Please write a comment about your summer reading. Include not only the required reading (
Ghosts and the other novel you read), but also what you read for pleasure, whether fiction or non-fiction. Go a bit beyond listing titles; give some of your responses and recommendations.
26 comments:
My summer reading book was "The Sun Also Rises," by Ernest Hemingway. Although he is always a fine writer, the emotional content of this book was a bit of a soul-crusher. Also, much of the book's volume was filled by the characters' level of sobriety (or lack thereof)- what they were drinking, how much, where, and with who. I do not find reading about others' drunken exploits to be very pleasurable myself.
I'll admit, I read Harry Potter, and really liked it. I also read A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson, and I enjoyed that as well. I read part of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," which was interesting but a little dry.
For the required reading this summer, I read "East of Eden" by Steinbeck. It is a very long book, but for some reason I couldn't stop reading it. It reads like a soap opera, but set in early California. The situations that are dealt with are things you could only dream up.
I also read "This Side of Paradise" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Things they Carried", by Tim O'Brien (no relation), Harry Potter, The A-List novels, Perks of Being a Wallflower, and started reading "The Jungle", by Upton Sinclair. I also read "The Measure of a Man" by Sidney Poitier, which was such a wonderful novel, I would recommend it to everyone. Poitier's history and place in the world has give him a remarkable philosophy, and the book reads very smoothly as well.
For my summer reading book I wandered from the list. I read "The Witch of Portobello" by Paulo Coelho. I liked it a lot. The way it was written was interesting though, it was an unknown investigator's research of a murder. So it had coutless narrartors who had completely different views on the main character - so then my opinions of her were constantly changing. Moral of the story: I liked it, but it was a bit hard to follow.
I was in Israel/Poland for most of the summer so I didn't have time to read anything else. I read parts of the Book of Lamentations. It translates into English really awkwardly and isn't really a novel or anything, it's an ancient Jewish text, so I don't think it counts.
I read the Kite Runner over the summer which was a fabulous read. I've been wanting to read it for a while, so when I saw it on our summer reading list I was excited. It has been a long time since I've read something so captivating... reading The Kite Runner reminded me what it's like to pour through a novel- not struggle through page by page. That is not to say some of the events recounted were not difficult to read emotionally, but the writing style makes for an easy read. I loved it because author Khaled Hosseini does not beat around the bush. Instead, he addresses life head-on, which transforms the novel from fiction into a believable snapshot of life.
First of all, "Ghosts" confused me and left me puzzled like no other play has. Not only did I not understand the author's purpose, but even some of the basics of the plot. I'm kind of embarassed to admit that, but I had a really hard time remotely grasping at all what Ibsen was trying to communicate.
My summer reading book was "Plainsong" by Kent Haruf. It was definetly a unique book with no quotations marks- just words with no indication of when someone was speaking. I liked it overall, though very sad, but the imagrey is amazing and I loved how each chapter was about a different character and when all of these chapters were put together they wove a beautiful story about a small rural town in southern Colorado and the choices of life. It was a type of book I wish I could have read with a book club or discuss with a friend. There are so many subtle images that create such a meaningful story.
Sadly, I just read bits and pieces of a couple of books this summer; mostly religious books. I have issues completing a book all the way through...
Over the summer, I read not only "Ghosts" and "Hamlet", but I read "The Kite Runner" as well. I highly recommend this book to everyone. Khaled Hosseini has such a fascinating way of tying the past to the present, and making the reader really feel how main character feels. It took me only a week to read this book, and i thoroughly enjoyed every second of it.
I also read "Harry Potter" over the summer. Like all the books in the series, i enjoyed it very much. However, the older i get the less interested i become. I hate to say it but i am glad that there will be no more books in the series.
I started the summer with Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union, which is a sort of alternate history about the existence of a Jewish state in Sitka, Alaska, after Israel collpses. It's actually a detective story with lots of Yiddish language and culture thrown in. (I was fortunate enough to hear Chabon read from the novel at Tattered Cover.) Mid-summer I alternated between Stephen King's Lisey's Story, which is a pretty intense autobigraphial novel with a writer's wife as the viewpoint character, and a biography of John Donne (one of my favorite poets) called The Reformed Soul -- not only well-researched, but also written with style; it's an interesting window into the early 17th century. I also read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, a pre-Matrix science fiction novel about the "multiverse" inhabited by computer hackers. ("Snow Crash" turns out to be a virus that is both physical and virtual.) Right now I'm reading another SF novel, Brasyl, by Ian McDonald, and a non-fiction book called The World Without Us, which explores what would happen to the earth's ecology and life forms if humans were to disappear suddenly. Oh yeah, and I got to reread Ghosts.
To be honest, I did not get a chance to read much this summer. I travelled to Europe and didn't have much free time. But yes, I read "Ghosts", and I also chose to read "The Tempest" by William Shakespeare as my independent study. I found it to be intriguing and it should be interesting to delve into more of its meaning in the next few weeks.
