Nineteen Minutes

So, I had to give up my Elizabeth I and Marilyn Monroe biographies. I walked out of the library with 1 new book - Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. This book was recommended to me by one of my colleagues, a 5th grade English teacher. It's about a school shooting. As scary as they are, there's something alluring about reading a fictional story about one. I'm 100 pages in and I'm enjoying it. We'll see how the other 300 pages go :-)

A Handmaid's Tale

I finished this novel just a few minutes ago. I thought I wasn't going to finish it tonight, but then I ended up reading for a solid 2 hours. I just kept looking forward and saying, "Oh, I only have another 10 pages. I can do this..." I didn't realize that the Historical Background on A Handmaid's Tale was actually part of the story. I thought it was going to be something about Margaret Atwood researched something to write the book, but then I realized - wow, this part is important! It basically explains what exactly was going on. Poorly. After such a detailed, interesting, breeze of a novel, I was hoping for some explanation of chronology, the wars, what religion had to do with everything.....alas, no luck! But it wasn't as disappointing as Teacher Man. I'm not as let down since I didn't really know what to expect for an ending. All "Historical Background" aside, I was satisfied. I can make up a nice, neat little ending. The Black Van is part of the underground. Offred manages to escape somewhere else, somewhere better. I liked that Serena Joy and the Commander were scared at the end. I liked that Nick turned out to be a good guy...so far as we know. (But working for the Eyes! My goodness!)

I'd rate this book 9/10.

(I'll be rating books I finish from now on.)

Too Many Books, Strangely Too Little Time

While on vacation, I picked up more books than I could read. This was surprising considering all the time sitting in the airport, sitting in the airplane, sitting in the hotel room, sitting sitting sitting waiting waiting waiting. My biggest obstacle: the tv. The TV screams, "Look at me! Listen to me! Me me me!" and it makes it really hard to read. I suppose books and TV have been at odds with one another ever since TV was born.

Nonetheless, I finished one book...and it wasn't even a book I completely enjoyed. It was Teacher Man by Frank McCourt. When I was in grad school, a fellow student raved about this book. The professor agreed - it was a wonderful book about teaching. And as I read it, it seemed to be more about Frank McCourt's personal life rather than teaching. He shared a few stories about his students, but moreso about his personal life stories he shared with his students. Okay, they were amusing, but as a reader, I expected to read about teaching, not a personal life autobiography of sorts. I guess that's why I didn't enjoy it. The disappointment overshadowed what was probably a good book.

I'm currently reading A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. It's been on my "MUST READ" list for at least 2-3 years. I love dystopian novels - 1984, Fahrenheit 451 - I could read them all! As soon as I actually had some quality time to read the book, sitting in a hotel bed in Vancouver with my husband (who's reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson), I whizzed through 50 pages in less than an hour. I have to return the book in 3 days. I hope I'll find the time to read the rest before I have to return (or renew) it.

I still have 2 books left and both have been renewed once. One is a biography of Elizabeth I and the other is a biography of Marilyn Monroe. These are lengthy books, requiring time and attention to detail. I guess I'll renew them again...as long as I can renew them to read them. I don't want to give them back and then forget that I wanted to read them. Or *gasp* someone else take them out for weeks at a time so that it won't be there when I'm finally ready.

What can I say - I'm a greedy reader and library user.