Camp Books--Part 2

Update:  I now leave for camp in only two days.  Whoa.  So, here's part two of my perhaps-unattainably-long camp book list.  Oh well.  New motto: one can never have too many summer reads.  Without any further ado, here are the final nine.
10.  Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison.
11. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison.  I took a Buzzfeed quiz on "Which Classic Female Author Are You" and I got Toni Morrison, so if you ask me that's more than enough inclination that I'll love this book.
12. The Last Girlfriend on Earth and Other Love Stories by Simon Rich.  Title story: God struggles with balancing his job (creating the world) with his girlfriend (evidently demanding).  Everything about this book suggests hilarity, which in this litany of classics is definitely going to be welcome.
13. Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Blunt.  Two people come together after the man they both loved dies of AIDS.  I'm calling this as most-recommendable novel of the summer. (Too early? Nah...)
14. The Bell Jar by Silvia Plath.
15. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.  In terms of sheer sum of character-plot excitement, this book has a lot of fun in store.  Futuristic fright + government conspiracy + lovable punk main character + a slang dialect, Nadsat, which I look forward to annoying co opting = apparently, this book.  Too good to be true?  I hope not.
16. Iris Has Free Time by Iris Smyles.  This book is "subtle, complicated, funny, bold, sad and wise."  All that and the cover has a tutu-wearing girl on it who I think I already love.
17. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.
18. And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.  According to a hilarious back cover photo of the two authors wrestling, these Beats seem to have been good friends.  Add that dynamic to an urban murder mystery, and you have great bedtime reading material!
And now, I must bid you all adieu for seven weeks.  Not to worry--I will be reading away in my cabin, and I look forward to providing an account of (hopefully) all eighteen books.  Have a readilicious summer, everyone!

Camp Reads--Part 1

I am thrilled to share that I depart for camp in exactly seven days.  I think I've previously mentioned that camp is one of the best places in the world to do some reading, and thus is my pre-camp book shopping a rite of mid June that brings with it joy and, mostly, anticipation for the amazing books that I will get to devour in--let me say it again--exactly seven days.  This year a close camp friend and I decided to try something new.  We bought eighteen books together, and divided them up into nine and nine to bring to camp.  These books will belong to both of us at camp, which for me is just double the suspense--getting to own 18 books for seven weeks is very exciting.  Here are the first nine books--next installment coming soon!
1. The Great American Novel by Philip Roth.  Super psyched for this one. The back cover sounds like a blend of humor and good old fashioned American storytelling, which I really don't read enough of.  Described as "ribald, richly imagined, and widely satiric" on the back cover.  I would like to write back covers for books because it seems like a pretty exciting job.
2. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut.  I loved Slaughterhouse 5, and, according to the back cover, we get to learn more about Kilgore Trout, the semi-crazy science fiction author from Slaughterhouse and a really fascinating character overall.
3. On The Road by Jack Kerouac.
4. Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare.
5. East of Eden by John Steinbeck.  A reimagining of Genesis, which I've wanted to read ever since my English teacher drew a metaphor to it in a very interesting lecture last semester.
6. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.
7. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.  This is my second out of three World War novels (this one is World War I) included in the eighteen.   I plan to be an expert in the subject by August.
8. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz.  Main character Oscar Wao is "a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R.Tolkein and, most of all, finding love."  Again with the back covers!  This one also mentions a curse that has dogged Oscar's family for generations and an immigration story.  I'm already sucked in, and I haven't even cracked open the cover.
9. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.
My book buying strategies are many.  First, I'm a sucker for books with cool covers.  If I like a book's cover design, it tends to be a tip off that I'll like the book.  Second, if I've read the author before and enjoyed them, I'll read them again.  Maybe it gives me a sense of security or something, but it works almost every time--a good author is a good author.  Most importantly, I always read a section of the book before I buy it, to get a feel for the author's style and see if I like it.  I can tell straight away whether the book is slow moving or fast, poetic or tell-it-like-it-is, dialogue or inner-thoughts heavy.  The only problem with that strategy is that it led to me picking up the unfortunate habit of reading a section from the middle of a book, not being able to put it down and reading to the end, and then never reading the beginning.  Which I suppose doesn't really count as reading the book, which does make the entire experience a bit of a waste of time.
Read any of these?  Liked 'em?  Comment me some encouragement!

