I think I’m reading too many books these days. Really! It’s possible! So I a) have no life and b) seem to be getting harsher in my judgment of books. If a book doesn’t blow me away from the start, I feel disappointed and just want to get through it. Which isn’t really fair to all those very good books out there. So maybe I should take a break or slow down?! (Likelihood of me taking a break or slowing down: zero per cent.) 

Eighteen squares down, six to go!

A book published this year:

Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation, by Ammon Shea
(Hardcover, 272 pages, Published June 3, 2014 by Perigee Trade)
4 stars

This book is written for all those aggravating (or is it “annoying”?) people who (or can I use “that”?) constantly correct everyone else’s grammar (or do I really mean “usage”?). Hey, what do you know… that’s me! (Wait, make that “I”!) In Bad English, Shea reminds us that language is constantly evolving. After all, we don’t speak like Chaucer, right? As such, what was once unacceptable in the past is acceptable now. By the same token, what we assume is unacceptable may indeed be (or have been) A-OK somewhere, sometime, in some dictionary or guide – so we shouldn’t get all nit-picky on our loved ones. For example, due to semantic drift we don’t admonish others for using “decimate” to mean anything other than “eliminating exactly one in 10,” or for using “fun” as an adjective when it is really a noun, or for using “scumbag” to mean anything other than a used condom (eeeeewwww!). So why do we lambast them for their use of “ain’t,” “irregardless,” the occasional plural apostrophe, or the seemingly extraneous use of “like”? (That little word actually does have a purpose!) For every topic, the book includes an example of what not to do, followed by an example of someone doing that very thing – Shakespeare being among the culprits. Think of Bad English as a guide on how to relax when it comes to language. (For those who prefer to remain sticklers, you’re better off reading Lynn Truss’s classic, the highly enjoyable Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.)

A book that became a movie:

The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, by Robert M. Edsel
(Paperback, 430 pages, published September 17, 2010 by Center Street (first published August 20, 2009), audiobook from Macmillan Audio and audible.com)
3 stars

On the book: I had a really hard time rating this one, and am still waffling on how many stars to assign. The story is amazing: late in WWII, the U.S. and Great Britain established the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives sections of their militaries to protect buildings and structures of historical and cultural significance, and to track down missing works of art that the Nazis had stolen and hidden. A tall order for what started as a handful of men! I learned a ton, both about art history and the war. (I thought I already knew all the examples of what made the Nazis so horrible, but no, here were plenty more examples.) That said, the book didn’t quite meet my expectations. I think this is a rare case of my liking a book less because I listened to the audio version. (Usually the opposite holds.) There was a lot of detail, and many people and places to keep track of, all of which was hard to follow aurally. But then in other parts, I felt like I didn’t get enough information and things were going over my head. (It didn’t help that I sometimes went a week or more without listening, or was completely distracted while listening.) So, if the subject matter interests you, I recommend the print version for this one.

On the movie: Blech! The Monuments Men got terrible reviews, which I couldn’t understand when it first came out, given the subject matter. But now I know why. And this pains me to write, because I do adore George Clooney, its star and director. As usual, the movie is far more fiction than fact. It was set in WWII, and it was about art, but that’s where the similarities to the book or semblance of reality ends. And I can almost forgive that, given the nature of the medium. But it was badly done fiction. Despite a star-studded cast, the performances were “meh.” The plot was far-fetched and contrived. To top it all off, there was a slightly farcical tone to the whole thing – and no offence to George, but unless your name is Quentin Tarantino, you really can’t pull off a WWII movie in that style. Here it just seemed awkward and disrespectful to the somberness of the subject.

A book with a mystery:

Elizabeth Is Missing, by Emma Healey
(Hardcover, 288 pages, published June 10, 2014 by Knopf Canada)
4 stars

Elderly Maud is losing her memory, and has lost her best friend, Elizabeth. Or, has she? We follow Maud as she meanders through the current-day storyline in which she seeks clues as to Elizabeth’s whereabouts, and back through her memory as she tries to unravel the even bigger mystery of what happened to her sister Sukie, who disappeared over 50 years ago. Healey is only 20-something years old, but captures her aged protagonist so fittingly. Cool factoid: this is Healey’s first book, and instead of getting stuck in slush-pile hell, she actually had a bidding war going between publishers over the manuscript!

The first book by a favourite author:

The Torrents of Spring, by Ernest Hemingway
(Paperback, 96 pages, published 2004 by Scribner (first published 1926))
2 stars

Ah, Hemmingway… such a good writer; such a drunken, thrill-seeking lecher. It’s all part of his charm! I love A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, and especially, For Whom the Bell Tolls. And as luck would have it, I’d never read his first published book, The Torrents of Spring, so it was available to me for this square. I’d read about his writing the book, in The Paris Wife and A Moveable Feast. There were certain things I liked about the novella – the writing is typical Hemingway, and I found it hilarious when he interrupts his narrative to directly address the reader – but I’ll admit, I didn’t really get it. It’s supposed to be a parody of a certain school of writing and an admonishment of certain pretentious writers, but not having read any of those writers, that was pretty meaningless to me. And probably to most other people too – Torrents doesn’t seem to get much attention by critics or others studying the Hemingway oeuvre.

 

To-read pile: 13. That just seems boring now.