Current mood:	thoughtful
Current music:	Beth Orton

Well Read #1: Cloud Atlas
I've been kind of meaning to read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell ever since it came out, mostly because I think the cover is cool. Yeah, I'm shallow like that.

Now that I've read it, I don't quite know what to tell you about it. It starts off with a nineteenth century American notary sailing home from Australia, jumps abruptly into a disreputable composer's letters to a friend in the 1930's, then into a story about an investigative reporter looking for her first big scoop and on from there until the end comes back to Adam sailing home. It's not so much intertwined stories as nested ones, like those Russian dolls. For the first half of the book you kind of have to take it on faith that you're reading a novel and not a series of false starts.

A few pages into a book, I generally have an idea what it's about - for instance, an orphan who is whisked away to wizarding school and has exciting adventures or a hobbit who has to get rid of a ring. But I've read all of Cloud Atlas and if you ask me what it's about I'll kind of stutter and say "Uh, it's about ... um ... stuff?"

Which is not to say that it's not as cool as the cover. Ambiguity can be cool.