Weekend Brunch – Happy New Year 2010 Edition

I finally saw one of Stephen last night, after seeing a few with just Jon. And you’re right – it was definitely a cute promo commercial :)
You’re welcome! I think you’ll enjoy Jacobs – he has another book called The Year of Living Biblically where he tries to follow all the rules of the Bible, which I do plan on reading. They stuck a quote by Jon Stewart on the cover of The Know-It-All; I figure if it’s got Jon’s approval, it might be worth checking out LOL.

I saw in a post below that you read a book by Sarah Vowell. Did you like it? I’ve wanted to read her ever since I saw her on TDS – she was fantastic. I know I’m supposed to be giving you the recommendations lol, so I thought of another one. I read In My Hands by Irene Opdyke in a Holocaust History and Lit class I took last semester and I thought it was excellent. It’s a nonfiction about a woman who helped rescue Jews during the Holocaust. And The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is always a classic.

Awesome, I’ll definitely have to check out one of her books, thanks!
Y’know, I never have time to listen to “This American Life,” and I really wish that I did. For one, I know that David Sedaris is a regular contributor, and I know it’d be a great way for me to hear so many different styles of stories.

Stephen as Al Gore? I L-O-V-E when Stephen does voiceover work (I love his reading of “The Lie” and Wigfield the most), so that audiobook already sounds fantastic!

Hmmm, well it still depends very much on your mood, but here are a few things I’ve read or re-read lately and enjoyed:

For history-related stuff, I really liked The Lost City of Z, by David Grann. He was one of the most boring TCR guests last year, IMO, but the book was excellent. I’d also recommend Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory (on Pat Tillman), which was simultaneously infuriating and incredibly thought-provoking; Daniel Ellsberg’s Secrets (his memoir on how he went from administion insider to leaking the Pentagon Papers) was similarly heart attack-inducing and thrilling. I suppose while I’m on the subject of military or policy-related history, I should mention The Candy Bombers again; I really enjoyed that one (by Andrei Cherny, about the Berlin Airlift). And just in general for the non-fiction stuff, I thought William Kamkwamba’s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind was a delight (about the boy from Malawi who built a windmill to power his family’s farm); the big payoff part when he was at the TED Global conference was heartwarming. And since you liked The Wordy Shipmates, I’d recommend Assassination Vacation, which I think is hilarious.

On the fiction side of things, I read Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna last month, which was an interesting and imaginative tale about a boy who grew up in Mexico and mixed paint/plaster for Diego Rivera’s frescos, was a confidante of Frida Kahlo’s and befriended Leon Trotsky while he was a guest in the Rivera-Kahlo home. It was an absorbing story, although I think The Poisonwood Bible remains my favorite of her novels (to be fair, that’s one of my favorite novels, period, so that’s not to diss The Lacuna). I also re-read a number of Jasper Fforde books (really a blast if you’ve read a lot of “classics” and like totally unorthodox mixtures of literature, satire and slightly twisted pop culture references), as he has a new book out and I was thinking of his older stuff when I saw it at the bookstore. Same goes for Elizabeth Kostova, who has a new book out next week; I re-read The Historian because I’m looking forward to her upcoming book tour. If you’ve read Bram Stoker’s Dracula, then Kostova’s story about Vlad the Impaler and his legacy is a cracking good read. (It’s probably good fun even if you haven’t read the Stoker, but I appreciated the structural echoes, with the multiple narrators, etc., that I would have missed if I hadn’t read the Stoker.)

Since this is already getting insanely long, I’ll stop, but … you get the picture. :)

You’re welcome — let me know if you like them!

By the way, when I got home last night, I remembered that I also enjoyed reading The Dangerous World of Butterflies, by Peter Laufer. He was on TDS last year, too.

I read a bunch of more “literary” novels last month, too, so if you’re interested, The Magus (by John Fowles), The Emperor’s Childern (by Claire Messud), 2666 (by Roberto Bolaño) and Bridge of Sighs (by Richard Russo) were all quite good. I didn’t mention them in the last comment because it was getting too long, as I said, but also because … well, all of them were highly critically acclaimed, and I understand why. That said, I’m still of two minds as to just how well I liked them. Open-ended narratives and complex, not necessarily sympathetic characters are sort of a hallmark of a lot of critically acclaimed novels, but it’s definitely a matter of personal taste to figure out whether they’re what you might be looking for as a story, if that makes sense. Anyhow, I thought they were all impressive, but it’s a bit more of a question whether they’ll suit your taste (I thought 2666, in particular, was pretty experimental).