Persepolis 2, by Marjane Satrapi

I liked this one even better than Persepolis, perhaps because this one addressed issues closer to my heart: being a stranger everywhere. In her years in Austria, Marjane didn't fit in because she was a foreigner, from a third word country, but when she finally returned to Iran, looking forward to being "home," she found that her years in Europe had changed her to the point she didn't feel at home in her own country. Belonging nowhere, she struggled to find herself and her calling, going through an unhappy marriage and several different confrontation with religious police before deciding to return to Europe.

An important story, well-told. Worth a read for sure.

Making History, by Stephen Fry

It's unfair that Stephen Fry should be so talented: a comedian, an actor, and a writer? Why must some people be so blessed?

What's more, he's not just a mediocre writer, but a fairly good one. Unlike some comedian who turn to writing and think it's all and only comedy, Fry has a good handle on balance: Making History was funny, but not only funny. It was also good fiction, an interesting exploration of what would have happened had Hitler never been born. (Note: it's not as good as you think.) I liked the idea, explored by the novel, that, in a sense, there was some destiny, some inevitability to what happened. I won't divulge all the details of the alternate universe, but suffice it to say, there was still war, and Jews still suffered, in what is perhaps an even more hideous way. What's more, one of the characters who was seeking to obliterate Hitler in order to obliterate his guilt was still left with equal, or perhaps greater, amounts of guilt.

This isn't a brilliant novel, by any means, and Fry isn't particularly literary in his style, but he's smart, and obviously a reader, and that translates into what was, for the most part, a very enjoyable book. Kudos to you, Mr. Fry, and may you continue to be so talented.

Blankets, by Craig Thompson

The whole graphic-novel thing doesn't do a ton for me, since I'm not a particularly visual person; I speed through them, mostly reading the words and only absorbing the pictures on a subconscious level. I am not the target market.

That said, this book was amazing--the pictures told the story along with the words, sharing equally in the responsibility, and, what's more, they evoked a wistfulness and grace that suited the book well, particularly in its nebulous (yet touching) ending. This is biography beautifully done, in fact, probably as beautifully as I've ever seen a biography done. Using the motif of blankets--the blanket that sheltered the author and his brother in their childhood bed, the blanket that the author's first girlfriend quilted for him--the author his explores his childhood, his relationship with his brother and his first girlfriend, and his faith. It's deep and wise and personal and, most of all, very, very good.

You Don't Love Me Yet, by Jonathan Lethem

I've really enjoyed other works of Lethem's, like Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, and so my expectations were high. Unfortunately, this one definitely did not meet expectations. I couldn't tell if this was just a badly-written novel about people I should like, or a well-written novel about people who would annoy me in real life. I think it's the latter: by writing a book about a group of pretentious, fairly absurd late-twentysomething hipsters, Lethem has quite possibly chosen the population that is simultaneously the most written-about the least appealing on paper. The characters indulge in ridiculous fantasies: one, working a phone line as part of an art installation, falls in love with a caller who does nothing but complain, in frankly silly "poetic" language, about the woes of dating and love in the modern era. Another believes that a kangaroo at the zoo is feeling sad (sorry, suffering from ennui) and so kidnaps it. (Honestly--am I expected to believe that? Or sympathize with it?) The main character, Lucinda, is emotionally twisted (she seduces the band's fragile guitarist and creative wellspring because "someone so helpless could never discard her) and ultimately unsympathetic; one wonders why not one, but three of the book's characters fall under her spell. One of the characters says that, "I think Lucinda is a genuinely reprehensible person," and I couldn't help but agree.

So there's complaint number one. Complaint number two is the writing: Lethem is clearly talented, and enjoying the wordplay (he describes music moguls as "unyouthful men in youthful clothes"), but it's not enough, and, what's more, frequently fails. (One of the character's face is described as having "penisy glamor." I don't get it, and I don't like it.) While there are some fun moments--those people you keep in the back of your mind as a romantic possibility described as "astronaut food," meaning you can't really get any nutrition out of them--the writing, on the whole, is shallow and, frankly, wasted on these characters and this plot.

So: too clever, Lethem. Stick to what you know, and if this is what you know, go get a new life. This one isn't working out for you.

