dog eared copy

TEN ON TUESDAY

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I finished  The Blackwater Lightship (by Colm Toibin,) the second novel from this author that I have read. The thing that was intriguing to me about this book and Brooklyn was the asexual nature of the female protagonists. It wasn’t that the characters didn’t have sex; but that they seem so emotionally distant  from the passion. I think they aren’t doing it right! :-D Overall though, I find Colm Toibin’s writing to be very… wordy. It lacks lyricism or poetry, and that seems unforgivable to me especially with an Irish author. It’s not that he doesn’t describe beautiful things, just that there isn’t any beauty in the writing itself.

I also finished Paul Auster’s short novel, Man in the Dark and I’m really glad I gave this author another shot! While reading Man in the Dark didn’t shed any light on Invisible (see last week’s post about how reading more Atwood helped me to understand more Atwood,) it was a very entertaining read. It’s the story of a seventy-something-old man who wiles away his insomniac hours by making up stories. In Man in the Dark, he creates an alternate reality that has the reader guessing as to which is the “real” story! Slightly fantastic, but believable nonetheless.

And once again, instead of forging ahead with my list, I heeded the call of another book that was calling my name, Snow Falling on Cedars (by David Guterson.) It’s not a novel you whip through; but there’s a story underneath all the nautical terminology. It’s about a Japanese man accused of murdering another local man in a fishing community.  It takes place in the Pacific Northwest, on an island off of Seattle, in Post-War America.

1. Emma (by Jane Austen) - Back to the Classics; Mount TBR
2. Enough About Love (by Herve LeTellier)
3. The Kite Runner (by Khaled Hosseini) - What’s in a Name? Challenge #5
4. The Royal Road to Fotheringhay (by Jean Plaidy) - Mount TBR
5. Pest Control (by Bill Hughes) - What’s in a Name? Challenge #5
6. The Religion (by Tim Willocks) - Mount TBR
7. The Time Traveler’s Wife (by Audrey Neffenegger) - Mount TBR
8. Netherland (by Joseph O’Neill)
9. The Age of Innocence (by Edith Wharton)
10. Sea of Poppies (by Amitav Ghosh)

AUDIO

I’m still in the middle of We’re Alive, Season 1 (by Kc Wayland; performed by a full cast,)  and  The Arthur Miller Collection (by Arthur Miller; performed by various full casts.) I’m not particlularly enjoying either one right now but I need to finish both for the Armchair Audies. We’re Alive’s sound effects are very much “testosterone driven” (a term Sue Zizza, a audio drama producer, coined.) Lots of adolescent humor and boys playing soldiers; plus there an actress who can’t seem to make up her mind what nationality she is for the first few podcasts: sometime she sounds like she’s trying to be English, other times Asian; but now we’ve settled on a French nationality :-/ As for The Arthur Miller Collection, the unevenness of the performances and the overall tragic tine quickly wear on a soul. Of course, in dragging my heels in both of these audios, I’m hoolding up the listening that I need to do for Zombie Awareness Month. Sigh. Maybe I’ll just bite the bullet and finish We’re Alive in one sitting and then do the same for The Arthur Miller plays.

1. Zombiestan (by Mainak Dhar; narrated by John Lee)
2. Vacation (by Matthew Costello; narrated by Peter Macon)
3. The Bone House (by Brian Freeman; narrated by Joe Barrett) - Thriller/Suspense
4. Silent Scream (by Karen Rose; narrated by Marguerite Gavin) - Thriller/Suspense
5. My Dog Tulip (by J.R. Ackerley; narrated by Ralph Cosham) - Biography/Memoir
6. The 4% Universe (by Richard Penak; narrated by Ray Porter) - Non-Fiction
7. My Korean Deli (by Ben Ryder Howe; narrated by Bronson Pinchot) - Non-Fiction
8. The 13-1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear (by Walter Moers; narrated by Bronson Pinchot) - Fantasy
9. Rumo and His Miraculous Adventures (by Walter Moers; narrated by Bronson Pinchot) - Fantasy
10. The Eleventh Plague (by Jeff Hirsch; narrated by Dan Bittner)