Books

It's been too warm lately for knitting (for some reason I only knit wool) so I've returned to my old habit of devouring books. Here's what I can recall reading recently:

Snow, by Orhan Pamuk. I actually read this in the Philippines in January and enjoyed it immensely. Probably one of the best novels one will ever read. Very complex and dark and beautiful.

Running with Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs, is awful. An astoundingly overrated book.

The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. Equally hilarious and frightening. I didn't need convincing that mixing religion and politics is a very bad idea and I loved Dawkins' unapologetic writing style. I especially loved the last chapter which aims to show us why a personal God is unnecessary to experience consolation and fulfillment in life.

The End of Faith, by Sam Harris. Finished this one last night. It addresses similar concerns as The God Delusion but from a philosophical perspective. The sarcasm is more heavily reined in here than in The God Delusion but no apologies are made either. Recommended, although the chapter on torture left me a little cold.

Thinking in Pictures. Stína will know all about this one. By Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who has managed to overcome substantial obstacles to participate in the world more than most autistic people. The book is very interesting but frequently goes off topic too much for my liking.

The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan. Wow. This one blew me away. Granted, it was written in the 60's and some parts are hopelessy dated, such as the part suggesting autism is caused by "refrigerator" mothers. But the insight into the nature of the "problem with no name" is crystal clear, and the analysis of the root of the problem lucid and frightening. It just doesn't cease to amaze me what women of the past, such as Friedan, have accomplished in fighting for the rights of women. We owe those ladies a lot.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards. This one ended up being the chosen one, which I brought with me on the Colorado-Utah bike adventure to while away the hours spent in the huts resting my tired limbs. Good choice, I have to say (except that I was done with it in 4 days even as I restrained my access to the book! Should have brought a longer novel...). The event which shapes the story is about as unconventional as you can find in a novel and the author tackles it pretty well, portraying all the characters with fairness and creating an intensely readable book from a storyline that at first sight doesn't seem to invite much excitement.

Hinir sterku, Kristján Þórður Hrafnsson. An Icelandic novel. Somehow the style of the author first seemed odd to me, like he was too used to writing poems to not be hopelessly formal in prose. Either I got used to it or it changed, because after a while this didn't bother me anymore. Interesting story and morals, characters maybe a bit too shallow.

Sendiherrann, by Bragi Ólafsson. Another Icelandic novel. I liked the one previous novel from the author that I've read, and I really liked this one as well. However, I'm not sure really where the author is going or what he's trying to tell. I just know that it's a tragic and comic and well written story. It'd be nice to have read this one in Óli Odds' Icelandic class in MR...

Waiting to be read:

My name is Red, Orhan Pamuk
Ines of my Soul/Ines del alma mia, Isabel Allende
Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold
The Road, Cormac McCarthy Update 07/01/07: finished
Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963, Robert Dallek
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai
and about a million others...