Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really liked this until the end. It’s like I read a literary fiction book but suddenly wandered into an Agatha Christie ending. Perhaps it is a play on Linley copying Mozart at the end, but maybe I’m reaching.

View all my reviews

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is pretty short and it's beautifully written. I don't like grouping books like this as "romance" because it is so much more than that, but let's just say it's not for group-audiobook-listening.

View all my reviews

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Um... no. I think it was supposed to be scary, but it wasn't. The implications were gross I think? Or maybe nothing? I don't know, but I could have, maybe should have, skipped this.

View all my reviews

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

White Teeth by Zadie Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like the main characters and I like the *idea* of the interactions between the main characters: Alfred Hortense Archibald Jones, Clara Jones (especially Clara), Irie Ambrosia Jones, Samad Iqbal, Alsana Begum, Magid Iqbal, and Millat Iqbal. The first family is part native English and part Jamaican immigrant, the second family is Bangladeshi-English. And Smith writes really well. So right at the beginning, it seems like this will be an amazing book.

But then the story starts meandering, and then more and more characters and relationships get piled on, and suddenly we're exploring genetically-altered mice. And I just wanted it to end for so many pages.


View all my reviews

Antimatter by Frank Close

Antimatter by Frank Close
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a very short book about antimatter, but it took me a really long time to read because it was very difficult to understand in places. The beginning gave the impression of being more of a popular science book with lots of bad jokes and whatnot but things grew in complexity to the point where I was rereading certain sentences again and again. I don't regret reading it because its specificity to antimatter makes it different than the more general physics material I've read (like when I read that book on black holes, The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics), but it was tough going.

It's also almost 10 years out of date now, so if I really want to know about antimatter, I'm going to have to update myself on the more recent discoveries.

View all my reviews

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an easy fun Shakespeare play about love. There are two love stories, but I enjoyed the more comical one of Beatrice and Benedick the most. It's not terribly feminist, and I'm left feeling a bit cold for Claudio, who, in addition to jealousy and trust issues, doesn't seem to mind a replacement bride quite as much as he should.

"In brief, since I do
purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any
purpose that the world can say against it; and
therefore never flout at me for what I have said
against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my
conclusion." - Benedick

With Jaime at Much Ado at Shakespeare in the Park, Boston 2004

Much Ado at Shakespeare in the Park, Boston 2004

View all my reviews

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a brilliant essay about writing and feminism, and it made me feel like cheering on Woolf. That said, I struggled with the fictional elements inside of the nonfictional essay.

Favorite quotes:

“Possibly when the professor insisted a little too emphatically upon the inferiority of women, he was concerned not with their inferiority, but with his own superiority. That was what he was protecting rather hot-headedly and with too much emphasis, because it was a jewel to him of the rarest price.”

“They start the day confident, braced, believing themselves desired at Miss Smith's tea party; they say to themselves as they go into the room, I am the superior of half the people here, and it is thus that they speak with that self-confidence, that self-assurance, which have had such profound consequences in public life and lead to such curious notes in the margin of the private mind.”

“The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”

View all my reviews

Richard II by William Shakespeare

Richard II by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this one to be the most straightforward of Shakespeare's War of Roses plays that I've read so far. ( I previously read the three parts of Henry VI.) It was much easier to follow the action, though it was not the most interesting play. The entire scene with Duke York trying to turn his own son Aumerle in seemed a bit unlikely.

"GAUNT:
O! but they say the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention like deep harmony:
Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
He that no more must say is listen’d more
Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;
More are men’s ends mark’d than their lives before:
The setting sun, and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past:
Though Richard my life’s counsel would not hear,
My death’s sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.”

View all my reviews

The Quiet American by Graham Greene

The Quiet American by Graham Greene
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This novel is great. There's so much to it that I'm not sure how to review it.

[Full disclosure: Graham Greene's The End of the Affair is currently my favorite book ever, and has been for 10 years, and probably 500 books. But The End of the Affair is not an ambiguous book like this one.]

A huge part of the book is about the foreign involvement, diplomacy, and media in Saigon during the Vietnam war. To a small degree, it's also about the Vietnamese people at that time. It's more about religion and ethics, and the evils of relativism. It's about the inability to really know other people, and possibly even to know ourselves? It's about the different ways people understand - or misunderstand love. It's a crime mystery.

It's just very good! But The End of the Affair is still my #1.

View all my reviews

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This just didn't need to be 600 pages long. 100-200 would have been sufficiently long to convey all the major plot points and good sentences. I gave it an extra star for social commentary/ defense of the poor. All theatrical productions of Oliver are superior to the lengthy book.

