Not that this is really necessary, but...

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by Steig Larsson
The final book (for now) in this series, I think I liked the second one the best, but this was still really good.
776 points

While Mortals Sleep by Kurt Vonnegut
My brother picked this out for me (again). I think I liked the first one I read more, but this was still an enjoyable read, especially if you're a Vonnegut fan. This was another collection of short stories, published after he died.
472 points

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
I first heard about this book while doing a research project about libel and slander. Apparently the author is being sued for likeness of character- a women claims that Stockett uses her life stories in the novel without permission. The book has gotten hugely popular since then and there's a movie coming out based on the book. It was a good read, but I'm interested to know the truth behind the court case. I can see both sides of it, and I'm not sure what ended up happening, I'll have to look it up. I'm glad I read this before I saw the movie, something I've been bad at lately.
744 points

Starting Over by Ken Sharp
Collection of interviews with John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and other key players in the production of Lennon's last album before his death, Double Fantasy. This was interesting to me because I love them, so every little fact is fun to read about, otherwise I don't know that others would find this a thrilling read.
472 points


I think it would be great to keep this around as a book club of sorts. Great idea, Matt.

Alright let's do this.

I have been a lazy shit these past few months and haven't updated at all. But that's my loss, I guess, because there are a few books that I probably read in the beginning of the summer that I don't remember, so I won't be including them here.

Here's what I do have, in no particular order:

Insatiable by Meg Cabot
Trendy vampire book that I received as a graduation present. I was excited to read a Meg Cabot book after so many years of loving The Princess Diaries, but this was not my really thing.

664 points

No Impact Man by Colin Beavan

A man and his family set out to live one year without creating any impact on the environment. Honestly written, has a lot of good ideas for people who are interested in this sort of lifestyle. Had a lot of unnecessary background info on environmental issues, or maybe this book is better suited for people who are new to this topic.

488 points

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson

If you have not yet read this book, get it out of the library. Today.

800 points

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Steig Larsson

This one was even better. I started it yesterday before dinner and stayed up til 4am to finish it.

830 points

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Recommended by Matt, this book was a quick read but SO good. I got so scared that I had to lock my bedroom door at night and I thought people were going to eat me while I was sitting on the subway reading it.

504 points

Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut
Recommended by my brother, I'm pretty sure this was the first Vonnegut book I ever read all the way through? It was actually a collection of short stories and really funny/ironic. I just got While Mortals Sleep out of the library, so I will probably read that next.

440 pages

Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil by John Berendt
Another one of my brother's. This murder mystery took place in Savannah, Georgia and was a great, great story with some really colorful, Southern characters. Definitely recommend checking this one out.

600 points

Cooking for Mr. Latte by Amanda Hesser
Written by NYTimes food writer, this was a cool mix of recipes and narrative about her experience eating and cooking in NYC. Really enjoyable to read about restaurants in Manhattan since I'm here right now, not so enjoyable because I will probably never be able to afford them. Need to get this out of the library again so I can copy down some of the recipes.

536 points

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
I recommend this one for sure, the main character was so likable and the writing style was really refreshing.

568 points

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

I've been wanting to read this since I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle over a year ago. A lot of people drool over this book and say it's their favorite. I thought it was really good, Matt I think you will also like it a lot. I pretty much wanted to punch the dad in the face the whole time so it got pretty frustrating, but I loved how the story was told from multiple perspectives.

776 points

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

I have been meaning to read this book since summer before junior year. Oops. It was definitely worth the wait though and is an awesome summer read because it is so long. If you read one book from this list, besides the Steig Larsson books, make it this one. This guy's story is really crazy and I loved reading more about living in India.

1,144 points

The end. Phew.

Edited to add: Wow, I knew that was a lot of books, but I didn't realize I was going to more than double my score. One more reason why taking the subway kicks the ass of a driving commute. Also, not being in school anymore has been pretty great as well.

Easy Read

I used to read Sarah Dessen books all the time, my old favorite being This Lullaby. When I saw her newest, Along for the Ride, at my closing Border's for 60% off, I knew right away that I wanted to grab it. And I read the whole thing in one sitting. It felt really nice to get wrapped into a book that I couldn't wait to finish.

