters in The Robber Bride--Tony, Roz, and Charis--are middle aged women whose friendship was formed by a shared adversary: Zenia, a woman who befriended and betrayed each of them in turn. The trio believe Zenia is dead until they see her in a Toronto restaurant, leading them to reexamine their histories with her. Most of the book is told in flashbacks to the characters childhoods and their prior encounters with Zenia. Atwood creates wonderful female characters. She offers insights into the characters' worlds that make them sympathetic even as all their flaws are on display. I highly recommend it.
Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card - This is the second book of four focused on Bean, a secondary character in Ender's Game. The first book of the quartet, Ender's Shadow actually takes place at the same time as Ender's Game, but from Bean's perspective. In Shadow of the Hegemon, the action moves back to Earth, where Battle School graduates have been kidnapped by a psychotic teen in attempt to provoke global war. The narrative follows several characters, mostly Bean, his friend Petra, and Ender's older brother Peter. I enjoyed the fast pace of the book, as well as the military and political intrigue, and I think I'll probably try to read more from this series.
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan - Pollan's first advice in this book is: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Easier said than done, though. The difficulty, Pollan claims, is that the typical Western diet is largely made up of imitations--things that resemble actual food, but are largely artificial. Nutritionism has led many Americans to obsess about particular substances within food, be they good or bad, reducing foods to a sum of there parts. Pollan says it's better to go back to the whole: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish, eggs, etc. The shorter than the list of ingredients, the better, and best if it comes without a package at all. In Defense of Food isn't a book about any particular diet plan, it's a book about what's wrong with the Western diet and how to fix it. I read the whole thing in a day, and really enjoyed it. I thought it was well researched and insightful, and I learned a lot from it.
Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi - This sequel begins where Persepolis leaves off. It follows Marjane's four years at school in Vienna, a time of many cultural adjustments. After that, she returns to Iran, and has trouble readjusting to a country that is now both familiar and foreign. As an adult, she's no longer sure if she belongs anywhere. Like the first volume, Persepolis 2 is at times both poignant and funny.
Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon - This one is a quick and fun sci-fi read and the first book in a series of... I'm not sure how many. d4ni recently finished the series and enjoyed it, so I thought I'd give the first installment a go. The protagonist, Kylara Vatta, is expelled from the military academy on her home world. When she returns home, her father offers her a position as Captain aboard one of the family's interstellar shipping vessels. Nothing goes as planned, and a routine trip turns into an adventure for the fledgling captain. Ky is an easily likable character who builds confidence in herself as the novel progresses. One of the strong features of the book is focus on the difference between military and civilian thinking. Ky sometimes questions the military impulses, but her training turns out to be very important to her survival.
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood - Margaret Atwood is one of my favorite novelists ever, and one of the few among my favorites who is still writing. The first of her novels that I read was The Blind Assassin, which is brilliant, and I've read several others since then, as well as some of her stories and poetry. The three central characters in The Robber Bride--Tony, Roz, and Charis--are middle aged women whose friendship was formed by a shared adversary: Zenia, a woman who befriended and betrayed each of them in turn. The trio believe Zenia is dead until they see her in a Toronto restaurant, leading them to reexamine their histories with her. Most of the book is told in flashbacks to the characters childhoods and their prior encounters with Zenia. Atwood creates wonderful female characters. She offers insights into the characters' worlds that make them sympathetic even as all their flaws are on display. I highly recommend it.
Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card - This is the second book of four focused on Bean, a secondary character in Ender's Game. The first book of the quartet, Ender's Shadow actually takes place at the same time as Ender's Game, but from Bean's perspective. In Shadow of the Hegemon, the action moves back to Earth, where Battle School graduates have been kidnapped by a psychotic teen in attempt to provoke global war. The narrative follows several characters, mostly Bean, his friend Petra, and Ender's older brother Peter. I enjoyed the fast pace of the book, as well as the military and political intrigue, and I think I'll probably try to read more from this series.
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan - Pollan's first advice in this book is: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Easier said than done, though. The difficulty, Pollan claims, is that the typical Western diet is largely made up of imitations--things that resemble actual food, but are largely artificial. Nutritionism has led many Americans to obsess about particular substances within food, be they good or bad, reducing foods to a sum of there parts. Pollan says it's better to go back to the whole: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish, eggs, etc. The shorter than the list of ingredients, the better, and best if it comes without a package at all. In Defense of Food isn't a book about any particular diet plan, it's a book about what's wrong with the Western diet and how to fix it. I read the whole thing in a day, and really enjoyed it. I thought it was well researched and insightful, and I learned a lot from it.
Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi - This sequel begins where Persepolis leaves off. It follows Marjane's four years at school in Vienna, a time of many cultural adjustments. After that, she returns to Iran, and has trouble readjusting to a country that is now both familiar and foreign. As an adult, she's no longer sure if she belongs anywhere. Like the first volume, Persepolis 2 is at times both poignant and funny.
Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon - This one is a quick and fun sci-fi read and the first book in a series of... I'm not sure how many. d4ni recently finished the series and enjoyed it, so I thought I'd give the first installment a go. The protagonist, Kylara Vatta, is expelled from the military academy on her home world. When she returns home, her father offers her a position as Captain aboard one of the family's interstellar shipping vessels. Nothing goes as planned, and a routine trip turns into an adventure for the fledgling captain. Ky is an easily likable character who builds confidence in herself as the novel progresses. One of the strong features of the book is focus on the difference between military and civilian thinking. Ky sometimes questions the military impulses, but her training turns out to be very important to her survival.