A Confederacy of Dunces

This book was just plain crazy, but I loved it. The characters were fantastic. I think my favorite was the mother. I just thought she was great and well developed. I had a love/hate relationship with Ignatius though out the book. Sometimes I took pity on him and other times I just wanted to hit him. I see this book as more of stage play than anything else. I think it would just be utterly hysterical. I can’t say this will go down as one of my all time favorites, but it defiantly one of those books that will be in my brain for a while.

The End of the Alphabet

This was a tragic little book. It was kind of a downer. I loved however, the way the book was constructed and I loved the idea of in his last days of life traveling around the world visiting a city for every letter of the alphabet. I was sad that the mission was left uncompleted in the end. The writing lacks very little, which is fantastic. It was a quick little read, which I intend to read again to get the full force of it. There is much to be found in this book.

Dying to Cross

I was hopeful about this book as the topic is very interesting. BUT sadly, I was just bored. Yes, it is VERY tragic what happened to the people in the back of the truck. But the way it was written, I couldn't follow. There were way too many people and names and everything jumped all around. I couldn't keep straight who was who. Plus, I don't really see why this was made into a book. There wasn't that much to say about the incident honestly. It's a news story, not a book. Yes, it brings to light a lot of immigration policy issues, which is good. But I just don't think it was worth making into a book.

Marley and Me

I finally read this book. It was a great way to wrap up 2008. I really enjoyed it, though for some reason it took me longer than I thought. (I guess I kept getting distracted.) Grogan is a great author and just had a way with describing crazy old Marley that made me laugh. He was able to use just the right words. I loved it... as it seems most people did. I am curious to see the movie.

That wraps up my 2008 reading! I only read 29 books this year, which is slightly disappointing, but so it goes. I have six month to finish this goal!

Have You Found Her

This is one of the best books I have read in a while. I couldn't put it down. It's hard to believe it's all a very true story. Though it's ending is pretty bland, I can't say I didn't see it coming. You could see the enabling through out the book. BUT, that being said, there were so many twists and turns I didn't see coming. I kept wondering through out, though, why is she doing this? Why does she keep Sam in her life? I guess the title says it all, "Have you found her", maybe meaning, has she found herself? I don't know if I could have been as strong as Erlbaum. But the story was completely captivating none the less.

How I Learned English

This book was an interesting look into how one learns a language. (A second language). Working with ESL students on a daily basis, I was able to take a lot away from these stories and relate them back to my students. There were the common similarities; subtitles on TV or movies, reading everything in sight etc. I found it amusing that more than one author talked about National Geographic magazine. What's really funny is at my center, we have a whole shelf of these magazines and my students LOVE them. I just thought it was a funny thing, but now, after reading this book it seems this isn't such a strange thing after all.

Anyhow, this was an interesting read for anyone interested in language learning.

The Year of Magical Thinking

I am not sure I liked this book. I had a hard time relating to it. (Yes, I am young and have yet to experience any of the grief that the author obviously felt). The story was very sad, I admit, but that wasn't the part of the book that bothered me. I found the book quite pretentious. One thing that annoyed me was that she makes it quite clear that she and her husband are literary people who take literature seriously. If you haven't spent years in college didn’t study literature, you probably have no knowledge of these references. It was a bit tiresome. And these references would take her off onto stories of places she worked or lived for periods of time and sometimes I forgot what she began talking about in the first place.

Also, all of the medical references. She would go on for pages about all kinds of medical terminology that I just had to skip because I didn't understand a word of it. What was the point? I think maybe she was trying to justify how and why her husband died and what happened to Quintana. It was really actually boring to me.

Another thing was the incessant name-dropping. It was as if every single famous person they knew was mentioned in this book. But there was never a meaningful story to go along with it.. Its obvious she wanted to make sure everyone knew that she ran in a famous circle. It was really annoying.