After the failure to read Frankenstein to my son, making his eyes roll into the back of his head, we switched to The Hobbit.
As Frankenstein was such a failure I searched on the line for lists of the best children’s books. The Hobbit came up frequently in the top 10. Life is too short to read bad books. Frankenstein wasn’t a bad book, it just wasn’t a good children’s book. I had read The Hobbit decades ago but didn’t realize how masterful Tolkein’s prose was. All the dwarves arriving at Bilbo’s house did draw my son into the story early, and even sections that I thought would bore him kept his attention. May your beard never grow thin.

During vacation this summer we visited a used bookstore in PEI. My son found Frankenstein and asked if I could read it to him. This melted my heart, the fact that my son picked a book with no pictures and wanted me to read it to him made me feel like I might actually being doing something right, raising a future reader.

I read it to my son but the vocabulary and more old-timey complex sentence structures were too much for him at his age. He was very patient though and lasted about the first 30 pages before exclaiming “Dad, I don’t understand what is going on!!”. Oh well, now we have a copy for when he is older.

A month later I picked up the book and read it myself just in time for Halloween. I found the structure of the book most interesting. The narration is essentially Walton -> Frankenstein -> the Monster -> Frankentein -> Walton. A story within a story within a story, or a valley that you climb down and then climb out of.

I had been looking for some used John Updike for a while but nothing ever turned up until I found an omnibus edition at a book fair, a fund-raiser for women in music. The edition contained the first three Rabbit novels, “Rabbit, Run”, “Rabbit Redux”, and “Rabbit is Rich”. The price was nice too, one dollar fifty. The price was actually $3, but it was the second day of the book fair and what ever was left was marked down to 50% off.

What a find, you might say. But this edition had been abused by its previous owner. Someone had read the first novel and then set the book down face up in between books one and two. This created a distinct crease down the spine and stressed the internal page bindings. To keep the book from falling apart I put duct tape on the spine. I attempted to mend the internals to no avail, the sections slowly came apart as I read.

I did not enjoy reading “Rabbit, Run”. I enjoyed reading Updikes prose, but the actions that Rabbit took and the book ending did not leave me wanting to read the sequels. So I definitely procrastinated reading “Rabbit Redux”. However, I did enjoy Redux much more that Run. This might have been the format. In Run, Rabbit is the agent of his destiny no matter how cringe worthy that becomes. In Redux, things seems to instead happen to Rabbit, and he just lets them happen. In both books you are essentially watching a train wreck but the perspective of Redux makes it a little more enjoyable ride.

I purchased a used copy of Moby Dick and saved it for my summer read some time ago. This summer I tackled the behemoth. Originally published in 1851 (175 years ago), the language is definitely different but not that difficult to read.

The structure of the book, very short chapters, makes it an enjoyable read. I went into this book expecting a simple narrative structure and was surprised that half of the chapters were detailed accounts on how whaling was performed back in the day.

Purchased used from thrift books. My copy had a price sticker with “L-21000” on it. Twenty-one thousand Lira? 200 pages into the book I found a faded receipt from the year 2000. The book was first purchased from a bookstore in the airport in Milan for 21000 Lira before the Euro was introduced in Italy.

I’m assuming the original owner never finished the book, considering the location of the receipt, that they were most likely using as a bookmark. I did finish the book, but it was a slog.

Clocking in at 635 pages this is Rushdie’s longest book. I read that after the critical reception of this book, he expressed regret at the form and vowed never to write a book so long again, which he stuck to.

The first time I read this I was completely discombobulated from the experience and had no idea what I had just read. This was a decade ago, I was busy, busy, busy, living a modern life, working out too hard at the gym and trying to read this before I went to bed. I would never get through more than five pages before I fell asleep.

Reading this book at that slow a pace just didn’t work as this is not pedestrian literature. It requires your attention. It breaks rules, like naming main characters with the same first letter: Pirate Prentice, Pointsman. It shifts the narrative without giving you warning. It introduces characters in the first 200 pages and doesn’t mention them again for 400 pages.

