The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins


My rating: 5 of 5 stars

WOW. Okay. So I admit, I was a little skeptical about reading this book, but WOW. I read pretty much non-stop from a Saturday evening to Sunday afternoon, and I would have probably read it all in one day had I begun in the morning.

This is technically a young adult book, but it will hook ANYONE of any age. A dystopian novel, The Hunger Games is set in the country of Panem, which used to be the US. The country is divided into districts of varying levels of prosperity, from the well-off to the poverty-stricken, but all districts are under the absolute authority of the Capitol. In punishment for past rebellions, each of the districts must send two young people to compete in the annual Hunger Games--a sadistic Survivor-type competition that ends only when one victor remains and the others have killed each other off or died from exposure, starvation, and so on.

The novel has echos of Brave New World, Roman gladiator culture, reality television, and The Road. It's a brilliant reflection on power and privilege, human fascination with violence as entertainment, voyeurism and privacy, rebellion, and of course, teenage romance (written in a smart, non-cheesy, complex manner). The sequel comes out September 1...not sure how I am going to make it till then! Better than most so-called adult literature I've read in the last year, hands down.

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Worst Harry Potter Tats

In honor of HP 6, here are the worst Harry Potter tats. I mean WOW. I think the #5 (pictured above) is actually the worst of them all, particularly given that it covers a woman's entire thigh!! WTF. As gross as it is, though, the tattoo work itself is impressive---look at those teeth! They might leap off her leg and rip apart my soul into a series of horcruxes!

Smark sent me this too and gets mad when I don't give him credit.

"Where The Wild Things Are" Trailer

I had no idea this wonderful classic kids' book was being made into a movie!! And directed by Spike Jonze...even better. One of my all-time favorite books growing up--both the story and the illustrations are amazing. This trailer looks AWESOME. I'm there in a heartbeat.

Twilight (Finally)

I have been resisting the urge to begin reading the Twilight series because a) I had heard they are gratingly anti-feminist with all the damsel-in-distress-needing-male-protection themes and b) I suspected I would adore them nonetheless and not want to do anything but devour (ha) all four books in a row. Hypotheses "a" proved fairly correct, but hypothesis "b" ultimately is triumphing. I read the first one in two days then decided to read something else in between to kind of tease (torture) myself, and now I'm halfway through New Moon. Yes, the books are teenager-y in their melodrama, pretty anti-feminist, blah blah...they are also entirely absorbing and entertaining. Stephenie Meyer can write a damn good cliffhanger chapter ending; she also captures the intense moods of a teenage girl with pretty perfect accuracy. I heard an acquaintance gush that this series is better than Harry Potter, but I won't go nearly that far. The Twilight books are equally addictive and suspenseful, but they don't have nearly the same heart or epic scope. Then again, I'm only halfway into book two...

One Man Against Torture

Last week John sent this article by Matthew Alexander (a pseudonym), who is a US solider taking a stand against interrogation techniques that use torture. He makes a powerful case against torture, and obviously his team is doing something right: they were responsible for obtaining the information that led to al-Zarqawi's capture. One of his detainees said to him, poignantly, "I thought you would torture me, and when you didn't, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That's why I decided to cooperate."

I thought the article was great, so I was excited to see Alexander on The Daily Show two nights ago. As John Stewart mentions, a pseudonym doesn't work quite them same when you go on tv, but I'm glad he did---this is a brave man with an important message. Now if only the military and DOD would pull the cotton out of their ears and hear it...

Here's the link to Alexander's new book. I hope to get my hands on it soon.

Jonestown

Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the People's Temple by Deborah Layton

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Jonestown tragedy happened a few years before I was born, so prior to reading this book I knew very little about the People's Temple and Jim Jones. I saw a news story one day that marked the twentieth anniversary of the mass suicide, and I poked around online until I came across Deborah Layton's book.

Layton was a privileged, rebellious teenager when she was introduced to the People's Temple and the world of its charismatic leader, Jim Jones. She is a talented and passionate storyteller, tracing the evolution of the Temple from a socially conscious advocacy organization that helped the poor, homeless, and drug addicted to a perversion of socialism that brainwashed, abused, and terrorized its members. Layton's brother, sister in law, and mother all joined the cult as well. The latter two traveled with her to Jones'so called Promised Land in the jungles of Guyana, where members were held prisoner and ruled by lies and fear.

