Currently, I am at 50 pages (more or less) of thesis text. This fills me with glee. Rather a change from the beginning of grad school, when cranking out the minimum 15 was an accomplishment. I mean, this 50 pages need serious help... Lots of editing, and another chapter or so to write still, but hey, I'm making progress and that is a good feeling. Sometimes all you need is the right book to get things back on track.
Speaking of books! I have been reading fun ones in my spare time. I got an Amazon gift card and went to town. Brief book reviews:
1. Akata Witch and Zara the Wind Seeker by Nnedi Okorafor. I read her book Who Fears Death last spring and it was such a profound and wonderful book that I couldn't wait to read these two, which are young adult novels. Akata Witch was just published last year and was nominated for several awards. I enjoyed it, but it was very similar to Who Fears Death and so I wasn't as wowed as I wanted to be. Zara, on the other hand, was extremely fun. I love Okorafor's world building, and I hope she continues to gain recognition.
2. Reamde by Neal Stephenson. Basically, this book was a gigantic adrenaline rush. Hackers! Mobsters! Terrorists! I kept expecting pirates to show up, but they didn't. Despite that lack, I enjoyed the book almost thoroughly. It was terribly exciting, and I jus t love how mobile the story was. Canada today, China tomorrow, and hey the Philippines and now Seattle and then Idaho. It satisfied my inner globe-trotter. I do have to confess, I was disappointed by the epilogue. Spoiler: I wanted Zula to end up with the Russian, not the Hungarian. If she HAD to end up with someone, anyway. It seemed unnecessary.
3. A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan. This was a YA sci-fi retelling of Sleeping Beauty. It was very sad. I felt that it was an interesting take on how Sleeping Beauty would have coped with waking into a new world, lost and abandoned. I especially appreciated that there was no requisite happy ending. That lack made the book more complicated and unsettling than I expected. It reminded me a lot of Diana Wynne Jones' Hexwood, so I was pleased to find that the author is also a DWJ fan.
4. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows. I'm in the middle of this one. This is an epistolary novel set right after WWII. My nerdself is deeply satisfied with a return to such an early novel form. Each character has a distinct voice, and some parts remind me of Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone. The top three words that come to my mind are: lovely, funny, moving. It is a book for people who love books.
A quote from Guernsey to sum up:
"That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive-- all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment" (p. 11-12).
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