Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut rejects suspense.  I'm okay with that.  His books are good practice for being an old man resigned to the insignificance of one human life on a grand scale and the insignificance of all else on a local scale.  I'm okay with that, too.

In This Way I Was Saved by Brian DeLeeuw

What a twisted little book! DeLeeuw starts out with the tried and true practice of horrifying his readers with innocent children experiencing deeply disturbing events (something very common in most of our experiences) and moves on from there. I expected very few of the plot twists (except for the big reveal at the end, but it didn't lose much of the impact just because I saw it coming) and thoroughly enjoyed the unsettling mood. Good stuff!

I Guess I'm Supposed to Do This Yearly

I'm now sitting on a small backlog of books that I'd like to review and some topics I'd like to discuss on this here blog thing.  Today will probably not be the day that I get to them.  I have many times resolved to pay more attention to my blog (not because I believe that I have many avid readers, but just as a journalling exercise) and it, like most New Year's resolutions, has never quite panned out.

This year I'm not resolving to blog more.  I'll work on that gradually and create better habits as I go.  With sustained effort and intrinsic motivation I'll make better writing practices a more constant part of my life.

Back to resolutions, this year I'm resolving to let the water run while I brush my teeth and leave the lights on when I leave the room.  When the resolution practice fails to encourage me to do these things, I will have kicked two bad habits and made the world a slightly more energy-efficient place to be.

Happy living, folks.

Growing Up Latino edited by Harold Augenbraum and Ilan Stavans

Growing Up Latino is one of the original efforts within the literary realm to combine the works of various Spanish-decent cultures into a single volume.  The introduction clearly states a desire to highlight the commonalities between Chicano, Caribbean, Central, and South American peoples and literary styles under one term: Latino.  It contains works by all of the recent heavy-hitters selected to highlight magical realism, immigrant narratives, and descriptions of latino home life.  Much of this is an enjoyable read, and while the introduction is dated, it does show the progression of literary criticism around these authors when compared with more recent writings.  Enough of the short stories are entertaining outside of the scholarly intent of the collection that I'd suggest this to anyone into short fiction as pleasure reading.

The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K. Le Guin

Le Guin is another one of those writers who can do no wrong in my book. She is imaginative, culturally aware, and philosophically consistant. Her stories include characters from a variety of backgrounds and she celebrates differences between people without stereotyping. Also her stories are badass. She pulls no punches and seems to delight in pulling out the nastiest tendencies of humanity and making her readers accept them as part of our species flaws while encouraging us to rise above them. This book is a small part of the Hanish Cycle which I have long ago given up on reading in order or even fully understanding the overall plot arc of. It is awesome as it is, even if I can't quite see the full picture.

Podcasts: The Second Coming

So last year I tried to get my Contemporary Literature students to record short memoir podcasts and it was largely a failure.  Only one recording (out of students) turned out reasonably well, and that student was very self-conscious about her own voice and did not want to share it with anyone.  *sigh*

I'm still plugging away, though, and this year might be different.  Like last year, the kids get horrified looks on their faces when I suggest that we may be putting some of their voices up on the Internet, but their initial written versions have turned out better.  We spent more time working on them during class, with the bulk of that time spent brainstorming and drafting.  We read and listened to more examples of memoirs before and while writing, so they had more quality models.  I'm also going to try to prep them a bit better before the recording, and have them all do two takes.

If the recordings turn out better and the kids are into it, I'll see about the legalities of posting some of them here.

Spook Country by William Gibson

I do love a book with multiple story lines that seem totally unconnected until the last two or so chapters.  I love books like that a lot.  Gibson pulls his complicated plot off well.  I'm not convinced that future generations will connect as strongly to the explicitly 'oughties' technology references as I did, but Spook Country will make a heck of a period piece in a few decades.  Good stuff!

Also, dude is a friggin' tweeting machine.  I had to stop following him because he fully dominated my feed every single evening.  Check him out if you dare!  @GreatDismal