It seems I stopped writing about books after I read “The Kite Runner” in May. But I have been reading since then.

The Year of Magical Thinking
I didn’t write anything in my Reading Journal about this, but it was profoundly depressing.

Atonement
All I wrote about this was, “I finished this, but I don’t recall when, exactly.” So I don’t remember anything about it. What’s the point of keeping a Reading Journal? Indeed. Note to self: be more diligent in the Reading Journaling.

The Shadow of the Wind
I read about this in an O magazine interview with Felicity Huffman. She loved it. I didn’t. I found it “VC Andrews-esque.”

Devil in the Details
“not as funny as I’d been led to believe”

The Da Vinci Code
I swore I wouldn’t read this, but it was the only thing on Dad’s bookshelf I hadn’t read. So I read it. And here’s what I thought:

I can see why this was so popular (it’s a very quick read), but I didn’t care for it. Brown seemed to run out of ideas for some of the characters (Silas in particular), and it seemed to wrap up too quickly. …

I also found it annoying how Brown seemed to try to mollify the Catholic church. The whole point of the book seemed to be the Catholic Conspiracy, but several times Langdon or others said “But the Catholics today are nice. It was all the old Catholics. We don’t have a problem with you, Church!”

Maybe I was in a bitter place when I read the book. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Whatever.

To Kill a Mockingbird
As sound as ever.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Next
This might not be the best choice for poolside reading, but it was what I had. I had a hard time reading this, probably because I already knew how it ended.

Tishomingo Blues
Not Elmore Leonard’s best.

Marley & Me
I actually copied a bit of this down:

Children serve as impossible-to-ignore, in-your-face timepieces, marking the relentless march of one’s life through what otherwise might seem an infinite sea of minutes, hours, days and years …

I liked “Marley & Me.” It made me cry.

Monkeys, Go Home!
I read this at about 3am during a horrible bout of indigestion. Incidentally, I’m writing this during another bout. It looks like I’ll never eat Mexican food again. I’m more than a little sad about that. Pizza and spaghetti appear to be out, too. Stupid digestive system. But enough about me. Let’s talk monkeys.

“Monkeys, Go Home!” was sitting next to the armchair in my in-laws’ living room, where I was trying to sleep. It’s about olive-picking, NASA-reject monkeys. Need I say more?