So, before I left I asked for suggestions for vacation reading, and you really came through. I managed to crunch through three and a half books during my vacation, and here’s what I thought.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Okay, this is the “half” book, because I finished it on the road. Not Atwood’s best, but not bad either. Story within a story within a story told by an old lady remembering her life. You get the narrative of her current life, that of her youth, and that of a book written by her deceased sister. The obvious parallels between the three threads unfortunately fail to titillate. I had trouble getting into it (and I hear I’m not the only one), and then it was still too slow for my taste. If you want great Atwood, pick up The Robber Bride or Alias Grace.

All Families Are Psychotic by Douglas Coupland
This was the first novel by Coupland I’ve ever read, and I choose my words carefully here: I thoroughly hated this book. I’m at a loss to even know where to begin explaining what was objectionable about it, but here goes anyway.

The story concerns a family’s reunion in Florida on the occasion of the astronaut daughter’s launch into space. It is nothing but an unlikely series of Hollywoodesque events: it seems whenever any character drives a car, they have a spectacular accident, whenever any character goes into a store, the store gets robbed and the character invariably gets shot.

One of the problems is that this unbelievable narrative rolls on without any commentary, analysis, character development or, perhaps most objectionably, any real direction or theme. It’s just a bunch of unbelievable events.

I’ve read my share of books that were all action and pure fast food enjoyment. But I couldn’t even enjoy this book on that level! It is so far-fetched that I had trouble suspending disbelief: Three men think nothing of squeezing into the trunk of a car, because the female driver’s mad at them. Mom gets AIDS from her son when he gets shot (by Dad) and the bullet goes through him into her. Something like this happens every second page. And there’s no grand scheme to bring it all home.

The book and I were in trouble early on when, a few chapters into the story, the main character says something completely wrong and out of character (for the way I was imagining her). She just didn’t work. I had to try and consciously come up with an image of an uneducated, straight-laced housewife who would suddenly quote Kierkegaard. Gifted writers can make anything seem natural, but this wasn’t the case here. Moreover, the dialogue kept kicking me out of the story, every time I thought “nobody really talks that way!”.

What was very confusing about this was that the novel had been independently recommended by two friends whose taste I respect. Because of this, I kept expecting the author, in the middle of the book, to break the narrative and say “Just kidding! Here’s the real story!”.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Aaaaah… Now here’s another completely unbelievable story, but this one is extremely well written, such that the unbelievable ends up feeling completely normal. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Life of Pi is the story of a boy stranded on a liferaft with a royal Bengal tiger.

The book is written in delicious and evocative prose, yet it never becomes pretentious or draws attention to itself. It tells a story, plain and simple, an entertaining, touching, sometimes heartbreaking story. It’s absolutely terrifying, it’s laugh-out-loud funny. It’s also full of interesting lore about zookeeping, wild animals and religion. Life of Pi is real pleasure, the best book I’ve read all year. I will definitely pick up Martel’s previous novel.

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger
This one was in T’s bookpile, and I picked it up when I finished mine. It tells the true story of the Andrea Gail, a swordfishing boat that sank in the biggest storm of the century, in the fall of 1991 (yes, the same Perfect Storm as in the Clooney movie). The book includes just the right mix of interesting background information, entertaining adventure tales and a journalistic attention to accurate detail. If you’re looking for a well-researched, entertaining vacation read, this book does the job perfectly. It’s what I’d call the thinking man’s thriller.

However, there’s another book in that category that I’d recommend even more. The Perfect Storm reminded me a lot of Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer’s first-hand account of the 1996 Everest tragedy which took the lives of eight people. I can’t recommend this book enough, whether you’re into mountaineering or, like most people, not. The extremes of human heroism, selfishness and folly in it hard absolutely incredible. Everyone I’ve lent it to (a diverse bunch, from Dr. Wank to my mother) has loved it.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I’m going to Texas next week, so I’ll be digging into the pile of suggestions again very shortly.