Thanks for checking out my 2008 Haiku Reviews! In 2009 I don’t plan to write any more haikus, however I do plan to continue to list my reading material. Comments still welcome!
Currently Reading: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Books Read in 2009
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
JV Rating: 2.0 of 5.0
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
JV Rating: 3.0 of 5.0
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
JV Rating: 5.0 of 5.0 (Note: Wow, this book is incredible. It should be standard freshman reading in every high school. If I told you I didn’t well up a number of times, I’d be lying.)
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
JV Rating: 2.5 of 5.0
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
JV Rating: 4.5 of 5.0
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald
JV Rating: 3.0 of 5.0
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
Silas Marner by George Eliot (pen name of Mary Anne Evans)
JV Rating: 4.5 of 5.0
Ballad of the Whiskey Robber by Julian Rubenstein
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara
JV Rating: 4.5 of 5.0
Dune by Frank Herbert
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0 (Note: This was an amazing book, worthy of the Pulitzer it won, however I can’t give it more than 3.5 stars because of the excessive vulgarity that is prevelant throughout, even though I understand why it’s there.)
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
Serena by Ron Rash
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
Persuasion by Jane Austen
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
JV Rating: 4.5 of 5.0
Books Read in 2008
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark
JV Rating: 4.5 of 5.0
Magic tests friendship
by its dual morality.
Abracadabra!
Emma by Jane Austen
JV Rating: 5.0 of 5.0
Matchmaking blunders
cause romantic irony
yet they all marry!
Memorial Day by Vince Flynn
JV Rating: 3.0 of 5.0
Mitch Rapp, our hero,
doing his best Jack Bauer,
saves the day…again.
The Venetian Betrayal by Steve Berry
JV Rating: 2.5 of 5.0
A supreme leader
pursues world domination.
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
Amid life’s bleakness
the whisky priest clings to faith
and seeks forgiveness.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
A graceful account
of a pastor’s lineage,
written as he dies.
Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
Boredom and unease
spark Henderson’s journey
from lyin’ to lion.
Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton
JV Rating: 3.0 of 5.0
Ancient adventure,
like Beowulf’s, or Bilbo’s;
only with Vikings.
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
A trenchant study
of damaged men’s troubled souls
reveals selfishness.
The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason
JV Rating: 3.0 of 5.0
Four Princeton seniors
crack an ancient tome’s code:
art worth dying for.
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
Lee, Longstreet, and Meade.
Civil War, Lincoln’s address.
Gettysburg, PA.
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
Some kids never learn.
Ivy League and World War One
don’t teach Blaine a thing.
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
Story of Jane Eyre’s
madwoman in the attic.
Burn, Antoinette, burn.
The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander
JV Rating: 3.0 of 5.0
Common tale of the
Mothers of the Disappeared
in Buenos Aires.
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
JV Rating: 4.5 of 5.0
Emotion nor thought
can prevent life’s transience.
Art is permanent.
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
Humans make machines.
Humans replaced by machines.
Humans break machines.
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
JV Rating: 4.5 of 5.0
Rich, self-destructive
Americans in Europe
need psychiatry.
The Bridge of San Louis Rey by Thornton Wilder
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
The bridge collapses.
Brother Juniper learns that
all you need is love.
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
Corruption and truth;
moral ambiguity.
These are Jack’s Burdens.
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
Vonnegut’s attack
on modern America.
Goodbye Blue Monday.
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
Cubicle culture.
Collective banality.
Does this define us?
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
JV Rating: 5.0 of 5.0
American dreams end.
So we must “beat on [like] boats
against the current.”
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by B. Traven
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
Gringos search for gold.
Greed corrupts, and bandits show
no stinking badges.
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
JV Rating: 4.5 of 5.0
Moscow Show Trials.
The ends justify the means.
No utopia.
The Plague by Albert Camus
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
Human condition.
Man accepts absurdism.
Nothing else matters.
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
New York City greed.
Master of the Universe.
Selfish ambition.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
Unrequited love.
Fifty years of suffering.
At last, together.
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
Macabre collector.
“The dead pull the living down.”
Don’t piss off a ghost.
The Temptation of Jack Orkney by Doris Lessing
JV Rating: 3.5 of 5.0
Middle-aged Marxist
sees his own mortality.
A new life beckons.
Everyman by Philip Roth
JV Rating: 3.0 of 5.0
He lived for pleasure.
Nostalgic narcissism,
extinguished by death.
The Blade Itself by Marcus Sakey
JV Rating: 2.5 of 5.0
Crime in Chicago.
Completely predictable.
Sorry, this book sucks.
The Fires of Spring by James A. Michener
JV Rating: 3.0 of 5.0
A poorhouse orphan.
