Spring Break is fast approaching and besides a margarita permanently placed in my grasp, there is something else I’m looking forward to accompanying me on the beach.  And it is a good book.  There is really nothing like the feeling of placing your lounge chair up to the waves to tickle your feet, and slamming through drink after drink book after book.  Life gets pretty difficult when you mix hot sun with alcohol, and this is a fair remedy for a relaxing beach activity.

So here is a short list of books you can shove in your carry on, before you hit your fabulous beachy destination of choice this year.  And if you’re anything like a book-nerd like me, you will get through (almost) every single one of them. Read More »

I am a HUGE fan of “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” (the book, not the movie) so when I found out that after 6 years, Audrey Niffenegger was releasing another novel, I knew I had to get my paws on it. Luckily, my anniversary with my boyfriend coincided beautifully with the release date, so, needless to say, I received it as a gift (good job, Tyler!).

Anyways, “Her Fearful Symmetry,” as you can imply from the title, focuses on pairs. In the novel, Elspeth Noblin has died from leukemia and left her flat in London and the majority of her belongings to her mirror-image twin nieces, Valentina and Julia, whom she has never met. They are the children of her twin sister, Edie, and right from the beginning you are made aware that they have not spoken to each other in 21 years. Niffenegger hints at the tension between the sisters and that it has something to do with Edie’s husband Jack, but doesn’t reveal the secret until much, much later.

Julia and Valentina are a bit lost living in the US with their parents; they continually enroll and then drop out of post-secondary institutions and have an extremely hard time being apart. They decide to move to London to live in their aunt Elspeth’s flat, but it comes with some conditions, including that they must live together in the flat for a year before they can sell it.

The twins move to London and soon meet the other characters in the novel, all of whom seem to function in pairs: Robert Fanshaw, Elspeth’s much younger lover and neighbor, Martin, who has severe OCD and his (literally) absent wife Marijke. Elspeth also continues to be a major player in the novel, only as a ghost. She is able to communicate with anyone in her flat and, eventually, Valentina starts to see Elspeth. Now, Valentina appears to have always struggled with her existence being tied to Julia; she wants to break free and finally do something on her own. She formulates a plan with Elspeth and Robert… and I think that’s all I’m going to say for plot….. Read More »

I work in a bookstore. I live and breathe books. I’m either ringing them up or, when I’m on my break, reading them, so I consider myself somewhat of an expert in the field. Most college ladies aren’t reading for pleasure these days. After reading all those books for class who wants to waste time on anything else?

Well, I’ve got a list of books here that are no waste. In fact, these are books that will change the way to think, the way you read and the way you view reading for pleasure. In that it may actually bring you some. I’m not selecting these books for their literary merit or their fantastic use of the English language. These are books that struck something in me, pulled at heartstrings, made me feel something. And I think that evoking such emotion is the only criteria for a great book.

In our desensitized world, when someone can make you feel so much with only paper and ink, I believe that’s an achievement.

1. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita was published in 1955, and when you read it, you can understand why there is so much hype surrounding it. It tells the story of Humbert Humbert, a man who claims he can never love adult women, only children. He calls them “nymphets” and one day stumbles upon the perfect nymphet, Dolores Haze. The book chronicles his love for Dolores, but what I found to be fascinating was how you eventually sympathize with Humbert, even though nowadays his picture would be plastered all over “Dateline.” Read More »

As an English major, I was always under the impression that literary and popular fiction were genres that were fairly at odds with each other (and, coincidentally, you are supposed to like the former and scoff at the latter. My personal tastes tend to run the opposite way). It’s rare that a book can fit into both categories without the help of Oprah, but oh how I’ve found one.

Audrey Niffeneggar’s novel The Time Traveler’s Wife has gained a lot of popularity since it’s 2004 release, making a permanent home in women’s book clubs worldwide because of its earnest and heartbreaking love story. But it’s really so much more than it’s blurb would suggest; it’s also a painstakingly precise, exquisitely written book.

The story is told from the perspectives of Henry and Clare DeTamble, a married couple who have to deal with the complications that have arisen in their lives from Henry’s Chrono-displacement disorder, an ailment that forces Henry to travel through time against his will.

Time travel is usually one of my least favorite genres because it leaves me with too many questions after I’m done watching or reading. Why didn’t the terminator just kill Sarah Conner as a baby? Shouldn’t Marty McFly have known that he was going to succeed at getting his parents back together because if they hadn’t then he wouldn’t be alive to go back to the future in the first place (or even time travel in the first place because Marty essentially tells Doc he would later make the time machine work in Back the Future II?) Stuff like that. I realize that there is a certain amount of suspended belief that one has to assume in entertainment, but it’s still annoying. Read More »