Reviews and Comments

I was at the Fremont Sunday Market and saw this book, it looked interesting, sounded interesting, and I loved the passages I skimmed, so I bought it, after finding the right guy to give my $5 to. Then I went to add it to GoodReads but didn't have it on me, and couldn't remember the title. I couldn't find it in the Pulitzer list, even though I was pretty sure it had a Pulitzer sticker on it, so on a whim I Googled "best books of the decade" and this book was one of the three covers on the first result. Google skills for the win. Once I actually read it (I'm currently in the midst of [b:Middlesex|2187|Middlesex|Jeffrey Eugenides|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266448283s/2187.jpg|1352495] and [b:The Perks of Being a Wallflower|22628|The Perks of Being a Wallflower|Stephen Chbosky|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167352178s/22628.jpg|2236198], and [b:The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay|3985|The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay|Michael Chabon|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1226235457s/3985.jpg|2693329] is also in the running), I'll actually review it.

I have looked for and wanted to read this book ever since reading about it in an introduction to one of Niven's short story books. He mentioned it as one of his favorite books he'd written, which seemed to me to be a pretty good endorsement. So when I was once again scanning the shelves as I was browsing a bookstore, I was excited to see it - one battered old copy - sitting up there on the Powell's shelf. I snatched it, and soon thereafter read it on a trip to the east coast.

As expected, the book was excellent. A wonderful collaboration between [a:Jerry Pournelle|39099|Jerry Pournelle|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1216417671p2/39099.jpg] and [a:Larry Niven|12534|Larry Niven|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1182720933p2/12534.jpg], it is everything good sci-fi should be: clever, suspenseful, insightful. The moties serve as both a foil for ourselves, and a backdrop to test what we as a society will do in extreme situations. It's also full of all kinds of great sci-fi gadgetry, physics that is well-balanced and integrated into the story. The aliens are fascinating creatures, and their development and characteristics explore the what-ifs about what could have happened if our own evolutionary ancestors took a different path, veered left instead of right. And behind all that, there's a quick, suspenseful, well-written plot that ushers you through everything the book encompasses.

Oof, I haven't reviewed this one either? It's been even longer since I've read most of this one. Goodness.

This book...what can you say about a book like this? It's an epic - Calliope sheepishly admits to her intentions right off the bat, but she fulfills them well - spanning four(ish) generations, and a wide range of cultures, subjects, and individuals. It makes for a packed book, but at over 500 pages, there is ample room for everything that ends up packed in here.

As the title not-so-subtly implies, this book features, and is narrated by, Cal(liope) - an intersexed individual who, having transitioned from female to male, writes a retrospective of her family - not just his parents, but his grandparents, and even great-grandparents, tracing his ancestry - and the genetic mutation that made him who he is - back to its roots in Greece.

But this book is not about an intersexed person. It's not even really about the mutation, or Cal's transition. Cal's ambiguous genitalia serve not as the subject of the narrative, but as a background to what the book is really about - family, identity, tradition, non-conformity, uniformity, commonality, individuality. It's about Greece, it's about immigration, it's about Chicago, about race, about alcohol, about the great melting pot that while promising to accept and celebrate the many colors and cultures that make up this nation, too often ends up just conforming all cultures to a drab grey.

The themes through this book are rich and multifaceted to the extreme. The most noticeable theme, a desire for uniformity and conformity faced with messy, diverse reality, is approached and examined from every angle, shows up in every subplot, as everything is woven together into the narrative.

It was a fascinating book, beautifully written, powerfully thoughtful. One can tell that it was exhaustively researched - no small feat for a book that spans a century of history across three continents - but its settings, both visually and historically, are vivid and rich, and the books' large cast of characters are well-developed.

