Books read in January 2009:
Something I wanted to do this year was to keep a list of every book I read, each month. This month I feel like I didn't read as much as I'm used to reading; I had bad reading juju; I kept picking books up and putting them down, couldn't get into them. Also: the new semester sapped my attention span. (You can only read so many pages of legalese before your brain turns to absolute mush). I completed at least eight novels this month, but I must have started 11 of 12. Some of them I will finish (Behind the Scenes at the Museum) and some of them I won't (Olive Kittredge). Anyway, here's the list.
- We Were the Mulvaneys, by Joyce Carol Oates.
- Missing Mom, by Joyce Carol Oates.
- The Breakdown Lane, by Jacquelyn Mitchard (Re-read)
- She's Come Undone, by Wally Lamb. (Re-read)
- I Know This Much Is True, by Wally Lamb. (Re-read)
- One True Thing, by Anna Quindlen (Re-read)
- The U.P. Goes to War: Upper Michigan and Its Heroes in WWII, by Larry Chabot
- Songs for the Missing, by Stewart O'Nan
- The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff
- Various Sweet Valleys, for entertainment purposes.
After reading My Sister, My Love, I decided I wanted to work my way through Oates's oevre; I think Mulvaneys is the best of the bunch. It chronicles the life of a "perfect" family in upstate New York from the 70s to the 90s, as they struggle to deal with an act of violence committed against the sole daughter of the family, Marianne Mulvaney. A book review referred to this book as "symphonic" and while I usually find things like that to be exaggerrations, its not in this case. I really enjoyed this book, and it's an Oprah book, which makes it the 1298345459th Oprah book I have read and loved. Damn you, Winfrey!
The Worst: Missing Mom, by JCO
Oates stumbles in this book. The premise is there: a daughter deals with the untimely death of her mother, but the writing and the pace are lazy. Oates is messing around with form, and there are entire chapters that consist of "WHY MOM WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY" literally written over and over again. I think I was supposed to find it profound, but I found it profoundly silly instead.
The Worst, Runner Up: Songs for the Missing, by Stewart O'Nan.
A reviewer wrote that if other writers write about events or happenings, O'Nan writes about the quiet moments that occur between those events. But I feel like maybe he does this a little too often. Finely drawn characters, interesting premise, but I was still waiting for the story to begin when I turned the last page.
I also would, in no way, shape or form, recommend the 19th Wife. I am not including as the worst in the list because it wasn't fancy terrible, it wasn't terrible with raisins. It was just underwhelming and poorly written. Garden-variety bad.
What are you guys reading? What should I be reading in Feburary?