In the past few weeks, I’ve been reading a lot. Maybe because 1) it’s cold outside, and 2) I loaned yurodivuie the PS2. But I’ve noticed that I tend to read books and nearly instantly forget what they say. So, I thought it would be helpful to write about them, while it’s fresh in my mind. Here goes (coming at you like a blitz):

• Thunderstruck, by Erik Larson. “Thunderstruck” generated a lot of buzz when it first came out, so I was really excited to read it. I finally finished it last week. It’s good, but certainly not Larson’s best work. He uses a similar style to “Devil in the White City”, telling two stories that begin at very different places, then slowly, (and stunningly) converge. But this time, the two stories seemed pretty unequal. Marconi’s story is interesting, until it’s cast opposite a story full of sex and murder. Then it just feels like science class. It’s possible I’m being too critical; Larson still does a great job of breathing life into Victorian age, and his writing is still full of the impending sense of doom that makes his other books so damn hard to put down. Ultimately, while the book is good, I know it’s not as good as the two books he wrote before this. For one thing, it took me more than a day to finish. For another, I was able to sleep at night: “Isaac’s Storm” was so compelling yet disturbing I couldn’t sleep for two nights after I finished reading it.

• The Ladies of Grace Adieu, by Susanna Clarke. I really liked “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell”. It was great– dry British humor and faerie magic! There was just one problem… the length (the paperback version is over 1,000 pages long.) I think a lot of people who start reading it never get to the ending, because the story kind of lags after the first 200 pages or so. The solution, of course, is a book of short stories. The stories have the same flavor as her novel, but in manageable pieces. Also, many of the stories add detail to characters from the novel. (And who doesn’t love a story collection every now and then?)

• Cradle to Cradle:Remaking the way we make things, by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. This is not the kind of book I usually read, but Daniel suggested it. Most books even remotely concerned with environmentalism leave a bad taste in my mouth. I get really tired of being told what to do if I care at all about nature, when really, this is not something that’s fixed on an individual level. (I feel a lot like the guy in this article, “I’m Doing My Inconsequential Part For The Environment”.) This book suggests something seemingly obvious: instead of constructing things the same way we always have, and then trying to sloppily recycle them, why not try to manufacture thing that will be good for the environment? Why not create items that are infinitely recyclable? The book itself is a great example. It’s not printed on paper, but on some kind of plastic resin. It’s a little heavier than a normal book, but it’s waterproof, the pages are whiter, and the material will not degrade through multiple recyclings. Profit and environmentalism don’t have to be mutually exclusive. It’s a pretty compelling argument, and puts more responsibility for the environment on manufacturers, while keeping the bottom line in mind. It’s an easy, but interesting, read.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 1st, 2007 at 9:14 am and is filed under Books, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.