¡Vamanos!

I have lots more time to read here.  I now keep a book in my purse, my car and my house at all times (the one in the car is for when I’m waiting in line to pick up the girls at school).

Books I’m currently reading:

• We Were The Mulvaneys, by Joyce Carol Oates
• The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel (P.S.), by Barbara Kingsolver
• Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder

 Since we arrived in January 08, I have read (most recently read at top of list):

• A Man in Full, by Tom Wolfe  Liked it, but I could have done without the Zeusiness.  Also, it seemed to be leading up to a much grander statement on race and fell flat on that.  My first Tom Wolfe book, I will read more.
• Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, by Azar Nafisi    I feel guilty for thinking that this book about a woman’s right to freedom – speech, intellectual and otherwise – needed to be edited much better.  I found it highly confusing with so many people being mentioned off and on – I wish it was ordered in a different way, perhaps a chapter for each student.  Of course, it probably would have helped if I knew more about Nabokov, Austen & James before reading this. One passage that stuck with me was a very short one. The author mentioned that women in Iran, who were only free from wearing the chador in their own homes, were advised once the bombing started to consider wearing it at home too – because it would be improper if your neighbors saw you without your chador if your house got bombed!
• The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman. Fascinating book – so much more than I thought it would be when I picked it up. International health care in a domestic situation – “A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Colllision of Two Cultures.”
• The Friday Night Knitting Club, by Kate Jacobs Cute book until bummer ending.  Makes me wish I knew how to knit. 
• Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt. Very very cool book.  I will never look at a stat the same way again.
• Running with Scissors: A Memoir, by Augusten Burroughs – Bizarre, but incredibly well written.  It’s as if David Sedaris was forced to live in a house with The Royal Tenenbaums and all the weird people who ever picked him up hitchhiking.
• Night, by Elie Wiesel – Re-read for the first time in 20+years. Haunting.
• Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Italy, India and Indonesia, by Elizabeth Gilbert - Hated it at first, put it down for several months.  Wound up liking Pray & Love very much.
• Little Children: A Novel, by Tom Perrotta – LIKED IT VERY MUCH (though I don’t get why some describe it as funny)
• Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress: A Novel, by Dai Sijie - LOVED IT
• The Almost Moon, by Alice Sebold – DISAPPOINTED because I loved The Lovely Bones
• Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, by Julie Powell – LOVED IT
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl – LIKED IT
• The Corrections: A Novel, by Jonathan Franzen - LIKED IT, hard to love something that depressing, but Franzen is very talented.
• When You Are Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris -  LOVED IT BEYOND WORDS – my favorite writer/humorist
• Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, by David Sedaris -  LOVED IT BEYOND WORDS – my favorite writer/humorist
• Water for Elephants: A Novel, by Sara Gruen – LOVED IT
• Franny and Zooey, by JD Salinger – HATED IT
• The Gun Seller, by Hugh Laurie – LOVED IT, hysterical
• Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, by John Krakauer – LOVED the book, hated the idiocy of the adventure
• The Jane Austen Book Club, by Karen Joy Fowler - DISLIKED IT
• The Mermaid Chair, by Sue Monk Kidd – LIKED IT
• Naked, by David Sedaris -  LOVED IT BEYOND WORDS – my favorite writer/humorist
• Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris – LOVED IT BEYOND WORDS – my favorite writer/humorist
• The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd – LOVED IT
• The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank: A Novel, by Ellen Feldman - LIKED IT
• For One More Day, by Mitch Albom – LIKED IT
• Angels & Demons, by Dan Brown – LIKED IT, loved parts (has a passage that sums up my religious beliefs in a nutshell), hated parts – especially the ending