Never Let Me Go

by Kazuo Ishiguro

What would you do if you knew what your whole purpose in life was from the very beginning of your life? What if it was just be spare parts for other people? Should you be treated differently than anyone else? Educated, taught to love? How would you go on, if you realized that you were a clone, and existed solely for other people's ends, and your own happiness was completely an incidental matter?

Ah, the life of a clone. A clone in high school. A clone in tragic love. It's well written, and somewhat engaging. But it didn't grab me the way I thought it would. I wanted someone in this book to get angry at the situation, or at the hand that life had dealt them, and no one did. Which kinda implies that if you can't get excited about it, why should I?

"I was holding something called Twenty Classic Dance Tunes. When I played it later, I discovered it was orchestra stuff for ballroom dancing. Of course, the moment she was giving it to me, I didn't knowwhat sort of music it was, but I did know it wasn't anything like Judy Bridgewater. Then again, almost immediately, I saw how Ruth wasn't to know that - how to Ruth, who didn't know the first thing about music, this tape might easily make up for the one I'd lost. And suddenly I felt the disappointment ebbing away and being replaced by a real happiness. We didn't do things like hug each other much at Hailsham. But I squeezed one of her hands in both mine when I thanked her. She said: 'I found it at the last Sale. I just thought it's the sort of thing you'd like.' And I said that, yes, it was exactly the sort of thing.

I still it now. I don't play it much because the music has nothing to do with anything. It's an object, like a brooch or a ring, and especially now that Ruth has gone, it's become one of my most precious posessions."

Angels and Demons

by Dan Brown

Way fun. I liked it a whole lot. It was more preachy than The Da Vinci Code, but it was also a more interesting subject to preach about. But maybe that's because I'm more interested in the intersection of science and religion than hearing about theories on Christ's life as a man. The main character is starting to remind me of a cross between James Bond and Indiana Jones. I dig it. (I still don't dig Tom Hanks as him, but I suppose that's okay.) I wish I'd read the annotated edition of this one too, though. And I can see how people favor this one over the other, and others favor the second book more.

"'One more question.' Vittoria stopped short and looked at him like he was an alien. 'Are you serious?'

Langdon stopped. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean is this really your plan to save the day?'

Langdon wasn't sure wheter he saw amused pity or sheer terror in her eyes. 'You mean finding the Diagramma?'

'No, I mean finding the Diagramma, locating a four-hundred-year-old segno , decipering some mathematical code, and following an ancient trail of art that only the most brilliant scientists in history have ever been able to follow.... all in the next four hours.'

Langdon shrugged. 'I'm open to other suggestions.'"

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

by Jonathan Safran Foer

I started reading this book because Amazon.com kept recommending it to me, and it was one of the few books at the library that I recognized and was pretty sure wouldn't be as disappointing as ones I'd previously gotten from there.

It's about a boy whose father died on September 11th. I wasn't sure I wanted to read about that. But then I thought maybe I should read about it, and that was enough to get me started on it. I just finished it, and just got off the phone with my mother, telling her to go out and buy this book and read it, because I don't know what to think of it by myself.

I really liked this book, once I got into the rhythm of it (which took about 50 pages, maybe 75). Really, really liked it. Another book I was sad to end, but it's a book that I'll keep thinking about for awhile.

It's about how you keep going on after a tragedy. It's about trying to understand what legacy you've been left, and even the one that you're leaving. It's about the ways that people cope with a mutual loss. And it pulls in all sorts of other man-made disasters. It made me think of a heart that has been broken and put back together many times, and never in the same way as before. Of that old thing about how if something is perfect than it could never change, because if it were perfect than changing could only make it less perfect, but then there are things like the ocean that are always changing but could be considered perfect. On the other hand, maybe they're not perfect, and that's why they can change, and what's so desirable about being perfect anyway. Sigh.

