My dear friend Emily, who shares my love of reality television, gave me Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst for Christmas this year. For those of you who avoid that kind of television, a) you are crazy and b) this book probably will not be of interest to you, but I thought it was great! Towards the end I found myself trying to read less so that the book would last longer. It was a light, fun and very entertaining read – the perfect book travel book. It’s about the participants in a fictional television reality game show that is clearly modeled after The Amazing Race. There’s all sort of relationship drama, mixed in with silly stunts and travel stories. For me, it was a very enjoyable book.

So I just finished reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. To summarize, it tells the story of a nine year-old boy, Oskar Schell, whose father died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Not too long after the funeral, Oskar finds a key that belonged to his father and makes it his mission to search New York City for the lock that matches this key. The story is told through Oskar, in first-person narration, which made the book especially immersive for me. Others I have talked to who read this book have described it as inspiring and enlightening. I thought it was well written and creative, but overall, I found it to be profoundly sad.

While on vacation last month I read and enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory. I should start by saying you should not read this book if you are looking for a history lesson, or a story based on facts. It’s more like a soap opera set in Tudor England. I would say the book was inspired by historical England, but certainly not true to it. The novel tells the story of the Boleyn family during the time of King Henry VIII from the perspective of Mary Boleyn, Anne’s sister. The book has lots of drama, manipulation, betrayal and romance. A good, fluffy, beach read.

I have just finished reading Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, recommended to me by good friend Bonney. Now don’t judge a book by its title, this is not some trashy, sappy love story as the title may imply. I will admit that while I was reading this book, I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not – but now that I am done, and it has soaked in a bit, I can say that I enjoyed it. To be very vague, as I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, the book tells the story of three children (Kathy, Ruth and Tommy) who grow up together at a prestigious boarding school in England – and you’re probably thinking, oh I’ve read stories like that, but this one has a rather dystopian twist. From the very beginning of the book, as the reader, you can feel that you don’t have the full picture yet. Ishiguro slowly gives you hints and glimpses of what’s going on, and you find the story is pulling you along as you put the pieces together. It’s a sad, enigmatic story, but you’ll still be thinking about it long after you read the last page.

I like Anita Shreve. I just finished a book of hers called Strange Fits of Passion. I’ve found her books are pretty consistently well written, and although not especially cerebral, the stories are completely engrossing. This one is about a victim of domestic violence and is set in the early 1970s.

A couple of years back, Aaron’s sister Lisa gave me Bee Season by Myla Goldberg. I was reading something else at the time, so it went into my ‘to read’ pile and had been there ever since. A couple of weeks ago, while at the movies, I saw a preview for the film version of this story and remembered I had the book at home, unread. I dug it out, put it at the top of my queue and just finished it. It was ok. I enjoyed, and was interested in, the relationship between the brother and sister. The thing that was off for me was that each character’s issue/problem was taken to such an extreme level; it was distracting, and made the story less plausible. An interesting book nonetheless.

I recently read, Falling Leaves : The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah. The book is a memoir in which the author chronicles her unhappy childhood growing up in a wealthy, yet emotionally abusive family in 20th Century China and Hong Kong. In summary, the author’s mother dies giving birth to her, thus labeling her birth a bad omen. Her father then remarries a selfish woman who is cruel to the author throughout her life.

While reading about the author’s childhood I sympathized with her and the struggles she faced both within her own family and her culture. However, once she became a successful adult and moved to the United States, I found her a bit pathetic. I tried to remain culturally sensitive, as I recognize it was indeed a different time and place. That said, the author continued to make the same mistakes over and over and over. As she continued to set herself up time and time again for more abuse, I lost sympathy and started to question her intelligence. At some point, you’ve got to say to yourself, it’s time to cut my losses and move on. Much to my surprise the author never did that. And so as I got to the end of the book and the author is telling her final tragic anecdote I certainly wasn’t surprised at the outcome (although the author somehow was) and perhaps more significantly, I found I really didn’t care.

I just finished reading The Rice Mother, by Rani Manicka. It’s set in Malaysia, spans from right before World War II to present time, and follows one family down through four generations, which is a trend in fiction I really like. The story is told from many different points of view and in the voices of many different family members. Each character tells their own story and in turn adds to the unfolding history of the family. It reminded me a bit of Amy Tan’s, The Joy Luck Club. The book is filled with vivid characters and events and includes elements of culture, religion, customs, food/cooking and mysticism. Overall it is a sad book, but beautifully written and full of local color.