This book is a delight to read, and an ambitious work of fiction that delivers wonderfully. I want to give it five stars, as it ranks up there with Foer's writing that I simply love. But as others have noted, the last 100 pages are a bit incongruous. Others have suggested that this book was a good short novel, weighed down by the first 500 pages, but I disagree. The bulk of this book is indeed purportedly wrapped around and leading to the end, and we get glimpses of the moments leading up to Cal's current life throughout the book. But after so much fantastic story and investigation of the themes that Cal writes back into his history, after reading the rich retrospective investigation of the themes that Cal traces back through his genealogy, the actual application of those themes is sorely lacking. The book peters out, putting together the necessary components that we've been waiting for, and then exits, as if sorely aware of the fact that it is already nearing 600 pages and doesn't want to bother you with much more than that.

And I'm not really sure that it could have done much better without another 100 pages, and I'm not sure if I would have the energy for that. Perhaps we should chop this book in half - I'll take the first 500 pages, and avoid the blatant, almost mechanical getting-the-pieces-together ending and instead leave it to my imagination, and those who felt weighed down by the bulk of the book can have their short novel, and both groups would probably both be happier.

That said, however, I highly recommend this book. It is fascinating, it is incredibly well-written, and it is a gorgeously put together novel, one whose length you don't feel until the very end. I wouldn't blame you if you gave up on the last few chapters, but don't let that discourage you from reading the rest of them, because they more than make it worth it. And really, at that point, you've already invested so many pages - what's another several dozen?

It's been a while since I've read this book, so we'll see how well this goes. But this book...is [a:Douglas Coupland|1886|Douglas Coupland|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1264509011p2/1886.jpg]. I don't even know the guy, and haven't read any of his other books, but you can just tell that this is the book that he decided to have fun with. And it's a great read. It's hilarious, thoughtful and introspective from time to time, more often absurd. It's a really fun, ridiculous read. As the book progresses, you can't help but shake your head at Coupland's boldness and unashamedness in bending the rules of fiction, but the end product certainly justifies the means, if I can say that without making any greater philosophical statement.

I'm not really part of the generation that this book centers on - I'm a little after their time, I'm afraid - so I'm sure that I didn't connect as well with it as someone who was born a decade earlier might. But as long as you enjoy a good dose of absurdity and a don't mind a plot that doesn't really give a rat's ass where you think it should go next, it's certainly worth a read. It's post-(post-?)modern fiction on the entirely opposite end of the spectrum from the fantastic, elegant, and complex work of [a:Jonathan Safran Foer|2617|Jonathan Safran Foer|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1274633302p2/2617.jpg], but that is in no way a negative difference. It's absurd where Foer is profound, inscrutable in its complex strangeness rather than its strange complexity. And, in a way, he reminds me, just vaguely, of the great [a:Douglas Adams|4|Douglas Adams|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1189120061p2/4.jpg] - in a totally different genre, of course, but if Adams were to write a book about office drones back home in the early 21st century, I imagine it would look something like this.

As a former knowledge bowl kid, this book was right up my alley. It didn't hurt that it was by the delightful Ken Jennings, and is in the same vein as [b:Word Freak|8954|Word Freak Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive SCRABBLE Players|Stefan Fatsis|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1389250256s/8954.jpg|3163711] and [b:The Know-It-All|17562178|The Know-it-all Girl|Joanna Foreman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1362834375s/17562178.jpg|24493822], both of which I loved.

If anyone is going to take your hand and whisk you through the history of trivia, it'd better be Ken Jennings. In addition to being the indisputably most famous trivia persona in the nation - admittedly, not a field with a lot of competition - he's smart as hell, has all the wit you could ask for, and is just a fun, funny guy who knows how to not take himself too seriously.

The book itself is well put together - wandering purposefully but amblingly through the history of trivia, from the first primordial question-answer games to the first of the great quiz shows, through the juggernaut that is Trivial Pursuit with all of its quirks and legal intricacies, up to the modern-day TV pushbutton trivia, quiz bowl, and crazy regional trivia contests. The book is chock full of fun facts and tidbits, but more enjoyably, a whole lot of interesting, quirky, and fun people that Ken meets along the way, gets to know, and introduces us to.

I'd totally recommend this book to anyone, but if you're a trivia fan - be it a pub trivia regular or a knowledge/quiz bowl alum - you definitely need to pick it up.