"Only a few months into our marriage, we started marking off areas in the apartment as "Nothing Places," in which one could be assured of complete privacy, we agreed that we never would look at the marked-off zones, that they would be nonexistent territories in the apartment inwhich one could temporarily cease to exist, the first was in the bedroom by the foot of the bed we marked it off with red tape on the carpet, and it was just large enough to stand in, it was a good place to disappear, we knew it was there but we never looked at it, it worked so well tha twe decided to create a Nothing Place in the living room, it seemed necessary, because there are times when one needs to disappear while in the living roome and sometimes one simply wants to disappear... It became difficult to navigate trom Something to Something without accidentally walking through Nothing, and when Something - a key, a pen, a pocketwatch - was accidentally left in a Nothing Place, it nevr could be retrieved, that was an unspoken rule, like nearly all of our rules have been. There came a point, a year or two ago, when our apartment was more Nothing than Something... The longer your mother and I lived together, the more we took each other's assumptions for granted, the less was said, the more misunderstood"

"All I wanted was to fall asleep that night, but all I could was invent.
What about frozen planes, which could be safe from heat-seeking missles?
What about subway turnstiles that were also radiation detectors?
What about incredibly long ambulances that connected every building to a hospital?
What about parachutes in fanny packs?
What a about cuns with sensors in the handles that could detect if you were really angry, and if you were, they wouldn't fire, even if you were a police officer?
What about Kevlar overalls?
Whata bout skyscrapers with moving parts, so they could rearrange themselves when they had to, and even open holes in their middles for planes to fly through?
What about...
What about...
What about...?

Disgrace

by J. M. Coetzee

After the last book, I wanted to read something well-written and interesting. So I turned to the UT Summer Reading List and thought this one looked good AND it happened to be at the library.

It was great. Interesting thoughts, interesting characters. And the author had a way with words. It's about a professor who has an affair with one of his female students, and when found out, is forced to resign. Academic disgrace, which he's actually ambivalent about. Then he goes to live with his daughter, and after a traumatic event that he's unable to protect her from, the word becomes real to him. The ways that he interacts with his daughter are fascinating, and it's good to see a book where doing "what's best" means different things to different people.

"He continues to teach because it provides him with a livelihood; also because it teaches him humility, brings it home to him who he is in the world. The irony does not escape him: that the one who comes to teach learns the keenest of lessons, while those who come to learn learn nothing. It is a feature of his profession on which he does not remark to Soraya. He doubts there is an irony to match it in hers."

"In spite of which he feels at home with Petrus, is even prepared, however guardedly, to like him. Petrus is a man of his generation. Doubtless Petrus has been through a lot, doubtless he has a story to tell. He would not mind hearing Petrus's story one day. But preferably not reduced to English. More and more he is convinced that English is an unfit medium for the truth of South Africa. Stretches of English code whole sentences long have thickened, lost their articulations, their articulateness, their articulatedness. Like a dinosaur expiring and settling in the mud, the language has stiffened. Pressed into the mould of English, Petrus's story would come out arthritic, bygone."

"There is a pause. 'I think they have done it before,' she resumes, her voice steadier now. 'At least the two older ones have. I think they are rapists first and foremost. Stealing things is just incidental. A side-line. I think they do rape.'
' You think they will come back?'
'I think I am in their territory. They have marked me. They will come back for me.'
'Then you can't possibly stay.'
'Why not?'
'Because that would be an invitation for them to return.'
She broods a long while before she answeres. ' But isn't there another way of looking at it, David? What if... what if that is the price one has to pay for staying on? Perhaps that is how they look at it; perhaps that is how I should look at it too. They see me as owing something. They see themselves as debt collectors, tax collectors. Why should I be allowed to live here without paying? Perhaps that is what they tell themselves.'"

6/17/2005
Found a reading guide for this book that had some interesting questions.

