Off the Bookshelf

When I first picked up A Fraction of a Whole by Steve Toltz I just wanted to read a good story.  The outside of the book is littered with praise and acclaimation from various sources:  "Riotously funny" . . . "That rarest of long books - utterly worth it" . . . "nothing less than a comic masterpiece".  And so, I bought it, with full expectations of reading something that is "laugh-out loud funny".

The story follows the absurb life of Jasper Dean who seems to blame his outlandish father and ridiculous circumstances for his miserable state in life.  All I want to say is that I've been duped . . . this book was not funny.

I also read the Lump of Coal by Lemony Snicket.   I found this book in the bargain book section at McNally Robinson and since it was getting close to Christmas, I simply had to buy it. Having read all 13 books of A Series of Unfortunate Events, I was looking forward to Snickets humor.  I love children's stories and I especially love reading childrens stories out loud.  And so I promptly brought this book back to work and held a special reading for my coworkers.  I then went home and forced my son to listen to me.




Just look at that little lump of coal.  The little guy looks so sad and forlorn.  He's so cute.

While I'm on the topic of funny books, if someone would like to buy me At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, I would be soo happy!  This is the third book, written by Alexander McCall Smith, that follows the crazy antics of Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, and his collegues: Professor Florianus Prinzel and Professor Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer.  The first two books are called Portugese Irregular Verbs and The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs.  These books poke fun of academia through these three professors escapades.

~b~