Review: Moloka'i

Years ago, as was my habit then, I was wandering about aimlessly in Barnes & Noble while waiting on an appointment when I came across Moloka'i by Alan Brennert. I was intrigued and liked the first chapter, but when I put it back on the shelf for all intents and purposes it became lost to me. I would try fruitlessly to search for "hawaiian books about leprosy with a big pink flower on the cover" without any luck. It wasn't until the middle of a sermon illustration at my church when someone mentioned "Molokai" that it clicked, and I have to say, the book was well worth the wait. It follows the life of Rachel Kalama, a young Hawaiian girl living at the turn of the 19th century diagnosed with Hansen's disease and sent to live on the infamous leper colony, Kaulapapa. But there's plenty in this vast novel about the regular routines of life, friends, family, World War II and racism.

Genre: Novel

Plot: the plot was quite good for its "slice of life" genre of historical fiction; deep characterization was sprinkled with some unexpected twists to make it a satisfying, though somewhat linear, read. In other words, it was good the first time around, but not really worth rereading. I do praise him particularly for having tackled so vast a subject (one person's whole life) in an engaging, quick way. This was not a Ken Follett novel, but nor was it focused on a small portion of her life, either. Equally, he chose to write about both the grief and the joy of life, and struck a pleasant balance between the two.

Structure: The story is centered on Rachel Kalama, from roughly age 7 until the end of her life; with such a large scope, the chapters would have been unwiedly but Brennert wisely chose instead to tell a few significant scenes from a group of years. The overall effect was a large collection of colorful anecdotes woven together, such as when grandparents tell stories of their own lives. It was a pleasing touch, especially with the highlights of Hawaiian legend and political/historical details added to really enhance the narration.

Execution and Style: Brennert was a competent, capable storyteller; he was neither overly grandiose as some would be tempted to revert to in describing the Hawaiian backdrop, but nor was he particularly innovative. He did treat the descriptions of the medical victims with both candor and tenderness, which is one of his greatest strengths. We are told of their plight but in a way that is neither demeaning nor superficial. He sprinkled in a few native Hawaiian words which could have been a major pitfall, but he executed the device well enough.

Theme: Hawaii, especially Hawaii right before it became a United State; leprosy; World War II (Pearl Harbor, Japanese internment camps); Hawaiian mythology

Read This If: you're not afraid of a tear-jerking historical fiction, or ever wondered what Magnum, P.I. would be like with less cheese and more medical traumas.

4 out of 5 stars.

Other Works:
Honolulu
Kindred Spirits
Time and Chance

If you liked this, you might also like:
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
Kathleen Tyau's Makai
Kiana Davenport's House of Many Gods
Yoshiko Uchida's Picture Bride

Iliad 2.0

Yesterday I spent over 12 hours in a Uhaul. I occupied some of that time reading a book on the classics. When my fiancé Nicholas asked, "so what did Paris do after Helen was taken from him?" I jauntily proceeded to retell the Iliad in the most ghetto fabulous way ever as a war between preps and gang lords (warning, some language used for comedic effect):

So Zeus got word from an oracle that one of his sons would bustacap in him, just like he did to his father. So he finds out that Prometheus knows and tortures him to find out which ho he gots to avoid. Turns out it's Thetis, so he shacks her up with Peleus. Unfortunately Zeus forgot to invite Eris, the goddess of discord, at this big Olympian shotgun wedding sort of like that one bad fairy in Sleeping Beauty. Anyway, this royal goddess like totally snubs them by throwing an apple marked "to the fairest" into the mix, and a mega catfight ensues.

Athena, Aprhodite, and Hera claw the other girls out of the running and go to Zeus to pick the coolest shorty of them all. But Zeus knows Hera will be a royal bitch if she doesn't get picked, so he's all like, "I ain't touchin' that bitches." All the other gods do too. So these three catty women all find Paris, this shepherd/frat boy/playa in Troy. They each promise him like, a whole hood to himself, or a badass reputation, or the love of the most beautiful ho in the whole world. Paris picks the last prize and Aphrodite gets the apple. She forgot to tell him that this girl, Helen, is actually already married.

See, Helen was so damn beautiful, her daddy was battin' off playas left and right. So he finally made them all have this big aggro fight and swear they ain't gonna go after the winner. Menelaus brushes all the other haters off and gets the girl. Yay for him.