Everything Bad is Good For You, by Steven Johnson

Johnson argues that today's popular culture is making us smarter: not in that the content is good, necessarily, but that the medium, rather, has grown increasingly complex and interesting, and is therefore stretching and challenging our brains in new ways. Video games force exploration and testing, TV shows require keeping track of vast social networks, and the internet demands attention and even content from us, not just passive viewing. Johnson has the good grace not to actually praise reality TV, but instead simply to point out that, compared to junk media of 50 years ago, junk media of today is complex and demanding. (i.e. compare "The Price is Right" to any modern game show and you'll see the difference. Or compare "Dragnet" to "CSI" and you'll see. Or any show at all to "Arrested Development" and you'll realize how modern TV forces us to keep track of jokes, plotlines, characters to an extent that would have been unthinkable fifty years ago, at the inception of television.) After his length explication of how these forms of media have grown and changed, Johnson then presents evidence that Americans are, actually, growing smarter: IQ scores being raised across the board, not just in one ethnicity or population, and even some scientific studies that have shown increased spatial and logical abilities in video gamers. Why would this be happening if everything bad were not good for us, he argues?

I am not the biggest fan of modern media in the world--I avoid video games and I rarely watch television, though I am, clearly, a big internet user. However, I found Johnson's argument very convincing, to the extent that I am looking completely differently at video games and TV--they're not such terrible time wasters, I see now. Johnson also, very intelligently, doesn't choose to bash old-fashioned forms of media, such as books; rather, he argues for a greater balance, and a greater tolerance of and even respect for the newer forms. I've talked about this book many times since I read it, and recommended it to people. I will continue to do so, I think. It's a should-read, if not a must-read.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling

What I wrote about Harry Potter on Blue Beta:

I get to be a competitive brat to you because you're purple. It took me 3 1/2 hours.

I was, overall, satisifed. Rowling isn't by any means the greatest writer of all time--I was amused at how many chapters ended with Harry passing out/being hit by a spell/maybe dead--but I think she mostly fulfilled the promise of the earlier books in bringing the series to a close, and the book overall was touching as well as gripping. The ending felt inevitable, and, while I initially felt that the plot should require Harry's death, in the end I liked his near-death and return better, as it allowed him to defeat Voldemort through Voldemort's own failings (i.e., inability to love or understand others), a far more satisfying ending. Though I didn't particularly like the epilogue, I was glad to see Harry earn a normal life, unlike Frodo, since his early life, unlike Frodo's, was so decidedly un-normal. It was nice to see that after fulfilling his destiny he could settle down and be at peace, and, as some have pointed out, perhaps more appropriate for a children's book.

I am amused to see how many people on here correctly guessed what would happen, and indeed much of the plot was fairly obvious from the start, but I think that speaks well of the book and Rowling's understanding of her own plot and what it would require. I do agree that Dumbledore's shady past should have been brought up earlier; it seemed strange that such a perfect figure should now be doubted, but one could also argue that's properly in line with Harry's maturation process: learning to see role models and mentors as flawed beings.

All in all, a satisfying ending to what is a very good, but not my favorite, children's fantasy series.

Running With Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs

Hilarious, and quite simply unbelievable--could anyone really live the life Burroughs described here? I suppose someone could, and did, but it's just so far out of my reality that it's hard to believe. However, Burroughs does a good job of elucidating that reality, so this book was definitely fun to read.

The Catastrophist, by Lawrence Douglas

Though I read this only about a month ago, I can barely remember anything about it now. That says a lot. I do remember that it was well-written, stylistically at least, but that I didn't really sympathize with or understand the main character. Maybe I'd need to be a middle-aged male to do so? Who knows? In any case, this doesn't come with a very high recommendation from me.

North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell

This is supposedly a better work of Mrs. Gaskell's than "Ruth," and I think I agree, for the most part, but I liked it less. Perhaps just the mood I was in, but this seemed to drag much longer, and be much less interesting. (The same thing, you say? Not necessarily.) An in-depth look at a country girl transplanted in a factory town, North and South is at one love story and social commentary. I suppose I would recommend it to anyone interested in Victorian literature, but, frankly, its niches seem to be filled by other books, even books of the same era: if you want a hint of romance, read the Brontes. If you want focus on factory towns, read Dickens. If you want stable, long-suffering heroines (as a side note, I found Margaret rather irritating in her placid perfection), read George Eliot. Though I wouldn't say this about her other books, I found Mrs. Gaskell, for this book at least, quite superfluous.