I read some parts of other books (religeous ones that aren't well know at all) but overall didn't get much of a chance to sit down and read.
I only read three books this summer, Ghosts, East of Eden by John Steinbeck, and Candide by Voltaire.
East of Eden was an excellent book. Steinbeck has a lot of talent and he effectively portrayed the frailty of humanity.
Candide was hilarious and very short, I recommend it to anyone who needs a book to read over a flight. It satirizes philosophy in a very blunt and humorous manner.
I did not read Harry Potter.
Hey I read over this summer, the Harry Potter book, A short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, East of Eden by John Steinbeck and the Glass Castle. but I can't remember the author. I loved every book but A Short Histroy of Nearly Everything. My favortie book is Harry Potter. But a Glass castle is also very good.
I chose "The Kite Runner" as my independent study. For me, it was a quick read that contained a lot of depth. There was a ton of symbolism, but it didn't distract from the heartfelt and realistic plot. I really enjoyed reading it and want to read Hosseini's next novel.
Some other novels I read were "The Birth of Venus" by Sarah Dunant, "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards, and "My Name is Asher Lev" by Chaim Potok. I enjoyed "Asher Lev" the most. Potok writes in a style that is really down-to-earth and his characters are genuine and relatable. And I read “Harry Potter”.
I read "East of Eden" by Hemingway. It was enjoyable, but I felt it could have ended sooner with the same effect.I also read "Harry Potter", "The Monkey Wrench Gang" by Edward Abbey, a bunch of Lovecraft's shorts, "My Tank is Fight!" by Zack Parsons which is a technical/alternate history-comedy about WWII,and tried to read "Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon. I say tried because its written in a stream-of-consciousness way, which is making it a much slower read. Also, "I have no mouth and I must scream" a pretty messed up scifi short story by Harlan Ellison. I also read a pretty hefty chunk of "The SAS survival guide" by John Wiseman.
Throughout the summer, I read alot of books. Although alot weren't very educational, my favorite one, by far, was "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows." I absolutely loved Rowling's final book. I got it on midnight the night it came out and could not put it down until it was done!
I also reread the fourth, fifth, and sixth Harry Potter books to refresh my memory for Harry's final journey.
For the required reading, I read the Kite Runner. I had heard such amazing reviews and recommendations on it, and the book did not let me down at all. It was depressing and dramatic and terribly sad, but I really enjoyed all of the messages that Houssini tried to portray throughout the novel. I also read Ghosts, and I did not understand, at all, what Ibsen was trying to criticize or imitate at all. I am sure I will understand it after we discuss it more, but it defnitely was not one of my favorites from this summer.
For the summer reading assignment, I read The Kite Runner. It was an amazing book. I really liked it even though parts of it were quite sad. The book was full of symbolism and there are many ideas that I will be able to discuss in my independent study paper. And for anyone who is interested, The Kite Runner has been made into a movie and I believe it comes out in November.
This summer I read "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck for the required reading. I really enjoyed it. The characterizations were detailed and unique. The novel was pretty dramatic but it asserted a quality that made it extremely compelling and hard to put down.
I also re-read my favorite book series by Terry Goodkind. The series includes ten books and a short story. The concluding book comes out November 13th! I especially enjoyed re-reading "Stone of Tears", "Temple of the Winds", and "Faith of the Fallen". I also read Harry Potter and really liked it!
As far as summer reading assignment go, and the excitement that follows reading a book that the teacher selects, I was quite surprised that I enjoyed both of my books. I chose “Kite Runner” for my independent study that I was not only possibly the most depressing book I have ever read but possibly the most moving book as well. Every twist in turn not only held me at the edge of my seat but I don’t think I have ever read a book so quickly. The other book that I was forced to read was Bill Bryson’s a “A Short History on Nearly Everything” which was a short but rather in depth history of modern science and the beginnings of each field. I again approached this read as another yawner but again was quite shocked when I found the book contained so much humor and actually interesting information.
As far as other books I read recreationally I only really only one. I was able to read another Khaled Hosseini novel, Thousand Splendid Sons which was even better then Kite Runner. Ok well that’s it, that’s all I read so the end.
Like many others, I read "The Kite Runner," and absolutely loved it, and could not put it down. Hosseini put many unexpected twists in the novel, which was why I enjoyed this book so much. There is nothing worse than a predictable book. I thought "Ghosts" was okay, but I'll admit, I was completely confused at the end. I had to reread the last few pages several times to understand what was happening.
I read Harry Potter as well, and Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. I enjoyed Angels and Demons but felt the end was too far-fetched. I also read Into the Wild about Alex Supertramp (we learned about him sophomore year) who eventually died in an abandoned bus in Alaska. Apparently a movie of this is in the making, directed by Sean Penn, which is exciting!
