Obviously, it was vacation and I finally got a chance to read a LOT!
So, here's the recap.
I read Book #13, Fire Season, because a good looking, very intelligent-seeming British Man eating dinner at the next table to Tanya and I recommended it to me. He was bright and personable. However, I did not like this book. Maybe it was just too...male...but for some reason I wasn't that impressed. The most interesting part of it is the set-up. It is a memoir about a man who spends five months of every year as a lookout in the Gila Wilderness of the Southwest, looking for forest fires. The idea that this happens, that hundreds of people actually do this job every year, is sort of astonishing. From April-August, he lives on his own in a small cabin at the base of a tiny glass lookout tower in which he spends his days. That concept was pretty intriguing, but something about the writing was just too "Man and Wilderness" for me to get into. If that is your thing, you may very well find this to be a good addition to the collection. If its not, I think this is one you can skip. Which I guess goes to show that a British accent alone doesn't guarantee a book recommendation.
The next book, Swamplandia!, was a bit better. It is the debut novel of Karen Russell, and it is richly imaginative and very evocative. Its protagonist is a 13 year old girl named Ava who lives on a remote island in the Everglades. After the death of her mother, her whole world starts to fall apart. First, her family's livelihood, a third rate themepark called Swamplandia! which specializes in alligator wrestling, begins to fail due to some new competition in the way of a themepark called World of Darkness. Her father leaves his children alone on the island to try and find some money to keep the park open. Then her brother runs away, defecting to World of Darkness. Her sister elopes with someone who may or may not be mortal, and finally Ava embarks on a quest to save them all. Unfortunately, she sets out on a journey with a questionable character named the Bird Man and it all looks like it may go very very badly. It was absolutely interesting and original, yet for some reason I never felt like I could fully connect with any of the characters, so my interest remained at a remove. Not bad, but not a MUST read, in my opinion.
Finally, I read Roseanne Cash's memoir, Composed. This was a quick read and would have been immeasurably more interesting if I knew or cared about any of her music. I don't especially know her music or follow her career. Nonetheless, she writes elegantly about the life of a musician, and the life of a child of a very famous man. I really enjoyed reading it. For any country music or Roseanne Cash fans out there, this is probably a must read.
All in all, it wasn't the best week of vacation reading ever....But glad I got to read so much!
AZ