When Broken Glass Floats, by Chanrithy Him

Now this was a real story about the Khmer Rouge: beautifully narrated, thought-provoking, and deeply touching. If you need to know about the Khmer Rouge, start here: you'll know both the basic history and the experiences of the people under such a terrible regime. Like the best of Holocaust literature, this illuminates the extremes of human suffering, and human goodness, so brightly that the rest of us can, to some small extent, understand and sympathize.

The Killing Fields, by Christopher Hudson

I thought this was the book that the movie was based on; imagine my surprise and disappointment when I realized the book was based on the movie. And so, like nearly every movie-turned-into-book, the prose was awkward, the character development limited, and the plot rather jumpy: basically, it was a written movie. Not a good thing. And, while it gave plenty of information and background on the era of the Khmer Rouge, there were elements of the story that were fictionalized. In that case, why not read a genuine non-fiction book, one that doesn't have to make things up to improve the story? It's not like there's a dearth of literature on the Killing Fields. I'd say, if you want a story, go find a real story.

Poplorica, by Martin J. Smith

An interesting book filled with tidbits about American popular culture, from the invention of non-leak disposable diapers to Gorgeous George, the wrestler who started it all, to the history of air-conditioning and how it changed the American South and West. Each invention or fad is analyzed in larger context, so as to give it significance in American culture as a whole, and certainly, for most of the pieces, this analysis is not contrived. Smith maintains a light, cheery tone throughout the book that makes it entertaining to read, far more than scholarly analysis should be, and, though some pieces are better than others, for the most part this book is very good.

Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud

Amazing. This book is as much about understanding art in general as it is about understanding comics, and it does a fantastic job of explaining both art in general and art in particular to the beginning reader. It made me want to read all comics, all the time, and though I doubt I will, I have to give this book credit for instilling the desire, seeing as how I've never been interested in comics before, ever. Wow. I only wish I owned a copy so I could go give it to other people like my friend gave it to me.

Petropolis, by Anya Ulinich

This is comitragedy at its best: the story of the life and times of a Siberian misfit (overweight, intelligent, 1/4 black, an artist, etc), the novel is by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, as the heroine gets pregnant, moves to Moscow, goes to Arizona as a mail-order bride, and makes her way across America to find her father, running into, of course, other Russian immigrants, a slightly sinister family supposedly offering help, and plenty of danger as she travels alone. The book muses on the fate of the immigrant as a whole by portraying individual immigrants and their situations, while also, of course, entertaining and amazing. And the most impressive part is that the author is herself Russian, and learned English in her late teens, when her own family immigrated to America. Brava, Ms. Ulinich; you've made art of your experiences, and something of yourself.

Rebekah, by Orson Scott Card

I started this at 11 pm, intending to only read a few pages, and was surprised, three hours later, to find that I had finished it. Yes, it was just that engrossing.

The story of a strong-willed (almost headstrong) Biblical woman and her family was fascinating and, best of all, made total sense, unlike the equivalent portions of the Bible. I loved how Card chose to interpret the story, and how he developed the characters far more, of course, than their Biblical incarnations. I noticed hints of Mormon doctrine sneaking in, but, also of course, those hints made sense to me, and fleshed out the story in a very satisfying way. Card has a solid understanding of family dynamics, which he used to good purposes here, and I think he did a fairly good job of using a female character to tell the story, something he doesn't do very often. I was more than satisfied with this read, and I don't think I'll ever read the Biblical story of Rebekah the same way again.

Le Divorce, by Diane Johnson

I found this book really boring, with average writing masquerading as good writing. I feel like when a book is a piece of fluff, as this one is, both author and readers should admit that, and the author should at least try to make it fast-paced and entertaining. I hope it makes a better movie than book, because it makes a terrible book.

Villette, by Charlotte Bronte

Here are my notes just after reading this:

--rather dull, actually
--confusing structure (I do see the genius in it, but I don't like it)
--obfuscating of narrator (hiding things from us: not fair!)
--modern feminists have made this book popular, I'm sure (woman is heroine of her own story)

And there we have it.

My Name is Red, by Orhan Pamuk

I don't have a good record with Pamuk so far; though I can easily acknowledge his artistry as a writer, his books bore me. My Name Is Red definitely suffered from that: I can see how it's a great book, and how it addresses important issues of art (the chapters from the perspectives of things being painted were especially interesting, with the tree saying, "I don't want to be a tree. I want to be its meaning."), especially issues of art faced in the Ottoman empire, things like style--as one character says, "imperfection is the mother of style"--and the relationship between painting and religion--"painting is the art of seeking out Allah's memories and seeing the world as He sees the world."

