Whit, Iain Banks
This may be one of my favorites of Banks' non-scifi genre. Whit is the story of a girl named Isis, who is the chosen successor to leadership in her father's cult religious colony. He examines her faith and questioning therein while she seeks out a wayward cousin in the 'outside' world. While the book is full of characatures and amusing plays for laughter, it also manages to strike a little further under the skin and show a strong female protaganist taking a critical look at her faith, and find strength in it. A nice balance of the two. Recommended.
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Canal Dreams, Iain Banks
Iain Banks is a masterful storyteller. I continue to be impressed with his range. Canal Dreams is the story of a Japanese cellist who is travelling through the Panama Canal and gets caught in the crossfire of revolution. The hallucinatory dream sequences tell you other stories from her life, and are spliced throughout the daily-unfolding story of the revolution. Gritty and sad, but still a good read. Reminded me a bit of Haruki Murakami's work, at times.
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Boonville, Robert Mailer Anderson
Wow. Anderson pulls no punches, and doesn't worry about offending anyone in this book. Additionally, you'll never think of squirrels in the same way, again. I'm not sure if i would have liked this book if it was about someplace in upstate New York - i think some of my enjoyment stemmed from knowing exactly who Anderson was talking about in any given chapter - even if i was one of the ones he was ripping into. ;) Mailer's prose was uneven - sometimes his pacing was dead-on, and sometimes it was a little laggy. Overall, quite a good turnout for a first novel - especially if you share a humor cell with James, Russell & me. I'll certainly be picking up his next work, and i think if you're not too thin-skinned, you should pick this one up, too.
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