But then Paris rolls up and is all like, "ho, come ride wif me" and she's all like "okay pimp" so they go back to Troy. Menelaus is all like, "dude that is messed up" so he goes to his brother Agamemnon and is like "go get us a crew and let's go kick Trojan ass."

So they assemble ALL their homies and storm down to the Trojan hood, except that well, it's a really rich hood so they have this huge wall. The Greek gang can't get in, so they basically tool around for 10 Freakin' Years.

In the middle of year 10, the Greeks are stormin' down this one town and they take a girl named Chryseis to be one of their hoes. But Chrysie's dad is like, this major big shot and stuff, so he offers all these Benjamins to get her back. When they don't give her, he calls down some networking skills and gets this nasty virus spread around them. So then they're all like, "oh snap what do we do?" and their oracle dude Calchas is all like, "give back Chrysie" so Agamemnon is all like, "well if I give her back one of y'all's gonna give me a bitch" and Achilles is like "that's so like you, dawg, you always be trippin on us." So then Achilles and Agamemnon have this huge aggro and Achilles goes off and pouts in his crib.

So since Achilles isn't fighting anymore, the Trojans are all like "sweet action!" and go down and really lay on the smack on the Greeks. Caps be bustin' every which way. So Agamemnon goes to Achilles' cousin, Patroclus, and is all like, "yo dawg, put on Achilles' chains and roll up in his chariot and they'll get all shitfaced." So he does, except, the Trojans totally call his bluff and he dies.

So then Achilles gets uber-pissed and starts slaughtering everyone. All the homies just about die. So then Hector, the best Trojan prince of all, he goes out and fights Achilles and gets killed, but then Paris kills Achilles, so everyone's dead now.

So Odysseus, the smart one, he comes up with this ghetto-tastic plan. They build this big-ass horse and leave it in front of the gates, and the rest of the Greek crews go sailing off. The Trojans think they won and so they have this all-night rave and get hammered. But then the Greeks totally bust down the horse doors and bust everyone's balls and basically take over the Trojan hood. Except for this one dude, Aeneas, but that's a whole nother story.

And so all the Trojans were killed but their condoms were good so the Greeks took all those and went home. Which is actually yet another story.

Review: La Cucina

Ah, Sicily: land of great food, great wine, and large women who enjoy them. Rosa Fiore is one such woman, who leaves her quaint, anecdote-laden family farm for an even quainter city after the murder of her lover. Many years later, her drab life gets a breath of fresh air when L’Inglese, her English lover, ignites her passion in the kitchen and in the bedroom.

Genre: Novel

Plot: This was one of the rare books that I initially disliked but grew to enjoy as the story progressed. Usually, if I don’t like something within 50 pages, I put it down. I don’t care how famous it is or how much controversy it’s caused; if it’s not gripping me within 50 pages I’m not going to read it. By the end of the first section, I couldn’t really see the point of reading on (everything seemed so neatly tied together), but I’m certainly glad I did. This charming, almost quaint novel actually packed some deep surprises by the end!

Structure: The novel is told by Rosa Fiore in the first person. It’s divided unequally between 4 periods of her life, named after the four seasons in nature, with the bulk of it occurring in section 3. Perhaps the best choice on the author’s part is that the majority of the story happens to Rosa in middle age. In a world where staying 17 forever is the ultimate fantasy, this is like a breath of fresh, hormone-free air. The book also employs in media res, my absolute favorite literary device when used correctly and my most abhorred when not. Thankfully, Prior did it right.

Execution and Style: Prior’s first chapters start strong, but as I mentioned earlier, by the end of the first chapter it seemed oddly flat. There was no hook to keep reading other than the bulk of pages behind my hands. Only in the middle did she begin to throw out chunks of suspense and unanswered questions.

Also, there’s a fine line between authors building a sense of authenticity when mixing two languages (in this case, English and Italian) and, conversely, just coming off as know-it-alls. Prior fell in the latter half. In fact, her constant switching between the two actually caused some mental disorientation. I kept asking myself, why is this Italian woman thinking in English?

