Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran FoerGrade: B. Quirky, touching, and very human... but I really need to stop reading books narrated by eccentric/misunderstood kids.
No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthyGrade: B+. Like watching a really thoughtfully directed, masterfully acted, gorgeously shot... action movie. Ooh--or having a glass of really fancy scotch on the rocks. I know it's special and worthy of acclaim... but I didn't enjoy reading it very much. It's not like Cormac wrote this book for a girly girl like me anyway.
On Beauty, by Zadie SmithGrade: B. An entertaining read once you get past all the inaccurately rendered American slang. I'm not the hugest fan of Zadie Smith's writing style, but this made for a pretty interesting story, if not the groundbreaking look at intersections of race and class that I was hoping to get.
The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating, edited by James Watson and Melissa CaldwellGrade: B. With all the novels this month, I was ready to go back to non-fiction. Full-blown academic writing, however, felt a bit taxing. Still, lots of cool stuff in this volume--fast food in developing countries, the marketing of coffee in the US, the politics of artisanal chocolates in France... sadly, nothing on Thanksgiving.
This was kind of a sad roundup... I've got my fingers crossed for December. :)
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