One word to describe July's mix of books? Multicultural (I decided the word encompasses Discworld, as well).
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End - Atul Gawande (2014)
"We've created a multitrillion-dollar edifice for dispensing the medical equivalent of lottery tickets - and have only the rudiments of a system to prepare patients for the near certainty that those tickets will not win."
Written by a surgeon, Being Mortal deals directly with death, fatal illnesses, and end-of-life care, making it a somewhat depressing and sometimes uncomfortable read. However, it's also a helpful and necessary read, especially for anyone in the medical field or those who have elderly relatives. Gawande draws from various studies, his personal experiences - both as an observer and as a surgeon - and his family background (his parents were from India) to discuss the issues surrounding mortality and aging, including the balance between individual independence and assisted care.
Related Reads:
Musicophilia (Sacks)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Tolstoy)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz (2007)
"She was my Old World Dominican mother and I was her only daughter, the one she had raised up herself with the help of nobody, which meant it was her duty to keep me crushed under her heel."
It's hard to accurately describe this book's style - it's off-beat and rapid-fire, punctuated with smatterings of strong language and violence, code-switching, and nerd-culture references. The focus is on members of a Dominican Republic immigrant family, with footnotes relating to Dominican culture and history interspersed. Layers of understanding are added as the book cycles through the stories of different family members, and it manages to be striking, evocative, sad, funny, and sage all at once. I related deeply to certain parts and facets of the book and not at all to others; I think most readers will find this to be true in different ways. All in all, Diaz' book is breathtaking in the whiplash-from-a-roller coaster kind of way.
Related Reads:
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Marquez)
"Because the past is what people remember, and memories are words. Who knows how a king behaved a thousand years ago? There is only recollection, and stories. And plays, of course."
I enjoyed this book perhaps just a bit less than Equal Rites (its chronological predecessor), but Pratchett's humor interspersed in this wry sort-of re-telling of Macbeth, chock full of witches and ghosts and plots and schemes, made for a surprisingly satisfying light-fantasy read and left me eager for more Pratchett/Discworld novels.
Related Reads:
The Once and Future King (White)
The 13 Clocks (Thurber)
(to be continued in Part 2)
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End - Atul Gawande (2014)
"We've created a multitrillion-dollar edifice for dispensing the medical equivalent of lottery tickets - and have only the rudiments of a system to prepare patients for the near certainty that those tickets will not win."
Written by a surgeon, Being Mortal deals directly with death, fatal illnesses, and end-of-life care, making it a somewhat depressing and sometimes uncomfortable read. However, it's also a helpful and necessary read, especially for anyone in the medical field or those who have elderly relatives. Gawande draws from various studies, his personal experiences - both as an observer and as a surgeon - and his family background (his parents were from India) to discuss the issues surrounding mortality and aging, including the balance between individual independence and assisted care.
Related Reads:
Musicophilia (Sacks)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Tolstoy)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz (2007)
"She was my Old World Dominican mother and I was her only daughter, the one she had raised up herself with the help of nobody, which meant it was her duty to keep me crushed under her heel."
It's hard to accurately describe this book's style - it's off-beat and rapid-fire, punctuated with smatterings of strong language and violence, code-switching, and nerd-culture references. The focus is on members of a Dominican Republic immigrant family, with footnotes relating to Dominican culture and history interspersed. Layers of understanding are added as the book cycles through the stories of different family members, and it manages to be striking, evocative, sad, funny, and sage all at once. I related deeply to certain parts and facets of the book and not at all to others; I think most readers will find this to be true in different ways. All in all, Diaz' book is breathtaking in the whiplash-from-a-roller coaster kind of way.
Related Reads:
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Marquez)
The Little Friend - Donna Tartt (2002)
"But most eloquent of all were the stories passed down to her - highly decorated items which Harriet embellished even further in her resolute myth of the enchanted alcazar, the fairy chateau that never was."
Donna Tartt's second novel The Little Friend is also the most polarizing of her three books. I want to avoid spoilers as much as possible, so all I'll note plotwise is that the book leaves the reader with a lot of open ends, which surprised and temporarily frustrated me. But exploration and description rather than pat endings are a hallmark of Tartt's writing style; for me, it's a satisfactory trade-off. Her uncanny ability to write through a child's eyes and the way she lovingly depicts the setting (semi-rural 1970's Mississippi) results in a tantalizing read. Despite - or perhaps because of - its imperfections, this is a novel that will grab you and compel you to pour over it multiple times to revel in certain passages and to try to work out what you might've missed.
Related Reads:
The Secret History (Tartt)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Jackson)
Harriet the Spy (Fitzhugh)
Donna Tartt's second novel The Little Friend is also the most polarizing of her three books. I want to avoid spoilers as much as possible, so all I'll note plotwise is that the book leaves the reader with a lot of open ends, which surprised and temporarily frustrated me. But exploration and description rather than pat endings are a hallmark of Tartt's writing style; for me, it's a satisfactory trade-off. Her uncanny ability to write through a child's eyes and the way she lovingly depicts the setting (semi-rural 1970's Mississippi) results in a tantalizing read. Despite - or perhaps because of - its imperfections, this is a novel that will grab you and compel you to pour over it multiple times to revel in certain passages and to try to work out what you might've missed.
Related Reads:
The Secret History (Tartt)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Jackson)
Harriet the Spy (Fitzhugh)
The Help (Stockett)
Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett (1988)"Because the past is what people remember, and memories are words. Who knows how a king behaved a thousand years ago? There is only recollection, and stories. And plays, of course."
I enjoyed this book perhaps just a bit less than Equal Rites (its chronological predecessor), but Pratchett's humor interspersed in this wry sort-of re-telling of Macbeth, chock full of witches and ghosts and plots and schemes, made for a surprisingly satisfying light-fantasy read and left me eager for more Pratchett/Discworld novels.
Related Reads:
The Once and Future King (White)
The 13 Clocks (Thurber)
(to be continued in Part 2)
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