Space Station Mir

29. The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria First, to boost the scores on my quotas, I am counting this as a 2009 book. No, hear me out. The edition I read had a very long forward written in 2009 that significantly affected the views and relevance of the book. In the wake of the recession, Zakaria has an even stronger argument for the "rise of the rest" and the problems with American overconsumption. Besides, the hardback first edition came out for the first time in late 2008 anyway. So there. I am attracted to Zakaria's idea of a world working toward economic globalization and more questioning and competition in global politics. I certainly think it's an accurate observation that this is the direction of the future. Actually, I would think it naive for anyone to believe otherwise. But how does Zakaria back this up? With lots and lots of statistics. Now, obviously he needs hard facts to support him, but not only was most of the information probably obsolete when it ...

28. East of Eden by John Steinbeck This American fable based on the story of Cain and Abel has often been touted as one of the best, if not the best, Steinbeck novel. I would have to concur. Steinbeck uses the Salinas Valley in California as a symbolic backdrop to the story. In the opening scene, he introduces two sets of mountains, the western range kind and inviting, the eastern range cold and forbidding. Steinbeck encouraged me to look at Cain and Abel in a different way. As he and his characters note, it is one of the most difficult to comprehend stories in the Bible, probably along with the attempted sacrifice of Isaac. It goes against our notion of what we want God to be. Why did God reject Cain's offering? Although we must condemn Cain for his own action, since he has free will, the Ultimate Father figure seems to have unnecessarily provoked murder by showing favoritism. Then again, the Torah is all about the favoritism of the chosen people. So perhaps the story is not so su...

27. Valencia by Michelle Tea I am perhaps not the kind of girl that one would expect to be reading a Lambda Award winner for Best Lesbian Fiction. Not because I have anything against lesbians, but I am generally averse to stream-of-consciousness, whiney memoirs, and overkill sex scenes. At risk of gushing, I will say I found Valencia beautiful in language and spirit. Even though it fit all the aspects of a book I would most expect to find contemptible. The opening seemed to prove my hypothesis, that it would be pretentious and vulgar. Tea describes how "little tsunamis of beer" cascade down her T-shirt one night, as she tries to impress a girl she is crushing on. Typical fucked-up girl memoir, trying to use pretty language to seem meaningful, I thought. Backtracking to why I was reading it in the first place...I saw it in the library and remembered an old friend had raved and raved about it. Figured it was different from my usual stuff and gave it a shot. You can look at Vale...

26. A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain I really read this because a) it's Mark Twain, but b) the book I found in my school's library is the ORIGINAL EDITION with what looks like an inscription by the man himself, but must be printed, I guess. I want to steal it, even though it is kind of falling apart. I'm really surprised it's available for loan, I feel like it must be valuable. Though there is a hell of a lot of Mark Twain's oeuvre flying about the antique books world. I even took it to Revere Beach this weekend, where I decided a nice read on my towel would be preferable to the water. The waves looked good, but I was chilly from my vantage point. This is Twain's rant on his "pedestrian" tour of Europe. He is all about the personal touch, it's more a catalog of his experiences than a guidebook, but it's somehow still not incredibly insightful into him as a person. Which I am okay with. Twain uses his dry humor, usually effectively, to talk about th...

25. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett "The small boys came early to the hanging" is the captivating first line. Even though I decided I didn't like this book a few chapters in, I kept reading for nine hundred some pages. Follett is a "hook" writer, he draws you in with a provocative statement, shakes up the plot, and moves on to a different character to shake up the plot again. As far as scope and cast go, it greatly reminded me of a Michener novel, but without Michener's talent for intimate description. I disliked most of the characters for large parts of the book. I've said before, the characters are always most important to me in the novel. If I can't find a character to love, the book won't be a favorite. What The Pillars of the Earth has going for it most are the time period and setting. Follett chose an interesting and unusual time to write about, 1135-1174. The Middle Ages in England, after William the Conqueror and before Richard th...