Books, books, books and some more books

Again, sorry for the gaps. The life I lead in the summer is not at all interesting...

but the books I read are, so that's what I'm writing about today. Yay.

I actually did my research before I went off to find books to take with me to London. I set after books that were going to captivate my interest like The Shadow of the Wind did five years ago, thus that was the base research book.

Before I go on, I have realized something fully that I kind of knew all along: I am way too picky with what I read. Unlike my relationship with people, I refuse to give a book a second chance and, sometimes, even a first chance. If it doesn't strike my fancy in the first two pages, it's down on the bedside table and isn't touched again but to be put up on the top shelf of the bookcase. I realize this is a gigantic downfall in me, because I miss out on some really good reads, but if I'm not completely dominated by a book from the start, I feel as if it is not worth my time to try to plow through it.
I actually did that with the first Harry Potter book, believe it or not. I read the first few pages...gave it a few chapters and then put it down. Not for me. Someone told me that I had to get to Hogwarts before it got good, and since it was someone I trusted, I plowed through. The outcome was sunny, thankfully, though it did take me until the 4th book to get to the hopelessly addicted stage.

There are very few books that people recommend to me that I will pick up from the bookstore. Now, if you're to shove the book under my nose and command me to read, it's likely that I'll give it the good, 'ol college try.
You will have mighty success if you give me short stories. I adore all sorts of short stories; they are within the page limit that my patience will allow in most cases. And if it's a 30 page story and I get 10 pages in and don't like it, it's only 20 more until the end, so why not finish it? They also have a quality of drawing you in quickly, because they must. Novels get the luxury of having a little more time to bide before they submit their final argument.

And old friend used to shove book after book at me and none of them stuck, because she didn't truly get that, while I appreciated a good love story, the tired stories about down-on-their-luck fishermen's daughters finding love in the unsightly muscled pirates were not the kind of thing I was interested in. The only book she gave me that I enjoyed was Phantom by Susan Kay, and that's mainly because it was glorified Phantom of the Opera fan fiction.

She didn't like the book anyway, so she gave it to me. Go figure.

I would never have had the pleasure of reading anything by Kevin Brockmeir without Sam, as well as a good portion of Steven King's short stories, so I'm thankful for that. House of Leaves is debatable ^_~

I don't know if I'll ever stop having bad dreams about that one.

Okay! So, the books that I bought:

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (haven't bought yet, but will tomorrow, seeing as it is coming out on the 16th. yay!)
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

I have since read The Thirteenth Tale. Reaction still to come.

The Red Tent is a first-person narrative told from the point of view of Dinah, daughter of Jacob and sister to Joseph (you know, the Joseph of the Technicolor Dreamcoat fame ^_^). She is telling the stories of the women of her time that were left out of the bible, because the men could not go into the red tent, which is the tent that the women went to during menstral cycles and for childbirth. It's a book written by a very devout jewish woman who has a taste for feminist literature. Fun fun fun and historical.

The Historian is the book I know the least about. Wikipedia is telling me that the "plot blends the history and folklore of Vlad Ţepeş and his fictional equivalent Count Dracula."
Here's the web address, if you're curious. They could probably tell you more than I could
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Historian

The Angel's Game is Zafon's most recently translated novel and the story exists in the same universe as Julian Carax and Daniel and the whole cast of characters from The Shadow of the Wind. I'm not sure if it includes them, but it exists in their Barcelona, so that's good enough for me. I'm just going to pray that the translator was as good as the one that came before her.


The Thirteenth Tale touches on truth, storytelling, and the ghosts that exist when they are not confronted. The reasons that I enjoyed this book, as well as The Shadow of the Wind, had to do with the plots centering around people's pasts. The pasts of these rich, entitled families were buried deep with the people that had experienced their cruel elements and had died because of them.The Aldayas and the Angelfields do not share the same experiences and maybe not even the same dynamics as a family, but the horrors that the parents commit against their children, consciously or unconsciously, and how that shapes those involved has always interested me.
There's so much more to it than what I'm saying here and I've always had trouble expressing myself, so go on and read it if you're looking for a gothic-esque novel. I read it in about three days, so it's not too hard to get through. It's a good read.

And lastly, given that you know what I read now, do you have any suggestions? I have a good $33 left to spend if I go up to EL again before my trip, so tell me something you think I should read, and I promise this time, I'll pick it up and give it an honest shot.

take it easy. don't die. don't get raped. keep reading