Monday, July 26, 2010

Personal Fail

Hey fellow bibliophiles - unfortunately I could not find this book at any of my regular book haunts, although I found a few of Mr. Alexie's other works; and I'm not prepared to stoop to shopping at Chapters.

So, yes - I do suck. Hope everyone enjoyed the book. Does anyone have thoughts for August? My dad gave me a book called Shop Class as Soulcraft, by Matthew B. Crawford, which from the sounds of the epigraph on the back might be something like Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

But - I am open to suggestions and I promise to try to do better next month. Everyone gets one.



Sunday, July 25, 2010

Life lesson: Insomnia is good for getting caught up on reading.

I wasn't sure at all what to expect from Diary, and was quite impressed. It almost felt like a series of essays masquerading (successfully) as a young adult novel. Definitely raised interesting and provoking points. Part of me was saying throughout that reservations must be different/better in Canada, which probably proved some of what Sherman was saying.

And just when I thought everything would be going well for Arnold/Junior: BAM, I was stunned by the second half of the book. It was well-written, and no mistake.

My favorite characters were Gordy and Rowdy. Gordy because he didn't mind being the smartest and valued accurate information, and Rowdy because how could I not love someone Arnold/Junior loved so much? When he described climbing the tree, I felt a sudden urge to go out and find a very tall tree and scramble to the top immediately, it was so beautiful.

On the whole, it was a pleasant read, with an ideal balance of light writing and heavy ideas. In that way it reminded me of Can You Spell Revolution?, which is also an excellent read.