Category Archives: reading rainbow

Busy, busy

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I have a lot of things I want to write about. I also have a bunch of essays I need to read before tomorrow. Bleah.

A fun (if tiring!) weekend was had…both Ookla shows were lots of fun. My parents were in town for the Nietzsche’s show and got to see Rand in action for the first time. They seemed to enjoy it. They also liked Greg Klyma, which didn’t surprise me a bit!

Rand and I have stepped up our Netflix viewing, so I have several movies to report on…among them The Passion of the Christ, Stranger than Fiction, Let’s Go To Prison, ummm….I’m drawing a blank. But there have been a bunch in the past couple of weeks.

I wrote about this at Required Reading over the weekend, but I’ve joined a fun little site called goodreads. Check out my profile here and be my friend! 🙂

Many Wrinkles

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many wrinkles

When it rains, it pours! I got many, many responses to my call for help in finding the “right” copy of A Wrinkle In Time to complete my collection. Thanks so much, everyone!

From left to right…I found a copy at the Dawn Treader in Ann Arbor, which is in fantastic condition, but it’s far too new. It’s also not the same size as the other books. Apparently, mass market paperbacks got slightly larger over time?

Next is the new copy I got to replace my old copy.

Third, a copy from a set I bought on eBay. I bid on the auction (brought to my attention by Jen!) and won, and was waiting for this set to arrive before putting this post up. It finally came on Tuesday.

Fourth, a surprise copy received from Paperback Swap…this came while I was gone (so Friday or Saturday, I’m guessing). I was curious, and was going to ask who had done it…but last night, I received a message from Jen revealing that she was also behind this! Thanks! 🙂

Lethargic blogging

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I’m having a slightly lethargic blog week. I’m also buried under a pile of student essays, and I really need to stop procrastinating and grade them.

But if you’re just itching for new content, I just posted about one of my all-time favorite books over at Required Reading, if that sort of thing appeals to you. 😉

Reading, watching, listening

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Reading: Mostly student work these days…other than that, I managed to do a read-through of my NaNoWriMo novel. I wrote a bit about it at my writing blog, if you care about that sort of thing.

I also skimmed a bunch of grammar-type books to write this month’s Absolute Blank article over at TC. I began reading Spunk & Bite, which you can see along with all the others in our Amazon Store.

I read the first issue of the new Buffy comic, which I did enjoy, but I’m not sure I have the patience for monthly comics. Then again, do I have the patience to wait until it’s collected? Hmmm…

I have a bunch of things I’m looking forward to reading, like Laurie Halse Anderson’s new book Twisted, which was released today.

Watching: I think Lost is the only current show w/new episodes that I’m currently watching. It’s been fantastic lately, if I do say so.

Rand and I finished the second season of MASH last night. (How many more seasons is Frank on? Gah.) Toward the end of the second season, there was an episode that had to be groundbreaking television in 1974, dealing with a gay soldier. I was impressed.

Over the weekend, we saw Catch and Release at the dollar fifty movies. I liked it okay, and cried a bit at the end, but there were a few too many distracting plot holes for me to love it. The movie stars Jennifer Garner as Gray, a woman whose fiance has died just before their wedding. The question I had to keep asking myself was “doesn’t she have any friends? Or family?” It’s possible, I guess, that the answer to those questions is no, but that was never explained. I’m just pretty sure that if my fiance died, my family and friends would be there. I’m just sayin’.

Jen cries like no one else out there, and Kevin Smith was indeed as great as everyone said. Oh, and Timothy Olyphant (of Deadwood) is hawt.

I also watched Mean Girls…Rand had never seen it. 🙂 Oh, and I almost forgot…we watched The Full Monty, which I had seen before, but Rand just bought on DVD.

Listening: At present, I’m listening to KT Tunstall’s Eye to the Telescope, which I finally purchased from iTunes. I *heart* iTunes. And having an iPod. (I like the album quite a bit, too!)

As always, any recommendations are welcome. 🙂

Heeheehee

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I just read a post at 50 Books: Books I have lied about reading.

It’s a fun post, but this comment was what made me laugh out loud:

Lying about reading or finishing a book seemed rampant among my grad school colleagues. When we’d get really drunk at bars, we’d play the lit-geek version of “I Never” which was “I Never Read.” Boy, I saw a lot of giddy relief when people admitted to faking it (so to speak).