Sexual awakening.
A boy comes of age.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
Law and order wanes.
Human nature is sinful.
The Beast lies within.
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
JV Rating: 4.0 of 5.0
A pastoral life,
shattered by a daughter’s rage,
changed in an instant.
Nice work. I’m currently reading The Peacable Kingdom by Jan De Hartog.
Before that, I read:
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
3.5 of 5.0, and here’s my haiku:
and
This Immortal by Roger Zelazny
4.0 of 5.0, and here’s my haiku:
By: Chris on April 4, 2008
at 10:28 am
Chris, do any of these books contain dwarfs or daemons? Because if not, they’re no good to me, as you’re an expert in that realm. Just curious, how did you choose an historical fiction about Quakers? Did Johnny Tremain recommend it?
By: James on April 4, 2008
at 1:37 pm
nice job with the book list..the haiku review is quite a helpful and creative touch.
i haven’t read any of those! do you ever review memoirs? they are my fave. although i am now interested in more than a few of your postings.
thanks book man.
By: auntie kelley on April 5, 2008
at 2:19 am
Kelley, I have read a few memoirs. My favorite one is A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. Incidentally, it’s also one of my favorite books. I can loan it to you
By: James on April 5, 2008
at 11:05 am
As a matter of fact, James, the ancestry of George Fox (founder of the Quakers) dates back to the ritual mating between the dwarfish King Hrothgar and the elvish Queen Aglaranna during the Celebration of Bountiful Harvest, so reading the Peacable Kingdom was a natural extension. And I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that collecting Star Wars dolls (excuse me, figurines) was fashionable again. Next time I see it, I’m going to pull Darth Vader’s head off.
By: Chris on April 7, 2008
at 8:42 am
Ah, Player Piano. One of my favorite Vonnegut works. Kurt Vonnegut is one of a number of interesting people who passed through Schenectady, NY early in their careers when they were working for GE: Thomas Edison, Charles Steinmetz, Ronald Reagan, David Packard (of Hewlett Packard), and James Vincent. Player Piano takes place within a large corporation and its geographic settting is loosely similar to Scotia on the North bank of the Mohawk River with “the big plant” just across the river in Schenectady.
By: Dave on April 13, 2008
at 6:05 am
Dang, James. You really like reading these novels about self-destruction, huh? How about reading something light-hearted like Proust for a change? I mean, his seminal work is only in 6 volumes. But seriously, you need to read “Appointment in Samarra.” I’ll post my review for that, as well as some others, in due time. And don’t worry, no more faeries.
By: Chris on May 14, 2008
at 10:12 am
Yo Buddy, you do read a lot. If you like Dave Eggers, I recommend “What is The What”. Achuk Deng who was forced to leave his village and wander from refugee camp to refugee camp after the Sudan Civil War started in the 1980s. I got it out of the library, but if buy the book, all of the proceeds go to the foundation that is building a school in protagonist Achuk Deng’s home village in southern Sudan.
By: Dan on September 5, 2008
at 8:43 am
I don’t have time for haikus right now, but here is a relatively complete list of what else I’ve read in 2008, from best to worst. Note: while there are no faeries here, oh-oh there’s maaaagic!
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
- Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara
- Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
- No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
- The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
- The Riftwar Saga [Magician; Silverthorn; A Darkness at Sethanon] by Raymond Feist
- Mistborn [Mistborn; The Well of Ascension] by Brandon Sanderson
- Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny
- Down River by John Hart
- The New York Trilogy [City of Glass; Ghosts; The Locked Room] by Paul Auster
- Oracle Night by Paul Auster
By: Chris on September 18, 2008
at 12:47 pm
Jane Austen, Susanna Clark, Marilynne Robinson…
Who’s next, Beverly Cleary? I heard “The Mouse and the Motorcycle” was excellent.
By: Chris on January 30, 2009
at 5:26 pm
James Orrin Vincent
retired from writing haikus.
What a lazy turd.
By: Chris on January 30, 2009
at 5:31 pm
I haven’t read Robinson yet, but I intend to (“Beloved”). No, next on the list is a Russian dude. The “place on hold” feature that the library offers is a blessing and a curse: it’s great because you can reserve any book at any time, but it sucks because it adds pressure to reading as you can’t renew books brought in from other libraries!
By: jamesorrin on January 30, 2009
at 7:39 pm
Marilynne Robinson wrote “Gilead”…you’re thinking Toni Morrison and “Beloved” (which I intend to read soon as well).
By: Chris on January 31, 2009
at 10:57 am
Oh yeah, dang. I guess I should pay more attention to what I read!
By: jamesorrin on February 1, 2009
at 1:48 pm