Book Reviews

I love to read. I’ve always loved to read, but since graduating college 3 or 4 years ago, reading has been something like an addiction. I’ve never been in a book club and most of the friends I have like to read but don’t have much time for it, so when I finish an amazing book I really want to tell someone about it but the conversations don’t go very far. Like the other day I was telling my friend Amy about this awesome book I just read called Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis.

“Amy, I just read this amazing book I have to lend you. It’s about a mad scientist from Germany in the 1800’s who created this race of dog people with mechanical hands and voice boxes and human intelligence for military purposes, and they’re living as slaves for people in an isolated village in Canada until the dogs revolt and kill all the humans and move to New York.”

Amy laughed and looked at me. “So, they look like dogs but they have hands?”

“Yeah, and they walk upright and wear old style clothes like bustles and spats and carry canes.”

“That’s funny.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s actually a very sad and touching book. It’s also very philosophical- the dogs are trying to make meaning for themselves in a world where they don’t belong…” I tried to convey the very human anguish that the dogs experienced but was realizing how ridiculous the book sounded as I was describing it.

“Huh. Sounds good,” she said.

“Yeah, I’ll let you borrow it.”

“Well, I’m still working on the last book you lent me. About the girl and the spelling bees.”

Bee Season. Another incredible book. Amy is a first grade teacher and doesn’t have much time to read. I forgot about that.

So. To anyone who might read this, please check out Lives of the Monster Dogs, as well as Bee Season by Myra Goldberg which changed my life. Also She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb which kept me in a reading cocoon on the couch for three days. Right now I’m immersed in Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and This Much I Know Is True, another one by Wally Lamb.