Gone to Chicago for a few days, so no posts for awhile. I'm taking along the books at left -
The Search for Joseph Tully and
Pictures at a Revolution (as well as several audiobooks on my iPod). Until I report back, tell me what
you're reading. (Yes,
BOTH of you!)
5 comments:
Well, everyone else is busy so I'll comment! I'm reading Time Traveler by Michael Novacek right now, a NF book about the search for dinosaur fossils. It's an excellent book so far, good writing and really interesting!
Have a good time in Chicago! I hope it's not too cold!
Sounds like a good book! I'll have to check it out.
Chicago isn't too cold. At least it wasn't too cold for some guy to jump into the river after they turned it green for St. Patrick's Day.
Andy, I hope you appreciated the best weather the Midwest has had in about six months!
As for what I'm reading, I finished Joseph Marshall's Hundred in the Hand (A Lakota Western and Louise Erdrich's Four Souls this weekend, I'm about 2/3rds done with David Treuer's Native American Fiction: A User's Manual, and will be starting Erdrich's Love Medicine today. I need to start Treuer's The Translation of Dr. Appelles on Wednesday so I can have it read for class next week. So it's Native American lit coming fast and thick for me.
It's also worth noting that only the Marshall and Translation are assignments and the rest are voluntary reading. If you haven't read Erdrich before, I highly recommend her.
Trent, I picked up an audiobook of The Painted Drum a few days ago. Good place to start?
I'm listening to The Painted Drum myself right now and finished Disc 1 today. I'm just starting to get into it and I like it, but I like some of her other stuff better.
Her claim to fame is a series of books set in the fictional town of Argus, North Dakota. It begins with Love Medicine and is followed by The Beet Queen, Tracks, The Bingo Palace, and most recently Four Souls. I haven't read them in the appropriate chronology but that doesn't seem to matter too much, although knowing the histories of the characters gives you a richer reading experience.
Erdrich uses different voices and perspectives to tell the sagas of a few families living in and around the reservation from the turn of the century onwards. What I find particularly fascinating is how she's managed to sell many of these chapters as short stories, yet they work as independent stories, part of a novel, and part of a series of novels. Fascinating stuff.
The Painted Drum seems pretty straightforward in comparison. That doesn't mean it's bad, but it hasn't sucked in me in the way the Argus novels have.
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