March 2005

Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
Whew. Sad. Basically the story of how white people come and wreck a huge cultural legacy in four seconds. Oof. Here is a quote:
On the day that Nwoye's mother celebrated the birth of her three sons with feasting and music, Ekwefi was the only person in the happy company who went about with a cloud on her brow.... How could she know that Ekwefi's bitterness did not flow outwards to others but inwards to her own soul; that she did not blame others for their good fortune but her own evil chi that denied her any?

The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth
Scary so far. "Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear" is a great first sentence...

The Hopes of Snakes: And Other Tales from the Urban Landscape, by Lisa Couturier
Reviewed it.

The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
Read this over a Philadelphia weekend, on the train and back, and then in one last gulp when I got back. It was very delicious and I loved the concept, although somehow I wanted it to be *more*. But a satisfying, quick read, absorbing and fun and a little sad, just the way a very good beachesque book should be. Grade: A-.