Book Review: Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) (Jerome)
Have I read this before: Nope. This is a relatively recent addition to my book list.
Review: This was a really enjoyable read. Even though it was published in 1889, the humor in this one still lands. At first I didn’t really like the caveat stories because they interrupted the flow of the three men (and Montmorency, the dog) getting ready for their trip on the Thames, but they seemed like they integrated better as the story went on and thus they became more enjoyable. If you’re looking for a story that doesn’t take itself too seriously (which has been a really nice deviation from the typical books on my list), give this one a read. It’s not too long, either.
Favorite Part: Montmorency (the dog) chasing a big black tom cat and the resulting imagined conversation between them:
Montmorency does not lack pluck; but there was something about the look of that cat that might have chilled the heart of the boldest dog. He stopped abruptly, and looked back at Tom.
Neither spoke; but the conversation that one could imagine was clearly as follows:—
THE CAT: “Can I do anything for you?”
MONTMORENCY: “No—no, thanks.”
THE CAT: “Don’t you mind speaking, if you really want anything, you know.”
MONTMORENCY (backing down the High Street): “Oh, no—not at all—certainly—don’t you trouble. I—I am afraid I’ve made a mistake. I thought I knew you. Sorry I disturbed you.”
THE CAT: “Not at all—quite a pleasure. Sure you don’t want anything, now?”
MONTMORENCY (still backing): “Not at all, thanks—not at all—very kind of you. Good morning.”
THE CAT: “Good morning.”
…
To this day, if you say the word “Cats!” to Montmorency, he will visibly shrink and look up piteously at you, as if to say: “Please don’t.”
Rating: 7/10
Book Review: The Road (McCarthy)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: This was…okay. I was expecting to be a lot more shocked/disturbed by it based on what I knew about the novel, but it wasn’t nearly as shocking as I was expecting it to be. It was good, but some parts were a bit repetitive, especially in terms of how things were presented/described. Which may have been half the point, but still. At least it was a refreshing change in terms of voice and writing style compared to a lot of stuff on my list.
Favorite Part: I really liked the way the hope and relief was conveyed when they found the underground bunker full of supplies. It was nice to see the man and the boy finally get a bit of rest and relative safety, though I was worried that they’d be discovered the whole time they were down there.
Rating: 5/10
Book Review: Pnin (Nabokov)
Have I read this before: Nope. But apparently I’m in a Nabokov mood right now, so let’s go.
Review: Pnin is like academia personified. He’s strange, he’s kind of odd-looking, he’s a bit socially awkward but also socially graceful in certain situations, he makes little absent-minded mistakes…he’s an old prof, basically. I like how we get an idea of who he is through these little snippets of incidents throughout his life.
My biggest issue was not knowing how “Pnin” was supposed to be pronounced, but then I found the most Nabokov way of explaining how it should be pronounced:
“In one of his essays Nabokov said it should be pronounced like “Up, Nina!” without the first and last letters.”
Favorite Part: Story-wise? Pnin not being sure if there is one professor with a certain last name or two different profs who look similar and have similar names. So he invites one of them to his housewarming party, calling him one of the names, and then that prof, upon leaving, is super confused because he’s a totally different dude than the two Pnin is confusing, haha.
Writing-wise? That good old Nabokov sentence that connects the very physical to the very cosmic:
“With the help of the janitor he [Pnin] screwed onto the side of the desk a pencil sharpener—that highly satisfying, highly philosophical implement that goes ticonderoga-ticon-deroga, feeding on the yellow finish and sweet wood, and ends up in a kind of soundlessly spinning ethereal void as we all must.”
(like ALL of Lolita was written like this; hence why it’s one of my favorites.)
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: Pale Fire (Nabokov)
Have I read this before: Nope. This is only my second Nabokov, which is surprising given how much I LOVE his writing style.
Review: I’ve always enjoyed books with an unconventional structure. This definitely has that. It starts with a four-canto poem by fictional poet John Shade, then is followed by a long commentary by his (fictional) neighbor and colleague, Charles Kinbote. He examines the poem nearly line-by-line, interjecting commentary in the form of three main stories: his personal interactions with and knowledge of Shade, a story about the deposed king of Zembla, and Gradus, an assassin from Zembla sent to kill the old king.