My Daughter's Boyfriend

by Cydney Rax

The Georgia Tech Library, with its pitifully small fiction section, chose to stock this. I figured it had to be decent, 'cause if you were a librarian and you could only choose ten fiction books, you'd make sure they were pretty good, right? If not particularly insightful, at least it should be fun. But I was wrong. This book was awful. The characters had as much depth as a wading pool, the prose was purple at best, and the plot was contrived. It was a bad episode of Ricki Lake. I've read books about characters that I couldn't sympathize with before, but this was a whole new level of wtf.

It's about a single mother who decides it's acceptable to have an affair with her daughter's boyfriend. And not make the boyfriend break up with the daughter first. And not be sympathetic to her daughter's pain about the loss of her boyfriend, or that her her mother is dating her ex. And the daughter is good and smart and surprisingly well-adjusted, and we're supposed to believe that this woman was capable of raising her to be this way. And that we would buy any message about female solidarity after she "learns her lesson". The worst part was that the author seemed to spend the whole time waiting to get to the next sex scene - that this whole book was an excuse to write about an older woman getting together with a younger man, but the "stella gets her groove back" plot was taken, so she had to come up with another vehicle.

I wish that I hadn't read this book. The line on the front called it "A fascinating, witty, and though-provoking novel full of memorable characters. My Daughter's Boyfriend is the perfect summer read." It was definitely not witty, but maybe fascinating or thought-provoking in the way of a train-wreck or "so that's how this book could get worse" sense. Definitely not the perfect summer read (see below for fun books that might make that list). I'm also ashamed to admit that I kept reading it, hoping it would get better when I should have known from the line below that it wouldn't. But now there's a new low for other books to be measured against. So, while I want those two and a half hours of my life back, maybe writing this down will help me to remember to steer others away, and to be more cautious about the fiction selection at this wonderful institution.

Only one line from the book, because I'm kind and merciful...

"Her legs opened automatically, like they were electronic doors inviting me to come inside her super-store."

The Da Vinci Code

by Dan Brown

Okay, so I'm probably the last person in all of America to read this book. I figured, with all this hype, I should check it out. And so I ended up with the illustrated edition from the library. Illustrated Editions are now on my perpetually growing list of Best Things Ever. It showed all the artwork, symbols, buildings, etc. for the book and it made it wonderful. For example in the discussion of the painting of The Last Supper, you're actually able to see the elements that they're talking about on the same page. Made the book SO much better.

Anyway, I started the book on the way home from work and read it (with just a few interruptions) until I finished it at 2:30 in the morning. Around 1:15, it occurred to me that this was one of those books that I'd be sad about finishing, but curiousity got the better of me and I finished the book instead delaying gratification.

It was a great book. Way fun. Though I've heard they've cast Tom Hanks in the lead role, which is just wrong (maybe it's my particular aversion to Tom Hanks speaking, but I'm not alone in this). And I can see why it's controversial. Interesting things to think about though. I can see why some would think that The Devil had a hand in this book. But it was thought-provoking, and fun, which is a combination you don't see too often.

It's hard to quote without giving too much away, but I liked this part.

"Langdon paused. 'I'll tell you at Teabing's. He and I specialize in different areas of the legend, so between the two of us, you'll get the full story.' Langdon smiled. 'Besides, the Grail has been Teabing's life, and hearing the story of the Holy Grail from Leigh Teabing will be like hearing the theory of relativity from Einstein himself.'

'Let's hope Leigh doesn't mind late-night visitors.'

'For the record, it's Sir Leigh.' Langdon had made that mistake only once. 'Teabing is quite a character. He was knighted by the Queen several years back after composing and extensive history on the House of York.'

Sophie looked over. 'You're kidding, right? We're going to visit a knight?"

Langdon gave an awkward smile. 'We're on a Grail quest, Sophie. Who better to help us than a knight?'"

