You Are Here

A Portable History of the Universe, by Christopher Potter.

Quickie Recap: How to recap what is basically a recap of all the highlights of the universe, from its conception to its hypothetical death? Well, I can't. It just is.

Quickie Review: This book is so brilliant even Jesus uses it to refresh his memory. Every day I'd read a little on the bus ride to work and come in challenging my poor coworkers to give me their ideas on the craziness I'd just read - everything from the bizarre standards of measurement we use, to what the world will look like when it's ending, whether we're all alone here, and if anything is significant when we're all so clearly insignificant. There are some really good ideas in here, and it's everything a good book should be: informative, entertaining, stimulating.

Quickie Recommendation: Absolutely.

Moral Disorder

by Margaret Atwood

Quickie Recap: The stories are all about the same woman, from different periods in her life, and told from different perspectives.

Quickie Review: It's Atwood, so of course it's good. I found it fairly straight-forward, with moments of bitterness and sweetness both. When I first dove in, I was in love. It was easy to get into, but because the stories are related, it almost reads like a novel, a novel which in the end lacks that final punch. It left me wanting to know more about the other relationships that get woven into the stories. I wanted a bit of closure.

Quickie Recommendation: I don't consider it her best, but I'm sure even her worst is far above much of the tripe they sell in Chapters.

Come Thou Tortoise

by Jessica Grant.

Quickie Recap: Audrey has just lost her father, and she doesn't yet realize that his death complicates thing for everyone she once considered family. She chases after the people she loves while leaving behind the pet she has cared for - a tortoise named Winnifred who tells us about all her previous owners and their various heartaches.

Quickie Review: Maybe I had feelings of happiness towards this book because I read it on a hammock on the beach shaded by palm trees. But sitting back home in Canada, I still identify this as not just my favourite book of 2009 (so far and I'd venture to say in its entirety), but the best book I've read in a really long time, and I've read some very pleasing gems. The cover of this book refers to itself as "offbeat" and it is, but it's even better than that. It's the very best kind of odd there is. Charming at every word.

Quickie Recommendation: Awesome, awesome, awesome. Can't be said enough.

You Suck

A Love Story by Christopher Moore.

Quickie Recap: Jody turns her boyfriend Tommy into a vampire so they can live immortally together forever. Except it turns out that vampires don't have it so easy. And did you know that some people don't like vampires? True story.

Quickie Review: So I'm sitting on the plane headed for The Dominican Republic, and the flight attendant announces that the in flight movie will be Twilight. Pass. So I crack open You Suck instead, which superficially is also about vampires and the persecution of and whatnot, but actually is the anti-Twilight because it's good. Ya gotta love Moore, he's got such a strange and inventive mind. I quite enjoyed it. Quite!

Quickie Recommendation: As always, yes.

The Believers

A novel by Zoe Heller.

Quickie Recap: Joel and Audrey are a couple of activists who raised 3 kids and now that they're reaching retirement you'd think the worst was behind them, but just as Joel is trying a big huge case, he has a stroke and falls into a coma, leaving his family to discover dirty little secrets and work out their many, many dysfunctions.

Quickie Review: Wow, that was killer. It's not often you read a scathing expose of the hypocrisy of the left wingers. Totally makes you think twice. Heller has a real gift for the details, which makes the family dynamics just pop off the page. I had an immediate hate-on for the mother character, Audrey, which tells me she was very carefully written. Nothing is safe from Heller's pen: not the crazy institution of marriage, or religion, or politics. Everything is under fire, and ooooh does it burn.

Quickie Recommendation: Righteous book, dude.

Apologies to March

Quickie Apology:

I sucked in March. I still read like crazy, but between the vacation and the new puppy and the idiotic schedule at work, I've barely had to time to write about what a read. And that's a travesty, no?

So I'm playing catch up, but it's all worth it because I actually did read some really amazing shit in March, particularly this one book that I read on the beach in Punta Cana that I cannot wait to tell you about.

A Short History of Nearly Everything!

by le fabuleux Bill Bryson.

Quickie Recap: First, let me confess that the exclamation mark up there is my own addition. I think Bryson should consider adding it for his next edition. To recap this book would be ridiculous, as it is indeed a history of nearly everything - the origins of the universe, human ancestry, and everything before, since, and in between.

Quickie Review that's maybe not so quick: When I first read this book, I was blown away. Sorry if I've ever used that expression here before: if I have, I take it back, I take them all back and reserve it solely for this one. This was nearly life-changing, I kid you not. It was brilliant. I felt exhilarated - this guy was not mistaking me for an idiot, just a curious person who would like to be reminded of the things I probably learned in grade school. And then he expands. He digs around. He presents the awesome, interesting facts, and I just ate it right up. I couldn't believe my luck - here was this great, entertaining book that I kept putting down to share tidbits with others, that also had me learning new things and remembering old things and making me thirsty to know more. What a combination! It's the very thing that authors strive for all the time and yet hardly ever achieve. Is there anything this guy can't do (except return my phone calls?)



Now, the Short History of Nearly Everything is short in terms of how much history there is, but in terms of books, it's still pretty long. However, a most marvellous thing has come along - A Really Short History of Nearly Everything! (again, italics and excitement are my own.) This is the condensed (and illustrated!) version, and it appealed to me immediately. Only once I was in the middle of it did I think that perhaps its intended audience was children. But I refuse to feel childish reading this wonderful thing. It's just way too awesome! I learned how to become a fossil (it's harder than you think!) and that it's fun to cough on things just to make gross science.

Quickie Review: This book is in my top ever reads without a doubt. This is a book for other books to look up to. Once again, Bill Bryson has gotten it exactly right.