I can easily recommend three out the four books that I have reviewed below, although each of those three is vastly different from the others. Which leaves only one oddball book that I didn’t like. I consider that to be a decent batting average, especially when I am taking a chance on new books and new-to-me authors.
I Must Say: My Life As a Humble Comedy Legend
I picked up this audio book from the library because I needed something to listen to while doing housework, and was in the mood for a comedy memoir. While I’m really only a fan of some of Martin Short’s work, mainly his role as Franz in the movie “Father of the Bride,” there is no denying that he has a huge amount of energy and comedic talent. This memoir was incredibly enjoyable, and I found myself laughing out loud many times while listening to it. I think the reason I liked this memoir so much more than most other celebrity memoirs, was that it was like sitting down with a good friend (a very funny good friend) and having them regale you with all of their best stories. It also doesn’t hurt that Martin Short’s stories are filled with recognizable names of stage and screen. His recounting of his relationship with his wife was lovely. I highly recommend listening to the audiobook so that you can hear Martin Short do all of the voices for his various characters.
The Marvels
Once again Brian Selznick has created a dual story of images and text, and done so with a fresh new story. I can see some basic parallels between his three artistic books (this one, The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Brian Selznick’s books are targeted at readers from grades 3 – 7, but I would recommend them to adults as well, especially those who enjoy reading high-quality graphic novels. That’s not to say that this is a graphic novel per se, but it has enough similarities in form that I think it will appeal to a similar fan base, as well as to children in the recommended reading levels.
Aurora
I listened to this audiobook while painting the spare room in our house, so it had, for the most part, my undivided attention. I wasn’t sure at first what to think of it, because most of the story is narrated in a voice that is semi-monotone to simulate that of the ship’s computer. I actually had read the first few chapters of the book when it released, but wasn’t drawn into it, and certainly hadn’t realized that the main narrator was going to be the computer. It was a surprise to me how this story grew on me more and more as I listened to it. I had thought I was going to be bored, and that the plot wasn’t ever going to go anywhere, because so much of the book in the beginning is the ship describing itself. But as you venture further into the story, you realize that the ship is building a knowledge of how to relate a story on a level that is succinct and easy to understand from a human point of view. After adjusting to the narrative style, I came to feel that telling the story from the ship’s point of view was brilliant. I never would have expected to become emotionally attached to a ship in a story such as this, yet I did.
The story opens in the middle of a multi-generational outer space voyage to a potentially inhabitable moon in a far off planetary system. The ship frames the narration as seen through the life of a girl named Freya, as she grows up, deals with normal changes of aging, and learns the many facets of the ship that she’s living on. The ship will reach the moon within her lifetime, but there are challenges such as genetic mutations, sicknesses, and declining food crop growth.
It is one of the most practical takes on long-term space travel that I have read, and it addresses issues that sometimes get ignored in other space travel books. Some of the issues discussed are: difference in passage of time between those on the ship and those on Earth because of high-speed interstellar travel, potential loss of mineral resources (those that are necessary for life), social issues such as limiting birthrates because of limited ship space, etc.
While I wasn’t a huge fan of the same author’s book 2312
The Beautiful Bureaucrat: A Novel
I’m starting to think that I should avoid novels written authors who are mainly writers of short stories. That’s not to say that they aren’t good, but this is the second time this year I’ve taken a chance on a novel written by a short story author, and the second time I’ve been plunged into weird fuzzy surreal hallucination-like settings. I happen to know people who love those kinds of stories, but they are not for me. When I read the blurbs, the first word that Ursula K. LeGuin was quoted as writing about this book it was, “funny.” I beg to differ. I found nothing amusing in this book, though I will admit that the author’s writing was clever and witty in some parts, at no time did I feel that it fell into the realm of “funny.” In fact, the parts that might have appeared humorous to others were the ones that I found to be the creepiest. The story was filled with sadness, poverty, mind-numbing work, relationship issues, and a main character who seemed to be hallucinating half the time. Some of the rest of the LeGuin blurb was, “sad, scary, beautiful” – that I can accept as a decent description, although I think “beautiful” is a stretch.
Given that so many critics seemed to like it, and many of them also found some weird humor in it, I will concede that my tastes may not be sophisticated enough to appreciate it in the same way. I’m okay with that.
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