What would you do if you had your life to live over again? It's the kind of question that everyone has asked himself at one time or another, so it's not surprising that there should be so many stories about it. This one, though not the best of those stories, is nevertheless good. In the very first scene of Replay the main character, Jeff Winston, dies, then wakes up to find himself 25 years in his past. We then follow Winston through several iterations of his life as he continues to die and return to his life. Several of the plot devices are familiar to this sort of story; we see Jeff Winston use his knowledge of the future to change his fortune, we see him become disillusioned as his life continued to repeat. In spots things seem a bit cliché--though I can't honestly say whether these themes would have seemed so when the book was first published in 1985--but Grimwood manages to write some truly poignant scenes. It's by no means a perfect novel, but I found myself quite moved by parts of it.

Started: 2004-10-24 | Finished: 2004-10-25

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In the first chapter of A Widow For One Year, Ruth Cole, a four-year-old child, walks in on her 39-year-old mother having sex with Ruth's father's teenage assistant. It's a shocking scene, but also a funny and revealing scene. It's a very John Irving type of scene. Irving has such an interesting style. He telegraphs everything; indeed, he tells you everything before it happens, and yet when the time finally comes you still find yourself completely drawn into the moment. That takes skill. The rest of the book follows the lives of Ruth, her parents, and Eddie, the teenage assistant. One of the things that intrigued me the most is Irving's descriptions of the types of writers that Ruth, her parents, and Eddie are, or become. There's a lot in there that seems like it must be autobiographical to some extent, which is ironic in light of the fact that Ruth, herself, disdains autobiographical fiction. I'm not sure what else I could talk about that wouldn't give away too much of the plot--and in a John Irving novel the plot is what drives the book--but suffice it to say that it was a great read.

Started: 2004-10-11 | Finished: 2004-10-23

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I both enjoyed and didn't enjoy this book. Ross' story shows us the world of the Big Sur coast as it was in the mid-nineteenth century. Life is hard, but the land is beautiful. We follow the main character, Zande Allan, through the changes his life makes when he marries his mail-order bride, Hannah. On the one hand, the story resonated with me in much the same way that Steinbeck's works do. I have spent a lot of time in Big Sur; I've even lived there a couple of times. So, as I made my way through Stranger, much of description was familiar to me and made me feel connected to the story. On the other hand, I don't know that I really cared for the story or the way it was written. Ross wrote the story in the first person and so decided to write her prose as Zande Allan would say it. It added to the ambience, but made it harder to read. But even more, I just didn't care for Zande. In some ways his actions and attitudes can be excused as a product of the world he lived in, but even by the end of the story I just couldn't find it in me to like him. Even so, if the character tale was lost on me, I still found the book fascinating as a description of life on the coast.

Started: 2004-09-23 | Finished: 2004-10-07

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Steve Martin has a real way with words. His first novel, Shopgirl, had a sort of whimsical, lyric quality to the writing that I liked rather a lot. The problem was that the style had the effect of distancing me from the characters. I think Martin has solved that shortcoming in The Pleasure of My Company. It has the same sensitivity, the same dry humor, but it also manages to keep me very close to the main character. It's a very quick read, and the plot is rather sparse, but the character is rich enough to provide substance to the book. The story revolves around Daniel Cambridge and his host of obsessive-compulsive behaviors. But Martin is a skillful enough writer to help you see the person underneath the neuroses. I found myself becoming very attached to the characters in this book, despite the fact that it was so short. Interestingly enough, for most of the book I was able to hear Martin's voice in the prose; this is one of only a handful of books that have ever done that to me. It actually made the book seem more personal, almost conversational. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

Started: 2004-09-19 | Finished: 2004-09-21

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Anyone who has ever enjoyed a solo hike knows that there's a certain something to being alone with nature that, though wonderful, is difficult to put into words accurately. In this book, Jerry Kobalenko gives us an insight into that feeling in his description of Ellesmere Island, one of the most northern places in the world. Kobalenko touches on nearly every aspect of the island, from the history of its exploration to its geography to its ecology, but what really comes out is his deep love of the place. It's enough to make me want to see the place myself--although given the difficulty I have carrying a pack with supplies for one day, I know I wouldn't last long dragging a hundred-pound sled for thirty miles a day. Even so, I really enjoyed reading about it.

