Thursday, March 07, 2013

52 Books: #7 - All My Friends are Superheroes

All My Friends are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman

This is a slim volume, more a novella than a full blown book.  This means it is a really quick read, something that I shall try more of as I try and fit 52 books into this year of reading.

Anyway, the plot is that Tom is married to The Perfectionist who is a superhero. Her power is to make everything perfect. Tom is normal. On their wedding day The Perfectionist is hypnotised by another superhero so that she can no longer see Tom.  After a few months of waiting for him (when he's already there, she just can't see him) she decides to move away and start a new life. Tom has until the end of their flight to make her see him.

I liked this book. I really did. The concept was interesting and well handled. I thought the book was also the right length for the story (Life of Pi could have learned something here, IMHO).  Interspersed with the ongoing plot are little vignettes about superheroes, some of whose powers were pretty ordinary. I liked that it suggested that we are all superheroes inside if we can just recognise that.  You could read this just as an entertaining story with intriguing characters (which is pretty much what I did as I was having a busy, complicated week) or you could delve into the hidden metaphors of the book and explore it more deeply. Having read it on a superficial level I will definitely go back to it at some later point and read it again.

This is definitely one I would recommend.

Next post will be about spinning. It's my day off tomorrow and I have no car so I have no excuse not to spin the samples I've been thinking about for ages.

Tuesday, March 05, 2013

52 Books: #6 - The Life of Pi



The Life of Pi by Yann Martel.


People have been telling me that I should read this for a long time.  Pete loved this book when he read it.  I resisted because it did win the Booker Prize and you know how much I hate Booker books - they're always such a disappointment. 

Anyway this was 20p for the kindle so I bought it and started to read. Boy was it tedious.  I just wanted it to cut to the chase and for something to actually happen.  I realise this is probably literary heresy - but I really had to make myself finish this. It just seemed to drag on forever and it was a struggle to make myself pick it up and read it.  Once he gets on the boat with the tiger it gets a little better - at least things are happening, well some of the time anyway.  So I'm afraid this has just confirmed all my prejudices against books that win literary prizes. (And it's done nothing to persuade me to try Wolf Hall again.) 

There is nothing on earth that could persuade me to watch the film of this.

P.S. - I did like the tiger.