24. Gift from the Sea

Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Pantheon Books (Random House), 138 pages, 1955 (with afterword written in 1975)

This was a quick read and a decent one, although I enjoyed the chapters about art and solitude more than the ones about relationships. I used to read a lot of stuff like this and then I started getting old and moving to other countries and getting my heart broken and realized I could learn all this stuff about tranquility and peace and self-sufficiency better that way. Still, this was well-written and insightful. I had it recommended to me as a good book to take on a solitary retreat and that's exactly the way I would recommend it to someone else, I think.

21. Sex and the City

Sex and the City, Candace Bushnell
Grove/Atlantic Kindle Edition, 240 pages, 1996


This probably would have jived (what is the past participle of jive anyway? Jove?) better with my frame of mind if I had picked it up during my failed attempt at dating in Japan and not right after embarking upon a new, sickeningly lovey-dovey relationship, but either way, it fucking sucked. The unrelenting cynicism was part of it, but it was really just ridiculous navel-gazing. I don't know anyone like the characters in this book and I doubt you do either. In fact, I had a really hard time keeping names straight because they were all just cardboard cutouts and none of them ever did anything interesting. For the most part I was reading the book as a completely separate entity from the TV show (which is loosely--key word loosely--based on it--some of the characters share names, it's set in New York; that's about it), but I was surprised to find that the Carrie in the book is self-destructive and, well, kind of a bitch. I think this whole mess might have actually worked with a likable heroine, but as it is I had to read it in tiny bits and pieces to even be able to stand it. 


Next up: East of Eden by John Steinbeck