Also, I'm re-watching Lost and I just got to the part when they first find Ben and keep him hidden in the hatch. They toss him a copy of The Brother's Karamavoz for him to read! I had just finished reading it, it was weird. So much symbolism, haha.

8/10

583 points

I FINISHED THE BEAST!!!

The beast, of course, being Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamavoz.

I'm still in shock, actually. I need to read some really trashy chick lit to make up for these past 3 months of such learned reading.

7/10

976 points

An Afternoon in the Sixties

Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream, by Jay Stevens, was a whirlwind introduction to America's relationship with LSD, from the scientists and psychologists who controlled it in laboratories, the men who tried to start a spiritual revolution based on the discoveries from their trips, to the hippies who almost got away with an entire cultural shakedown.

I've never really been well-read on this subject, and this book offers a lot of great background information and a who's-who on the most important players. However, there was so much covered that I feel like I've only scraped through the very first layer of comprehension. I'm planning on reading more on the topic in the future, so I'm glad I read this first to give me a solid primer to the various aspects of this complex, controversial and often misinterpreted substance.

8/10

574 points

The Way Things Are

Another book for my mysticism class. Huston Smith was my professor's professor at Syracuse University back in the day, and this book is a collection of interviews that have been conducted with him throughout the years. Friend of Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, and the Dalai Lama (just to name a few), Smith uses his position as a spiritual guide to inspire others on their personal religious path.

I really like his approach to religion. He speaks a lot about finding your spiritual roots, which means going back to the religion you were born into and discovering the mystical aspects of it, instead of finding a whole new religion to adopt and follow. It's a weird concept for me because I have mixed feelings about Catholicism, but I'm interested. So I guess the book succeeded in that sense.

8/10

477 points

The Essential Mystics

To be honest, I probably would not have finished reading this book if it weren't for this contest, so yay for motivation! The Essential Mystics, by Andrew Harvey, outlines the mystical aspects of the world's major religions and offers excerpts from holy books to back up his assertions. About 90% of the book was excerpts and reading that kind of stuff isn't really my thing. Our class discussions, on the other hand, are awesome and my professor is able to make the class interesting and relatable, so I'm thankful for that.

4/10

216 points

Eaarthlings

Bill McKibben's newest book, Eaarth, wasn't as easy of a read as his last that I read. This book focused more on the harsh realities of our current situation- the state of our planet, how this has occurred over the past few decades, and what we can feasibly do about it. It was, essentially, depressing. Which is why it is so very important for people to start facing these realities, instead of continuing to pretend that they don't exist, or that they aren't effecting us.

Key points included moving away from unlimited growth as an economic ideal and learning how to turn towards local communities- which may be a bit repetitive, but at this point, absolutely necessary.

8/10

412 points

Narcissus & Goldmund

Written by Hermann Hesse, this novel has been translated from German, it's original language. It tells the story of Goldmund, who leaves the cloister when he is a young man to travel in search for answers to a world that he had previously been sheltered from. His mentor, a monk named Narcissus, cares for him deeply and they depart on good terms. Goldmund learns painful truths throughout his journey, but also experiences great joy as he discovers love and the artistic manner in which he expresses his feelings. The book is simple in writing style but deep in its discussion of finding one's self in a single lifetime.

8/10

515 points

The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

Deep Economy, by Bill McKibben, is a well-written discussion of how American culture has increased and intensified consumerism to the detriment of local communities. As we buy into the idea of hyper-individualism, we lose the sense of connectedness to those around us. We begin to feel that we don't need the support of others for our survival and we are less happy because of it. Focusing on supporting local economies, in particular local farmer's markets, as the first step towards re-strengthening communities, McKibben makes persuasive and realistic arguments, and even mentions Ithaca a few times throughout the book! I recommend this one to you all.

10/10

472 points

If you ever need to talk someone out of being a hippie...

have them read this book. Drop City, by T.C. Boyle, follows two story lines throughout the novel. On one hand, you have a husband and wife living in the woods of Alaska, surviving on the meat they hunt and the vegetables they grow. Very appealing and a little Little House on the Prarie-esque. And then on the other hand, you have dirty, drug obsessed hippies, living off of welfare, acid-laced Kool Aid, and tofu burritos in California. When the police threaten to arrest them and kick them off their land, they journey to Alaska to "go back to nature," which for them means growing weed in their backyard and living off food stamps. Their encounters with the locals leads to events that the whole book is based upon. I wasn't really crazy about the commune sections of the book. Especially the part where one girl comes home from working at a strip club and then the whole clan gets crabs from their idyllic "free love" beliefs. Yuck.

