A few Tuesday memes, #9
March 03, 2015
First things first: Nowadays I can't think about Tuesdays without this song starting in my head. You can either blame or thank my boyfriend for that one. It's a mix for me, probably due to the mere-exposure effect.
Speaking of that dude I live with, we had our fifth(!) anniversary last week. He took me out to a lovely French dinner (très délicieux) on Thursday, and on Saturday I took him on an aborted brewery tour (their water mains broke down, boo). Since we had some time before we had to take our rental car back, we killed our last hour by seeing how much all-you-can-eat sushi we could stuff in our faces. We, er, outdid ourselves.
We also went to a college hockey game on Saturday night. I'm a pretty big hockey fan. Big, bearded guys splitting time between graceful skating and hitting each other? Sign me up. Beyond that, it's a pretty fast-paced sport, which makes it the perfect game to follow for space cadets like me.
All in all, a definite improvement over last week...
 |
| All covers from Goodreads. Collage by Picmonkey. |
The ones I've mentioned my love for before: Anna Karenina (here), Possessing the Secret of Joy (here, here, and here), The Cider House Rules (here, here, and here).
That leaves Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. I love the first two for very similar reasons. MBM first ignited my love for public health/medical anthropology, and it wouldn't be a stretch to say it's been a huge influence in what I hope to do career-wise. Henrietta Lacks is similarly social-justice-inclined, and it is an engaging, well-reported story to boot. And then there's Kevin, a horrifying story of motherhood gone sour (or, really, sour from the start). If you can stomach gruesome violence and taking a hard look at what it would mean to not love your children, I can't recommend it more.
And last but not least, we have Bibliophile by the Sea's First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday Intros. I just started Authority, the second installment in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy:
In Control's dreams it is early morning, the sky deep blue with just a twinge of light. He is staring from a cliff down into an abyss, a bay, a cove. It always changes. He can see for miles into the still water. He can see ocean behemoths gliding there, like submarines or bell-shaped orchids or the wide hulls of ships, silent, ever moving, the size of them conveying such a sense of power that he can feel the havoc of their passage even from so far above. He stares for hours at the shapes, the movements, listening to the whispers echoing up to him... and then he fells. Slowly, too slowly, he falls soundless into the dark water, without a splash or ripple. And keeps falling.What do you think? Would you read on?
Link me up to your memes today!
17 comments
All your titles sound amazing! I haven't read any of them, but will be adding some of them to my ever growing reading wishlist! Here's a link to my TTT post for this week: http://captivatedreader.blogspot.com/2015/03/top-ten-books-you-would-classify-as-all.html
ReplyDeleteOMG! And you're a Tracy Kidder fan, too? love it.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read any of the Southern Reach trilogy yet, but I know you've been excited to get to books two and three. I've heard they're all quite different from one another, so I hope they live up to expectations!
ReplyDeleteThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks really was a great book. I have yet to read The God of Small Things. Happy anniversary!
ReplyDeleteOh, I love your new design, Shaina! So clean and pretty!
ReplyDeleteThe God of Small Things is such a great choice! I read that about four years ago and just loved it. We Need to Talk about Kevin is also really good but for a completely different reason.
Stefani @ Caught Read Handed
Oh, I love your new design, Shaina! So clean and pretty!
ReplyDeleteThe God of Small Things is such a great choice! I read it about four years ago and just loved it. I also love We Need to Talk about Kevin but for completely different reasons!
It was required reading for me in a post-colonial literature class in college, but I loved it. It's also when I first read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Neither were books that I thought I'd love but ended up being two of my favorite books I read in college.
ReplyDeleteHappy anniversary! Sounds like you celebrated with style. :-)
ReplyDeleteI really liked A Wizard of Earthsea too. Anna Karenina is such a great book! I am glad you included it. And we have We Need to Talk About Kevin in common, I see. :-) I haven't yet read Clockwork Orange, but at some point I imagine I will. As well as Skloot's book. I've been wanting to read that since it first came out.
Happy anniversary! Beautiful flowers. The God of Small Things is one of my all-time favorites (it was too old a read to include on my list). And loved Henrietta Lacks. I need to read A Clockwork Orange! I'm really intimidated by it for some reason (but own a copy).
ReplyDeleteOooh I LOVE The God of Small Things! It's one of my favorite books of all time, but I read it more than three years ago. I love Anna Karenina, too! Great list!
ReplyDeleteI AM! Totally inspired me to do something public health-y with my career.
ReplyDeleteI bet Kevin scares a lot of people off! I can't blame them, but I do wish more people would read it so I can talk to them about it. :)
ReplyDeleteYES! Go grab Henrietta Lacks!
Thank you! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks! :D
ReplyDeleteSmall Things was so, so lovely. And don't be too scared! The jargon can take some time to get used to, but it really is a fantastic, quick read.
Yay for the Small Things love! Makes me so happy. :)
ReplyDeleteA gal after my own heart. :D
ReplyDeleteI hope you like some of them!
ReplyDelete