A decade later with some trepidation I decided to take on this book again. But I came armed with a slower lifestyle and less sleep debt. I also read it in conjunction to listening to the now defunct “Pynchon in Public” podcast. I would read my required chapters then listen to the podcast to get some interesting insights.

Another thing I did when reading this book was take breaks. The book is broken into four distinct sections:

1. Beyond the Zero page 1 - 177
2. Un Perm’ au Casino Herman Goering 181 - 278
3. In the Zone 279 -616
4. The Counterforce 617-760

After reading each section I went and read a different book, and I found reading it in this manner quite enjoyable.

RIP - Pynchon in Public podcast.

I purchased a used paperback copy for the sum of six dollars. As soon as I started reading the novel something felt off. Eventually I figured out what was so odd about my reading experience. You see, over time, I have become accustomed to paperbacks of a certain size. 4 1/4 inches wide by 7 inches tall to be precise. But my copy of The Mission Song is much taller measuring at 7 1/2 inches tall.

This slightly different form factor was mildly discombobulating though I persevered, and “got used to it”.

As for the novel, I found the protagonist quite naïve, especially as the novel got closer and closer to the conclusion. Nothing in the novel surprised me but I might be getting too used to the Carré style as I have been reading his novels in pretty close to consecutive order.

Only six left to go and six of them are waiting patiently on my Tsundoku shelf …

Usually with a 700-page book I read it as fast as I can as I find the momentum brings the book alive. I could tell 100 pages in that there wasn’t the level of post-modern complexity ( lots of characters etc) that a sprint read was not necessary. Not only that, I felt that a slow read made it more savoury. It took me almost two months to read and my only regret is that I didn’t take a full three months to read. ;)

I found this book a slog and was sorely disappointed as I enjoyed The Satanic Verses so much and have read it twice. This made me question whether Verses is as good as it seems or if the controversy makes it more exciting to read. But I don’t believe that. I’ve read everything before Verses and although Grimus and Shame weren’t my favourites, Midnight’s Children was a delight.

I think what unnerved me about this book was the choice of narrative style. Why should I care about the narrator and his family? Also, many of the characters in the story die, but I never felt any loss when the characters died as every character felt cartoonish and not real, which is the style of the novel.

I also believe much of the Indian background where the novel takes place made it less relatable to me. Whereas Verses takes place partially in India and partially in London, this takes place completely in India. A country the author was unable to travel to at the time of this writing. But again, I did not find this a problem when reading Midnight’s Children

What I believe we see here is an author struggling, as this was written when Rushdie was in hiding. Publishers were getting killed for the act of publishing Verses and publishing a novel afterwards had high expectations and there was caution about the subject matter. The narrative style makes the actions that occur in the novel seem more distance, less impactful and more cartoonish. This could be intentional as it tones down the critiques of Indian society.

Purchased a paperback for $6 then later found it on hardcover for free in a little free library. Read the first 400 pages by hardcover but then went on vacation and wanted to travel light and switched to my paperback copy.

Definitely a different experience. I would not recommend this to anyone I know. I picked up on circularness of the plot and a couple of other things. Read the plot summary on wikipedia to learn what I missed.

Long, banal and depressing. I started this and didn’t like the vibe. I took a vacation by the sea and didn’t want this to be my sunny read so took ten days off from reading this and read some more jovial summer reads.

So I read it slow at first but then powered through it to get it finished. This was a book that I read and kept with based on reputation so I could put a notch on my belt that I’ve read it.

I read Freedom before this which is also critically acclaimed and enjoyed it. I found the characters in this novel more tragic and detestable at times. As the novel progressed my reading pace increased and I had sympathy for the entire family.

I found out about this book because a female Mossad agent in The Little Drummer Girl reads it and this is mentioned several times. So when I found a used copy for $5 I picked it up.

Did I find this book absolutely enthralling? No. But it kept me reading and I liked that because it was a serial the chapters were short and I enjoyed reading it at a steady pace of only a chapter or two each day.

I can see why John Le Carré referenced the book. Henchard is a tragic character following a tragic path and many of his novels post Smiley’s People are in the same vein.