Scores of characters make an appearance throughout, but remarkably, none feel too flat (even the pervert bank manager, who emerges only to masturbate in the adjacent window to the action). This large cast of comical, quaint characters—along with the dreamy, larger-than-life events that kept occurring (a fire caused by a sex dream which gets the whole town horny?)—almost enticed me to go off in search of an Italian farm to work on. But the most important secondary character of all was the food constantly streaming from Rosa’s hands. Prior did a wonderful job of interjecting long, descriptive recipes in prose form; I’m pretty sure I actually salivated at one point.

Theme: Large Italian women cooking large Italian meals pretty much sums this one up. But if that’s not enough for you, there’s also the Mafia, libraries, chattery grandmas, horny grandpas, pizza millionaires, clairvoyant Siamese twins, and James Bond-like English spies/lovers. And the food. Did I mention the food?

Read This If: you love Italian cooking, or are looking for a “feel good” type of story but lent Chocolat to a friend. A word of caution, though; if you’re expecting a serious historical fiction novel about true-life 1960s Italy, this isn’t for you. Seriously, it’s a great read that’s just quiet enough for a relaxing break between suspense/thriller novels but wth just enough excitement to be worth your while.

3 out of 5 stars.

Other Works:
Cabaret
Nectar
Ardor

If you liked this, you might also like:
Joanne Harris’ Chocolat
Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love
Natsumi Ando and Miyuki Kobayashi’s Kitchen Princess series (manga)

Review: Rasputin's Daughter

I’ve never been a huge fan of those “_______’s Daughter” (it’s a literary meme by now) books, mostly because the few I’ve tried left me rather unimpressed. So when I saw this volume by Robert Alexander, I was intrigued but not hopeful. By story’s close, however, I was left breathlessly closing one of the best books I’ve read this year. Alexander presents a story of the infamous Rasputin’s final days through the ever-changing eyes of his daughter, Maria, who is inevitably caught up in palace intrigue and secret societies herself.

Genre: Novel

Plot: One word sums it up: gripping. I’ve never read a character-driven novel such as this with so much suspense. Or, I guess conversely, I’ve never read a suspense novel laden with so much characterization. Either way, it was incredibly good, and one of the few books I can truly use the cliché “page-turner” on. The fact that educated readers will know what happened to Rasputin in no way diminishes the storytelling which is, in my opinion, the mark of an excellent writer.

Structure: The narrative structure is mostly story-within-a-story, as Maria Rasputin recounts her father’s last days upon request to another character. Maria’s recollections are interspersed with mysterious, foreshadowing interjections by an unknown narrator revealed only at the very last paragraph, which makes for a rather exciting element of mystery in the narration enhancing mystery in the characters themselves. On a technical note, each (each!) chapter ends on a significant and haunting note that successfully pushes the reader forward or creates a yearning to keep reading.

Execution and Style: Alexander has mastered the balance so many historical fiction authors struggle with: how to write an English novel with a non-English-language-setting. Put in too much italicized vocabulary, and the reader is lost. Put in too little, however, and the La Cucina effect occurs: why is this (blank)-speaking character thinking in English?

Alexander’s superb style immerses you not just in Russian language, but in Russian thinking, and yet somehow does so without feeling blocky or wooden. Alexander also excels at voice. 17-year-old Maria living at the early part of the 20th century actually reads like her, not a modern man trying very hard to become her.

What I found most interesting about this book though, and what really pushes it high up on the list for me, is how Maria’s vision of her father keeps shifting from naïve adoration to disgust to finally a mix of both. Alexander is not content to paint us a picture of a cleverly connived Rasputin; instead, he strives to give us a complex portrait of an undoubtedly complicated man.


Theme: The final days of Tsarist Russia, but also fathers and daughters. It touches briefly on Christian sects of Russia, too.


Read This If: you like good historical fiction, good suspense, or good character-driven stories. Seriously, I can hardly think of a reader out there who wouldn’t enjoy it on some level, but I suppose if you are a really big fan of this era of history, you will enjoy it the most.

5 out of 5 stars.


Other Works:
The Kitchen Boy – his first novel about this period
The Romanov Bride – his latest
The Todd Mills Mysteries (written as R. D. Zimmerman)

If you liked this, you might also like:
Sarah Dunant’s The Birth of Venus

Author Alert! J. Maarten Troost

Every once in a while I find myself in a bookstore, idly wandering the shelves and noting books of particular interest to me. I have to say that despite the proverb, I usually do judge my books by their covers.

