Monday, January 11, 2016

What I'm Reading

I talk too much about orchestra and music. I talk about orchestra and music so much that I'm afraid of making people who read this blog hate orchestra and music because I talk about nothing but.
So here's me talking about books, because we all love books, right? Pretty much everyone reads, reading is universal.

The Martian by Andy Weir [2011]
So far I'm REALLY liking this one. It's so fun and interesting. I can see some people not really liking it because there is a LOT of science rambling which makes non-science-y people (like me) want to skim some paragraphs. For me though, the punchy dialogue, fun characters, and overall tone are all worth skimming through some jargon. Very fun, very interesting read. I'm only about 20% into it right now, so I can't wait to read more!

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck [1939]
[sigh] This book has taught me one thing. That you can utterly love and hate a book at the same time. John Steinbeck and I share a hometown, so I grew up with his giant, painted face staring at me from the various murals throughout town. The writing in this book is powerful and touches on issues that are still important today. The characters are somewhat interesting, and Steinbeck has got a great talent for description. But it's also bleak and hopeless and I'm find one of the characters who I'm supposed to like absolutely disgusting and horrible. Tom Joad is pretty interesting, though. Sorta like him.
But I'll finish it because I don't like being a quitter. C'mon, Monica... you're more than halfway there, si se puede!!!

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray [1847-8]
Probably my favorite book that I'm reading at the moment. Thackeray's writing is so sardonic, so dryly witty, so... accessible! To put it bluntly, he writes the way people talk. Very bouncy, and even self-aware at times! Towards the beginning, he writes something along the lines of- "I can just see some critic right now scribbling into his notebook that this novel is awfully boring". There are so many writing gems in this book. It's 700+ pages long, but well worth it. And I'm not even halfway through, haha!!

No comments:

Post a Comment

I have enabled comment moderation, but you have nothing to worry about unless your comment has swearing, vulgar language, or is rude and uncourteous.
Feel free to subscribe to follow-up comments, since I'll probably respond sooner or later.
Oh, and if you're commenting with the anonymous setting, please leave a name or alias at the end of your comment, so that I can have something to call you. :)