I finished Kavalier & Clay last night. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The only thing that I wondered was why didn't Joe go back to Prague after the war to see if anyone made it? Or to just see his homeland again? I thought he would have, especially since they didn't address his mother dying. It's pretty safe to assume she died in one of the camps but you'd think he'd go over and try to get some closure on it. I'm getting my book signed by Chabon tomorrow at ComiCon!

I didn't much care for Summerland, despite my recent conversion experience into the cult of baseball. It was leisurely and had big pointy arrows of metaphoric importance, as a children's book often has, but it also felt flabby, and then rushed at the 2/3 mark, as if someone had been playing a videotape on slow for 20 minutes and then fast-forwarded suddenly to catch back up. Not a bad book, and I think children who like baseball would enjoy it, but it had flaws.

Doomsday Book is a gigantic downer. I tell everyone this, because, just as I was totally flabbergasted the first time I saw Connie Willis do farce, a lot of people seem to be totally flabbergasted watching her do gutwrenching unpleasantness. Fair warning, although DB is also a good introduction point to "Fire Watch", probably the best thing she ever wrote (a novella), which is neither farce nor unpleasantness.

So jealous of GC, but I met Sherman Alexie so I do have a Hot Arty Writer Story. But still jealous.

I've not read anything else by Connie Willis so I have no expectations.

gutwrenching unpleasantness

Ah sounds like a lovely summer read for me!

So jealous of GC, but I met Sherman Alexie so I do have a Hot Arty Writer Story. But still jealous.

I think I mentioned a ways up thread that I heard Chabon speak this spring at the DCJCC and got my K&C signed. He's really charming.

Sigh.

Yay! I'm so excited!

Ooh, Sherman Alexie.

I had the same reverse Connie Willis reaction, having read DB a few years before hitting her other stuff. (To Say Nothing of the Dog was hers, right?)

I enjoyed Summerland, but it felt very much like a hodgepodge, and it's not nearly as good as K&C. An easy read, if a longer one than necessary.

Nutty's right (as she so often is) about Doomsday Book. Oddly enough, it's part of the same universe as To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is hysterically funny. I remember nothing particularly funny in DB, and I haven't read it since it first came out. I was too depressed to reread.

Oddly enough, it's part of the same universe as To Say Nothing of the Dog,

Oh, are they? I mean, the similarity in theme, if not tone, was obvious, but I didn't realize they were that connected because I read them so far apart. I really enjoyed both, though they're such different experiences.