(no subject)

[verbminx]

I can't decide what to read next. It's not for want of choices, it's more from a surfeit of them.

I finished Welcome to My Planet (Where English is Sometimes Spoken by Shannon Olson this week. The main character is named Shannon Olson. It's billed as a beach read; most of its blurbs are from questionable sources (women's fashion mags), and it's supposed to be funny. I think this was all misleading: while it's not the sort of thing to get rave reviews in the Times Book Review, it's also not a laugh riot. It's a fairly serious book about a young woman, somewhat hapless, trying to navigate her post-collegiate years. It had more depth than I expected, though it's not great literature.

I also finished Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman, which I was carting around in my purse for two days. A quick read, more ideas than plot. It's a series of vignettes about the possible functions of time and space. One describes a universe where people have no concept of the future, another describes one in which time is a physical dimension, a third is about a world in which time moves more slowly at higher altitudes, a fourth is a place in which nobody ever dies except by choice. Certainly intriguing and worth rereading. People who like surrealism and Borges might appreciate it. Lightman is a physicist who has taught writing and overseen MIT's humanities program. The book is slight but charming, challenging, and involving.

Books I'm considering reading next: Sputnik Sweetheart, Ulysses, Deus Lo Volt!, House of Leaves, Bee Season, The Amber Spyglass, Time's Arrow, The Chess Garden, or the remainders of several books I've started... I've really been stockpiling, figuring a time would soon come when I wouldn't be able to afford to buy books for a while, so I have a nice backlog of things to read that could keep me occupied for at least several months.

Plans to go out for the evening have just abruptly been called on account of storms, so... I'm going to sit at home and listen to the storm, I suppose, and read whichever book it is that I choose. I could also work on Project Desk.

Comments

[hilarykay.livejournal.com]

"Einstein's Dreams"

woah. I think i want 2 read that.

James Joyce

[superfly-ww.livejournal.com]

I would say read Joyce. But I like The Information by Amis. Anything by David Markson, Irvine Welsh, Richard Grossman, Will Self, John King, and even Faulkner is good. I also read Double Bind by Nick Baker and it was great.

Sputnik Sweetheart

[cris.livejournal.com]

mmm ... this is definitely on my short list.

If you aren't familiar w/ Murakami, it seems like a good intro to his work. Not quite as dark and depressing as Norwegian Wood, but captures its economy of words ... and therefore not quite as magically surreal as his other novels, but still holds on to their playfulness.

...

[kore.livejournal.com]

the amber spyglass is my favourite of that trilogy. the bee season book was good, i thought, but i don't remember much about it, so i don't suppose it was striking, but rather more comfortable.

[aquagirl.livejournal.com]

i tried reading 'einstein's dreams' in highschool, but for whatever reason didn't get thru it. very interesting, though- i'll have to pick it up again.