Love in Infant Monkeys

 

I finished reading Lydia Millet's "Love in Infant Monkeys" today, a rather charming collection of fictional short stories involving animals and famous people, one of the finalists for this year's Pulitzer Prize.  I quite enjoyed the book; I found it imaginative, funny, eclectic and empathetic, plus I love the title.  Generally speaking, I don't really like short stories (and short films for that matter) as they often have abrupt and unresolved endings, leaving the audience hanging and forcing them to interpret their own conclusions.  These short stories on the other hand, entailed a concise yet complete story, just enough to get you hooked into the story, but also with a definitive ending.  They also made for good bedtime reading; you could read a short story in its entirety in less than half an hour, so that you wouldn't have to try to recall what you last read every time you picked the book up again.  I returned the book to the library today and picked up some DVDs (Precious, Alice in Wonderland and Valentine's Day; how's that for variety) as well as my next batch of books: "Possession," by "A.S. Byatt, "The White Tiger," by Aravind Adiga and "Waiting," by Ha Jin.  I don't know much about any of these books; I browsed some book award lists and picked them out so hopefully they are decent.  I'll be doing a bunch of travel towards the end of the month so I need to collect some books to take with me.  Any recommendations are much appreciated!!