We have an interesting assignment for class! One that involves a blog!
Basically, we have to select a book that is about a historical event between 1960-present day and blog about it as we read. A lot of people will be making blogs for the first time--isn't that exciting?
But since book reviewing *is* technically something that I have listed as a topic of this blog (wayyy back in the first post), I figured I'd hijack it for the next 3 weeks to do my book reviews. So if you like to read my posts because they are about writing, then I'm sorry :( But if you are up for some spazzing as I read (actually, I'll probably be pretty sane because my teacher will be reading these posts) then by all means, hop on for the ride! Comment! Discuss! I'll reply! I read just as much as a write and though I mostly swim in fiction, I do dabble a little here and there in the nonfiction waters.
As for what I'm going to read, I have my eyes set on something about the Vietnam War right now. I've just finished THE THINGS THEY CARRIED by Tim O'brien, which is a beautifully written blend of fact and fiction about the Vietnam War, so I guess you could say I've had my dose of the subject, but now I'm fascinated!
I need to read a war book or two (I'm into historical fiction, but somehow I've skipped over war books), so thanks for the recommendation of THE THINGS THEY CARRIED!
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, I just now noticed your comment on my bio page referring to your excerpt on Unicorn Bell~ I totally stand by what I said and really enjoyed your writing and characters! If a character is frustrating to people, I think that's perfectly fine~ people in real life have hard flaws sometimes and those get glossed over by the need to make a 'likeable' protagonist. I found your writing/story/protagonist to be refreshing!
They Things They Carried has got to be my favorite war book of all time, so I'm super excited that you'll be picking it up--let me know what you think! Also, I'm so glad that you share my view on this. For me, not writing likeable characters to woo the reader but the characters that drive the story is something that I have to justify in crits/feedback. Some of my favorite books have seriously flawed characters, not just a "flaw" here and there to balance them out, and I think that they are as real as real can be.
ReplyDelete