Layton's eventual escape led to an American contingent of a congressman, members of the press, and concerned relatives traveling to Guyana only to be ambushed by Jones' security forces. Hours later, Jones ordered the mass suicide, his soldiers killing any who refused to drink the poison.

The story is compelling and heart breaking. Layton debunks myths about cults by portraying the lives of intellectuals, doctors, lawyers, and others from all walks of life who joined the Temple. It's frightening how insidious the transformation of the Temple was from a legitimate commmunity organization to a cult ruled by a sociopath. She shows us how any of us could fall prey to a charismatic leader only to have things go terribly wrong.

This is a fantastic book. Read it.


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Books That Make You Dumb

Some guy at Cal Tech decided to compare the Facebook lists of favorite books at various colleges and universities with the average SAT scores. It's not exactly sound statistical methods, but it's still kinda fun to see what the top books are at each SAT range. You can also look school by school to see what's most popular. I'm disappointed but not surprised that those terrible Dan Brown books (Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons) appear pretty frequently. I don't have much hope for the future of our youth if those are seriously so many people's favorite books.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
What a glorious, wonderful day it was when this book mysteriously showed up on my doorstep, a gift from one of my best friends for no special occasion--she just knew I would love it.



"The Invention of Hugo Cabret" is a novel told through both words and over a hundred gorgeous pencil illustrations. The illustrations tell crucial portions of the story themselves rather than simply complementing the narrative, an interesting device that makes the reader feel like he or she is watching an old film. This sensation was almost certainly intentional on the part of Brian Selznick as much of the story revolves around the magic and legends of early cinema. My enjoyment of this novel was greatly enhanced because as a wanna-be film nerd, I've seen and loved many of the classic early films that are referenced and pictured throughout the story.



I will keep this book a long time and read it to my children one day (that is, after savoring it myself several more times!).


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"Reading Faulkner at 17, You Foresee Your Reckoning"

I love this poem by Catherine Pierce, posted to Slate. My hippie high school let me do an independent study in Southern Literature, so I actually WAS a 17-year-old reading Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury on my own. It was a whole different experience when I read it again in a college class on Faulkner, but neither experience was better or worse...just delightfully distinct.

The harvest moon hangs heavy,
a gourd. Your desires heave inside you
like a blood wave. Ignore the cat

pulling on your trousers. Ignore
the cicadas bossing you from the elms.
See yourself in this hot gold light.

You are the brother in love with Caddy.
You are the idiot son. Your mouth dumb.
Your mind lucent. Everything you want

sharp as the cat's bite at your ankle. You pull
your foot back. A yowl, pointed as teeth.
The moon is what will fall on you.

Gang Leader for a Day

Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I'll admit, I love the History Channel series "Gangland," and that interest is what drew me to this book. While the tv series can tend toward the melodramatic and at times glamorizes the gang life, this book shows the grim underside to the money, cars, and status: the harsh realities of life in Chicago public housing. Venkatesh's entry into this world is remarkable--he simply showed up one day bearing surveys and was eventually invited back by one of the local gang leaders. Over the course of nearly a decade, he forms a relationship with the people of the Robert Taylor Homes (gang members and non-members) and gains information on gangs and urban poverty from the inside, a rare feat in sociology. Over the years, he is forced to confront his own assumptions about poverty, gang life, the drug trade, the role of law enforcement, and so on. He also has to wrestle with serious moral issues as he moves from observer to participant in the life of the community. This is a great read that will likely make you reconsider how you think about impoverished communities.


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The Glass Castle

My mom bought this book and gave it to me, warning me that while it was a remarkable story, she had stopped reading because it was too depressing.

Jeannette Walls, the author of this memoir, is a journalist who had a childhood so dysfunctional, people would laugh at it as absurd if it were written as fiction. Her father was an alcoholic and her mother an unsuccesful writer and artist, neither of whom ever held a job for more than a few weeks at a time and forced their children to raise, feed, and clothe themselves from when they were toddlers. The story is intensely sad at times, chronicling poverty, neglect, and abuse. But it is also a fantastic comeback story. The Walls children persevere despite their crazy upbringing to make functional, even successful lives for themselves (with the exception of one sibling, about whose future Walls is more vague). Walls never has a woe is me tone, and she manages to find just the right balance between the pockets of humor and the depth and intensity of the family's dysfunction. I don't think Augusten Burroughs, author of the memoir Running With Scissors, achieved this nearly as fully when he awkwardly tried to make abuse into one joke after another.