Books 25 and 26

Beautiful Aquarium was an odd little book. I asked my wife to snag me a book about setting up aquariums when she went to the library the other day. And this was the book she came back with. It covers this strange creature known as Dutch Aquariums. I had no idea such a thing existed. Apparently the Dutch like aquariums. And they like to feature plants as opposed to fish in them. A Dutch Aquarium is about creating an underwater garden. Very much centered around the plant life and the few fish that might be found there. So not entirely helpful as I'm more interested in looking at the fish. Plus it was just an odd book. Strange bouts of bias interspersed with odd bits of superiority. Will have to track down another book about fish tanks.

The Coma by Alex Garland, however, was a delightful read. Years ago Kit recommended a book called Einstein's Dreams. That was a whimsical little book that took on some of the trickier aspects of time and physics as seen through the lens of Einstein's dreams. (Hence the oh so clever title) The Coma is also a bit of a whimsical book that tackles the nature of reality vs. dream. It reminds me a bit of that old TV show Tales from the Darkside (as opposed to The Twilight Zone). Garland weaves both words and images into a book that is pretty hard to put down. In fact, you probably won't until you finish it. It's pretty short, but no less powerful for it's brevity. Perfect for perusing a couple times.

In fact, much like Fight Club when I first read it, I'll probably read through The Coma again pretty quickly to see what other bits of information I can glean from it. It's a book I could see assigning to a High School English class as required reading. Of course I'd probably assign them some Neil Gaiman as well as the aforementioned Palahniuk, so a proper English teacher I'll never be. ^_^ (Actually, despite all the classics - some of which there is little doubt as to why they're classics - I had a pretty cool English teacher. She was probably a good part of why I got an English degree...)

At any rate, The Coma was a great little read as well as an interesting and thought-provoking one. I look forward to reading some more by Mr. Garland.