Space Station Mir

50. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky The Perks of Being a Wallflower was recommended to me back in high school and I never got around to it. When I finally did, I thought it might have been too late. Then, I started reading. Charlie is truly an unforgettable character. His view of the world is heartbreakingly open and thoughtful, curious as a baby and much more articulate. But the atmosphere that he evokes, of one small group, one facet within a high school builds an incredibly intoxicating, and, for me, nostalgic atmosphere. His friends are quirky and interesting, they're real people. And Chbosky seems to know that even when things get complicated, in spite or because of all the intense fear and sorrow that teenagers are capable of feeling, things can still feel like magic, or in Charlie's words "infinite." I don't think I can write a very unbiased review of this book. To me, it felt poetic, lyrical, pitch-perfect. I suspect those who are ...

49. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman I've been meaning to read Gaiman for several years now, and I finally did. This was the first Gaiman book that was ever recommended to me, and I borrowed it recently from a friend. Neverwhere is the under London odyssey of a bumbling British straightman known as Richard Mayhew. He is told to beware of "doors," which take their form as a girl named Door from the underworld, whose family has the power to open anything, and for that are slaughtered, leaving her as the only survivor. She is dogged by malicious henchmen from the underworld known as Croup and Vandemar, and seeks protection from the roguish Marquis de Carabas and legendary bodyguard Hunter. Richard is pulled into her world and must leave his ordinary life behind to help her complete her mission to avenge her family and achieve his own desire to return to normalcy. Gaiman's writing is undoubtedly the best part of the book, he has a wit and penchant for the absurd that for ...

I had to modify this week's topic for the Broke and the Bookish Top Ten Tuesday meme a bit. Lately, I'm an inferno of book lust, despite a lot less time for actual reading, since I'm working 2-3 jobs/internships, plus grad applications, which are thankfully almost over. I did finish Neverwhere and The Perks of Being a Wallflower recently, which had both been on my to-read list for many years, and am more than halfway through The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. I hope to get reviews up at some point, but we'll see. 1. Divergent by Veronica Roth Sounds like a great dystopia novel with a kick-ass female protagonist. 2. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern Heard such great things and I am a fan of beautiful, magical writing. 3. The School of Night by Louis Bayard Heard him speak at the National Book Festival and am totally hooked by a tale of sixteenth century rogues and DC academics. 4. Out of Oz by Gregory Maguire I loved Wicked , heard Maguire r...

48. And So It Goes, Kurt Vonnegut: A Life by Charles J. Shields I had the opportunity to meet Charles J. Shields and his wife Guadalupe at The Writer's Center in Bethesda, MD. The only authorized biographer of Vonnegut was a wonderful speaker, I wished I'd had him to speak the rest of the book to me, for as thorough and direct as his prose is, plus a prodigious knack for hitting all the most interesting details, his speaking was even more entertaining. In the Introduction, he writes of his first attempt to convince Vonnegut that he was a worthy biographer. His initial plea produced a mailed self-portrait from Vonnegut, with the caption “A most respectful demurring by me for the excellent writer Charles J. Shields, who offered to be my biographer.” In person, Shields recalled that it was his wife who "fastened on the word 'demurring'" and convinced him to try again, which he did with success. That little tidbit was left out of the book, as were the details of...