View all my reviews

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Most of these stories were extremely well-written and powerful. She can do simple and powerful, and she can do crazy magical realism.

View all my reviews

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is super interesting, but after reading it I am not any smarter than when I started.

"Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant - in the blink of an eye - that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work - in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?"

I don't know!

The psychologist predicts whether a marriage will last has been scientifically studying it for years. The tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault was an expert but just magically started seeing it without knowing why. The antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance had expertise but did so contrary to the science.

But even if you're an expert- don't trust your immediate reaction! All the politicians thought Warren Harding would be a great president and he was terrible. And there is the example of when police make huge instinct-based mistakes that result in them shooting unarmed, innocent civilians. We respond differently if we are subconsciously primed, a thing we fail to notice so we probably can't protect ourselves against.

The whole section on Coke and Pepsi seemed especially irrelevant and boring.

View all my reviews

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A lot of interesting things to consider, but I can’t swallow the reduction and even near-banishment of suffering as synonymous with slavery. The first clue is when you consider pure slavery is synonymous with suffering. The second clue is that Huxley’s world isn’t a real improvement in suffering, as for example, when we cured polio. No one would legitimately claim we were in any way better off with polio. Instead, Huxley’s world is devoid of true joys like parenting and full of things that bring momentary pleasure like sexual encounters devoid of intimacy and drugs. So in that regard, he fails to sell me.

On the other hand, the Brave New World is more similar to the current world in 2017 than it was in the 1930s when it was written. The dogma of capitalism and positivity as religions does appear to rule our society for the worse. So as pure prediction Brave New World succeeds.

View all my reviews

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

At first, I loved this book, and it felt very modern, but as it continued it was just too much sex and conversations about sex. The first few conversations about sex were interesting in that the woman seemed so real and I was impressed with Lawrence's grasp of a modern woman. But later conversations about sex left me feeling like maybe Lawrence was actually missing the boat entirely. Also, it just became overplayed. The over-emphasis on sex made it feel decidedly not modern.

View all my reviews

My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Cute and funny. Really a love letter to Jeeves. This is like a melon ball shot on top of my reading binge.

Most of it takes place in New York City, but it has this fun mocking quote about Long Island which is still mostly true 100 years later: "The days down on Long Island have forty-eight hours in them; you can't get to sleep at night because of the bellowing of the crickets; and you have to walk two miles for a drink and six for an evening paper. I thanked Rocky for his kind hospitality, and caught the only train they have down in those parts. It landed me in New York about dinner-time."

View all my reviews

Swing Time by Zadie Smith

Swing Time by Zadie Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is very layered. I feel like I could read it again and still get so much out of it. It's very political but it's also open-ended. The characters all have different perspectives and are constantly calling each other out for what they perceive are the wrong views or actions. So, a lot like real life. Wonderful writing.

View all my reviews

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This one often looks beautiful when you see it performed because of the woods and the fairies, but the plot is so messy I have trouble concentrating. Poor Hernia and Helena, the play does torture those women in the name of comedy.

View all my reviews

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

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this last super exciting installation of the Harry Potter series. There are some powerfully courageous parts, wonderfully romantic parts, and devastatingly sad parts in this book.

I was perpetually counting the Horcruxes though, trying to remember what had or hadn't been destroyed. At the time, I was also a little confused by the subplot of the Deathly Hallows (though ultimately it makes sense). And slight spoiler (but it's been over a decade since publication): I was also confused by the fact that technically there wasn't a Gryffindor Horcrux and there were technically 2-3 Slytherin Horcruxes. I also thought Harry Potter jumped to some crazy conclusions sometimes, some that weren't even necessary to further the plot. This last one could have been slightly edited down and the plot could have proceeded a little bit more logically. None of that matters.

I loved it. I loved it just as much on a reread.

P.S. It might be my favorite of the 7 books. Here's my 7 books ranking: 7, 5, 4, 1, 3, 6, 2.

View all my reviews

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (#6) by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's hard to believe that Harry is so clever about so many things, and he is not at all clever about the title of this book. Sigh.

Why does Dumbledore not have his own Marauder’s Map? Why does Harry tell adults everything he sees but not mention the disappearances?

This one is also more upsetting to read after having experienced the illness of a loved one than it was the first time I read it. In general, it's not a super fun one to re-read.

View all my reviews

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (#5) by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am rereading in 2018 and holy cow Rowling saw the future when she wrote this. I know that’s because she wrote it about the past, but even so, so much in this one relates to modern politics and resulting personal interactions. This one in the series is particularly enjoyable because it’s about the resistance and the resistance leaders and headquarters.

View all my reviews