Favorite Part: Y’all know I like it when everything builds beautifully to a final point in a story. So few stories pull this off very well, in my opinion, but this one does it nicely. Also, because it’s Nabokov, I have to mention the way he explains how Kinbote took all the index cards on which Shade had written the lines of his poems and hid them on his person to keep them safe:
Some of my readers may laugh when they learn that I fussily removed it from my black valise to an empty steel box in my landlord’s study, and a few hours later took the manuscript out again, and for several days wore it, as it were, having distributed the ninety-two index cards about my person, twenty in the right-hand pocket of my coat, as many in the left-hand one, a batch of forty against my right nipple and the twelve precious ones with variants in my innermost left-breast pocket. I blessed my royal stars for having taught myself wife work, for I now sewed up all four pockets. Thus with cautious steps, among deceived enemies, I circulated, plated with poetry, armored with rhymes, stout with another man’s song, stiff with cardboard, bullet-proof at long last.
I LIKE THE WAY HE WRITES I’M SORRY.
Rating: 5/10
Book Review: Tropic of Cancer (Miller)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: Ugh.
I can appreciate the cultural significance of this book without actually liking it, right? Because this whole thing is basically like reading an 18-year-old’s Reddit post about his sexual escapades in France during his gap year. I think I saw the word “c*nt” in this book more than I’ve ever seen it in total prior to reading it and now I never want to see that word again.
Just…ugh.
Not my thing.
(Still less painful than The Adventures of Augie March, though.)
Favorite Part: The end. ‘Cause it was the end.
Rating: 3/10
More Nostalgia. SURPRISED?????
I was watching a YouTube video of someone reviewing a recently-published Disney art book and it made me think of this huge Disney art book I used to have when I was a kid. A little of the good ol’ Googling brought me to Walt Disney’s Treasury of Children’s Classics. There are like four different dust jackets for the different editions, but I know the book itself was red for whatever edition we had. Like this:
(From this eBay listing)
I remember loving the illustrations. As is always the case with nostalgia-triggering items, it’s so tempting to buy this, haha.
Accelerate Your Distain
Did anyone else have to take those Accelerated Reader quiz thingies in junior high (and/or elementary school and/or high school)? For us, these started in sixth grade and went through junior high. We would read a book and then have to take a quiz on it in order for the book to “count” for our English class. I think you had to get like an 85% or something on…I don’t know…15 multiple choice questions in order to “pass.”
I don’t know what reminded me of those things today, but I remember how much I hated them. I always found them very difficult because the multiple choice questions were always about very specific things. That’s fine if you’re reading a relatively short book, but I remember reading Gone with the Wind in 7th grade and having to take one of these AR quizzes on it. That book is 1,000+ pages and the quiz still focused on incredibly specific things. Like…ask me about the major themes or events, not about the color of Rhett’s shirt the first time he met Scarlett.
I much preferred the way we “proved” that we read books in 10th grade. We’d finish a book and our teacher, Mr. Murray, would sit down with us for a short one-on-one conference where we’d very openly and informally discuss the book. I remember doing this with As I Lay Dying and feeling like I got to explain more of what I got out of the book rather than having to demonstrate that I remembered which sibling drilled holes through their mother’s coffin.
Anyway.
Book review: The Fountainhead (Rand)
Have I read this before: Nopers.
Review: I really liked this book. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I don’t (or didn’t, rather) know anything about Rand’s philosophy other than it gets a lot of criticism, so maybe that allowed me to enjoy this book more than if I’d gone into it knowing what to expect in terms of that philosophy being infused in it.
Just as a story, it’s really good. Rand has an enjoyable writing style. It’s clean, blunt, and peppered with natural but arresting analogies. Roark was, of course, a very intriguing character, but I think I like the way that Dominique was written the most. It’s like we’re allowed to see what she does and get a glimpse of why, but we’re never quite in her head the way we are with Roark or Keating or even Toohey. She’s almost written in a fog, if that makes any sense. Which matches with her withdrawal from her values throughout most of the book.
