Three Cheers for the Gruesomes ...

Would it surprise you to learn that I had a very difficult time justifying my pick for the D-E-S book of the year?  It's true.   Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was not the "best" book that I had read all year.  It wasn't the funniest, the most touching, nor was it the most thought provoking.  It was, however, the most entertaining and as such, worked its way to the top of my gift list. 

That said, as good as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was, it was not the only book that I shared with my friends.  For the boys in my life, I chose Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle.  Narrated by a drug-addled narcissist , The Gargoyle is a "male" version of The Time Traveler's Wife.  It is a love story that transcends time and place and takes the reader through the depths of hell in a way that will remind you of Dante.  In short, it is a good tale and I would highly recommend it for a wintry afternoon.

Happy reading!  I wish you and your loved ones all the best for a joyful and prosperous 2010.  May your inner light guide your way.

Renaissance Men

The Book of Unholy Mischief
Elle Newmark
Atria Books

It would seem that I am in a bit of a rut.  It might be payback for all the fantastic books that I read earlier in the year, but my last few selections have left me a little underwhelmed.  Then again, maybe it's not the books -- I've been trying to re-connect with my inner Pollyanna and the glad game has proven to be a bit of a challenge.  Could it be that I'm not in the mood to read these days?  Hmmm ...

So, The Book of Unholy Mischief is sort of like a 15th century DaVinci Code.  The hero of the narrative is Luciano -- a street urchin turned kitchen boy who comes to be a chef's apprentice in the kitchen of the Venetian doge.   At the centre of the novel are the Gnostic Gospels -- a series of books that are wanted by powerful men for a variety of reasons.  The Church wants them so they can maintain their power and combat the idea of the "god within."  Other people believe the books hold the secrets of alchemy and eternal life.  Luciano's maestro is one of the guardians of this knowledge and, well, you can predict the rest.

On the upside, the author did provide the reader with some rich descriptions of early renaissance Venice.  Now if only there had been a more imaginative plot...  One bud of garlic out of five.

Is that you, Obi-Wan?

Long Way Round
Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman
Sphere

Well, let me start out by saying that I think our friend Ewan should probably stick to acting.  Writing, as evidenced by this travelogue, is definitely not his forte.  If you were to ask me for three adjectives that best describe this work, I'd probably pick "insipid," "navel-gazing," and "poorly-written."  So much for international bestseller.

For those of you who don't know the back story, a few years ago, Ewan McGregor and a fellow motorcycle-nut, Charley Boorman, decided that they would like to take the trip of a lifetime and bike their way from London to New York.  They were going to take the "long way round" by crossing Europe, into Kazakhstan, across Mongolia, and eventually through Siberia where they would then catch a plane to Alaska and cross North America to New York.  The journey took about three and a half months and their adventures were documented by both themselves and by a film crew for reality-type series. 

The book alternates between narrators and I think that is part of the reason why I didn't really enjoy it.  While I've never ridden across a continent on a motorcycle, I have done my fair share of  road tripping and I understand what it is like to be cooped up with the same person (or people) for days on end.  At one point in the story, McGregor mentions that the experience was sometimes isolating -- they were on the same journey, but not doing it together.  That's how I felt about the book -- they were writing about the same series of events, but they weren't narrating the same story. One muddy pannier out of five.

We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone

Wow -- why does it seem that every year goes by faster and faster?  I'd like to think that there is some super-cool scientific explanation, but if one exists, I couldn't find it.  Part of me understands that it is just a matter of perception, but if time is whizzing past now, what will it be like when I'm older?  Ugh ... I can't even bear to think of it. 

So, back to the the purpose of this week's entry.  It is with great pleasure that I introduce the nominees for the D-E-S Book of the Year.  Once again, it's a bit of a mixed bag.  I tried to expand my reading boundaries this year and the book list reflects those choices.  Quite frankly, any of the selections is a more than decent read and more than one has made it to the distribution list in terms of this year's gifts.

And the nominees are:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery
The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
The Gargoyle, Andrew Davidson
Sarah's Key, Tatiana de Rosnay
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Anathem, Neal Stephenson

I Know You Are, But What am I?

The Know-it-All

A.J. Jacobs

Simon and Schuster

Part memoir, part compendium of obscure and admittedly, often interesting fact, The Know-it-All is the written record of A.J. Jacobs' journey through the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  Yep, that's right kids  -- the man read the whole damn thing.   In his "spare" time.   Um, yeah.  And you people thought I was nerdy.

I'm not going to lie to you.  I actually enjoyed this book a great deal.  Jacobs managed to find a good balance between presenting some of the quirkier bits of the EB and sharing some of the quirkier bits of his private life.  Over the course of the year that it took him to finish this immense task, Jacobs and his wife were also trying to get pregnant.  I hardly think that a thirty-two tome oeuvre was always the best aphrodisiac, but he was sure able to educate his wife on the testicle size of elephants and the sexual habits of the bandicoot.  The poor woman.

While there are parts of this book that are only skim worthy, if you like words, puzzles, trivia and history, The Know-it-All is a fine read.  I  definitely admire Jacobs' determination -- I'm not sure that I could have finished.  Three pairs of reading glasses out of five.