CHALLENGE: Unread Authors Update

I finished my first challenge of the year! Well, I read the majority of the books last year, but I didn't get finished til January. The challenge was to read 6 books by new authors, particularly ones that you have wanted to read. I tried to pick authors with more than one book in their collection and several were authors I've been wanting to read for a long time. I had a huge list of potential authors and easily found six. Here's the list:

Linwood Barclay - Too Close to Home Nov 11/08
Michael Chabon - Gentlemen of the Road Nov 29/08
Zora Neal Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching God Dec 8/08
Haruki Murakami - After Dark Dec 20/08
Rose Tremain - The Road Home Jan 9/09
PG Wodehouse - Ukridge Dec 27/08

Best book? Too Close to Home, a great page turning thriller, The Road Home was lovely
Least favorite? Their Eyes Were Watching God was a DNF for me. Maybe anther time it will be a better fit for me.
After Dark and Ukridge were just OK, I'm not planning to rush out for anymore Murakami or Wodehouse.

So, authors I'll read again: Barclay, Tremain, and Chabon.

Thanks to Pour of Tor for hosting, check out the Unread Author Blog for more info and lists of reviews.

BOOK: The Road Home by Rose Tremain

The Road Home by Rose Tremain, 365 pages

book awards: Orange Prize 2008; unread authors; Orange January

Lovely tale of Lev, who arrives in London after a long bus ride from some unknown Eastern European country. For some reason, I assumed it was Poland, but I don't know why I thought that. Lev is leaving his daughter and his mother behind to try and make some money for a better life. It reminded me of all the men who have left the Maritimes to go to Alberta to make the good money. Not only is Lev facing a new language and country, but he is still grieving his late wife, Marina.

It's easy to like Lev, and cheer for him, so that even when he makes bad decisions, we still root for him. It can't be easy to start a new life, and Tremain captures the feelings Lev faced dramatically. At one point, I thought Lev would turn out to be a Walter Mitty sort, lost in his daydreams, but Lev had more focus and eventually, a goal he wanted to achieve so he battled that problem. I loved that Lev worked in a high end restaurant, and you can easily picture Gordon Ramsey of Hell's Kitchen fame as GK Ashe, and imagine Lev's experience in the kitchen.

For all you title drop fans, that moment when you find the title of the book in the prose, this book is a wonderland. Each chapter is titled and then a title drop occurs. Sweet! Lev learns to love, and develops great friends, especially Christy Slane, his Irish roommate who is also trying to move on with his life. Rudy, Lev's friend from the old country is another great character that Lev relies on for support.

Summary: good paced plot, wonderfully developed characters, and real life look at the life of a immigrant in London and the challenges faced by people who try to better their life from the old country.

BOOK: Ukridge by P.G. Wodehouse

Ukridge by P.G. Wodehouse, 255 pages

unread authors; decades: 1920s

While more famous for his Jeeves and Bertie characters, Ukridge is another of Wodehouse's humorous characters cavorting in the early part of the 20th century in England. I picked this one solely to complete the decades challenge; I hated the thought of only missing the 1920s to get 8 in a row and complete the challenge. I put this on order at the library and they had to bring it up form the basement storage. Turns out to be probably from the 1920s itself, if I judge by the dates stamped in the back of this book on the old fashioned card, beginning in 1938.


Ukridge appears to be a series of short stories put together into his adventures in money making. Ever the optimist, Ukridge rolls around town looking to make easy money and instead, getting himself and his friends into scrapes. Nothing ever works out the way he hopes, but to his friend, the narrator, maddeningly, Ukridge usually ends up smelling like a rose.


Amusing little read but not my particular brand of laugh out loud funny. I recognize the classicness of the stories, and fans of British humor and P.G. Wodehouse will be delighted. And I finished the last challenge of 2008 that I hoped to.

BOOK: After Dark by Haruki Murakami

After Dark by Haruki Murakami, 191 pages

Japanese Literature Challenge, unread author, Dewey's books

Perspective. Memory. Sleep. Things that occur during the night in Tokyo connected with two sisters, Mari and Eri. I'm still not sure if I liked this book.

The story of Mari is more concrete and easy to follow. She meets up with a friend of her sister's, Takahashi, and they talk. She helps a stranger, and meets up with Takahashi again. We get to know more of Mari and her plans and thoughts. Eri is sleeping through the night and there is some funky third person point of view, but like a camera, observing her. The narration is observing itself observing Eri. It gets very abstract with Eri and I still don't quite understand her connection to another character, the business man who perpetrated a crime.

I liked the story as I read it, but the ending didn't answer anything for me. I didn't understand the purpose of some of the perspective. I didn't mind during the reading, but I needed a bit more payoff in the end for suspending my understanding. I liked Murakami's prose and it had beautiful imagery and ideas about sleep and memory, and the feeling of menace that subtley developed, but ultimately I just didn't get it.

There was a section where a character refers to the movie Love Story, which I found funny because he completely missed the ending and what the story was about, but liked it enough to retell the plot. Ironic, isn't it?

