November
10, 2004 - Books on My Doorstep Peter's package included:
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Looks like a heart wrencher. Diana snatched this one up and is currently hoarding it.
Ransom by Jay McInerney. Given the proximity of the book's locale, Kyoto, I think I'm going to start by reading it first.*
The Alienist by Caleb Carr. A thriller that made it six months on the best seller list! I suspect I might enjoy this one the most.
I've sketched out an elaborate study-reward-rationing system so that I can feed off of these books for at least a month all the while providing motivation for "new vocabulary" torture time. That is unless of course my compulsive personality gets the better of me and I go on an all out binge - ravenously consuming page after page, loosing myself in those comfortable, simple, letters - only 26, how simple, how beautiful - until I am left hovering over the toilet vomiting out entire paragraphs...
* I've finished Ransom, it lasted a day and a half. Alas, I couldn't put it down. In its heart Ransom is a tale of traveling and soul searching with a 70's flair. Following a harrowing experience in Pakistan a Gaijin (Japanese for " foreigner") is hiding from his own conscious in Kyoto. Our hero, awash with guilt, is hoping that a clean lifestyle and zen-via-karate will cleanse his soul. Although the plotline is somewhat predictable, the author's portrait of a foreigner living in Japan is impeccably accurate and at times, desperately funny. I gather that McInerney did a late 70's tour of duty as a textbook editor for Time-Life in Japan. His insights into the culture are served up raw - Japanese style. Some passages were so good I was compelled to read them aloud to Diana so that we could share a laugh, or suffer a groan together.
