Media Monday: The Books of Spring

I'm kind of caught up on movie reviews for the moment, so while we wait for those to start stacking up again, here are tiny capsules of books I read in the spring this year.  (My friend David counts comics in things like this, but I do not. A few times I a year I go on jags of reading hundreds of comics over a week or two, but I always have trouble tracking it and never leave myself notes.)

Cats' Cradle (Vonnegut) - Beautiful. Wonderful to learn about a duprass. I think if I'd read this when I were younger, I might have converted. Appreciation of this book is one of the two things I had in common with Brand New Old Love's leading lady Aya. The other was a susceptibility to the horrible mid-production cold that went around.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman (Mr. Feynman and Leighton) - Anecdotes from a father of The Bomb, and generally busy guy. How lucky he must have been to live in an internet-free era. The notion of the students who learn the facts but have no idea what to do with them seemed useful and topical!

Song of Spider-Man (Berger) - The third book I read during the shoot of Brand New Old Love that concerns itself in some way with a horrible disaster. Kind of interesting at first, but just drags on and on repetitively, like any project involving U2. Probably you could just read a few chapters from the beginning (or anywhere) and then know that those problems never cease. 

This is Water (Wallace) - I'd just seen The End of the Tour and thought of how I hadn't ready much DFW. This occupied just a fraction of a day at jury duty, but gave me some ideas I'd like to investigate one day.

Molly's Game (Bloom) - I thought this was going to be about a lady card sharp, which it is not. Still fascinating for a while, although like Song of Spider-Man, the history repeats itself rapidly. I wonder who will play Tobey McGuire in the movie.