63. Life of Pi, Yann Martell
I read this book because the movie trailer looks so deliciously beautiful, and while I'm still excited about the movie and I largely enjoyed big chunks of the book...meh. I said on twitter that I give Life of Pi a solid A for effort, but a D for execution - a 66%, to be precise. The first two thirds are great. The first third or so is about Pi's life in India and his family's zoo, and is a pretty thoughtful meditation on the nature of faith and religion. It's really beautifully written. The next third is about Pi's survival in the lifeboat with the tiger, which is stark and brutal and raw (pretty much exactly how you'd expect it to be). The final third goes off the rails and gets ridiculous in a way I just can't get on board with. My (sure to be) unpopular opinion is that at this point, you should probably wait for the movie and, if you dig it, then invest some time in the book.
64. Code Name Verity, Elizabeth Wein
Help, my HEART. This was a struggle to get into - I skimmed the first fifty or so pages really hard - but the payoff is so worth it. Code Name Verity is the story of two young women fighting for the British during World War II; Maggie as a transport pilot, and Julie as a...well, she's a spy, really. Julie gets captured by the Gestapo in France, but not all is as it seems and that's all I can tell you without giving anything away. It's heartbreaking, and touching, and once again I was reading it on the train when the shit really hit the fan and I got all weepy on public transportation. I really have awesome timing with that.
65. Master of Disguise, Antonio J. Mendez
After seeing and loving Argo so much, I pretty much had to check out the memoir that Ben Affleck's real person counterpart wrote about his career in the CIA. It's fascinating! Mendez isn't a great writer, and I wish it had felt more exciting, but the details of his operations and duties are hypnotic. Even when the writing fails to convey the tension that I wanted, the functional danger of what he was doing comes through loud and clear. A must-read for anyone interested in the workings of our espionage system (or, you know, if you liked the movie).
I read this book because the movie trailer looks so deliciously beautiful, and while I'm still excited about the movie and I largely enjoyed big chunks of the book...meh. I said on twitter that I give Life of Pi a solid A for effort, but a D for execution - a 66%, to be precise. The first two thirds are great. The first third or so is about Pi's life in India and his family's zoo, and is a pretty thoughtful meditation on the nature of faith and religion. It's really beautifully written. The next third is about Pi's survival in the lifeboat with the tiger, which is stark and brutal and raw (pretty much exactly how you'd expect it to be). The final third goes off the rails and gets ridiculous in a way I just can't get on board with. My (sure to be) unpopular opinion is that at this point, you should probably wait for the movie and, if you dig it, then invest some time in the book.
64. Code Name Verity, Elizabeth Wein
Help, my HEART. This was a struggle to get into - I skimmed the first fifty or so pages really hard - but the payoff is so worth it. Code Name Verity is the story of two young women fighting for the British during World War II; Maggie as a transport pilot, and Julie as a...well, she's a spy, really. Julie gets captured by the Gestapo in France, but not all is as it seems and that's all I can tell you without giving anything away. It's heartbreaking, and touching, and once again I was reading it on the train when the shit really hit the fan and I got all weepy on public transportation. I really have awesome timing with that.
65. Master of Disguise, Antonio J. Mendez
After seeing and loving Argo so much, I pretty much had to check out the memoir that Ben Affleck's real person counterpart wrote about his career in the CIA. It's fascinating! Mendez isn't a great writer, and I wish it had felt more exciting, but the details of his operations and duties are hypnotic. Even when the writing fails to convey the tension that I wanted, the functional danger of what he was doing comes through loud and clear. A must-read for anyone interested in the workings of our espionage system (or, you know, if you liked the movie).
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