To complete this summers reading assignment I read "Plainsong" by Kent Haruf. Although it was an intriguing novel I felt that a lot of the characters and much of the plot was rather shallow and lacked depth and details.
In addition o "Plainsong" I read the seventh Harry Potter book and I am disappointed to know that I no longer have another novel in the series to look forward to. I also read "Keeping Faith" and "Perfect Match" both written by Jodi Picoult who is my favorite author and is yet to disappoint me. Furthermore I read a memoir called "Glass Castles" By jeanette Walls which was by far a very odd book but an over all good read.
This summer I read Ghosts, of course, We Were the Mulvaneys by Oates, and I started to read Wicked but haven't had a chance to finish. I preferred We Were the Mulvaneys over Ghosts because I thought it had more depth to it and would recommend it to anyone who has had a significant life changing experience. Each of the siblings in the Mulvaney family are easy for anyone to relate to.
Ghosts on the other hand was kind of a let down because when I heard the title I thought that it would be a story about ghosts, like the supernatural kind. I kept waiting for something like Turn of the Screw to happen and when it didn't I was unhappy.
For the summer I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was very well written and really grabbed me. I couldn't put it down. J.K Rowling really writes dexcriptively and it is as if you are right there with them. I highly recommend this book.
I also read Ghosts, which i did not really enjoy or understand. And the Kite Runner, which was really sad, but very good and intriqing. I also recommend the Kite Runner
This summer I finally finished Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead," which was an incredibly revealing social commentary that I would highly recommend to people with time to kill. Also I read The Odyessy, because it had been a long time since I'd gone through it, and I felt obligated after The Iliad this spring. I read the Kite Runner, which was surprisingly good for book club lit, which I've previously found to be very safe.
I also read some short writings of Thoreau, and "Cry, The Beloved Country," which I found in a terribly understocked bookstore on a small island between Washington and BC, Canada.
My favorite book of the summer had to be Edward Abbey (again). Abbey is the best author in the history of literature to write on the human experience. "The Fool's Progress" is not his best, but remains unique and valuable in its own sense.
Well sadly, I didn't quite read as much as everyone else. But I read Kite Runner for the independent study novel and I definitely enjoyed it. My mom kept ranting about how wonderful it is, so it took me a long time to get into since I was anticipating something else. But I still really liked the plot line and all the info about Afghanistan's wars and culture!
I also read Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers which is a novel based on the book of Hosea in the bible (God tells a man he is destined to marry a prostitute and struggles because she keeps leaving him and being unfaithful- a metaphor for God's love for us, we are prostitutes and sinners who run away from us yet he continues to love us). It was one of my favorite books and I admitt, it's pretty gushy romantic, but it had wonderful insight about redeeming the past and mistakes with an unconditional love and the plot was so suspenseful!
My summer reading included Ghosts, Plainsong by Kent Haruf, Harry Potter, Fountainhead by Ann Rand, and Desert Solitaire by Edward Abby. Plainsong and Harry Potter were both quite good. Fountainhead is extremely long (700+ pages of small type) but suprisingly interesting and non-repetative throughout. Desert Solitaire was recomended to me by Doug. The book is a collection of nonfiction essays about a season spent in the desert. Its one of my favorite books to date and I plan on reading other books written by Abby, including The Monkey Wrench Gang, in the near future.
The other novel I chose to read this summer was "The Kite Runner." This novel was an interesting one; I found myself unable to put it down. I really enjoyed seeing a picture of pre-war Afghanistan, although it was a heary-wrenching book. I really enjoyed Hosseini's style; the progression throughout the piece planced great inportance on the significant parts of Amir's life, and jumped the gaps of time in between, whivch I especially liked.
I also read "Harry Potter," which I must admit I loved, though the ending was a sad one (not nearly as sad as "The Kite Runner" but I read "Harry Potter" first).
My summer reading included a lot of fabulous novels and biographies that really tickled my interest bone. First off, I read "Kite Runner." Not only was this a phenominal book, but it also held a lot of incite on what the Afghan culture really looks like at this day and age and I found that very interesting. But on lighter note I was able to read about what my true passion is. "Sinatra the Life" was a biography on Frank Sinatra and was a very information biography on "Old Blue Eyes". Frank Sinatra is a symbol of American Culture, but I learned of many dark things in his life such as when he did lines of cocaine with John F. Kennedy. His life was all that glamorous, but still I have so much respect for the "Director of the Board." If anyone has any interest in Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, or even Sammy Davis Jr. I would highly reccomend this book.
My summer reading was "The Tempest" by,William Shakespeare. The play was witty and humorous, especially with a wide range of characters from spirits like Ariel to hunchbacks like Caliban.
The story revolves around Prospero's journey of redemption and Shakespeare's contribution to father-daughter relationships, it also goes into depth of human weakness' using magic as an escape to describe traits of human dependence and addiction. Though it's not a contemporary play, the universal draw is timeless. :)
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