Books I Read This Month - March 2011

Hello there! How was your spring break? Mine was just fine, thanks.

I did not read very much this month. I was busy. You know how it goes. But here is what I did read.

Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
Eh, too weird for me. I can see why it's a classic, but tiny people and giants and magic horses just aren't my thing.

Horse Soldiers - Doug Stanton
Speaking of magic horses... No, I'm just kidding. :) Now there is an interesting story behind this book. Part of it is that the author, Doug Stanton, lives in the same town as me. I went to high school with his kids. He and Michael Moore (yeah, the guy who made those documentaries) founded all sorts of cool stuff for my city. My itty-bitty city is going to be famous one day, perhaps a miniature (and I mean miniature) NYC or LA. I have a love/hate relationship with this town. It's so small and cold, but the culture is amazing. But now to the book... It's a non-fiction New York Times best seller about soldiers in Afghanistan who rode horses when fighting against the Taliban. I'm not a fan of non-fiction, and I mostly read this book because of the author... But it was well written, you know, and the subject was pretty interesting. I have strong views about war, which I will not get into right now besides to say war is bad, but I thought the message of this book was good despite the fact that it takes place in a war zone. In the book, the soldiers are supporting each other and trying to stay alive and keep the US free, as they say. Even though I think war is unjust, I was in agreement with many of the things written in this book.

The Stand - Stephen King
Epic, duh. I read the, uh, new and improved version, and I really liked it. It took me about two weeks to read mostly because I was really busy and sick and etc., but also because it was over 1000 pages long. But yeah, it was awesome. Good versus evil, the circle of live, all that good stuff.

Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
I'm not into fantasy so much, but this was pretty good. The tone of the writing was ominous, which really added to the story. It was cool.

Glue - Irvine Welsh
I've read other Irvine Welsh: Trainspotting (the one about drugs) and Marabou Stork Nightmares (the one about the guy in a coma). This author is kind of weird and writes about controversial stuff. This one has a little bit of everything: sex, drugs, blood and guts. It is also written in a Scottish accent. Weird, I know. It's hard to get used to at first, but once you get going it's kind of fun, and you end up thinking in a Scottish accent for about an hour after stop reading. But yeah, this was a good book. It's about these fours guys growing up in the slums. It's about loyalty and friendship and perhaps a bit of family too.

Peace, Aimee