What I Have Been Reading (including "50 Shades of Grey")

I have read a number of books since the beginning of year, but simply have not been writing reviews here.  Since I read every day on the T, I am always looking for book recommendations.  When I am looking for new books, I generally rely on Amazon.com recommendations and word-of-mouth.  I've also been known to go with buzz about new books or pick up ones that I know are being turned into movies.  I must admit, I love to say that I read the new "it" book ages ago (see Hunger Games).  This list really shows how eclectic my tastes are.

I blame this last type of recommendation for the reason I read the first book on my list.  I in no way blazed this trail - I fully jumped on the band wagon.  While I am totally embarrassed to admit it, I read 50 Shades of Grey.  For those who don't know, this is the story of a girl who is about to graduate from college and is very naive in the ways of the world (to put it delicately).  She falls madly in love with a filthy rich guy in his late 20's who happens to be obsessed with the dominant/submissive lifestyle.

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Luckily I have my kindle, so people could not see what I was reading - that, and I held the book very close (I wanted to prevent people from reading over my shoulder).  This book is adult fiction, aka erotica, aka lady porn.  I blushed more than once while reading.  To be honest, the book bothered me because it is so poorly written, the characters are frustrating and it is just generally ridiculous.  While reading it I told myself I would not get sucked in and read the 2nd and 3rd books in the trilogy  So far I have held out (less than a week) but I am not sure it will hold.  I am too curious to see how they end up!  You have been warned - pick this book up at your own risk.  If you do decide to dive in, the Kindle certainly helps ;)



Now that I have gotten that confession off my chest, lets move on....

Since I loved The Glass Castle, I was really looking forward to reading Jeannette Walls' follow up book Half Broke Horses, a story chronicling her fascinating grandmother.  This book was just as gripping as the first, and you really felt like you were at the ranch and struggling and persevering with Lily Casey.  If you liked Walls' first book, I highly recommend checking this one out.  This would be a great summer read - a page turner with a bit of substance.

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The Thirteenth Tale is more of a sweeping saga that spans three generations of a family living in a large estate in the English Countryside.  I love these stories - they are just to grand, and I always assume these types of secrets are held by these estate houses.  The story is told from the viewpoint of the last in the family line, a successful but reclusive writer who finally recounts her story to a young bookish girl charged with writing this story when the writer dies.  The story the writer spins is a fascinating tale full of mystery that she finally comes to terms with as she finally comes clean with her past.  I was totally gripped by this saga and couldn't wait to see how it came together in the end.

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As some may recall, I am a big Bill Bryson fan.  He has such a unique voice.  Someone who can make the contents of A Short History of Nearly Everything entertaining is amazing in my book.  When At Home came out, I was excited to start reading it.  However, it ended up being a hodgepodge of information tentatively tied to the items you find in your house today.  It seemed like Bryson had all this information left over from other novels and wanted to find something to tie it all together.  The book was entertaining, but not his best work.

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I decided to read The Tiger's Wife because I think it was on just about every "best" book list in 2011.  Shockingly, this is the author's first book and she is under 30 to boot!  The story is set in a Balkan country just after a civil war (and tentatively on the brink of another) and two young doctors are setting off to an impoverished area to give vaccinations to orphans.  However, one of the doctor's grandfather (who raised her) recently died and is hoping the trip will help unlock the secrets behind his death.  From there the novel seamlessly ties together a number of legends that shed light on not only her grandfather's death, but also her choices growing up and how she wants to live her life moving forward.  This is a quick read that has a lasting effect.  I still find myself thinking about this story and its meaning.

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When Jeffery Eugenides publishes a new novel, I feel like it is shouted from the rooftops - with past novels like The Vigin Suicides and Middlesex, people tend to pay attention.  Having not read his others, though, I picked this one up at the recommendation of a friend.  The novel is about a girl graduating from Brown in the early 80's and the first year out of college, when people only ask you one thing: what are you doing after school.  When you are an English major like the main character with no real idea of what you want, it's easy to follow your first real boyfriend, who finds so much passion in his scientific lab job, and "play house" to delay the inevitable.  However, her best guy friend is in the picture and complicates the situation.  Eugenides easily captures the difficult emotions that hit everyone when they graduate college and enter into that unknown territory of "what's next?"  I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this novel - it is well written and easy to read, but it also stikes a realistic chord even though its set almost 30 years ago.  

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The Dovekeepers is not a book I normally would have gone for, and this is actually the first Alice Hoffman book I rhave ead.  Sometimes the "thinking chick-lit" (as opposed to the fun, frothy "mindless chick-lit") is just too much for me.  For the first part of the book I was skeptical of the recommendation because it was truly depressing!  The story chronicles the lives of four Jewish women (the Dovekeepers) and their families who flee their hometowns after the Romans invade in hopes of some sort of salvation.  What they find is high atop a mountain in the Judean desert.  How these women interact with themselves, their families and the 2000-person community seeking to be saved is surprising.  Watching these women become the people they want to be in the face of such strife was inspring.

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The Rules of Civility was a book that sat on my wish list for quite some time, a random Amazon recommendation that I finally decided to download when faced with 30 hours of flying and loads of beach time - all the more reason why I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book!  It begins in the 1960's when an older, wealthy couple is at a galley opening of photographs taken of people on the New York City subway in the 1920's and the wife spots someone she recognizes in the photograph.  From there, the story flashes back to the night the woman met the man in the photograph and how her life totally changed, bringing the reader face to face with life in New York City in the 20's among the rich and the poor before the Depression.  The author's descriptions and story made me become truly invested in each of the characters, whether you really liked them or couldn't figure them out.  I highly recommend this story.

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Finally, being the Jane Austen-crazed fan that I am (I read Pride and Prejudice at least one a year) Amazon recommended I read this compilation of short stories inspired by Jane Austen's novels.  Some used the same characters, other started from scratch in the present and in Austen's time, while others included Austen as a main character.  All of the stories, however, reminded me why I love these stories.  So much so, I went ahead and downloaded them all on my kindle (classics are mostly free) and already re-read Persuasion!  If you are an Austen fan, this is a really fun read.

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I hope you enjoyed this sampling of books I had read in the last four months (or at least the ones I will admit to have read!).

What great books have you read lately?