So you can imagine why someone like me, who is always looking for a laugh and has spent some time in China, couldn't resist peeking into the pages of Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost.

The guy is hilarious. Several times I chortled and chuckled and quoted lengthy passages to my fiance, who I'm sure was half-amused half-annoyed by my persistent interruptions. He soooo well captures the bizarre, almost inexplicable spirit of being in China; the befuddling contradictions and culture confusion that so pervades even the simple(?) act of crossing the street or watching television.

He makes me laugh, but he also makes me smile in fond memory. I can't wait to read more of his stuff, and I think you should too!

Lots of updates today; I added the featured pages list--I really need a clever title for that--and I culled the salvagable book reviews I had archived over at LJ. Some of them I will need to reread, almost all of them will need to be rewritten to the new format. Looks like I'll have plenty of work to keep me busy for a while.

I'm very excited about this new blog, though; it's something I've been mulling over for a while now, and I'm glad it's finally coming to fruition!

The Top Shelf

If you couldn't gather already, I read a lot. Just as wine connoisseurs enjoy the pleasure of the drink itself, I too enjoy the process of reading for its own sake.

But like sommeliers, I too have my favorites, the few books that I will take the time to read multiple times or that I will readily recommend to just about anyone. These are the reviews that get 5 out of 5 stars.

That's what this page is for; these are the cream of my literary crop, so to speak, the very best of the best. It's not about how old they are or how many weeks they spent on the New York Times' Bestseller List (does that even mean anything anymore?); these are my personal favorites, my treasures, the masterpieces I've stumbled upon.

Here is a list in progress:
Rasputin's Daughter - Spellbinding historical fiction
The Gum Thief - Witty and unlike anything you've ever read
The Rose and the Beast - Ingenious prosetry and imagination
Under the Table - Cooking + Memoirs = recipe for success
The Christian Mind - Intriguing, scathing look at modern Christianity
Til We Have Faces - A masterpiece from a cherished author
Christianity for Modern Pagans - Passionate, powerful, and profound
The Cross of Christ - Will forever change your view of the atonement; theologically sound and a literary triumph
The Time Traveler's Wife - Beyond beautiful; a perfectly realized romance
The Dogs of Babel - Haunting; lingers with you far after the last page
Snow Falling on Cedars - Another achingly beautiful work with excellent drama
First Love - Unparalleled in its creativity and execution
The Philosopher and the Druid - historically accurate storytelling

What's On My Shelf

Here's where I keep my collection of recommendations. Have one for me? Reply with a comment and I'll add it to them list!


Fiction
by far my favorite category

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Birth of Venus - Sarah Dunant
In The Company of a Courtesan - Sarah Dunant
The Blood of Flowers - Anita Amirrezvani
The Future of Love - Shirley Abbott
The Island - Victoria Hislap
Wild Nights! - Joyce Carol Oates
Twilight - Stephanie Meyer
New Moon - Stephanie Meyer
Eclipse - Stephanie Meyer
Breaking Dawn - Stephanie Meyer
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
World Without End - Ken Follett
The Tale of Murasaki - Liza Dalby
Time Lottery - Nancy Moser
Dark Intergers - Greg Egan
Molokai - Alan Brennert
Love's Apprentice: The Romantic Education of a Modern Woman - Shirley Abbott
The Pilgrim's Regress - C. S. Lewis
The Virgin Queen's Daughter - Ella March Chase
Sundays at Tiffanys - James Patterson
Peach Blossom Pavilion - Mingmei Yip
After Dark - Hauruki Murakami
Handle with Care - Jodi Picoult
Snow White, Rose Red - Patricia Wrede
Lilith - George Macdonald
The Light Princess & Other Fairy Tales - George Macdonald
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
The Prestige - Christopher Priest
Tithe - Holly Black
Lilah - Marek Halter
Mary - Marek Halter
And Only To Deceive -Tasha Alexander
A Poisoned Season - Tasha Alexander
The Piano Teacher - Janice Y. K. Lee
In the Courts of the Sun - Brian D'Amato
Honolulu - Alan Brennert
Firebirds Rising (anthology)
The Invisible Man - H. G. Wells
Chocolat - Joanne Harris
The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Lavinia - Ursula K. LeGuin
My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult
The Dog of Marriage - Amy Hempel
The Dangerous Husband - Jane Shapiro
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
Waiting - Ha Jin
Leonardo's Swans - Karen Essex
Babette's Feast - Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
Shanghai Girls - Lisa See
Rabbit Proof Fence - Doris Pilkington
The Magic Christian - Terry Southern
The White Queen - Phillipa Gregory
Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger
American Fuji - Sara Backer
Invasive Procedures - Orson Scott Card
Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld
Pastworld - Ian Beck
Steampunk - Ann & Jeff Vandermeer
The Witches of Eastwick - John Updike

