I have been reading a LOT lately. I'm three books ahead on my book challenge!! There is more to come that's for sure - and I need your advice:
What should I read on our train trip?
When I was off work I went through a phase of wanting to read thriller/mysteries so you will notice that this time.
The Night Strangers - Chris Bohjalian
I was in the mood for something like this and it satisfied my craving. A family moves to a small town full of strange people...good set up. I could have done without the plane crash descriptions, but that's my own issue. The ending was surprising - NOT wrapped up a nice bow which was refreshing.
Still Life - Joy Fielding
Woah. I read this in 24 hours. I've never read Joy Fielding before and she delivers if you're in the mood. Although the ending WAS tied up in a nice bow. Plus you had to take a few things that happened with a pretty big grain of salt which bugs me at the best of times.
Private Patient - P.D. James
Man, she is fantastic - a total modern day Agatha Christie. I heard her interviewed on CBC a few months ago and my love for her grew - she is the sweetest old lady! Anyway, a good story with interesting characters. Although I did find myself rushing through the ending a little bit.
Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates
This one was at the library, not something I would necessarily gravitate towards. I like the descriptions of the 1950's and the characters were really developed which I like. But overall it was depressing. Suburbanites who have big plans to move to Europe, but you know it's doomed from the start. It seems like he was influenced by Death of a Salesman.
Barometer Rising - Hugh Maclellan
This book was awesome. The story happened over about 7 days, the middle of which was the Halifax Explosion. So it was cool wondering what was going to happen to the characters but also knowing what lay ahead of them with the disaster looming.
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
I was in the mood for a classic and this was calling me. It was great but depressing too. For some reason there were weird parts of it that stuck with me - the husband at the gas station: I felt sorry for him. I didn't like how the dog was bought before the party near the beginning. Weird how books hit you in different ways.
3 comments:
Thanks for the reviews! I loved The Great Gatsby and am dismayed that they're making a film with Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby. Say what?
Have you read The Unbearable Lightness of Being? If you're game for something beautiful but in a horrible sort of way, Scaramago's novel Blindness was really interesting for me.
I should really read more, especially now that I'm not having to read textbooks...
I have also been meaning to read The Great Gatsby... We were supposed to read it in one of my senior high school English classes but we ran out of time.
The Night Strangers totally sounds like something up my alley. On my list to-read.
As for recommendations for your train trip, I (of course) have some:
- read The Hunger Games trilogy. It's very good. Believe the hype.
- In the past year, I've really enjoyed a couple of books by female comedians: Tina Fey's Bossypants and Mindy Kaling's "Is Everyone Hanging Out with Me?"
- I recently read "Heft" by Liz Moore and really liked it.
- Oh, and a long train trip would be perfect for the Josephine B trilogy that I wrote about in one of my Paris posts!
Happy reading!
I haven't read The Great Gatsby yet, but I get confused every time I say the title now because I read a (very funny) blogger who calls himself the Good Greatsby. He's complicating all the classics for me! (Okay. Just that one classic.)
Have you seen the Revolutionary Road movie? It's also depressing. Silly me, I didn't even realize it was based on a book. ;)
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