ReadHarder Challenge Mini-Reviews

I have finished several books recently toward the Read Harder Challenge. Here are mini-reviews:

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer by Sydney Padua
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This is my "graphic novel" for the challenge. The images of the machine Babbage envisioned were wonderful and there was a lot of interesting information about both of these historical figures, but I found the "adventures" silly and there were so many footnotes it was hard to read the book. There were also 'endnotes' which worked well as sections of text between the graphic sections.

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was Fiszgerald's first novel and it wasn't as good as Gatsby, but I could definitely see indications of the brilliance that was to come. I am counting this as my "book written by someone before they were 25"










One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first story in this collection was great -- about the Tortoise and the Hare. After that I liked some and I thought some were lame. A few were really observations rather than fully-formed stories. I listened to this on audio book and liked the way the author read his own stories, in some cases with a few additional narrators helping out. This counts as my "collection of stories." 



I have several books left to go for this and only a few weeks left in the year. I may give myself an extension (to March 31, 2016) to complete this challenge. Still to read:

• A collection of poetry
•  A National Book Award, Man Booker Prize or Pulitzer Prize winner from the last decade 
• A book by an author from Africa
• A book published before 1850

Tender is the Night

Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This novel was written, rewritten, scrapped and begun again, scavenged for parts, and rearranged over a period of about ten years. Unfortunately the novel as published still wasn't what it might have been.  Fitzgerald apparently recognized this as he observed (to his editor Maxwell Perkins), "If I had one more crack at it cold sober I believe it might have made a great difference." It was a rough decade in Fitzgerald's life and much of the material in the novel reflects the troubles of his own life and marriage (alcoholism, mental illness, depression) which makes it rather troubling reading if you are familiar with Fitzgerald's biography.
Like other Fitzgerald work much of the writing is stunning in its clarity and dazzling in its poetry.

"Her once fair hair had darkened, but she was lovelier now at twenty-four than she had been at eighteen, when her hair was brighter than she. Following a walk marked by an intangible mist of bloom that followed the white border stones she came to a space overlooking the sea where there were lanterns asleep in the fig trees and a big table and wicker chairs and a great market umbrella from Sienna, all gathered about an enormous pine, the biggest tree in the garden. She paused there a moment, looking absently at a growth of nasturtiums and iris tangled at its foot, as though sprung from a careless handful of seeds..." (p. 24)
"I prefer people whose lives have more corrugated surfaces..." (p.72)

Unfortunately the tight controlled structure for that writing which makes the Great Gatsby a masterpiece is missing here. This novel is a bit of a ramble in time and space and who exactly the focus of the novel is supposed to be (Dick Diver and Rosemary seem to be fighting for the spotlight) remains unclear. The scope of the novel also wavers, sometimes it focuses tightly on the personal tragedies of the characters, and sometimes it seems to pull back to say something larger about the world that it doesn't quite succeed in saying.

Ten Most Influential Books

Random Ramblings challenged readers to create a list of ten books that have been most influential in their lives and to provide no explanation of why (thus giving you the reader an opportunity to be influenced or not in your own way). Roof Beam Reader and Brona's Books compiled lists. 
Here is mine (in no particular order):

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
3. The Illustrated Treasury of Poetry for Children edited by David Ross
4. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
5. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
6. Getting Things Done by David Allen
7. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
8. Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
9. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
10. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

For the record, just because I think a book influenced me it doesn't mean I liked it or even that I finished it.