Started: 2004-08-30 | Finished: 2004-09-15

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I found this one to be a nice little diversion after such a weighty undertaking. It probably wouldn't win any awards, but I found the characters engaging and the world delightfully quirky. I think I might even read the rest of the adventures of Special Operative Thursday Next. All in all a very fun read.

Started: 2004-08-25 | Finished: 2004-08-29

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I'd never read anything by Nabokov before, and perhaps this wasn't the best book to start on. Nabokov's last book, Ada, or Ardor is also one of his longest. Given the man's dense prose style, it's a wonder that I finished in a mere three months. (I had actually anticipated that it would take me another two months.) One of my favorite authors, Gene Wolfe, is often compared to Nabokov and now I can see why. Both authors have a passion for language, for the written word. Both write complex characters set in rich worlds and use dense, amazing prose to show them to us. Ada is an amazingly beautiful book, a real pleasure to read. But I hesitate to call it a beautiful story, because even though it is an intriguing, romantic, erudite, sexy story, it is also a rather disturbing one. The book follows the love between Van and Ada Veen from beginning to end, a love that is passionate and complete but nonetheless wrong as it is an incestual love. I found myself completely drawn into this story at the same time that I was slightly repulsed by it. The love story would have been enough, but there's so much more to Ada, a lot of which I didn't fully understand despite taking nearly three months to read it. For example, the book is also an examination of the nature of time. Part of this is made explicit later in the book as we read a lecture that Van gives on just that subject, but it's actually interwoven into the very structure of the book. I'm sure there's a lot I missed, and some day I'll have to come back to it. For now, though, I think I'm ready to dive into something nice and light.

Started: 2005-05-26 | Finished: 2004-08-24

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I sort of wonder if getting to know more about Orson Scott Card has affected my impression of his writing. I respect the man enormously, but I disagree with him on so many things that it seems like it would be impossible for that not to alter my judgment of his work. I did like this book. It was engaging and well-paced, and the inclusion of two real-life friends of mine as characters certainly didn't hurt. But it doesn't seem to hold up to the rest of his works for me. Books like Seventh Son, Ender's Game, Hart's Hope, and Treason have a sort of magical quality in my memory, while ones like Pastwatch, Speaker for the Dead and Lovelock stick out for having really interesting central ideas. This one really had neither of those for me. Still, I did enjoy it, and I don't think I could point to anything specific to criticize. I just can't find anything wonderful about it.

Started: 2004-02-15 | Finished: 2004-03-04

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Kim Stanley Robinson has been sort of hit or miss with me before. Some of his books keep me up reading into the wee hours of the morning. Some are a struggle. This book was kind of both for me. The idea of the book--what the world might have been like if Europe had been completely wiped out by the Black Plague--fascinated me. Robinson has a real gift for alternate timelines, as evidenced by his Three Californias series. The problem is that the scope of the book is so sweeping that it's a little difficult to get involved with the characters. When the story arc covers multiple centuries, individual lives tend to become a little less important. So it was hard for me to really connect with the book. On top of that, much of the book involves long discussions of the nature of history, and while the ideas were interesting, it didn't make for an exciting read. Fortunately, something about the ending resonated with me, so I walked away from this book with a good feeling.

Started: 2004-01-03 | Finished: 2004-02-14

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Before I picked up this book, I had liked everything I had ever read by Neil Gaiman. Now that I have finished it, I still do. Neverwhere held flavors of Dark City and The Wizard of Oz for me, and the fact that I've been to London (admittedly only for a very short time) only heightened the sense of magic about Gaiman's London Below.

Started: 2003-12-29 | Finished: 2004-01-02

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