This is a book that's very different from what I'd been reading, that I really enjoyed, but am not entirely sure why, and I can't review it like I have the books I've been reviewing recently, because it's not the same, so I'm not really sure what to put in this big, empty box.

I read this book after [b:Cloud Atlas|49628|Cloud Atlas|David Mitchell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170360941s/49628.jpg|1871423] and [b:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close|4588|Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close|Jonathan Safran Foer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165446871s/4588.jpg|1940137], which was weird, because this is a very different book, so there was a bit of literary whiplash involved, which wasn't bad at all, but was kind of disorienting. To make things more interesting, Charlie (the narrator here) is superficially similar to Oskar, the narrator in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - they're both youngish, intelligent, kind of socially awkward kids, so I kept getting them mixed up in my head.

So, all that to say, I'm not entirely sure what to say about this book. It's been a (busy) week since I actually finished it, and I'm not really sure where it sits. I definitely enjoyed it, and it's the shortest book I've read in a while. Charlie is an endearing, lovable, open, honest, very interesting narrator, and I really enjoyed following him through his life, laughing, soaring, learning, cringing with him. Chbosky does and excellent job of bringing him to life, making it easy to forget that it's not actually Charlie writing these letters, which is of course how it should be. And Charlie's letters provide an interesting window on all of the interacting subplots and relationships and storylines that make up his life, and the lives of those around him. And more than anything, everything about this book just makes you fall in love with Charlie as he works through his life. Basically, this book introduces you to and lets you get to know Charlie and by extension his friends, and that alone is a wonderful experience.

This book is beautiful, engaging, complex, thoughtful, and moving. [a:Foer|2617|Jonathan Safran Foer|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1274633302p2/2617.jpg] doesn't write books, he crafts them, carefully, attentively, and skillfully. His talent for weaving disparate storylines together into a complex, layered narrative that is somehow still intimately accessible and illuminating was demonstrated forcefully in [b:Everything Is Illuminated|256566|Everything Is Illuminated|Jonathan Safran Foer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298482115s/256566.jpg|886727], and is on full display in his second novel. Except that it's not so much on display as it is underneath, providing a foundation and background that rarely calls attention to itself but enriches the story in a way that has made Foer the well-deserved success that he is.

His first book played lightly with the medium of the novel, fiddling with things like type and interwoven chapters, but this book takes his art to a whole new level. A quick perusal will reveal full-color prints, seemingly random sequences of photos, blank pages, series of pages with a handful of words apiece, pages with pre-circled words, and even pages so dense with type as to be literally unreadable. I can imagine Foer telling his publisher what he wanted to do with this book, getting some very skeptical looks, but pointing at his first novel and getting his way. And I am very glad that he did. Foer has taken his success and used it to flex his creative vision in ways that wouldn't have otherwise been possible, and the result is a sometimes very strange-looking book. At a cursory flip, all of this may appear to be gimmicky, and in the hands of another author, very well could be. But the strength in Foer's art is that as unusual as it is, it never calls attention to itself. Each oddity - the blank pages, the colored prints - is wholly unjarring, and in fact expresses the story in a way that a pure sequences of words never could. It is one thing to play with the form of the novel and push boundaries for the sake of doing something different, and another thing to truly use those deviations to better tell your story and engage your reader. Foer's skill in doing the latter is what sets Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close from [b:Cloud Atlas|49628|Cloud Atlas|David Mitchell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170360941s/49628.jpg|1871423], the last book I read, which also plays with its form - while Mitchell's form was interesting, it often called attention to itself, and seldom did much to further the stories that it told. Foer's form, on the other hand, is often almost invisible, in that you forget that blank pages in books are not how books are supposed to be written, because they convey the story so perfectly. All of Foer's devices feel very necessary, and are used to their full potential, and the story is much richer and better for it.

So what story does all of this form work so well to convey? An intimate, complex portrait of nine-year-old Oskar Schell, who lost his father in 9/11, and the story of his deeply personal journey through the labyrinth of emotions and questions that his father's sudden and jarring departure left behind, on top of the complexities of being a nine-year-old with a mind that never stops inventing. We read, feel, and experience the stories of him and of course the deeply connected lives of his mother, his grandparents, and the other people whose lives he affects and is affected by. Oskar, although he is young, is a very intelligent, thoughtful, and introspective child, and he sets out on a quixotic journey that no one, including himself, really understands, but that he simply must embark upon. As his story - and the stories of those around him unfold - beautifully, slowly, carefully - Foer explores what it means to be human, to love, to lose, to be in relationship with other people.

