The Dark Tower by Stephen King

This book concludes Stephen King's Dark Tower series. I'm deeply ambivalent about this series. It does get richer over time, and I generally enjoyed the rich levels of reference (from internal symbolism like the rose and the tower to external references to The Wizard of Oz and "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came"). I also thought the meta-fictional parts were fairly well done. Finally, I thought there was generally an appropriate level of sacrifice, and I actually didn't mind that King started Roland off on his journey again (I read the implication as being that this journey just depicted was the one that taught him what he needs to know to escape the cycle). I did think King was a bit of a jerk in his afterword when he simultaneously complains that a) critics who talk about meta-fiction are pretentious but that b) inserting himself in his own story is somehow not pretentious. I'm glad I finished the series, but it'll never replace The Lord of the Rings in my mind.

Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa

This book is a hodge-podge of forms and ideas. In its mixtures of form (essays, poetry, history, memoir, and myth are forms that come most immediately to mind) and of languages (English, Spanish, and Nahautl) it both demonstrates the problems of living in the borderlands and starts to demonstrate ways that we--by code-switching, by listening, by acceptance--can live best. I particularly liked the sections on the borderlands and on language. Anzaldúa doesn't hold any punches, and a working knowledge of Spanish will help the reader.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

This novel, a gentle portrait of the brief interactions between four people who come together in an abandoned Italian villa during the final days of World War Two, gives an account of the tentative and fragile process of healing. Although not much happens, much is revealed in this beautiful book. Booker award winner (shared), 1992.