Mid-January Sunday Salon: Still working on resolutions; reading in the meantime

I'm behind. It may take me all of January to think about where I want to take my reading and writing this year.
That’s okay.

In the meantime, I posted a reading response (not a review, it’s full of spoilers) of Mary Kay Zuravleff’s Man Alive! It’s an interesting book about a family nearing the cusp of having the college-age fledglings leave the home nest when lightning strikes.  Dad gets zapped and this upper middle class family starts to unravel.  Set in a contemporary D.C. suburb, the book is fast-paced and witty.

            I also took a long trip during which I listened to John Boyne’s The Absolutist, a haunting novel of homosexual love and conscientious objection among troops during World War I. This novel was recommended by a friend – and it’s one I likely would not normally be drawn to.  I’m glad I read it. The descriptions of courage, cruelty and war will stay with me a long time.

Next, looking backwards through January, I read Maria Semple’s Where Did You Go Bernadette?  It’s a book I thoroughly enjoyed reading, but liked less and less the more I thought about it. Reading it felt like going to a party and being dazzled by a witty, snarky, entertaining host.   Reflecting on it felt like waking to discover   I disliked and discarded the careless, glib performance that just didn't add up. I’m a little resentful I was so taken in by this trifle of a book.
On New Year's Day, I finished Donna Finch's, The Goldfinch, which had the reverse effect of Bernadette.  I was never quite sure what I felt as I read this book even as it propelled and fascinated me. Yet, The Goldfinch grew on me the more I thought about it. Loved the Boris character. Loved the ending. 

Finally I have begun Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries. For me this is a slow-going tough read. There are so many characters, so many threads. As a Kindle newbie, I am less adept at reading such a book on a device. I want to be able to flip back through pages – particularly to the character list.  Also I am missing the many astrological charts that apparently appear in the hardcover book – but not on the e-book. So I am finding myself frustrated and wish I had purchased the hardcover.  I’m reserving judgment until book’s end.
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