Reclaiming Space

I guess it's a measure of just how busy my spring semester was that I haven't posted since January! It's late now, so I'm just going to do a quick dump of the books I've been reading recently:

Brother Odd and Odd Hours by Dean Koontz
I love Odd as a character, but the books themselves have been hit and miss for me--in that order, actually. I really liked the community of religious depicted in Brother Odd, and it just felt more natural than Hours did, especially because swapping out Odd's companion ghost is a bit of a gimmick.

Feast of Souls and Wings of Wrath by C.S. Friedman
Friedman has a talent for putting together compelling worlds with intricate politics, histories, and mythologies, and letting a rebel search for the truth in it, and this Magister Trilogy is no exception.

Skim by Mariko & Jillian Tamaki
Rachel was right, this is a beautiful book, but I wanted more at the end!

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
A BookCrossing ring. Nice to get a chance to read this since it's in the 11th grade curriculum and before the movie comes out. Interesting, but I'm not sure I see the reason for all the hype. I haven't thought about it in too much detail, though.

Much more to add when I get back from the beach!

Feed Lifeguards, Not Seagulls: I survived the beach 2008

Another year at the beach, distinguished from the others by:
1) Seeing Mamma Mia with my grandmother ("Dancing Queen" was stuck in my head for days afterward)
2) not getting completely sunburned
3) having the only rain be the morning we planned to go fishing
4) causing an LBI sensation by sending my dad off to the hospital in an ambulance. Even the police officers knew about it. (He's ok, btw.)

and the following books:
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen--for school
Kushiel's Scion and Kushiel's Justice by Jacqueline Carey
M is for Magic by Neil Gaiman
The Orc King by R.A. Salvatore
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway--I was really impressed with this book. I'm ashamed to say I don't know as much about the siege of Sarajevo as I should, but this book uses four different people to illustrate various aspects of life in the city during that time, from a symphony cellist who plays to commemorate the deaths of neighbors to the sniper assigned to protect him; a man who travels miles to fetch water for his family and an ungrateful neighbor; and a man risking his life just to cross a street.
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat--A Haitian writer with a real talent for bringing her culture to life, both in Haiti and the US. She really devotes herself to telling women's stories, and that comes through in her writing in the moments she speaks to herself, to her characters, and to her readers.

Musikfest starts today! Hope it turns out to be a good year!

RIP Madeline L'Engle

One of my first and favorite authors. I still remember doing a book report on A Swiftly Tilting Planet in third grade. And of course, as Becky knows, she has the dubious honor of being the author of the first book I read with an actual description of sex in it. (Which actually freaked me out at the time, and forced me to stop reading the book, not finishing it until several years later.) I just really admired the way she portrayed connections between people; it was very human, complicated, and real. I'll miss her work.

Not sure about this...

I can't quite pinpoint why Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy made me uneasy... I knew they were very well written, but there was just something about them I couldn't shake. However, the movie looks like it's shaping up to be really cool. At least, from the website.

And the daemons are the coolest part! But why did I have to get the spider daemon? Why did it pick the one creature I couldn't stand hanging out with me all the time?