BOOK: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, 189 pages

1% Well Read; Decades Challenge: 1930s; unread author

I am putting this one down half read. It's not that I hate it, it's just that I don't care. It has put me in a reading funk in that I was trying to finish it, but could hardly read it and I wouldn't start another book since I wanted to get through this one. I read Montmorency in one evening when I picked it up for a change, which told me that I just was not going to finish Their Eyes Were Watching God. I slogged as far as I could (90 pages) hoping I would get into it, but alas, no.

Like many of you, I find it hard to stop reading a book. This one is a classics for pete's sake. But, I stopped after Janie's second husband died. The book starts with the end, so I know how it ends. I found it too hard to read the accent phonetically- it slowed me down too much and when I slowed down, I didn't care for the story. Some books expose you to a life different from your own experience and it is a good thing, but I really couldn't relate. I wasn't feeling Janie's emotions enough to want to find out what happened to her. I think the book is somewhat detached in that way so it can demonstrate and record the experience of African Americans after slavery. I've been reading some analysis of it and other book reviews, so I understand the significance of parts and the jist of the plot, ie, I think I could pass a test on it in school if I needed to .

I'm still counting it in my challenges as it took up a week of my reading life and I was exposed to a new author and it was from the decade of the 1930s. Whew, that feels good to make that decision. Next book please.

BOOK: Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon

Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon, 197 pages

unread author challenge; genre challenge: adventure

Is this a movie yet? Because I think it will make a fabulous adventure tale, perfect for two actors that I haven't quite cast yet. I'll think on it.

Set in the middle east in a time I'm not sure of, but long ago (wikipedia says it was set in the Kingdom of Arran, in the Caucasus Mountains, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, A.D. 950.) Not so long ago that there aren't the religions of Muslim, Jews, and Christians all living and fighting together, but but recent enought that there were many names and identifiers that I didn't recognize, but could guess - Rus were Russians, viks maybe the Vikings, Franks were Germans, things like that. There were a lot of terms I had to let go and just read through. It didn't lessen my enjoyment, just my comprehension. At times the sentences were long, and contained a lot of information, and if I lost the thread, it was a long was back to find the start of the sentence and figure out where I lost the topic so I tried to replicate that tendency in this paragraph, so if my thoughts were convoluted, it was intentional.

"It follows two horse thieves—a massive African Jew named Amram, and a hat-loving Frankish Jew named Zelikman—as they become swept up in a rebellion and try to restore a displaced prince to the throne." I copied that from wikipedia because it summed up the plot perfectly. And my biggest problem with the writing was that I wasn't completely sure what all was going on. As I said, it didn't lessen my enjoyment. I've decided to cast Michael Clark Duncan and Ed Norton as the leads. I was slightly influenced by the sketches in the book, one per chapter, by Gary Gianni as I imagined the characters. There was also a map on the inside covers, which I always love. It's this extra attention to detail that makes the story better.

All in all, a great little read - good plot and characters within the slightly confusing writing. Pretty good for a book I hadn't heard of but just grabbed from the popular shelf at the library. I recognized Chabon's name, but not the title. I had a nice little 'frisson of pleasure' at the title drop early in the book.

BOOK: Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay

Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay, 404 pages

Unread Author Challenge, Genre: thriller; 2nd Canadian

I love a good suspenseful thriller. I started this one yesterday, and since I had today off, I read all day. It was a real page turner, with twists and turns, some I could somewhat see or at least suspect, but still satisfying.

The prologue starts with Derek, the seventeen year old son of the narrator, sneaking into a neighbour's house in upstate New York, and then being present but hidden while the family is massacred at gunpoint. The ensuing investigation unearths secrets of all the people connected with the family. Murder investigations often leave many people feeling exposed, and as unexpected details get discovered, more than a murderer can be the result.

It's no fun to read a review of a book that derives its pleasure from suspense, so there will be no incriminating details here. The characters were realistic, facing moral dilemmas and not always making the right choices. But overall, I thought Derek and his family were more like people caught in an unusual situation and making decisions based on protecting their family. There are some comments on politics, academia, and ambition, but mostly it's a tight thriller that kept me entertained all day.

CHALLENGE: Unread Author Challenge, the second

The Unread Author Challenge began a while ago, but I think I can still do it.

The rules:
The challenge will run from August 1, 2008 to January 31, 2009. You may join at any time before or during those six months.
During those six months, read at least SIX books by an author whose work you have never read before.
You may choose six different "unread" authors to introduce yourself to, or you may choose just one or two and explore their work in greater depth.
Authors may be drawn from any genre of literature. The only requirement is that they be authors whose work you substantially regret not having read yet.
Your choices may overlap with other challenges you have underway.

I'm a little late for this one, but I easily found six authors from August until now that I have already read that are new to me, such as Margaret Laurence, Robertson Davies, Carol Shields and Geraldine Brooks. I expect that there are at least 6 more that I can read between now and January that fit this category.

Some possible authors include:

Linwood Barclay - Too Close to Home Nov 11/08
Michael Chabon - Gentlemen of the Road Nov 29/08
Zora Neal Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching God Dec 8/08
Haruki Murakami - After Dark Dec 20/08
Rose Tremain - The Road Home Jan 9/09
PG Wodehouse - Ukridge Dec 27/08

Jhumpa Lahiri
John Green
Marion Keyes
Maria de Los Santos
Kate Grenville
Alice Munro - The View from Castle Rock
Urgula LeGuin
and who knows who else may appear on my list?