There is far more than 355 pages worth of book packed in between these covers. It is somehow wholly accessible, readable, and enjoyable, while being thick with connections, contemplation, questions, and quiet introspection. The complexity undergirds the whole narrative, and is always present, but somehow never loudly calls attention to itself. And I swear I didn't plan this, but I just looked over at the cover again...the complexity is, you might say, extremely loud and incredibly close.

This book is a brilliant use of the form of the novel, in ways that few authors attempt and fewer succeed in. But the beauty of it is that these novelties are not why you should read the book - you should read this book because it is a deeply relevant, thoughtful, thought-provoking and engaging story, told exceedingly well. The devices throughout are used carefully and effectively, only when they are needed, and only when they tell the story in a way that words alone cannot. Oskar Schell's story is certainly one that deserves to be so well-told, and one that deserves to be read, thought about, experienced, and treasured.

Cloud Atlas is an ambitious book. It tells six stories spanning what is probably close to four centuries across almost as many continents and vastly differing narrative styles. On top of this, each successive story is contained within the previous one, and you start all six before you finish any of them, and then finish them each in reverse order. It is certainly a complex, intriguing way to tell stories.

But ambition must be matched by achievement, and my four-word review of Cloud Atlas has been "Good, but not great." And that's what it is - it's a good read, and certainly enjoyable. But it aimed for a lot, and I didn't feel like it quite made it there. The six stories were loosely tied together, but they seldom felt unified or really connected, and more often felt like Mitchell realized in the last few pages that he hadn't mentioned the previous story yet. One of the most maddening things about this book is that Mitchell frequently hints at some larger connection, some overarching, supernatural, supertemporal link between the protagonists, where "hinting" occasionally borders on flashing neon signs, but fails to actually do anything about it. At the end of the book, one is left wondering what the point of stringing all these stories together was, other than being able to put six books together in a mammoth 500-page tome and call it an ambitions, puzzley book.

It also feels like the point may have been just that. The stories, in and of themselves, are hit-and-miss as to whether they could stand up on their own. Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery was an engrossing, if not terribly innovative, thriller/mystery, and An Orison of Somni-451 was a well-crafted, if not terribly insightful, sci-fi/dystopia tale. And that's the problem with these stories - some of them could be much better on their own, without being forced to share a book with five other stories and have tenuous connections drawn between them. And I could almost take them as five separate stories of incidentally related figures throughout this history that isn't quite our own, except that Mitchell tries so hard to make it something more than that, and fails to actually do anything with it.

One strength Mitchell does have is in his voicing - writing six books set across four centuries and having them remain distinct and appropriate in speaker and tone is no small feat, but Mitchell does so skillfully. He deftly changes dialect and vocabulary as his subject demands, from a common 1800's accountant to a freethinking member of a psuedo-human android-ish future slave race. This skill, however, is too often marginalized by the overambition of trying to stuff too much story into not enough book, and the obligation of tying them closely together when really, some of them would be better of standing on their own.

Overall, it is a good book - the links Mitchell does draw between the stories are often interesting and make for a good story, but they would be better if he either tried harder to make them something more, or as I think I would prefer, just left them as incidental and not tried to make them more than they were - which is six lives in six different generations that overlapped each other, but only because Mitchell chose to tell his next story about someone that was affected by the protagonist in the current one. If one could ignore the overtures of something bigger happening, and not be too excited about the novelty of the story-in-story dynamic, this is an enjoyable series of short books, that tell often-interesting stories, but don't do much else, because they're too busy trying to be something more.

