Earlier this summer, sometime in June, (it's actually probably still on the homepage of this blog, I just haven't been updating as frequently as I used to) I made a reading list for myself. I've read a few of the books on that list, but others have been inaccessible to me. In the meantime, I've been reading quite a few other books, and I thought I might as well share a few of them with you, and my thoughts on them, seeing as I'd promised to review some of the books on my reading list anyway.
Currently, I'm reading Songs for the Missing by Stewart O'Nan, and Suite Francaise, by Irene Nemirovsky. I just finished reading Angels and Demons and The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, the two companion books to his famous The Da Vinci Code. There's also Commencement, by J. Courtney Sullivan. These are the books I've read in the past week. I've had a lot of time on my hands, some of which could have been spent on homework (I haven't even started, isn't that funny? Oh well, I'm a known procrastinator.)
To start off--on the bus ride down to Tennessee (I'm visiting my grandparents, or "Oma" and "Opa," as I call them, in reference to my grandmother's German background)--I ripped through Angels and Demons. It was a spectacular book, fueled with sharp dialogue, fascinating symboligic knowledge, and terrifying intrigue and mystery--better, even, I think, than The Da Vinci Code. The Lost Symbol, the last book of the trilogy, was, in my mind, a disappointment. Though it took place in Washington, D.C., little of the city's actual essence and atmosphere came across in the novel, while in Brown's other books, Rome and Paris (Paris was the setting of The Da Vinci Code, right?) I actually felt like I was there. That may be because I've spent so much time in D.C., and know it very well, whereas I've only (haha, only) been to Rome once and Paris never.
Almost immediately after I arrived in Tennessee, I started Commencement. I expected, well, a "beach read." It's about four girls from different parts of the country who become best friends while attending Smith College (an actual college, by the way, and sister to my beloved Bryn Mawr.) It's a very good book, in my opinion, and while the font was slightly distracting (I may have mentioned that I judge a book not by its cover but by its font.) The plot took a surprisingly serious turn about two thirds of the way through. I highly recommend it to those of you who want to wind down with a good book--though again, I want to emphasize that it's not simple at all.)
Actually, Songs for the Missing and Suite Francaise have been my favorite books so far, though I've finished neither. Suite Francaise, written by a Frenchwoman at the start of World War II, is the beautifully written story of the French exodus of 1940, the German invasion, and the ensuing occupation and chaos. Songs for the Missing follows the story of a family reeling from the disappearance of Kim, the oldest, college-bound daughter, covering their private despairs, public appeals for help and support, and the police's seemingly ineffective attempts to uncover the truth, and Kim, whether dead or alive. It's a wonderful book, though at times I skip over a few unimportant pages (sometimes O'Nan drags on a bit.)
So that's this week's reading overview! Next week, you can expect a few reviews of The Twelve Little Cakes and Let the Great World Spin. Also, I'm going to start putting up some more gardening information and a few favorite recipes of mine, just to diversify this blog's publications.
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