A quick google search tells me that Drop City was an actual intentional community in Colorado in the late '60s, the first "hippie commune." Although the book is not about this specific community, I'm sure there are many similarities. Even though I wasn't crazy about some of the characters, the book still held my interest until the end and overall I liked it. But I'm also looking forward to moving on to something new.

7/10

697 points

Behind the scences with a real-life Sugar Plum Fairy

Usually when I'm bored at work, I draw on post-it notes, try on the belly dancing costumes, or take a nap on the floor. But lately, I've been reading one of the ballet books we have laying around that no one will ever actually buy. It's called Winter Season, by Toni Bentley, a dancer I have for sure never heard of. But she danced for years for the New York City Ballet, under George Balanchine, and the book was an interesting look into the life of a prima ballerina.

Basically, their days seem to be spent as such:
Morning: wake up, massage injured feet, drink coffee, take class
Afternoon: take another class, rehearse ballet, dance through the excruciating pain, drink Coke
Evening: nibble on a salad, or maybe some fish, drink Coke, perform

Basically the opposite of how I want to spend my days....but still, somehow I found it really interesting.

Or at least better than rearranging the racks of leotards so that all the hangars face the same way.


8/10
350 points

Brave New World

I'm not sure why this book took me soo long to get through, but I'm happy to finally be done with it. Overall, I think Huxley's vision of the future is compelling, especially when you consider that this book was written in the 1930's. Many aspects of the futuristic society that he writes about are still a possible future reality for mankind. If it's becoming legal to genetically modify and market salmon, how much longer until we are doing it with humans, too? Where will we stop?

My biggest complaint is the ending... which I won't spoil in case anyone wants to read the book, but I do hope that in reality, opposition to the "controllers" won't be met with despair and failure. This ended the book on a rather depressing note- and gave me a feeling of hopelessness, which I didn't appreciate.

But I won't let it get me down too much. Let's all go live in the woods!

7.5/10

459 points

Bon Appétit!

My Life in France, by Julia Child, is a book I've been meaning to read for about a year now. When I re-discovered it while cleaning my room, I finally gave it the attention it deserved. This book isn't for everyone; only the true foodies at heart can really appreciate her many detailed accounts of preparing poached fish in yet another type of butter sauce. But even though poached fish may not be my meal of choice, I was hooked. Her bursting passion and love for food and cooking was so relatable to me, I read some passages and felt like I could have written them myself. I was so inspired after finishing the book that I kind of got a little stressed out because I didn't know where to begin. Buy all of her cookbooks and immediately begin to master the art of French cooking myself? Re-watch Julie and Julia? Go to the market and get a freshly killed goose and learn how to stuff it with lemon and herbs??? Um. Well, no.

But I will continue to push myself in the kitchen, trying new recipes and practicing for my TV show (it could happen, ok?). Shopping at the market and eating fresh, yummy food. And who knows, maybe one of these days I will get around to that goose. Maybe.

96/100

502 points.

3.14159265

I read Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, yesterday, a good way to spend 1o hours on a bus to New York City and back in one day. The beginning of this book is all about animals and zoos. For those of you who know me well.... you know that I hate zoos. Life of Pi made me question that hatred. I'm not about to skip downtown to start visiting the lions and tigers and bears oh my, but maybe in the future I'll be more open to going... especially if it's for Brew at the Zoo.

Anyways, I really related well to this book because as Pi was suffering on his lifeboat, starving, wet, and at the brink of death, I was sitting on a bus with an air conditioner so cold that I could hardly move my hand to turn the page. When we stopped on the way home to get food, I was shivering from head to toe, teeth chattering, and holding a cup of soup in my hand, feeling like I just survived a storm in the Pacific Ocean myself. This really brought the reading experience to a personal level. [Side note: I don't like air conditioning. It's summer. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE HOT.]

Overall, I liked this book a lot and if we are going to start a rating system, I'll give this book a 4/5.

526 points.