Not as many books as I would've like to have read, but nevertheless, here's what happened in November:
BOOKS READ NOVEMBER
Altmann's Tongue: Stories and a Novella (2002) - Brian Evenson
I wrote about this one here a few weeks ago. Interesting book.
Sanctuary (1931) - William Faulkner
I Am Legend (1954) - Richard Matheson
Again, I wrote briefly about both the Faulkner and Matheson here.
Catalyst: A Novel of Alien Contact (2006) - Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Catalyst is something of a head-scratcher for me. It has all the characteristics of a YA novel - length, language, teen protagonist... only there are too many sex scenes for it to be considered YA. Yet it works as YA better than it does as an adult novel. You be the judge.
Greenwitch (YA 1974) - Susan Cooper
Greenwitch is the third entry in the five-volume The Dark is Rising Sequence which combines Celtic folklore with the legend of the Holy Grail. As the middle book, Greenwitch seems a bit lightweight compared to the first too books, Over Sea, Under Stone and The Dark is Rising, yet still delivers a good read.
All the President's Men (NF 1974) - Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
I've seen the movie version of All the President's Men at least three times and have enjoyed it every time, but the film is literally half the story at best. Sure, I knew the basic story, I knew the outcome, I even knew several of the details, yet I was still riveted by Woodward and Bernstein's account. And don't make the mistake of thinking a book about 1970's politics has nothing to do with the here and now.
Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture (NF 2007) - William D. Romanowski
I recommend this one even though much of the book is unnecessarily muddied in "textbook-ese" and tends to focus far more on film than the other arts. Yet the information is good, as Romanowski challenges Christians to "applaud those fine works of art that honestly explore the human experience even while representing a different view of life."
That's it! Go read something.
2 comments:
Catalyst is something of a head-scratcher for me. It has all the characteristics of a YA novel - length, language, teen protagonist... only there are too many sex scenes for it to be considered YA. Yet it works as YA better than it does as an adult novel. You be the judge.
::sighs:: You obviously don't know what depressed YA do these days in the back of school buses.
Well, you probably do know, but I'm phrasing that for dramatic effect.
I do know - remember, I taught for 15 years and took many band kids on those long trips to football games... (what awful memories...)
But my point is that many publishers won't market a book YA if they feel it has too much sex in it. (Other publishers obviously have no problem with it.) I think Catalyst is screaming to be a YA book, but maybe Tachyon thought there were too many sexual scenes for it to be marketed YA. I think it might find a stronger audience with YA, but whether it's appropriate for YA, that's for readers (and I suppose, the publishers) to decide.
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