Reading Update!

I have been reading, I just haven't been blogging it.  Yet.  Here I am to rectify that situation somewhat.  One-handed!

I mentioned in an earlier post my interest in a book called John Dies at the End by David Wong (now a movie too).  Well I bought it and read it.  It was enjoyable.  The premise is basically David Wong and his friend John are sort of Ghostbusters, figures like the brothers from the tv show 'Supernatural'.  Except they are painfully average underachievers.  Typical Gen-X early 20's men; irreverent, immature.  I loved the characters, so normal but reluctantly and sarcastically reaching great potential through circumstance.  This book was hilarious and does a great job of being quite spooky too.  It was witty and clever, crude and disgusting, scary and heart-warming.  A lot of fun.  *WARNING - this is a very adult book!*




I then read a book called Deathless by Catherine M Valente.  I stumbled upon this book while searching for books for WR.  Ms Valente also authored Fairyland books for upper-primary/early teens.  Deathless is definitely adult.  It was enchanting, like a fairytale for grown ups.  The description gripped me immediately, Russian mythology reinvented against the backdrop of 20th Century Russian history - most notably the rise of communism and the siege of Leningrad.  This book was just beautiful in so many ways.  Beautifully written for a start, Ms Valente employs wonderful technique, I was 'falling down the rabbit hole' into her world within paragraphs.  Like a good fairytale, things happen in threes, and her storytelling is poetic.  Some of the scenes are disturbing, horrifying and brutal, but they are such an integral part of the characters and their world, they fit together in a sort of exquisite jarring of beauty and pain.  There are some very profound and bittersweet moments, the characters are not mere fairytale caricatures, they are revealed as complex creatures than grow on you.






Then I went back to the classics and read The Great Gatsby for the first time.  I chose this book simply because I adore Leonardo DiCaprio and wanted to read the book before seeing the movie (still haven't got around to seeing it!).  I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book.  The Gatsby character is wistful and tragic.



Finally, I finished Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment.  A really interesting premise and study of humans and their mental, moral and spiritual conditions.  A great read.



I also started a blog post but never finished or published it about reading Orwell's 1984. A book I'd been meaning to get to for a while.  I very much enjoyed it, though it was overall depressing!  Some of it was so very poignant.  A man who feels like he is going crazy, because he has no sliver of objective truth to hold on to.



I have to leave it there, my household is coming alive now, ready for breakfast!

What's next?  I've started another classic, Auto Da Fe by Canetti, the first few pages have intrigued me.  I'm also reading the non-fiction Math from 3 to 7 about preschool Moscow math circles.