Now, I'm as big on art and its issues as the next reader of literature, and I'm as big on plot lines like murders and mysteries as the next reader, but Pamuk doesn't click with me; I was still bored. Sorry, everyone. I guess I'm not as literary as I thought.

White Teeth, by Zadie Smith

As I wrote in an email to a friend: Funny, insightful, clever. (Funny enough to make me laugh out loud several times, in fact.) Just the kind of multi-character, multi-generation family drama I like. Addresses "important" issues--immigration, race, parent/child interactions--without ever being boring or preachy. Sags a little at the end (the ending was a bit too neat, as it gathered the entire cast of characters in one place to resolve some issues) but is otherwise very good. (My praise for it would be higher if I hadn't read Cloud Atlas just following it.)

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

As I described it to a friend in an email: brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Six interlinking stories in one, told forwards and then backwards in a kind of novel-as-chiasmic-puzzle conceit. (That is, the structure is Story 1-Story 2-Story 3-Story 4-Story-5-Story-6-5-4-3-2-1.) It was slow to start, but I loved it. I could barely lift my eyes from it, and that was while I was in Vietnam, so it's not like I didn't have anything else to be looking at.

I wrote down lots of quotes to incorporate into this review, but now that I'm doing shorter reviews, I don't know that I'll use them all. But, really, how could you dislike a book with writing like this: "had a view of an alley: downtrodden scriveners hurtling by like demisemiquavers in a Beethoven allegro..." And how could you not like a book whose thesis is that the "will to power [is] the backbone of human nature," which then examines that backbone in different scenarios, everything from 18th-century Polynesia to a future world ruled by advertising to a future world ruled by chaos and Stone Age-developed tribes.

One of the characters exclaims, at one point, "As if there could be anything not done a hundred thousand times between Aristrophanes and Andrew Void-Webber! As if Art is the What, not the How!" I'm sure the premise of this book--interlocked stories--has been done, like everything, a hundred thousand times, but the art of it is, as Mitchell himself writes, the How, not the What, and let me tell you how: amazingly. Really. Read it.

The Last Samurai, by Helen deWitt

This is, without a doubt, one of my favorite books of all time. I go around shoving it at people, pushing them to read it: it will change their life. It's hilarious and touching and so smart. It's definitely a Book For Intellectuals--not because it's only accessible to them, but because it's such a clever and yet loving mockery of them. I have a whole page of quotes from the book saved on my computer, and often, very often, I think to myself some of my favorite lines: "there are people who think death a fate worse than boredom"; "He was a linguist, and therefore he had pushed the bounds of obstinacy well beyond anything that is conceivable to other men"; "Like a man who plays Yesterday on the piano with Brahmsian amplitude and lushness and so casually kicks aside the thing which is the very essence of the song he is like the Percy Faith Orchestra playing Satisfaction." This book has everything a book should offer: humor, interesting characters, a puzzle of a plot, lots of allusions, pithy, wise statements, intelligence, class, fun, and, in the end, a genuine, rousing, uplifting conclusion. I can't say enough good things about it. Read it. It will change your life.

Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi

There's a reason this has won all sorts of prizes for graphic novels. It was beautiful; deep, touching, and beautiful. I can't wait to read the second part.

Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman

This one also went fast, so wasn't a huge waste of time, but was rather disappointing. It was filled with in-jokes for Londoners, the writing style got tiresome relatively quickly (Gaiman's habit of heavy foreshadowing began to make me think he regards his readers as stupid), and the characters were, frankly, rather unlovable. I never really got why they were doing what they were doing, and I never was convinced I should care about why, or indeed about what they were doing at all. It's hard to maintain suspense in a story if the readers have lost interest in whether the main character lives or dies.

It did have a fun imaginary setting, though. Plus lots of points for that.

Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

While I enjoyed this "fairy tale for adults," and while it did kick me into a fantasy mood, the work itself was by no means the best fantasy I've read. In fact, it's not often that I say this, but I think I liked the movie better. The characters were more alive, the plot was structured better, and the ending was more satisfying. I found the rising action, and, especially, climax of the graphic novel highly disappointing; it was as if, after everything hinted at, there was no real danger and excitement. The pictures were pleasant, of course, but, for me at least, superfluous; they had none of the "add to the story" element that Scott McCloud argues for in comics, so I had a hard time believing it could be classified as a graphic novel rather than just an illustrated one. On the other hand, it took about an hour to read, so it wasn't that much of a waste of time.