Trying New Things--Science Fiction

I've said it before and I'll say it again--I'm a realistic fiction girl.  I like my characters relatable and my settings within the realm of earthly possibilities.  But how do you learn anything new in reading if you don't take risks?  Science fiction is way outside my reading comfort zone.  So, naturally, I'm giving it a try.  And I don't hate it!  Here are a few of my sci-fi favorites.
1.  Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.  In the future, as earth battles an alien race, the government is breeding child genuises to fight the Buggers.  Ender Wiggins is earth's best bet; a quiet, incredibly gifted child who, although a terrific fighter and leader, struggles with many deep rooted psychological issues.  I'd be hard-pressed to think of a book I've read that is more fantastical than Ender's Game, yet somehow it seemed as real and interesting as any realistic fiction book.  The characters were incredibly down to earth, although the setting and premise was "out there", like literally in outer space.  A good gateway book for people like me who are just venturing into the realm of sci-fi.
2.  A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle.  This book and I have a bit of a history.  In fourth or fifth grade, when all of my friends were loving this book, I decided to give it a try--and hated it.  I couldn't make any sense of it and it felt like a waste of my time.  I came to the conclusion that it was just one of those books that you either like or hate.  But, in the spirit of this blog, I tried it again a few months ago.  And, wow.  It's pretty good!  Meg and her little brother Charles have to, with the help of their friend Calvin, rescue their father from the fifth dimension, where he has been imprisoned.  They travel from planet to planet, encountering various aliens and finally reaching the sinister Camazotz, where they must battle The Black Thing to free their father.  Yeah, it's about as complicated as it sounds.  But the characters are lovable, and I liked the staging--the way that each new planet felt like an adventure.  L'Engle is not a writer to be trifled with simply because this is a kids book--her writing style is sharp and almost poetic.  How did I almost pass this novel up?
3.  How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu.  I just finished this a few days ago, and it could not have been a more welcome challenge.  Charles Yu, the apparently self-titled protagonist is part counselor, part repairman as a time travel technician on Minor Universe 31.  Together with his side-kicks--TAMMY, his flirtatious operating machine, Ed, his non-existent but still pretty darn cute dog, and various incarnations of himself--he has to resolve his issues with his past and find his father, the tortured genius who lost himself in time.  This book was really confusing--although, by the same token, groundbreaking.  In a setting in which time travel is the basis for life, and parallel universes the norm, Yu makes time travel sound like a real, scientifically valid concept (and maybe it is!) through detailed, well thought out explanation.  I loved the way he took common concepts and reappropriated them to sound like scientific terms (such as nostalgia: "weak but detectable interaction between two neighboring universes that are otherwise not causally connected.  Manifests itself in humans as a feeling of missing a place one has never been"). And this sci-fi storyline was not without plot--I loved Charles, who was somewhat nerdy and sometimes uncertain, but I was always rooting for him.  What a ride!  This book made me struggle and gave my brain a stretch--I don't normally have to comprehend advanced physics in my daily reading, but I kind of liked it. Lesson of the day:  look outside your comfort zone, and you might find some refreshing reads.

Book of the Month--May

So, I promised I'd read this book for you guys--and, wow, I actually managed to get around to it!  Gotta love school libraries.  I just have to say, Laurie Halse Anderson keeps on proving herself to be a really, really good author.  I wasn't sure if she could continue her awesome streak of one poignant, heart-wrenchingly real book after another, but she has.  The Impossible Knife of Memory is another winner for sure.
Hayley Kincain and her dad have never stayed in one place for long, so when they move back to his hometown in time for her senior year things are bound to be different.  Hayley's father struggles with post traumatic stress disorder, meaning that their home life is pretty different from the kind most teenagers deal with. There's a love interest and high school drama, but the plot mainly centers on her dad's PTSD--his inescapable demons, his drug habit and his terrifying anger issues.  Make no mistake--he's not a monster.  In fact, I thought he was the most likable character in the book.  That's one of the reasons why this book is a winner; Anderson portrays mental disease honestly, neither criminalizing nor exaggerating the issue.
The Kincains were an incredible team.  Firecracker Hayley's ruminations were enjoyable to read, from her "zombies vs. freaks" rule or her more serious thoughts on PTSD and other issues including drugs, divorce or assault.  The poetic war flashbacks, presumably from her dad's point of view, were equally creepy and fascinating.  Hayley's relationship with boyfriend Finn was not my favorite part of the book, but it was a welcome break from some of the book's heavier stuff.  And, surprisingly for a very self-reflective book, there was a plot twist at every corner--a sudden relapse here, an old face turning up at the wrong moment there--which made the book exciting.  I admit I had to set the book down and think at some points, in order to let myself catch a breath.
All in all--an exciting, contemplative, amazing book that taught me new things and made me think. Interested?  Check out the first six chapters here.  Go forth!