Ronny's 2007 book list

[Janet]

I read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle a few years ago. I felt like I might have understood it better had I read it under the influence! It was just so weird.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I loved Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. The key problem is that it's so long, and sometimes the plot seems to get lost under the other stuff. Although that's sort of inevitable with Murukami. The reason I may pick A Wild Sheep Chase ahead is that it's shorter, although possibly even more weird.

 

Norwegian Wood is a great book, I think, but is in many ways quite un-Murukami like. It's a "proper" novel, rather than one with all the bizarre and weird stuff going on. It still has some classic Murukami stuff, including the amazingly dispassionate, maybe also unpassionate, descriptions of sex. But I'd go for something else first, probably.

[Amanda1]

Andy, are you reading my thoughts?

[Freewheeling Andy]

If I am, I'm unaware of it. I am sitting at the bottom of a well somewhere in South London, with a baseball bat and a cat for company, though.

[Amanda1]

That just made me shiver

[Ronny]

A Short History of Tractors in the Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka

 

I was a bit late getting around to this one, I just finished it last night, I enjoyed it. Like others have mentioned I thought it was an amusing, quick, easy read. I enjoyed the characters and snickered at several of the scenes of family drama. I don't know if I'd read it again or consider it a favorite but I was not disappointed by it at all, it was just as I had expected it to be.

[Ronny]

England's Mistress, the Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton by Kate Williams

 

I really enjoyed the first part of this book but somewhere about midway I started to lose interest. I found myself skimming through paragraphs and by the end through some whole pages. I think the book had some very interesting parts and I did enjoy the glimpses of everyday London for the rich & the poor of the time but wish that the middle had been trimmed up a bit.

[Ronny]

Wow, I've been slacking on this, I guess it's been a busy few weeks

 

Liars' Club, was ok, it was very much like 'person of dubious parentage' Out of Carolina and Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, it was a memoir of a horrible childhood survived with some humor intact. I may have just read a few too many of these but it was not bad just too much like the others.

[Ronny]

If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (unfinished)

 

This started out well, the first few paragraphs were quite amusing but at some point it lost me and I just couldn't push my way though. I was disappointed because I know a few folks really liked this book and I wanted to but couldn't.