If you include Rand’s philosophy alongside the story, I still think it’s really good. The development of her Objectivism came after the publication of The Fountainhead, so it’s never explicitly included, but the basic viewpoints are in there. I can see why those views can be criticized and can be easily warped into something their not, but the way Roark goes off on his philosophical rant near the end of the book and explains his understanding of “selfishness” makes this viewpoint really make sense in my opinion.
Favorite Part: Roark going off on the meaning of selfishness. It’s too long to re-type here, haha, but it’s a really good explanation of Rand’s idea of selfishness and individualism.
Rating: 7/10
Book Review: The Death of the Heart (Bowen)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: This was…alright, I guess. It starts off with an interesting premise and conflict, but so many of the characters are just generally unlikeable and snotty and irritating that it was a bit hard to get through (even if the unlikableness was half the point). I guess if you’re interested in a story where “I want to punch this character the most” changes from chapter to chapter, this is the book for you. Bowen does do a good job with Portia’s relative immaturity as a teenager and her inability to find a place where she feels she truly belongs.
Favorite Part: I liked the time Portia spent near the sea with Mrs. Heccomb and her stepkids. It highlights Portia’s inability to belong even with a group of entirely new and different people than she’s used to and there’s a lot of character tension throughout that part of the book.
Rating: 4/10
Book Review: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Twain)
Have I read this before: Nope. I’m not the world’s biggest Twain fan (Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer didn’t do it for me, but I also read them back in like 10th grade, so…), but I figured I’d give this one a shot.
Review: I enjoyed this more than I thought I would! It was much more engaging than I remember Finn or Sawyer being and I like the overall idea of Hank (the Connecticut Yankee) trying to bring 19th century technology and ideas (and education) to the 6th century. Honestly, the only thing I knew about this novel prior to reading it was the solar eclipse scene, and that was due to an old Bugs Bunny cartoon, haha.
(7:24)
It also gets more unhinged the longer it goes, which was quite amusing.
Favorite Part: Merlin’s beef with Hank and how Hank shows him up every chance he gets, but without it being obvious that he knows he’s superior in “magic” and “spells.” He even blew up Merlin’s tower with “fires from heaven,” haha. Also, the knights riding in on bicycles to save Hank (or “The Boss,” as he’s known) and the king is a pretty great visual.
Rating: 7/10
Book Review: The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoyevsky)
Have I read this before: Yes, way back in 2009.
Review: This book was not at all what I remembered, haha. I mean, I guess 2009 is a long time ago now, but still. This doesn’t rank as high as Crime and Punishment for me, but it was enjoyable once things picked up a bit and we got out of the monastery. Apparently Alyosha was modeled in part after Dostoyevsky’s son, who died of epilepsy when he was three. You can also see his son (and the loss of his son) in Ilyusha.
Favorite Part: I love a book with contrasting characters, so I really enjoyed the differences between the three brothers (and, of course, their father) and how they approached the conflict between Dmitri and their father. But I think my favorite part of the book was Ivan’s hallucinating the devil and the subsequent conversation they had together. It’s a slow few chapters (in a good way) and it really highlights his descent into madness.
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: Angels in America (Kushner)
Have I read this before: We read the first part (“Millennium Approaches”) back in one of those theatre classes I took during my first semester at U of I. So…2006?*
Review: This is a hard play to read, and I mean that in a good way. It’s hard to read for two reasons. First, it’s a very…physical play. There’s a lot of stuff going on with the Angel specifically, but it sounds like set pieces have to move quite a bit and there are quite a few split scenes, where there are two scenes going on at the same time on stage and the dialogue is mixed between the two. I suspect quite a bit is lost in reading this play rather than seeing it because of these aspects. Second, it’s hard to read because of the subject matter. I can’t imagine the fear that individuals diagnosed with AIDS in the 80s must have felt, not to mention the stigma. Both of these aspects of the AIDS crisis are explored in detail in the play and it’s very tough to get through in some places. But that’s what makes it so good.
