The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (on Nook)

My past experience with, and my understanding of, Oscar Wilde leads me to think of his writing style as florid, satiric if not ironic, and above all archly humorous. This story is definitely the first two adjectives, but I'll be damned if I could find much humor at all. Still, I'm glad I read it--even if it took me nearly two months of reading five or ten pages a week and then putting it down for several more weeks. Aside from that purple prose he was so fond of, the story is amazingly well-told, although in the middle of it I just wished he'd get on with it already.

Don't Shoot, by David M. Kennedy

This was really interesting to read; every time I sat down with it, I was drawn in to the subject and the writing itself. The subject is how to deal with crime in ways that are not 'common sense.' Having an effect on crime means getting to know the area, the community/ies, the people, not "cracking down."

However, reading it at the busiest time of the year meant that I never got to spent more than about 5 pages with it before some new thing had to be handled. So, after 5 weeks and only 50 or 60 pages, I gave up. I hope to get back to it sometime though.

The Rise and Fall of the Bible, by Timothy Beal

I liked this book. Good insight on where the book has come from, how it's been used (and misused) and why it has become something it really isn't: the book EVERYone has read. Not.

Secret America, by Barb Karg and Rick Sutherland

Uhm. Well. Lots of info in here, poorly arranged and with a very (VERY) loose organizational structure. At least now I sort of know what the Masons are doing at their meetings.

Do Hard Things : A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations, by Alex & Brett Harris

The concept is VERY good. The execution of the book is massively flawed, however, in that it seems to presume that all Christian teens [should] feel precisely the same on all social and political issues. [Disclaimer: by and large, I disagree with most of those political points of view.] As many books like this are, it's also incredibly didactic.

Still, there are nuggets of goodness here that I agree with: teens have a great deal going for them that society as a whole prefers to repress--at worst--or discount. I'm still trying to figure out if there is a way to salvage the main point to present as a series of Sunday School or youth group topics.

On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan

Nothing like starting the year off with a really good book. This one could be about me...almost. Thank God for sex ed.!

McEwan has a way of describing things without being noticed describing them. It's lovely.

Traffic : Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), by Tom Vanderbilt

Eminently readable, full of fun research...and yet I didn't finish it. My brain is not in non-fiction mode right now.

Quality of Life Report, by Meghan Daum

Hmm. Sort of chick lit for the Ivy League set. I didn't like many people in this book, especially the narrator who is the personification of one of my own personal pet peeves: Life Does Not Exist Outside of New York City. That attitude has been the major reason for my unwillingness to EVER visit the city, which was finally (I thought) exorcised by the events of September 11, 2001.

And yet, here it raises its head again in a story about a 30ish "woman" who heads into the wilds of the midwest to report on life there for the viewers of a New York talk/information show that's about as deep and meaningful as the layer of scum on a spring-fed pond. As is the 'heroine.'

Reading this book was painful and depressing for me on many levels. I know this chick, and can't STAND her! Since a tiny bit of her exists in me, that led to feelings of desperation at the sight of my own failings. She is also the embodiment of all I loathe about women's magazines (Cosmo, et al.) and their cheap attempts at "serious" articles. The author's description of winter in the upper midwest is spot-on, which means that I'm having my usual mid-winter blecchhhhh NOW, in the midst of a perfectly lovely stretch of 70-degree-and-sunny weather. The only person I liked in the book turns out to be a meth addict, and I can totally see WHY because I'd probably do meth too if I had to be around this dingbat for more than 30 seconds. By the way, I hardly think it's as easy as it appears to quit cranking on meth. In any case, what I'm saying is that everything negative about the main character is me, and....there is nothing particularly positive about her except that on the last page she pulls her head out of her butt for the first time in the book. She is the least proactive person I think I've ever read about, which is precisely the way I was raised NEVER to be. She drove me frickin' CRAZY!

And then the end. Poof: magic wand time. Tie it all up in a neat little package of sudden awareness, motivation, and being saved by the evil NewYorkians. This is definitely a book I will remember, but certainly not fondly, since the things I liked about it made me profoundly depressed about my life, and the parts I didn't like (see the opening lines of this paragraph for example) were simply hideous.