It’s my birthday week! Official birthday is the 14th – but my week of celebrations has begun!

To start it off, let’s get into the literary tomes I’ve devoured as of late.

I finished The American (die-hard Henry James fans will enjoy, but for the uninitiated, start with The Turn of the Screw or The Wings of the Dove). The story ended alright, but became muddled with melodrama in the middle.

Next, I read Swamplandia! by Karen Russell. This is a wonderful story! Description taken from the back: “Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her family’s island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness. As Ava sets out on a mission through the magical swamps to save them all, we are drawn into a lush and bravely imagined debut that takes us to the shimmering edge of reality.”

I really liked Ava, and enjoyed the time spent with her. Russell switches from 3rd person to 1st person often in weaving together Ava’s and Kiwi’s adventures, and this does take some adjusting; it isn’t seamless. The descriptions are just lavish enough without falling into the oubliette that is J.R.R. Tolkein (OHH MY GAWWWWWDDD), and made the 1000 islands of southern Florida seem as magical and scary as Wonderland. I was a little disappointed in the conclusion, but only because I felt it ended too abruptly.

I had been recommended David Nicholl’s One Day by a bookseller in Copperfield’s, and after reading Radiator Tunes’ review of it HERE, I figured it was worth a shot – she’s one of the few people (i’ve never met her) whose book recommendations I’ll take. It was actually very engrossing. I worried it would be predictable, boring, and, worse, threaten my street cred; instead, it was witty and sweet, and I can still show my face in the indie bookstores LOL Dude, I swear, I read it IRONICALLY!

I don’t know that I’l see the movie – mainly, because the radio ads for the movie quoted Anne Hathaway as saying that the story was ‘soulful’, which is one of those words that is so cheesy, it grates on my nerves (I re-read that last sentence, and realized that I AM SO PUN-NY!).

Now, I am reading The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. I knew the basic story of the book before reading it, as I’d seen the movie version starring Gillian Anderson (Scully!) with my mom years ago. Knowing the ending is giving the characters a sinister and/or tragic edge to their introductions, but Lily Bart is already ranking high on my list of favorite female protaganists. She’s beautiful and intelligent, but prone to bouts of rebelliousness that threaten to veer her off-course. Lily wants so desperately to be a part of the upper-class New York world, but recognizes it’s faults and hypocrisies to an extent that she sabotages her own attempts to climb the social ladder.

Not sure what I will be in the mood for next….