Non-Fiction
because all play and no work makes Ashley dumb
Blink - Malcom Gladwell
Your Brain on Music - Daniel Levitin
Letters to Malcom, Chiefly on Prayer - C. S. Lewis
All Truth is God's Truth - Arthur Holmes
The Cost of Discipleship - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Heretics - G. K. Chesterton
The Sociopath Next Door - Martha Stout
Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
Candide and The Maid of Orleans - Voltaire (B&N Classic Edition)
Love and Respect - Emerson Eggerichs
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus - John Gray
A Year in Japan - Kate T. Williamson
Mind Wide Open - Steven Johnson
The Dawkins Delusion - Alastair McGrath
When Did Jesus Become Republican - Mark Ellington
American Jesus - Stephen Prothero
The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff
The Te of Piglet - Benjamin Hoff
The Philosophy of House - Henry Jacoby and William Irwin
The Philosophy of Jesus - Peter Kreeft
A Shorter Summa - Peter Kreeft
The Problem of Pain - C. S. Lewis
Miracles - C. S. Lewis
Wishful Drinking - Carrie Fisher
Dumbest Generation - Mark Bauerlein
A Hope in the Unseen - Ron Suskind
Picking Cotton - Jennifer Thompson-Cannino
Long Way Round - Ewan MacGregor & Charley Boorman
Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost
The Sex Life of Cannibals - J. Maarten Troost
Getting Stoned with Savages - J. Maarten Troost
The Man Who Made Vermeers - Jonathan Lopez
The Untold Story of the New Testament Church - Frank Viola
Living in a Foreign Language - Michael Tucker
Nightengales - Gillian Gill
How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth
St. Basil the Great on the Holy Spirit
In Two Minds - Os Guiness
The Philosopher and the Druid - Philip Freeman
Saving Face - Andy Robin
Under the Table: Saucy Tales from Culinary School - Katherine Darling
Blossoms in the Wind - Juliet Lac
My Life in France - Julia Child
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles - Jennifer Lee
A Severe Mercy - Sheldon Vanauken
Mini-Skirts Mothers & Muslims: Modelling Spiritual Values in Muslim Culture -Christine Mallouhi
How to Cook a Dragon - Linda Furiya
The Unlikely Disciple - Kevin Roose
The World Without Us - Alan Weisman

Shakespeare:
it's a lifetime goal to read everything on this list
The Tempest
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Measure for Measure
The Comedy of Errors
Much Ado About Nothing
Love's Labour's Lost
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Merchant of Venice
As You Like It
The Taming of the Shrew
All's Well That Ends Well*
Twelfth Night or What You Will
The Winter's Tale
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
The Two Noble Kinsmen
King John
Richard II
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Richard III
Henry VIII
Troilus and Cressida
Coriolanus
Titus Andronicus
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Julius Caesar
Macbeth
Hamlet
King Lear
Othello
Antony and Cleopatra
Cymbeline

The 2009 Shelf

This is an annual post I will keep updated throughout the year. I'll try to link this list to actual book reviews when possible. Anyone want to offer me anything special for getting to 100 by Dec 31?

