Lots of love books these days

Title: The History of Love

Author: Nicole Krauss

Did I like it: Yup, but it felt more frivolous than Shadow of the Wind

Should you read it: Its interesting and unusual, I'd say go for it.

Synopsis: Mainly following the lives of a funny old dude and a young girl both living in the same city.


This was a good book, a nice read, I was drawn into it, and was sad to finish it.  However it doesn't even come close to Shadow of the Wind.  This book was lent to me by the same friend who lent me SotW, so maybe thats why I'm comparing them in my mind, because really they are very different books.  I suppose they are both about love, but they approach that topic in different ways, are set in different times and places, and have very different types of characters.


Regardless, SotW was an amazing book (which you should read) which means that even though this book isn't quite as good, its still really not a bad book.  Actually, its a pretty good book.  At times it was very funny, at other times sad.  I really liked the 'old dude', enjoyed his morbid humor.  I just didn't fall in love with him the way I did with Fermin in SotW.  You should read this book though.  If every book you read was amazing you wouldn't appreciate them as much.


Side notes:


Apparently the author is married to the guy who wrote Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, another book you should definitely read, which is interesting because 1) the books sound similar now that I think of it and 2) my brother's friend who was staying with us while I read this book was reading that book. Also, I read this book in Israel.  I'm trying to remember where I started it, probably the first night I was there, but I've found that jetlag-induced sleepyness makes my memory bad.  Anyway, it'll be interesting to come back and read it when I'm not in a different country.


Lastly, this is not the book that I mentioned in my previous post that was boring me.  I left that book at school over break.  Maybe I'll pick it back up when I get back, I do hate stopping books in the middle, but it was making my nighttimes boring.

A meta book

Title: Among Others

Author: Jo Walton

Did I like it: Yes, but I'm not super excited about it the way I was about Shadow of the Wind

Should you read it: Bibliophiles will like it, and others may as well.

Synopsis: A teen who loves to read and sees fairies starts at a boarding school following a mysterious incident.

I think my favorite part of this book was the discussions of other books.  The book is overdue, but I'm going to sit and make a list of all the books mentioned before returning it because the discussions were so enticing!  The only unfortunate thing is that the book is set in '79/'80, so no recent books are mentioned.  

I personally didn't like the mentions of fairies but perhaps that is because the fairies are difficult in the book, and I'd prefer them to be easier.  There were also parts of the book that were painful to read, but in a good way, a way that books need in order to feel like you read something worthwhile instead of something frivolous.  

Like I said above, if you like reading, especially scifi, definitely check out this book. I feel like I'm sort of glossing over this post and I feel bad about it.  I finished the book a while ago at this point but just haven't had the time to post because of my thesis, and the book has already faded into my past.  On top of that I'm really not enticed by my current book and may (gasp) stop reading it and switch to another...  We'll see.