Books read recently by J. Zimmerman.
Inspired in part by Catarina.net's book blog.


Reader's Bill of Rights - after Daniel Pennac in Better than Life as quoted in the November 2003 Utne Magazine - includes the rights to:


{ June (junio (see also books on Spanish)) 2005 }

(06.29.2005)

(06.28.2005)

Buy 'Evolution'
(06.25.2005)

(06.15.2005) (06.12.2005) (06.10.2005) (06.09.2005) Finished listening to a marvelous 11-voice reading of (06.08.2005) Skimmed one more time before releasing to the Used Books God: (06.06.2005)

Finished

(06.05.2005) Finally abandoned some highly regarded books that I've been trying to get into with no success for half a year.: (06.04.2005) (06.03.2005) (06.02.2005)


{ May (mayo (see also books on Spanish)) 2005 }

(05.31.2005)

(05.30.2005) (05.29.2005) (05.28.2005)
Skimmed:

(05.27.2005) (05.23.2005) (05.19.2005) (05.16.2005) (05.11.2005) (05.06.2005) (05.05.2005) (05.03.2005) (05.02.2005) (05.01.2005)
Buy 'Never Let Me Go'

This is his best yet. I'm especially admiring how precisely he has captured the voice of the type of young English woman that is his protagonist. It's the voice of the 14-year-olds I went to school with. And like them, while the protagonist has a simplicity, innocence, and lack of information, she makes up for that as much as she can by her observations and her imagination.

The name of Hailsham (the school where most of the story is set), must denote the sham of being hale (having sound or vigorous health). The young people of the story are healthy and their role is to provide health to others. But the system in which they live is a sham of healthiness and they are trapped in an evil medicine.

Never Let Me Go could seem a macabre story. Publishers Weekly summarizes: 'Set in late 1990s England, in a parallel universe in which humans are cloned and raised expressly to "donate" their healthy organs and thus eradicate disease from the normal population, this is an epic ethical horror story, told in devastatingly poignant miniature.'

It explores not just what we remember and misremember about

Among the huge ethical issues raised by the book are:

It's the first book for a long time that I reread as soon as I had finished it. Should be nominated for the 2005 Booker Prize.


{ April (abril (see also books on Spanish)) 2005 }

(04.27.2005)

(04.24.2005) (04.22.2005) (04.19.2005) (04.13.2005) (04.10.2005) (04.04.2005) (04.03.2005) (04.02.2005) (04.01.2005)