Self-Help & Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore

Lorrie Moore is one of the best, most consistent writers I read. In fact, she's one of the only short-story writers (along with T.C. Boyle) that I consistently read and enjoy. I've now read Self-Help, the collection of stories written mostly during her master's program, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital, Birds of America, and Anagrams, and thoroughly enjoyed them all. Her stories are funny, real, tinged with melancholy, and basically perfect in every way. Highly recommended.

The Journey, by Jiro Osaragi

Like many of the other Japanese novels I've read, this was so dense and slow as to be, for an American reader, boring. I'm sure it was deep and significant in its own way, but I'm not even entirely sure I finished it, I found it so turgid and difficult. Sorry, Osaragi-san, sorry, Japan, but no thanks to this one.

Under the Volcano, by Malcolm Lowry

This book is summarized on my list of book to write blog entries about as "That one really boring book about alcoholism that I hated and didn't really understand and now can't remember the title or author of, except that there was an "M" somewhere. Shoot, what was it?"

I think that just about summarizes how I felt about this book.

Maus I & II, by Art Spiegelman

I'm going to treat these as one, because they so obviously should be, seeing as how they tell the same story, in the same style, and the second is merely a continuation of the first.

That "merely" might imply that I'm going to say something disparaging about these books, but far from it! They were incredible: engrossing, well-drawn, well-written, and, frankly, much deeper than I thought a comic book (excuse me, "graphic novel") could ever be. Spiegelman explores not only the story of the Holocaust, drawn in excruciating detail, despite the comic cover of using mice, cats, dogs, fish, frogs, and pigs instead of Jews, Germans, British, French, and Polish, but also the story of his troubled relationship with his father, who, despite his noble and resourceful actions during the war, is now the living stereotype of a miserly, racist old Jew. (The scene in which the father characterizes all black people as thieves is particularly compelling.) This double-story exploration adds a richness to the work that is sometimes lacking in other artistic treatments of the Holocaust, since it allows Spiegelman to ponder both the war and its aftermath, Jewish suffering both then and now. The Holocaust has been, some say, done to death in books, movies, songs, plays, art, and nearly any other medium you can think of, but Maus stands among the best, if not the best.

Making the Most Out of College, by Richard J. Light

I had two major problems with this book:

1. I expected it to be advice for college students. The title certainly promised as much. And yet it read much more like advice for university administrators, taking student comments and suggesting what the college should do. How should a student follow the advice (connect extracurriculars with class experience, live with diverse groups of people, take classes from great professors, have great advisors) if those opportunities don't exist on their campuses? And how should a student follow the advice to find great professors and great advisors if there are none, or, alternately, if they don't want to cater to undergrads.

2. It was fairly tailored to the Harvard experience. Things like "live with diverse groups of people" don't automatically happen at other schools, and indeed can't. (Not to draw too much on this writer's experience, but I graduated from BYU, and, trust me, we just can't get the same level of surface diversity that Harvard can. Whether that's good or bad is a topic for another post.) And a lot of this stuff about senior papers, amazing professors, good advisors, etc, sometimes can't happen at other schools (as pointed out above). Moreover, other colleges are dealing with students perhaps slightly less primed for intellectual exploration and potential fulfillment; what, then, are they supposed to?

But, you know, I am not the target market. I'm sure that if this book had a title making its target market a little more clear ("Making the Most Out of College: the College President's Guide"), it would be a perfectly enjoyable read. As it was, I was glad when I finished it.

Babyji, by Abha Dawesar

It's an interesting idea--an Indian schoolgirl seducing female classmates, maids, and older divorcees--but, sadly, one so implausible as to be nearly unenjoyable. Maybe it was the writing, which failed to either catch my attention or, I thought, appropriate flesh out the characters, beyond the most literal sense, but I thought the idea failed. I didn't see why the main character, the Babyji of the title, was so attractive to all these other characters, as I myself found her an entitled and pretentious little prat. Why didn't her parents catch her? Why did older women, even, fall for her? Why would a sophisticated older man like her friend's father the army colonel be interested in her? Dawesar failed to answer any of these questions sufficiently for me, and so this book has already faded in my memory, only two weeks after reading it. I definitely wouldn't count this among the flourishing of Indian fiction in English.

Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys

I think this book became famous mostly because of its politics: as a post-colonial retelling of Jane Eyre from the perspective of Bertha, the mad wife in the attic, here re-imagined as Antoinette Cosway, a Caribbean islander of English descent, who suffers through family tragedies and is married to the controlling Mr. Rochester as a financial help to her remaining relatives. Though the conceit is clever enough, I found the book itself not only tiresomely preachy and "deep," but also vague and, frankly, boring. Though there's fodder enough here for millions of discussions about colonialism, feminism, identity, etc etc etc, there's not enough story for discussions of, well, plot. Books like this are the reason everyone hates high school English.

Goodbye, I Love You, by Carol Lynn Pearson

I found this memoir far less compelling than I expected; having dated and madly loved a gay man for some time myself, I anticipated being heavily involved, emotionally, and in fact had avoiding reading this for that reason--why would I subject myself to heartbreak all over again?

Instead, though, I found that this book depicted, gracefully and deeply, Carol Lynn's pain, but didn't touch my own. Whether that's because Carol Lynn and I are so different, or whether it's because Gerald and my gay man were so different, or whether it's because of a flaw in the book's style or presentation, I couldn't say. (I suspect, though, that a lot of it has to do with the differing personalities; in spite of Carol Lynn's obvious love for Gerald, I found him rather unsympathic. Not to say, of course, that he deserved anything he got, just that I couldn't quite empathize with Carol Lynn's decisions to stay with him and support him and nurse him. Basically, I didn't share the adoration.) In the end, though, this was a well-written and interesting book which stopped somewhere short of "moving." In fact, the scenes I found most personally touching were those related to the LDS Church: when Gerald is dying and Carol Lynn is taking care of him, the local ward is mobilized to help her. CL writes, "people who won't even drink coffee have a hard time understanding homosexuality and AIDS, but they don't have a hard time understanding suffering and need. Mormons have been trained to deal with disaster since pioneer days. They can mobilize a hundred wards to get out the sand bags against a flood in half an hour. And where other floods happen, private floods that leave you adrift, they can get there in a hurry too." Generally, the issues of Mormonism and homosexuality leave me slightly confused and depressed, but this passage, more than anything else I've read or felt recently, made me proud to be a Mormon. May such active mercy continue in wards around the world.

These Old Shades, Devil's Cub, The Nonesuch, Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle, by Georgette Heyer

There's hardly any point in talking about these works separately, as they all run together in my head. Not that that's a bad thing: Georgette Heyer writes the books of my early adolescence, the books to which I skipped gym and chewed gum and suffered through algebra. They are only a tiny stairstep down from Jane Austen in their social observation, humor, and light touches of romance, and, in the latter criterion, whole stories above the average bodice-ripper. They are smart, sassy, and, strange for something so old-fashioned, sophisticated. Of these four, The Nonesuch is probably my favorite, followed closely by Devil's Cub--the scene in which the romantic heroine shoots the romantic hero is not to be missed.

In any case, if you are, like me, a compulsive reader with a strong sense of the ridiculous and a soft spot for a romance, you'll love Heyer. Try 'er!

A Dirty Job, by Christopher Moore

It's nice to be able to count on an author. Christopher Moore, for instance, consistently produces highly imaginative and amusing works of light fiction; you can count on him to entertain. A Dirty Job is no better, and no worse, than Lamb or Bloodsucking Fiends or The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove: a quick read, jam-packed with fantasy and humor, a, frankly, delightful combo. Great vacation reading.

The Clothes They Stood Up In, by Alan Bennett

Bennett's real talent must lie in drama, because, as pleasant as this simple novella was, it could hold no candle, in literary merit, depth, or even entertainment value to History Boys. The story of a bourgeois couple who return home to find all their stuff missing ultimately lacked soul, though its tidy moral of love-yourself-explore-your-surroundings was heartening enough. I don't recommend it, though; any number of other books share its moral, and at least one shares part of its plot (The Accidental, a far better work). Just go see History Boys instead.

Status Anxiety, by Alain de Botton

I loved Alain de Botton's other books (The Art of Travel, How Proust Can Change Your Life), and this one was no different. De Botton is a thinker, articulate and wise and funny all at the same time, and the books are a pleasure, every single word. In case I haven't spoken highly enough of him already, let me just say that, after reading Status Anxiety, I thought that maybe Thoreau wasn't so crazy after all.

Disclaimer

I haven't been writing very regularly since I left Indonesia, but it's still a goal of mine to write a review for every book I read. Therefore, I'm going to write a series of super-short reviews (some probably 3 or so words long) just so I still keep to my goal.