January Reading Summary

So here I am thinking, hey, I'm at around 2,500 pages read... pretty respectable, right? Then I come here and realize that the rest of us might as well just drop out now, because Buffy and Jeremy are OUT OF CONTROL!! (You might mistake the previous sentence's corresponding emotion with anger... it's actually a serious case of green eyes... I'm ridiculously jealous). But onward.

Geek Love, Katherine Dunn (348 pages)
I would not recommend this book to everyone. In fact, as I was reading it I desperately wanted to talk with someone about it, but I couldn't think of a good person to recommend it to. It's not for those of a sensitive nature, let me just say that. Every time I thought it couldn't get more shocking, darned if the next page wasn't talking about a dwarf having sex with a horse onstage (I am exaggerating a tiny, tiny bit, and that is all).

That being said, it was an amazing book in some ways. Basic premise: this newly married couple who runs a small carnival decides to essentially start growing their own freak show. The husband mixes a variety of highly creative cocktails of amphetamines, tranquilizers, tobacco, alcohol, etc. for his wife to drink during each of her pregnancies (I think there were around 20 in all). Needless to say, most of their "experiments" didn't make it. The five that did are the most unusual compilation of characters I have come across in literature in quite some time, and among them is a young man that could give Shakespeare's Iago a run for his money in the depraved and evil nature category.

The story (told from the perspective of the third child, a bald albino hunchback dwarf who is looked down on in her family for not being freakish enough) chronicles their life in the carnival. It's a serious mindfuck of a book, not going to lie... intense and revolting and just flat out WTF in certain areas. But I would also say it's one of the most interesting books I've ever read, and certainly it's living proof of the truism that perspective is everything. And then some.

The Secret Life Of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd (336 pages)
A delicate, delicious read, wrought with the high irony and subtle spirituality that I have come to expect only of my favorite tomes. The protagonist is a young girl who runs away from her abusive father to follow the path of the mother she accidentally killed at age five. It takes her down some strange journeys, and Kidd's portrayal of the unique and surprising ways in which we find our own families as we grow up is nothing short of-- my favorite and most flattering description-- genuine.

Promise Not To Tell, Jennifer McMahon (250 pages)
I picked up this book, as well as the following one, at a bookstore in Nevada mainly because they were having a two-for-one sale and these were the covers that caught my eye. This slender book is a fast read, designed as a combination coming of age/murder mystery/ghost story. It's no Stephen King, but for what it is, it's well-written. If anything, the plot ties together just a little too neatly, but the flashbacks in the book are carefully constructed and unfold entertainingly. Decent airplane reading.

Paint It Black, Janet Fitch (418 pages)
This book is the main reason I didn't get as much editing on my own book accomplished this month as I wanted to. Note to self: next time, read really shitty books while editing, because if you don't you will want to say fuck it and just crawl into a hole and henceforth completely give up on your own writing. (If you're sensing a slight competitive streak in me, well, then, okay.)

Janet Fitch is an artist. Her sentences read like friendly poetry, and her description of inward struggle is as authentic as any I have ever read. She does exactly what I'm trying to do. The end.

The plot is very, very simple: Poor girl lives with a slumming rich boy, and they are hopelessly in love. Oops, rich boy kills himself. Poor girl is very sad. To make anything come of that, the writing has to be spectacular, and Fitch delivers. The other reason it took me so long to get through this one is because I wasn't trying to rush it, and I don't recommend that you do either. Cheerful? No. Laff riot? Can't say it is. Uplifting? Not exactly. Read it anyway, and enjoy it for the beautiful piece that it is. This is a book you savor.

The Four Hour Work Week, Timothy Ferriss (292 pages)
I mainly read fiction this month, but in the normal course of things I read at least as much nonfiction as I do fiction, and I read more books about business now than I did in college. This book was recommended to me by a friend, so I decided to check it out. Ferriss' style is fast-paced and the subject matter is interesting, but it's not exactly a feel-good piece. I am about to sum up the entire thing in one sentence, and a short one at that. Are you ready? Here it is: Why work? He spends the whole book first explaining why you don't need to work (at least not nearly as hard as you probably are) and the second half telling you how to stop working so hard.

There are some really, really good ideas in it, but none that I'm willing to implement at this particular point in my life. I happen to like my job and if that makes me a wage slave, then so be it (for now, at least). Thankyouverymuch.

The rest of the books I read were reruns. I tend to get attached to certain books and I read them at night to unwind and calm down, and hey, now they're boosting my page count! But I'll only write about my new books in here.

Hope everyone's January was jolly. I'm off to get a jump start on February, though God knows I was behind from the word go with competition like this! :-)

-Phoenix