The Fall

Albert Camus

i thought that i hadn't read all of this several years ago when it was one of the books in an existentialism class that i took, but it turns out that i just skimmed through a lot of it—which is pretty much what i did again this time.

The Gangster We Are All Looking For

lê thi diem thúy

layers of memories are built over each other in this autobiographically inspired novel about a family moving from vietnam to southern california. there are pasts that follow them over the seas. lê tells a story through images and moments with no heavy plot points and an absence of cloying nostalgia, just an air of remembrances that slowly overlap to create a portrait of a family.

Prodigal Summer

Barbara Kingsolver

i'd never read Kingsolver before, though friends had often recommended her. i appreciated the running theme of the balance of ecosystems and how it ties into the balance of family and community, as well as the way three different storylines were slowly tied together. sometimes it seemed there was something a little unnatural and simplified about the characters, but by the end i was fairly invested in most of them. a good, casual summer read.

We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families

Philip Gourevitch

the may 2004 issue of harper's included a letter from Congo titled "In the Valley of the Gun: A massacre unfolds in eastern Congo" by Bryan Mealer—a very intense witness of the violence in the Republic of Congo. in talking to my roommate about it, she mentioned how it is tied into what happened in Rwanda and recommended this book. it's pretty devastating (much like that article), but an important read.

The Poetics of Space

Gaston Bachelard

this book wasn't exactly what i was expecting; it's not so much "one of the most appealing and lyrical explorations of home," as the 1994 Beacon Press edition describes it. there is a lot in here about images of home but the focus is more generally on "intimate spaces" analyzed through (mostly French) literature/poetry.

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

Haruki Murakami

i've been meaning to read this for a while. it was an entirely gratifying read, all mysterious with a tangle of threads shooting out in every direction. it was sad to finished it, though a lot of that might have been that it's so long and therefore easy to get invested in the characters.

it took me a while to get into murakami—it really wasn't until after the quake that i realized how good he is. after reading this i felt like reading all his books at once. i'll probably get around to it eventually.

Geography III

Elizabeth Bishop

i lost the comments i'd made on this book, and now i can't remember much about it except that i was interested in reading more of Bishop's work.

Love Poems

Anne Sexton

i was inspired to read some Anne Sexton after reading Girl Interrupted and Wintering and some Sylvia Plath. apparently this book is the story of an affair a married woman had, scandalous for its time. but i don't think i would have known exactly what it was about without having read the preface.

Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett

i read this too long ago.