Kindling it up
I’m usually a voracious reader, but the last year was a slow one for new books. I was in school, leaving me with limited reading time, and I was on leave from the library, making it much less convenient to grab things that caught my eye or pick up recommendations.
Two things happened at the same time in April to push me back over to the reading side: I finished classes, and my mother lent me her Kindle for my three months in Berkeley. It was pretty much the perfect scenario for an ebook reader: three months away from my own collection and library card, limited suitcase space for bringing books with me or home again.
Once I got to California, I was spending an hour and a half a day on the bus, with no homework looming and new books only a click away. In the eight weeks I spent at OLL, I read about 17 books. This is actually my last weekend with the Kindle—as you can see in the photo, I wrote this sitting at the airport—so the flight was my last hurrah with the Kindle before it goes back to my mother. Luckily, I’m back at the library so I’m hoping I can keep up the pace even though I’m now juggling two jobs.
How do you feel about ebook readers? Do you have one? Do you want one? Do you feel they are an affront to books? I love paper books way too much to ever give them up, but I like having the choice between ebooks and the old-fashioned kind. The only time I don’t like ebooks for traveling: take-off and landing, when I inevitably find myself with nothing to do because all I brought is electronics. But that brief annoyance aside, I’ve really enjoyed my Kindle experience, and I thought I’d share some reviews with you all.
Almost Like Being in Love, by Steve Kluger
I picked this one up because Steve Kluger’s first young-adult novel, My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park is one of my top three YA books of all time and possibly one of my top ten favorite books of all time. (Seriously, at one point in that book I actually kicked my feet and squealed.) Almost Like Being in Love didn’t quite manage to vault to the very top of my list, but it was nonetheless a wildly satisfying read with extremely well-developed characters. I think I like Steve Kluger’s books so much because they’re the kinds of books I try to write myself. He, of course, is much better at it than I am.
Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde
I waited a long time for this book. It was delayed, and I was way down at the bottom of the library waiting list, and I kept forgetting to look in the bookstores for it. I love Jasper Fforde’s other books—the Thursday Next series, which begins with The Eyre Affair, and the Nursery Crimes books, which start with The Big Over Easy. Shades of Grey is definitely less zany than his other books, but still takes place in a fascinating alternate universe. In this world, everything is based around a hierarchy of color. Everyone in this society can only see one color, and some colors have more value than others. It reminded me a little bit of The Giver, by Lois Lowry, an absolutely wonderful children’s book that you should all read immediately. The books are wildly different in tone, style, audience, and plot, but the idea of seeing color and how we take it for granted runs through both books, and it’s totally fascinating.
Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow
This book is set in the Bay Area, so even though I wanted to read it sooner, I saved it until I got to Berkeley. It’s set in a dystopian alternate universe where terrorism strikes San Francisco and sends the U.S. into a tumultuous police state. The setting is absolutely vivid, and it was both incredibly cool and ridiculously creepy to read about the BART tunnel collapsing (that happens early, don’t worry) while riding BART. Setting has always been one of the weak points in my own writing, so it was nice to read a book with such a strong sense of place. Little Brother is technically a young-adult book by most listings, but I know many adults who totally loved it, me included. It’s quite tech-y, but I found it immensely readable and compelling.
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