Favorite Part: I love the amount of humor in this play. The main subject is, of course, very heavy and serious, but there is so much humor scattered through the dialogue that it really adds another level to everything.
Rating: 7/10
Edit: woah, did you know Andrew Garfield has a Tony, and it’s for his performance in this play? I had no idea he did Broadway. Shows what I know about actors.
Edit 2: Yeah, no wonder he won a Tony. This is amazing.
*God I’m OLD
Book Review: The Way of All Flesh (Butler)
Have I read this before: Nope!
Review: This was an…interesting book. It’s another “let’s bash Victorian-era hypocrisy,” which is a major theme of like 60% of the books on my list (obviously a biased list, haha), so it’s gotten pretty old. But I felt like Butler’s writing style was engaging and I like how the narrator wasn’t one of the Pontifex family members but a godfather of the main character Ernest. I seem to enjoy books where the narrator is not actually the main character for some reason. Also, it was apparently semi-autobiographical, which I can see in how Butler explores certain nuances of the relationship between fathers and sons.
Favorite Part: This scathing description of Badcock:
“Not only was he ugly, dirty, ill-dressed, bumptious, and in every way objectionable, but he was deformed and waddled when he walked so that he had won a nickname which I can only reproduce by calling it “Here’s my back, and there’s my back,” because the lower parts of his back emphasized themselves demonstratively as though about to fly off in different directions like the two extreme notes in the chord of the augmented sixth, with every step he took.”
Rating: 5/10
Top Books of 2024
ALLO, FOOLS! So I didn’t read a whole ton of books last year because we actually didn’t get too much bad weather (and the only chance I get to read is when I’m walking inside on the treadmill), but I figured I’d give you a “top five” book list nonetheless. Though I sorta cheated, as you’ll see. From fifth best to best:
FIVE: Don Quixote (de Cervantes)
This book was a wild ride. Apart from knowing what the word quixotic means and a little bit about the “tilting at windmills” thing, I didn’t really know what to expect from this book. And I was certainly NOT expecting anything that I got, haha. But it was highly entertaining and very funny at parts.
FOUR: The Last Tycoon (Fitzgerald)
The only reason this is in fourth place is because it was left unfinished (Fitzgerald died before completing it) and I WANTED MORE. I really love Fitzgerald’s writing style and how he can portray the essence of a character in a single line, even before we actually meet the character. His style always makes me want to keep reading.
THREE: Holes (Sachar)
LOOK I’M CHEATING! This is not on my book list, but as you may have seen from previous blogs, I’ve also been re-reading some of the books I remember reading as a kid. I guess I didn’t technically read this one – our sixth grade teacher read it aloud to us – but I remember really liking it, so I decided to re-read it. It definitely lived up to my memory. Holes is a really, really, really good book. If you never read it before, check it out.
TWO: Twelve Angry Men (Rose)
We read this in…eighth grade I think? We read it aloud and each had to pick a part to read (I was the Foreman). But even without getting to “act” it out by reading it aloud, it was still very good. I love the building of tension and how (most of) the men are slowly convinced to change their minds about the trial and circumstances.
ONE: The Caine Mutiny (Wouk)
LOOK I’M CHEATING AGAIN! I read this a month or so ago because I finally bought a Kindle version of it and it still stands as my absolute favorite book ever. I don’t know what it is about this story, but I loved it the very first time I read it (seventh grade?) and I love it still. I don’t know if it’s ever going to get dethroned as my favorite book. If you still haven’t read it (even after all my raving on this blog), DO IT NOW!
So I’m re-reading The Caine Mutiny and…
IT’S SO GOOD.
If you’re new here, get out while you still can The Caine Mutiny has been my favorite book ever since I first read it back in seventh grade.
It’s been quite a few years since I’ve re-read it (2015 maybe?) and I finally got a Kindle version, so rather than reading something new, I decided to give this one a go again.
I still can’t pinpoint exactly what it is about this book that I find so intriguing and re-readable (I usually don’t read any book more than once), but I was immediately drawn into the story and was immediately dreading the fact that the book would eventually end.