1. The Commoner- John Burnham Schwartz
2. Enchantment by Orson Scott Card
3. Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs
4. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
5. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep? by Phillip K. Dick
6. The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
7. The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff
8. The Future of Love - Shirley Abbott
9. Time Lottery - Nancy Moser
10. The Moon Opera - Bi Feiyu
11. American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon - Stephen Prothero
12. The Mermaid Chair - Sue Monk Kidd
13. Love's Apprentice: The Romantic Education of a Modern Woman - Shirley Abbot
14. The Everything Wedding Book - Shelly Hagen
15. The Artful Bride - April Paffrath & Laura McFadden
16. Beautiful Wedding Decorations & Gifts on a Small Budget - Diane Warner
17. How to Have a Big Wedding on a Small Budget - Diane Warner
18. Dark Intergers - Greg Egan
19. Tender Morsels - Margo Lanagan
20. Sundays at Tiffanys by James Patterson
21. The Philosophy of Jesus by Peter Kreeft
22. A Fatal Waltz: A Novel of Suspense - Tasha Alexander
23. Wishful Drinking - Carrie Fisher
24. Lilah by Marek Halter
25. La Cucina: A Novel of Rapture by Lily Prior
26. The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn by Janis Hallowell
27. Guinevere's Truth and Other Tales by Jennifer Roberson
28. Rasputin's Daughter by Robert Alexander
29. Travel Well by Christine Aroney-Sine
30. Molokai by Alan Brennert
31. The Sex Life of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost
32. Friend Raising by Betty Barnett
33. The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee
34. The Prestige by Christopher Priest
35. Intended for Pleasure by Dr. Ed Wheat & Gaye Wheat
36. St. Patrick of Ireland by Phillip Freeman
37. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
38. The Witch of Cologne by Tobsha Learner
39. Waiting by Ha Jin
40. Mary of Nazareth by Marek Halter
41. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
42. Tithe by Holly Black
43. The Rose and the Beast by Francesca Lia Block
44. The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland
45. Bound by Donna Jo Napoli
46. Nymph by Francesca Lia Block
47. Leonardo's Swans by Karen Essex
48. Under the Table by Katherine Darling
49. Sex God by Rob Bell
50. Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis
51. The Philosopher and the Druids by Philip Freeman
52. Bento Box in the Heartland by Linda Furiya
53. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8 Lee
54. Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip by The Waiter
55. Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
56. Getting Stoned with Savages by J. Maarten Troost
57. Lost in Planet China by J. Maarten Troost
58. A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanuaken
59. A Year in Japan by Kate Williamson
60. Othello by William Shakespeare
61. How to Cook a Dragon by Linda Furiya
62. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
63. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
64. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
65. A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine by John K. Nelson
66. Real World by Natsuo Kirino
67. From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics by Louis
Markos
68. Bar Flower by Lea Jacobson
69. How the World Makes Love by Franz Wisner
70. Japanese Legends
71. The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose
72. The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama
73. Clever Maids by Valerie Paradiz
74. Murder in the Cathedral - T. S. Eliot
75. Percy Jackson and the Lightening Theif - Rick Riordan
76. Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters - Rick Riordan

Someday, when I get a bigger blog with an actual dot-com, this will be it's own page.

Introduction!

Hello world!

Welcome to Shelf Life, a book review blog!

Shelf Life is a different kind of book blog. It’s a fun, informative blend of literary criticism, humor, library science, and movie reviews with an extra dash of reader’s interest stuff thrown in for good measure.

Most of the literary blogs I’ve seen are too divorced from the act of reading, the pathos of it, to really be of much use to me. Or the opposite error occurs, and it’s so full of book-club discussion questions and how-did-this-symbol-make-you-feel that I have no sense of whether the book was worth my time or not.

That’s why here at Shelf Life, I write my reviews based on four criteria: plot, structure, execution and style, and theme. At the end of each review, though, I’ll give you my overall opinion on it in the Read This If section, and even if I hate it, I’ll suggest other, similar books that I think you’d like if you enjoyed this one. It’s sort of like that thing on Amazon.com, only not driven by capitalism. Each review is tagged by title, author, and rating.

The books that I rate 5 of 5 are given the Top Shelf, and you can find them in a special page all their own. I may even try to write up some book-group type discussions about these since I love them so much.

But this blog is also about my personal reading life. If you’re ever curious as to what’s on my To-Read List, check out the What’s On My Shelf post. It’s an ongoing, constantly updated list of various books I’d like to read (I cross them out when I’ve read them). Whenever I wander Barnes and Noble, or whenever I’m given a suggestion for what to read next, this is where it lands. If you have some for me, I’d love to hear it! Also, the Yearly Shelf is where I keep track of what books I read each year in the order I read them. If they have a review attached, I’ll link it!

I have a great passion for books that started as a child and just never seemed to fade. Now it’s time to share this passion with the rest of the world.