Bookapollusa

Thanks to audible.com and my trusty iPod, I have managed to usurp my innate hatred of reading and have managed to burn through three books in the last few weeks. I thought I'd take this opportunity (before I completely forget what I read) to tell you about them. So here goes:

First, I read Sammy's House which is Kristin Gore's (yes, daughter of Al) second novel, a sequel to her Sammy's Hill book that came out a couple of years ago. (thanks to Bibliophile and others for introducing me to these books). The basic story line revolves around a 20 something woman who's managed to get a policy adviser job for a presidential candidate (in the first book) and a vice president (second book). So, if you get off on things like West Wing where you can pretend you work in some interesting and high powered job in DC, you'd like these books. But, be warned, these books are an extra-light version of West Wing, probably closer to being chic-lit, actually. Beyond the working in DC part of the book, there's also a lot of gossip, relationship drama, and dumb behavior and decisions by the main character, and so on. Some of her (main character) idiosyncrasies get a big annoying, in my opinion, toward the middle of the second book. Also, her ability to be a dumb, hormonal, irrational, jealous girl gets to be a bit much at times too (and I say this as someone who can be all of those things at one time or another.) But, nevertheless, I enjoyed this book.... Its like half West Wing political goodness and half Lifetime Original Movie in its relationship drama and general dumbness but inescapability.

Next, I read Interpreter of Maladies, which I heard about due to its appearance on several best fiction lists (particularly, and I hope I'm right, from the NYT best seller list). So anyway, I was very excited to read this one. Unfortunately, I managed to either forget about or all together miss in the first place the fact that the book is a collection of short stories. I was a bit disappointed to learn that, no, I don't like short stories that much. Just about the time I'd get into the story, that story would end, those characters would disappear, and I'd be thrust into a new story with all together new characters. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great book with mostly really interesting and compelling stories. But, I wish it had picked to focus on one set of characters for more than a chapter or two. I guess I'm just not a short story kinda girl.

Finally, I read What Was She Thinking (Notes on a Scandal)... that's right, the book which lead to the movie. I never saw the movie, and only had a small understanding of the general plot, but I decided to go for the book based on what I'd hear about the movie. Somehow, I managed to miss the detail that the book is about a 30 something teacher in England who has an affair with a 15 year old student in her class. I dunno, I'm all for people doing what want and consenting adults and all, but this topic still kind of weirds me out. That being said, I am a total sucker for gossip, and this book certainly has it. It reminds me of having a long, revealing conversation with a friend in which your friend reveals the scandalous details of some piece of gossip worthy information. This book got me through an hour and a half delay on the blue line one day, so in terms of its pure entertainment, I can't say anything bad about it.

I'm now reading Death by Black Hole which is essentially a set of essays designed to explain certain aspects of astro-science and the historical evolution of scientific understanding. As you can probably tell, its a bit different than the previous three books I just talked about. It was a big shift; listening to gossip takes a lot less brain power to listen to someone explain Newtonian physics. But, it is very interesting and I am enjoying it. I think its good brain food, too. I'll let you know what I fully think of it once I've finished it.

That's all for now.

PS: just so you don't think that I'm completely crazy, the moon ransom post a few days ago was about a wash cloth that one of the E-Vegasvillians left at my house after their visit. I didn't know who it belonged to , so I thought I'd publish a funny post (well, I meant for it to be funny, anyway, although I think some of you were just confused) in an attempt to get the owner of the mr. moon washcloth to come foward. So, no, I'm not crazy. And, no, it didn't have anything to do with the luner eclipse (which I slept through a few days ago). ;)