And in the interest of full disclosure, this review wasn't helped by the fact that I just finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which is a book that masterfully weaves together disparate storylines about interrelated generations across wide swaths of time (albeit not quite four centuries). Foer's narratives, instead of getting distracted by their interrelatedness and losing their purpose to it, instead are strengthened and illuminated by each other, and the interaction and relation of his stories creates a meaning much greater than the sum of the whole, instead of losing its meaning in an attempt to be something innovative. It doesn't have the sci-fi elements, and is certainly a very different book, but it and his previous book Everything Is Illuminated are examples of disparate storylines that lend to and strengthen each other, and feel very purposeful and needed, instead of forced and put-on.

Cloud Atlas is an enjoyable read, but feels like it goes a little bit long. I'm not sure if it's totally worth the investment of 500 pages of time when there are much shorter books that achieve their goals better, but I don't think it's a waste of your time or energy. And I am certainly interested to see the upcoming movie - I think that much of it, at least, could lend itself well to film.

An excellent book, beautifully written, that expertly tells the story of an autistic child and his quest to investigate the death of a neighboring dog. On the way, he finds out much more than he was expecting to, about himself, his family, and yes, his neighbor's dog.

The introduction says that Haddon worked with autistic individuals as a young man, and his skill in depicting Christopher's approach to the world testifies to that. Christopher's quest is one of determination, curiosity, and intelligence, that is thoughtful, intriguing, and often hilarious. It is a very enjoyable and quick read, but still a substantive story. As I write this review that I have left sitting half-finished for months, it in some ways reminds me of the book I just finished, [b:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close|4588|Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close|Jonathan Safran Foer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165446871s/4588.jpg|1940137]. It is lighter, shorter, less ambitious and less complex, but these are not slights on the former book at all, but rather admissions to the excellence of the latter.

The Curious Incident is similarly crafted, and tells a good story well. It is an engaging, intelligent read that is humorous but certainly not trite, and is certainly worth the time it will take you to read through the 221 short pages.

I'm an atheist who grew up Christian, and still has a lot of important people in my life to whom faith is important to varying degrees. As such, I try to read a book now and then just to keep up with the conversation, and see if anything catches my interest or makes me think.

This book did none of those things.

Antony Flew, as it is quite clearly and repeatedly proclaimed, throughout the book and right there in the damn subtitle, was supposedly some sort of super famous atheist. I'd never heard of him, but then again I'm a 20-something so he could have just been before my time. I'd argue Bertand Russel would probably top his notoriety, but hey, snappy subtitles are what they are.

But intellectually, this book was entirely disappointing. Here's what I got out of it: Antony Flew was a philosophical atheist. He was a philosopher first and foremost, and his atheism was rooted in philosophy, which lends itself to a certain kind of argument and reasoning and headspace.

Then Antony made friends with some scientists who happened to be Christians of the Intelligent Design variety, who told him some things about DNA and complexity and probably badmouthed Darwin a bit, and Antony said "wow, DNA is pretty complicated, ID sounds good, guess I believe in a God now."

Which is very confusing, because what popped him out of his atheism had very little to do with what made him an atheist in the first place. How you can be an atheist because of philosophy and then become a theist because some scientists told you some stuff is beyond me.

But in any case, needless to say, I didn't get much out of the book and was not impressed, because ID and the things that were so persuasive to Antony seem to me to be valiant but ultimately pointless attempts to hold on to some vestige of creationism by wrapping it up in sciencey terms, that make no sense unless you're a Christian trying to fit science into your world.

This book has a special place in my heart. Nearly a decade ago, someone pasted the entirety of The Hole Man in a comment on Slashdot, and I printed it out, read it on the bus, and loved everything about it. Looking for more, I originally picked up a copy of N-Space in some used book store in Seattle - probably Ophelia's - and was instantly fascinated. This was the book that really got me back into sci-fi, gave me a taste of what was possible, and fully introduced me to the inimitable Larry Niven and his Known Space. I've since read several more tales in Known Space and have several more on my shelf, and have launched out into many other worlds as well.

I've lost count of how many copies of this book I've bought - I snag a copy whenever I see one for cheap, because I love giving it to people to read, because this collection is a great place to jump in - the stories range from bite-size to excerpts from full novels. I'm sure I'll buy many more in the future.