There are a lot of classics (and “modern classics”) that I’ve never read, but I guess I’ve never felt compelled to lie about it. The only Dickens I’ve ever read is A Christmas Carol. I couldn’t get through 100 Years of Solitude. I finished Portrait of the Artist, shrugged, and don’t expect that I’ll ever tackle Ulysses. I haven’t read any Steinbeck (novels…I’m sure I read some of his shorter stuff)…I did see the film version of Of Mice and Men.

In the comments, it seems that most people lied about books they were supposed to read for a high school or college course and faked their way through the paper/essay they had to write. I may not have liked everything I was assigned, but I always finished them. (See: Remains of the Day) I just don’t think I’m a good enough liar to fake it that well. 😉

Book review/interview posted

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A review of Adam Selzer’s debut novel, How to Get Suspended and Influence People, is posted over at Required Reading. I’ve got a short interview with the author as well. Enjoy!

Busy weekend

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Whew! Lots going on this weekend. I saw two movies–Pan’s Labyrinth and Babel. I’ll probably post more thoughts on these later. I will say that, while I liked Babel, I don’t think it was any great injustice that it didn’t win Best Picture. Both movies were dark, but I thought Pan’s Labyrinth was slightly more hopeful and uplifting. I cried during Pan’s Labyrinth and didn’t during Babel, which is not to say that there were not sad, heartwrenching moments during that movie.

Anyway.

brownies

I made Eden’s peanut butter swirl brownies, and for my first attempt at brownies from scratch, I have to say not half bad. I think my pan was an 8×8 rather than 9×9, which made them a little thicker than I would have liked, but they were okay.

books

Sunday was our book club meeting. None of us hated the book as violently as Eden did, but we all basically agreed about the book’s problems. It seemed to me that Coupland couldn’t decide which story he wanted to tell, which resulted in a jumbled, chaotic story with too many loose threads left untied. I’m not sure the four-narrator thing worked so well, because the characters weren’t given distinct enough voices.

The book was very readable…I got through it in a day…but I just kept waiting for something to happen, particularly in Heather’s story. There were moments when I thought I saw where Coupland wanted to go, but I don’t think it quite got there. I think the father/son dynamic should have been more at the heart of the story than it was. I think Hey Nostradamus wanted to be a story about faith and redemption and family, but fell a little bit short.

I did mark a lot of passages that I thought were memorable–this one in particular:

Redemption exists, but only for others. I believe, and yet I lack faith. I tried building a private world free of hypocrisy, but all I ended up with was a sour little bubble as insular and exclusive as my father’s.

And this one:

Sometimes I think God is like weather–you may not like the weather, but it has nothing to do with you. You just happen to be there. Deal with it.

I didn’t love it, which was disappointing, given how much I enjoyed Girlfriend in a Coma and All Families are Psychotic. But I didn’t completely hate it either. I doubt I’ll ever want to read it again, and I definitely wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read any other Coupland.

Jen’s post, LT’s post, and Eden’s review.

LT hosted the meeting, which meant we got to visit with her adorable kitty, Linus, as well.

linus looking up

The Children of Men

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Finally.

As mentioned, I saw the film version a few weeks ago, which made me curious about the book. I enjoyed the book, though probably not as much as I enjoyed the film, and the two are wildly different.

Theo is the central character in both versions. There is a group called the Five Fishes in both versions, although in the film, the organization is much larger and much more influential. The setting is primarily the same (the book is set in 2021, the film in 2027), and some of the essential elements of the story are the same–humankind is infertile (although in the book, it is made clear that MEN are infertile. still no explanation as to why) and Theo has to help a woman who is miraculously pregnant safely give birth.

The film is much more violent than the book. Most of the shooting, bombing, and bloodshed doesn’t happen in the book at all. The government is much scarier in the film, although the book offers more of a meditation on power and corruption.

The book focuses a lot of attention on Theo’s relationship with his cousin Xan, the Warden of England. It’s hardly a blip in the movie.

And sadly, one of the major questions I hoped would be answered by the book–what exactly does the Human Project do? and does it actually exist?–was an element that was completely new for the film version.

