So, I haven’t been posting a lot recently, mostly because my computer is broken (the screen freezes unless I bend it at an angle — weird, I know) and HP has told me that it would cost $400+taxes+parts to fix. Obviously, I’m not going to spend what could likely be over 500 dollars to fix a three-year-old computer that cost less than a thousand dollars to begin with. Assuming a five-year rate of depreciation, $500 would be well over it’s current value. It’s a bit of a racket seeing as how Hewlett-Packard also has the highest hardware failure rate of the leading notebook manufacturers. It was relatively cheaper, but given that my last HP laptop also had similar problems and the screen died out shortly after it hit its 3rd year, I don’t think I would get another HP notebook.

In fact, HP has a 3-year manufacturing failure rate (as opposed to accidental damage) of just over 25% compared to Asus, Toshiba and Sony which each have failure rates hoving just above or below 16% over the course of the same three-year period. You can see the results of that study here (PDF file), though, it’s coming from a vendor of warranty protection plans, so take it with a grain of salt.

But aside from discussions of the book value of my laptop and manufacturing failure rates, I have, however, as a result of its shitty hardware, been reading more instead. Here are some of the recent ones.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. Loved this. I’ve never been a huge fan of dystopian novels, mostly because anything taken to an extreme is bad, I think, but this world is so carefully constructed and her writing is so readable that it was hard to be such a cynic about it. I think my favorite part was the relationship between Oryx and Sandman. It’s an alternate reality; if you’re into that you should definitely read this (and probably already have). Otherwise, just read it anyway cause it’s good.

Girl’s Poker Night by Jill Davis. Eh. My sister gave this to me a while back. It was better than the average chick lit but not by a lot and not really worth reading unless you particularly are in the mood for that stuff.

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk. Huh. I liked this book in theory. I liked that it was almost a philosophical (regarding art) mystery. It’s a story about a murder among a group of miniaturists (read: artists), set in the Ottoman Empire (it’s translated from Turkish). The idea is that they are working on book of illustrations that reflects a style that is considered to be sacrilegious in that it is considered idolatry, detracting from the glorification of God, etc. There’s more to the plot line than just this, but the main character, Black, investigates by speaking to the suspects regarding their views on various aspects of art, and at the same time the unidentified murderer discusses his thoughts as well. Theoretically, you should be trying to figure out who is the murderer based on these discussions of art philosophy. It was good in terms of writing, pacing, etc., but I think my appreciation of this book is largely on an academic level. If you think you’d enjoy theoretical discourses on art, for example considering what “is” art and whether things like personal style detracts from art and the representation of “truth,” then you’d probably love this book.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie. Always good. I think this was the first Hercule Poirot novel ever. I thought I would be over my Agatha Christie phase by now, but I guess not.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. Very Oprah. Obviously unrealistic. But entirely enjoyable. A group of rich important people get kidnapped by terrorists who are good people at heart.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schafer. I liked reading this, minus the romance. Its seems like a solid novel who had an editor who forced in some contrived romantic plot line so there would be was more of a plot arc, but it was just distracting. It’s about the German occupation of Guernsey (not fictional), as told through a conversation in letters (entirely fictional). It begins when a writer receives a letter from someone from the island and ends up conversing with various people to find out about their experiences during the occupation. It’s Hallmark-y in it’s way, but interesting from a historical perspective.

Baby Proof by Emily Giffen. This was sitting on my self for, like two years. It’s chick-lit, but I liked the premise of this book, mostly because I liked the idea of exploring the trade-off between decisions about kids and someone you’re into. Oddly enough, it was something I recently had a conversation with someone about so I finally picked it up and went ahead and read it. Overall, it was pretty good as far as this genre goes, but the ending was such a disappointment and waaay cheesy.