Category: Books

Occasionally you meet people who have read every book you’ve ever read as well as a million more. My sister Alicia is one of those people. So too is my friend Bekah Hayes. Most recently though, I interacted with Treesa’s old office mate Tony E. Tony E. also has a wide breadth of books under his belt. Before I started in on One Hundred Years of Solitude, he gave me a firm warning of its potential to become mind-bendingly irritating.

He read my most recent post about the book and we had the following conversation:

Tony E: hate to say it…. but i told you so
Mike D: it’s absolutely true. It became torturous
Tony E: yeah, Edgar Sawtelle is an awesome book though
Mike D: You’ve read that too? Geeze, it’s like you’ve read every book. TIME FOR A TEST.

1. Did you read: Curious incident of the dog in the nighttime?
2. Did you read: East of Eden?
3. Did you read: Atlas Shrugged?

Tony E: 1. yes 2. yes. 3. yes, even the speech.
Mike D: even the speech? Gah! you win man.
Tony E: though I must admit I haven’t finish Sawtelle yet
Mike D: you still win.
Tony E: No no, when you read books everyone wins

Awww.

Awhile ago, I asked Tony for a book list. He sent me the following recommendations:

1. the savage detectives, Roberto Bolano
2. heartbreaking work of staggering genius, dave eggers (this one is probably the sweetest to read)
3. Zen and the art of motorcyle maintenence, Robert Pirsig – that book is freaking cool

Sadly, #’s 1 and 2 aren’t available on Kindle. Though I’ve heard very good things about the Zen book. Has anyone else tried either of those first two?

When we last talked literature, I was reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. In regards to language, it was a beautiful book and the story telling method was refreshing and distinct. Despite all this, I gave up on it. It finally came about that I got too frustrated with the challenge of keeping track of the characters.

This is the name distribution for characters in the book:

Half of the characters are named Aureliano. Half.

What the heck?! Not only that, except for Ursula (God bless her) nearly every uniquely named character is a minor character. This is annoying to me.

So I quit.

Now I’m reading a much more readable book called the Story of Edgar Sawtelle. And I’m enjoying it. I’m only about 10% through, but it’s so very much more rewarding. I’ll let you know how this one goes. So far, the characters all have names of their own.

I’m currently reading ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel García Márquez.

It’s a strange book. I’m only 10% through, but I’m already finding it a unique read. It follows the lives of a family in a small town and has such remarkable color to it. At times, the lead character seems to be pursuing futile goals like alchemy and elixirs of youth, while suffering from impossible plagues and mystical curses. It’s written in such a way that makes you wonder if it’s all in the insane mind of the characters… yet the author keeps the reader in check by actually describing working wonders like flying carpets – is this book suppose to take place in the real world or is it fantasy? It’s this mix of fantasy and reality that adds a sense of color and wonderment to the reading. This fictional town has a very potent vividness to it.

Again, I’m only 10% through so it could turn into a bundle of unreadable crap – but at the moment I am very impressed with the quality of the reading.

I checked Wikipedia to read their introduction to the book. They describe it as a book which developed the “postmodern literary style.” I find this interesting as I’m reading another book about postmodernism right now and, so far, I don’t see any real parallels. We’ll see – perhaps there’s a whole new degree of interesting in that last 90%.

I recommend this book.

I’m reading Masterpieces a collection of Science Fiction stories penned by different authors and organized together by famed sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card.

My sister Alicia owned this book a few years ago and I had scanned through a few of the stories. Now that I have my Kindle, I wanted to read the rest so I purchased the compilation. It is Excellent.

My favorite so far has been The Saucer of Loneliness by Theodore Sturgeon. It’s a very short story and can be read in about 30 minutes. I’ve found a link to it on Google Book Search. Enjoy it here. (this link brings you to a big book which contains a bunch of stories. don’t be intimidated by the appearance that the book is a bajillion pages long, it may be, but this particular story is quite short.)

I love the author’s last two lines. I find them so powerful. Way to go Theodore Sturgeon.

Also included in the book is Robot Dreams by Asimov that is a basis for his i robot series and a funky time travel story by Robert Heinlein called “All You Zombies-.” If you like sci-fi, I’m quite certain you’ll enjoy this collection.