He's Just Not That Into You

by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo

Disclaimer: Not reading this for my own (immediate, at least) benefit. After reading this book, I still think that C. is, in fact, into me. I started reading this book while waiting for a friend at the airport, browsing the bookstore there because I was too much of a slacker to have actually brought a book with me for the wait. But I read the last half of it, because another friend of mine had raved about it. And so when I was cruising the GIL Express for summer reading, I decided to finish it.

It's great. It's quick. And unfortunately, useful. I don't know why women make excuses for guys. We do, though. And it's sad that telling women "You deserve more than that" would make a book a best-seller, that this is breaking news to anyone. The book dictates that instead of "wasting the pretty" on guys who aren't calling you, paying attention to you, or generally exhibiting ambivalent behavior about you, you should go out and find someone else. That if you put up with this, then a guys has no incentive to change, and won't (either for you or the next girl). Basically, it says that where there's a will, there's a way for guys, and if they aren't willing, then you don't want them anyway, so don't waste your time chasing them and trying to make them willing.

The tone is so much of an upper though (constantly telling us women readers that we're all smart, beautiful and witty and capable of getting soooo much more) that after awhile it starts to seem condescending, though. Or maybe that's just me being cynical.

Some of the chapter titles are great: "He's Just Not That into You if...

• He's not Asking You Out
  
• He's not Calling You
  
• He's Having Sex with Someone Else
• He Only Wants You When He's Drunk
• He's Breaking Up With You
• He's Disappeared on You
• He's Married (and Other Insane Variations on
  Being Unavailable)
• He's a Selfish Jerk, a Bully, or a Really Big Freak"
  

Blink

by Malcolm Gladwell

This is the first book for my new summer book club. I've fulfilled my nerdy dream and started one to keep in touch with people over the summer, and not let my brain turn to mush. I've also learned a very important lesson today about condensation from containers that I brought things for lunch and the things they do to the nice paper book jackets of hard-bound books (like Blink). Sigh. Ah well.

The subtitle of this book is "The Power of Thinking Without Thinking". Its message is that we should trust our gut, and stop overthinking things. He claims that overthinking not only wastes time, but in some cases, more thought and information makes our decisions worse. Sounds like a neat idea, right? That we know more than we think we know and we should seize the moment and trust ourselves? And he points out a lot of examples where this works. It's very tempting. And yet, it seems like this practice could also be responsible for some awful results too. It kinda feels like he's trying to make the exception into the rule. Or maybe as one who overthinks things, I'm reluctant to accept that it's all for naught. It's a really quick read, though (or at least the first 100 pages... After that, you get the point of where he's going with this.). And the "thin-slicing" approach to relationships (like the guy who can watch you talk with your spouse for 15 minutes and tell whether in 15 years or not you'll still be married) is fascinating.

"What Gottman is saying is that a relationship between two people has a fist as well: a distinctive signature that arises naturally and automatically. That is why a marriage can be read and decoded so easily, because some key part of human activity - whether it is something as simple as pounding out a Morse code message or as complex as being married to someone - has an identifiable and stable pattern. Predicting divorce, like tracking Morse Code operators, is pattern recognition.

' People are in one of two states in a relationship,' Gottman went on. 'The first is what I call positive sentiment override, where positive emotion overrrides irritability. It's like a buffer. Their spose will do something bad, and they'll say, "Oh, he's just in a crummy mood." Or they can be in negative sentiment override, so that even a relatively neutral thing that a partner says gets perceived as negative. In the negative sentiment override state, people draw lasting conclusions about each other. If their spouse does something positive, it's a selfish person doing a positive thing. It's really hard to change those states, and those states determine whether when one party tries to repair things, the other party sees that as repair or hostile manipulation. For example, I'm talking with my wife, and she says, "Will you shut up and let me finish?" In positive sentiment override, I say, "Sorry, go ahead." I'm not very happy but I recognize the repair. In negative sentiment override, I say, "To hell with you, I'm not getting a chance to finish either. You're such a bitch, you remind me of your mother."'"