There aren’t a lot of books that do that to me, but this one always has. Every single time I’ve read it.
(Go read it if you haven’t!)
Book Review Twelve Angry Men (Rose)
Have I read this before: Yes! We read this out loud in…I want to say it was eighth grade English class. Both my eighth grade and eleventh grade English classes involved reading a lot of plays out loud; I wish my other English classes did that as well. Doing so always made the plays feel more alive and memorable. I remember I read the part of the “Foreman.”
Review: This was as good as I remember it being; maybe even better. I like how the slow chipping away at the evidence that seemed to initially point overwhelmingly towards a “guilty” verdict changes more and more of the jurors’ minds, but that not every mind is truly changed at the end.
Favorite Part: The “now you don’t really mean you were going to kill me, did you?” Line from Juror 8 to Juror 3.
Rating: 7/10
Book Review: Nicholas Nickleby (Dickens)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: This is hard to review because I read like 60% of this in like February and then didn’t pick it up again until a week or so ago*, haha. I remember not being too into the first half, but I enjoyed the more recent portion more, perhaps because things really picked up in terms of pace and cohesiveness by then. This is very much in Dickens’ style of “there are 60 characters and they’re all heavily interconnected somehow and their lives are just one big soap opera,” but maybe not quite as insane in that respect as, say, Great Expectations was. It was a’ight.
Favorite Part: The guy living next to the Nicklebys starts giving Mrs. Nickleby vegetables and she starts falling for him. We get the line:
“You know, there is no language of vegetables, which converts a cucumber into a formal declaration of attachment.”
Rating: 5/10
*I read on the treadmill, which means that my reading time is basically restricted to the days of the year where it’s too cold/smoky/rainy to be outside.
Oh man
I’d say that this reads like a middle-schooler’s attempt at badassery and gore, but I honestly knew some people in college who wrote this way, hahaha.
(You can probably guess who, even though that’s probably a really mean thing to say.)
This review is great. It’s the guy’s only video, though, unfortunately.
Book Review: Murder on the Orient Express (Christie)
Have I read this before: Nope. I’m not really a murder mystery/detective book person.
Review: This was pretty good. Probably the most surprising thing was me figuring out the ending before it happened because, like I said, this is not my genre and I’ve never considered myself good at figuring out mysteries. But once some more facts came out about each of the characters, I kinda figured where things were going.
Favorite Part: The pacing was good in this one. It never dragged but also never felt rushed. It held your attention and made you want to keep reading to figure out how everything was going to connect at the end.
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: The Last Tycoon (Fitzgerald)
Have I read this before: Nope. The was another book added in my most recent “300 Books” expansion.
Review: I love Fitzgerald. I love the way he writes. He has this wonderful ability to create a fully realized character in the first sentence written about them or in their first line of dialogue. He also has this carefree feel to his writing that encapsulates the time period in which his stories are set that I’ve never seen replicated quite the same way. This book (or partial book – it was left unfinished at Fitzgerald’s death) is no different in the characters and style. And even though it is incomplete in terms of plot and resolution, because of these unique features, I’d still give it a better score as a book overall than some of the other things I’ve read off my list (*cough* The Adventures of Augie March *cough*) because it still drew me in and made me keep reading.
ALSO, my freaking Kindle faked me out on when the book was going to end. I knew it was an unfinished novel and thus expected an abrupt ending at some point, but beyond that I didn’t know when this ending would be. So I was reading along happily – with my Kindle saying I was still only 68% of the way through – when the actual book ended and the rest of the Kindle edition (which contained discussions of the book as well as some snippets of other works) began. So it was a very abrupt ending, haha. But I was cool with it.
Favorite Part: Another thing I like about Fitzgerald is he just sprinkles in some absolutely beautiful little lines/descriptions every once and a while. Like this one about an earthquake:
“We didn’t get the full shock like at Long Beach where the upper stories of shops were spewed into the streets and small hotels drifted out to sea – but for a full minute our bowels were one with the bowels of the earth – like some nightmare attempt to attach our navel cords again and jerk us back to the womb of creation.”
Love it.
