Sex! Gambling! Gossip! Killing! Rabies! Hurricanes!

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
By Mary Roach

Wheeee! Fun! A book about sex! Yay! Oh wait, you know what's amazing? How scientists can ruin anything under the pretense of making it better. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't read this book, because it is fascinating. But it is a little bit like reading an exposé on the beef industry. Do you really want to know how that hamburger is made? No. You may not want to admit this, but much of the hamburger's deliciousness is actually predicated on mystery.

Good thing Mary Roach has a healthy sense of humor. Exhibit A: chapter seven is called "The Testicle Pushers: If Two is Good, Would Three Be Better?"

I would recommend: reading this book aloud on a long car trip, so that everyone is equally embarrassed. If you weren't close friends before. You will be now.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
By Charles Yu

I was so excited about this book. Let me repeat: SO EXCITED. How excited? I bought it in hard back, at full price. Which I NEVER do. I think I thought it was going to be like The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao only on Science Fiction. News flash: it was not.

This is a book about time travel, but before you get too excited (Amber D.), it's mostly a book about daddy issues. And not in an awesome, space battle, cyber sexy, defeat your father and take over the death star kind of way. In an Ezra Pound, generation X, lonely guy in a broken time machine with a holographic dog sort of way. It is a story where nothing happens except to repair the main character's wounded psyche, which I HATE.

This book does mega cool things with language and form. Ok. And... Yeah....

I would recommend: well, don't read this if you're really tired, is all I'm saying.

China Boy
By Gus Lee

Opposite end of the spectrum from the Charles Yu. China Boy is about a 6-7 year-old boy named Kai, whose family flees China during the Chinese civil war. They end up in San Francisco in the 1940's and 50's. At first, Kai is sheltered by his mother, but when she dies and his father marries Stepmother Edna, Kai is shoved out into the streets. Kai becomes the recipient of daily beatings and as a result, his father sends him to the YMCA to learn to box and defend himself.

If we're talking about Asian American literature here, personally, I found this book 750,000 times more enjoyable than the Joy Luck Club. Lee writes with humor but he's presents a really nuanced vision of the way African American, Latino, and Chinese people get along in San Francisco at this time. But don't get me wrong with all this race-y culture-y stuff, this isn't Grad School talking here, I chose this book independently (yes, it has boxing in it, sue me) and I couldn't put it down.

I would recommend this book to: anyone who thought the Joy Luck Club needed more Fight Club.

Their Eyes Were Watching God
By Zora Neale Hurston

"Oh to be a pear tree--any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world!"

The first time I read this book (I know I'm singing a familiar song here) was freshman year at Centenary. I liked it ok, but pretty much only absorbed that it was about a sexually independent black lady who talked in dialect. I didn't learn very much, obviously.

All I'm going to say is that if you've already read it because you were forced to, it's so much better when you do it for fun. Holy smokes. This book is so much better when you're not a stupid freshman in college distracted by... being a freshman in college. It's got sex and gambling and gossip and killing and rabies and hurricanes!!!

So much better the second time. Period.

I would recommend this book to: Tim, who didn't make it past the first page when the book was assigned to him, and to all my female friends who need something in between a bodice ripper and god-forsaken Wuthering Heights.