Okay, now I’m going to get to what I liked about the film. I can’t possibly talk about this movie without mentioning those incredible tracking shots. Yes, they really were that amazing, and I still can’t believe it didn’t win the Oscar for cinematography. (This level of film geekery usually escapes me. I think I’ve been hanging w/Rand for too long!)

One of the most powerfully moving scenes in the film involved Michael Caine as Theo’s friend Jasper and a cover version of the Stones’ Ruby Tuesday, by Italian Franco Battiato. I don’t want to say any more about it, other than that it made me crycrycry.

Another moment that moved me came toward the end of the film, watching people living in the midst of of shooting and bombing and horror all around them. I thought to myself, “I can’t imagine living in a world like this,” then immediately thought “There are people who live in a world like this. Right now.” It made my heart ache.

I thought the ending of the movie, while sad, was much more hopeful than the ending of the book. I thought it was brilliantly done, and I highly recommend it. (Be warned, though, that it is heavy on social commentary. If that’s not your thing, you might want to stay away.)

Reading, watching, listening

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Reading: After seeing Children of Men, I was curious about the book that it was based on. Whenever I see a movie that was adapted from a novel (well, a good movie), I’m interested in seeing the original source material. What was changed, what was cut, what was kept, and what bears absolutely no resemblance to the original. I’m not all that far into it…so far, it’s moving pretty slowly…but I’ve decided to save any in-depth comments about either the book or the movie until I’m finished.

I’ve also been reading the collected Mutts comic strips. I *heart* Mutts. How had I never read it before?

Other than that…student essays. Sigh.

Watching: Ok, so my favorite show on the air right now is Heroes. This week’s episode was amazing, and I can’t wait to see what happens next! We learned a great deal about HRG this week, and his relationship with Claire is reminding me a lot of SpyDaddy and Syd; there’s no black and white. He operates in shades of gray, and Monday night, it became clear that he’s motivated by his love for his daughter.

I’m a week behind on both Lost and Veronica Mars. I’ve watched some of MASH season 2 with Rand…Trapper John is less annoying this season. I’m finding it interesting that so many people put MASH on their list of greatest sitcoms ever, because it’s hardly a sitcom. We’ve been watching with the laugh track removed, and I can’t figure out who thought a laugh track was a good idea in the first place. See, I think MASH is a half hour drama with occasional humor. I also think Aaron Sorkin owes a lot of the tone of his shows (Sports Night in particular) to MASH. That’s just my $.02.

Listening: So Rand bought a shiny new iPod, and I’ve taken control of the old one. I haven’t had much time to play with it, so I’ve mostly been listening to the playlists he’s created that I enjoy.

The one I seem to be listening to the most is called Mellowmodern…This is filled with mostly indie musicians, some the current hipster trends, and some more or less unknown stuff that Rand likes. I started out with a mental block against Sufjan Stevens, because my God, could he be any more pretentious? But he’s starting to grow on me a little. Anyway, the list is generally good for mellow background music.

I’d really like to check out the new Dixie Chicks album, and I still want KT Tunstall’s Eye to the Telescope.

And as usual, I’m open to any suggestions. 🙂

Weekend stuff

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Among other things, like laundry and cleaning, I spent some time this weekend futzing around with the book blog. New template, using the default “book” header image until I come up with something better. I’m having a hard time getting the links to play nice (for some reason, they won’t divide into link categories. Is it just a problem with the template, or is there a way to fix it?), but otherwise, I’m pretty happy with the template.

I think the blog needs a new name, since I’m going for a YA focus. Unfortunately, I’m notoriously bad at naming things. Suggestions would be most welcome.

I finished reading Hey Nostradamus, but I’m not going to write about it until after the book club meeting. I also finished Anatomy of a Boyfriend (link to my review on the book blog). And of course, I read Eden’s manuscript. I should have been doing more working and less reading, but I couldn’t help myself… 😉

I continue to plug along with Project 365. I may not always post the photos on my blog, but they’ll always be there in my flickr set.

And finally, a big congratulations to my friends Mary and Rob, who welcomed a baby boy into the world last Thursday night!

Okay, I’ve got work to do. Happy Monday!