Three Books and an Anniversary

This weekend I’ve finished three books, so here are some reviews for you:

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.  I rushed through reading this while at the same time, I didn’t want it to end.  Even though I "solved" the mystery pretty early in the novel, I enjoyed watching it play out.  Atwood’s language is lush and precise, a combination that isn’t always found together.  I am a fan of books within books (a la A.S. Byatt’s Possession), and each time one of the Blind Assassin chapters appeared, I was excited.   The narrator is strong; her voice is funny even as it is longing and regretful.  This novel won Atwood the Booker prize, and I wholeheartedly recommend it as a great summer read.

In an effort to have a real go at the graphic novel form, I took out Persepolis and Persepolis 2 from my library.   While I’m not going to dive into the form with abandon, I did enjoy both of these.  Some of my colleagues teach Persepolis, and I might add it to my syllabus, too.  I liked Marjane Satrapi’s illustrations, although my taste usually runs to dreamy watercolors, and I thought her storytelling was provocative.  She was born in the same year as I was, and I was compelled by how different our childhoods were.  I felt the second book, in which she relates the story of her return from Austria to Iran,  was even more interesting.  I laughed aloud in places, but mainly I felt sorrow and anger.  The emotional truth of the books, above everything else, is what made them important to me.  I’ll certainly seek out the film version.

Nestled in with my weekend filled with reading, Neal and I celebrated our first anniversary.  We had a lovely day with lots of conversation about what we’ve done in the past year and what we hope to accomplish in the coming year.  He took today off, too, and we finally bought plants and fencing for my kitchen garden.  I’m hoping that harvesting lots of yummy veggies will be one of my big accomplishments in our second year of marriage!