SOLAR (Ian McEwan) - May 27/10

I'm starting to have my doubts about Ian McEwan. Though Solar is as well written as the reader might've expected, McEwan is simply unable to capture and sustain one's interest over the course of the novel's meandering storyline. This is despite the presence of several extremely vivid interludes, including Beard's trip into the arctic (where he assumes that his penis has broken off!) and Beard's (wrong) assumption that a stranger on a train is challenging him for his bag of chips. It's also worth noting that everything comes together very nicely at the end, as all the problems that have been plaguing Beard throughout the novel essentially collide in Texas (with the very end actually reminding me of A Serious Man's finale). But that midsection. Yikes. Way too much science stuff and not enough plot. ** out of ****

THE HOT ZONE (Richard Preston) - May 15/10

Oh, god. What an excruciating nightmare this book was. While I was reading it, I couldn't help but think that it felt like a five page article that had been tortuously expanded to over 400 (!) pages - and, as it turns out, that's exactly what Preston did. There are certainly a few interesting things here, but my god, I can't recall another book that so blatantly felt like the author was just treading water from start to finish. What a colossal bore. * out of ****