Rating: 7/10
Book Review: Jude the Obscure (Hardy)
Have I read this before: Nope. In fact, this was one of the books I added in my most recent “300 Books” expansion, as I’ve read some Hardy and enjoyed him.
Review: Thomas Hardy. Friend. If the purpose of this book was to introduce one of the most frustrating female characters ever into the vast realm of English literature, mission accomplished. Like…I know Hardy can write enjoyable female characters, as Tess (of d’Urbervilles) and Bathsheba (from Far from the Madding Crowd) were both somewhat frustrating but still enjoyable and “root for”-able.
But fucking Sue, dude. I get that she’s supposed to stand in as a representation of the conflicting influences of religion and sex and marriage on a woman (or a person in general), but I feel like such conflicts could still be portrayed without making me want to punch her through a wall whenever she was in the scene. Even Arabella was obnoxious with how she used Jude and how Jude’s character basically started to deteriorate as soon as he met her.
Just…ugh. Frustrating characters and not in a good way, man. You know it’s rough when the most sympathetic character in a book is a creepy weirdo kid who commits murder-suicide.
Favorite Part: I don’t know if I have one. The fact that they referred to their creepy weirdo kid as “Father Time” was kind of…creepy and weird, I guess.
Rating: 4/10
Book Review: The House of the Seven Gables (Hawthorne)
Have I read this before: I THOUGHT I had, but holy hell, I don’t remember any of this stuff. I do vaguely recall checking this book out of our junior high library, which means it was one of the first books I read on my list way back when and I was probably…twelve? Thirteen? So yeah, who remembers anything about anything involving one’s tween years?
(I do but LET’S NOT GO THERE)
Review: This was good, mainly because I like Hawthorne’s writing style. I like how the house itself was basically described as a living (and haunted) thing and how the Colonel’s portrait on the wall reacted to events taking place in the house. The ending was a bit of a letdown as I was expecting something a little more…not grandiose, necessarily, but impactful.
Favorite Part: Just the writing style. It flowed very nicely and was easy to read in the sense that the style basically prompted you onwards. I like that kind of style.
Rating: 5/10
Baby Books for Babies: An Update
Current list of childhood books I’ve re-read:
- Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (Judy Blume)
- The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Barbara Robinson)
- Holes (Louis Sachar)
- A Wrinkle in Time (Madeline L’Engle)
- An embarrassingly large number of Babysitters Club books
I actually just finished reading Holes yesterday, and that book is even better than I remember it. It’s surprisingly…intricate?…for a kid’s book. It’s not hard to read or anything like that, but everything ties together in more ways than you typically see in a lot of kid’s books. I also really like Sachar’s writing style and characters; I actually bought a physical copy of his Sixth Grade Secrets because I used to love that book as a kid. So if you haven’t read Holes, read it!
A Wrinkle in Time was a disappointment. It wasn’t nearly as good as I remember it being.
Now I need to figure out what to read next!
Book Review: Gulliver’s Travels (Swift)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: So you know the most famous part of this book? The first part when Gulliver goes to Lilliput, the island full of little dudes? That’s the most boring part of this whole story. The visit to the island full of giganto dudes (Brobdingnag) was much more engaging, and the visit to the island full of the talking, rational horses (the Houyhnhms) was the most reflective. So if you can get past the Lilliputians, you’re golden.
Favorite Part: I think the part that stuck with me the most was when Gulliver’s little house (basically a shoebox) on Brobdingnag was scooped up by a giant bird and then dropped into the ocean. He describes this from within the sealed box, unable to see what’s happening, and once he starts feeling his house being towed in the water, he assumes that one of the giant Brobdingnag citizens swam out and is bringing him back to land. But then he hears people speaking English and realizes that human sailors have found him and he calls for them to open the box. They reply that they need some time to try to get it open, and he wonders why they don’t just lift the lid off because he’s so used to being around individuals large enough to do so. Swift portrays that feeling of Gulliver being small so well that I also was like, “why don’t they just take the lid off?” before realizing that Gulliver was back with people his own size, haha. It was a good illusion.
Rating: 5/10
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