Bookish Bent

Moving on.

2011-06-16T20:46:00.000-05:00

I'm moving on from Blogger and Bookish Bent. It's been a lovely time, but I need to expand a bit. So, with the help of some really wonderful, patient people, I've created a new space all my own. A professional website, if you will, but also a place to blog about more than just books - though books will still be a large focus.

It's been months of work. And I've been nervous to show it off, holding off these last few weeks because I'm so nervous. But, you don't get anywhere by being scared.

There are still some kinks to work out. We're still playing with the design of the homepage. But, I want to blog again, so it's time.

www.amandagates.com

Thanks to all who have read my posts and thoughts here. I hope you follow me and we can keep the conversations going.

Why, hello!

2011-06-02T13:23:00.002-05:00

Yes, it's been awhile. Nearly two months! But, life happened in those two months and I had to take care of and recover from (actually, still recovering from) a major family situation.

But also, I've been working on something kind of cool. I'm not quite ready to share it yet, but soon. And then I'll get back on track.

I've still been reading though, and can't wait to discuss:

Half Baked
Bossypants
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet
The Happiest Mom
Out Stealing Horses

Soon!

Cutting For Stone

2011-04-04T19:20:00.004-05:00

This tome took me six weeks to finish, hence the lack of posts lately. I heard a bit about Cutting for Stone on Goodreads, and it has nearly five stars on Amazon with some crazy-like 900 reviews. So, lots of people liked this book. Marion, one half of twins, tells his story of childhood and coming of age in Ethiopia. He lives at a hospital where his adoptive parents, both Indian, take up residence. We learn about his birth, his growing up, the patients at the hospital, Ethiopian politics, the history of his immediate family... there's a lot in this book. I didn't quite know what I was getting into, so all of the backstory at the beginning left me wondering where the book was going. But, when I talked to my girlfriend about the book (she had also read it), she said it reminded her of Middlesex - a family history. Then it clicked for me. (I may have been slower to catch on because I was reading it on my Kindle and didn't have a book flap to sum things up for me.)

Cutting for Stone is quite deep and detailed. The author can really paint a picture, and he especially can flesh out characters. I fell in love with Hema, Marion's adoptive mother, who is a spit fire of a lady, a smart gynecologist and a mama with a sweet heart. I also fell in love with her husband Ghosh. He was a gentle man and the two had a loving relationship.

Because he's a doctor, too, the author went quite into detail when it came to the medical side of the story. I learned way more than I needed to know about lady parts, vasectomies and a whole other slew of surgeries. It was quite graphic (I felt really queasy on the bus during one part), and I would say if that turns you off, it almost takes away from the story. Almost. But, if you can keep reading through it - or skim over those parts like I did - the story gets awesomely moving in the last third of the book. This was by far my favorite part, probably because the story comes full circle, and I was sad to see the book end.

Beautifully written, somewhat graphic, and a lovely telling of a family and a culture that you don't come across every day. I'm really glad I read it.

I may not go to the movies, but I do have Netflix

2011-03-07T03:17:00.001-06:00

Remember when I saw nine movies in less than 4 months? In the theater, no less? Wow. Times. Have. Changed. However, with a husband that works nights every so often, a baby in bed and a Netflix account, I’ve been able to watch a few more movies lately, which, I have to say, has been great.

Whip It: Roller Girls have always intrigued me. For some reason, I think I could be good at a sport like this. Plus, it’s a hard-hitting, fast-paced sport For Girls. Which is awesome. The movie was cute. Ellen Page was her typical self. The storyline was sweet. And while I’m not a huge fan of hers on SNL, Kristen Wiig really impressed me in this movie. She was thoughtful, engaging and one of my favorite characters. I’d recommend it for a girls’ night movie, because these ladies kick ass.

The Social Network: My husband and I watched this together and we really liked it. I wasn’t too concerned since I’ve loved all things Aaron Sorkin since Sports Night (which was so before its time and canceled way too early). It was really interesting to watch an empire being created from the ground up. Eisenberg made Zuckerberg seem like an incredible douche and villain - with the touch of a (broken) heart - but yet, you still pulled for him. This was also one of my first exposures to Andrew Garfield, and I really liked him as an actor. JT wasn’t so bad either. We enjoyed discussing after the movie who really deserved part of the fortune, and who got away with a lot of money for doing so very little.

The Kids Are All Right: I liked this movie, too. It’s nothing flashy or groundbreaking, really, just nice. It was nice to watch a movie about two women raising a family where the fact that they were lesbians (or the fact that the kids had two moms) was not an issue. It just told it like it is. Marriage is hard. Motherhood is hard. People screw up, and then you still love them. Why Julianne Moore wasn’t nominated, though, is beyond me. She was terrific.

Catfish: I first heard about this documentary on Ellen (must’ve been a sick day or something), when she had the filmmakers on and just raved about the movie and the “twist.” It studies and documents the relationship of 24-year-old Nev with a family he meets on Facebook. And things aren’t as they seem. So, I knew there was a twist going in – and you can kind of assume what the twist is – yet the movie still really surprised me. There are rumors it may all be a hoax, but whatever. It was crazy. And good.

What have you seen lately?

Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration Into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel

2011-02-27T15:31:00.000-06:00

Editor's Note: Like most anyone, I'm not interested in every genre of books. But, I'd love my blog to offer insights on a wide range of books. So, enter guest bloggers. Below, my husband, who is smarter and more eloquent than me, offers a thoughtful post on a book he just read. I'm a dunce at all things science so I would never pick this book up on my own, but now I think it sounds extremely interesting.

An unfortunate and depressing fact about mankind living on planet Earth is that eventually the rock we call home will not be here anymore. The Sun will die, expanding to the point that Earth will be swallowed whole by the very star that gives us life. Of course this is billions of years from now, but what if mankind (or whatever we’ve evolved into) could escape this by traveling to a parallel universe? What if mankind could escape the solar system long before this happens by traveling to another star, perhaps faster than the speed of light? These are the topics brought to life by theoretical physics professor Michio Kaku of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in his book Physics of the Impossible.

I’m sure right now you’re thinking, "Why would I want to read 300 pages about theoretical physics?" I have an engineering and physics background in my former career, and that doesn’t even sound fun to me. However, at some point we’ve all thought about what it would be like to time travel. We’ve all seen teleportation in Star Trek, or traveling faster than the speed of light in Star Wars. How many movies and TV shows have been made about robots becoming smarter than we are and turning on us? Terminator or I, Robot, anyone? What about Watson on Jeopardy?

Kaku takes the pop-culture sci-fi topics that everyone has thought about at one point or another, and describes the physics that may actually make them possible in a (more or less) easy-to-read fashion. You don’t need to have a huge science background to understand what’s going on. Kaku deconstructs into three classes what most people think are impossibilities. The first class being impossibilities that don’t break known laws of physics, and may be possible in this or the next century, including force fields, teleportation, invisibility, robots, UFO’s, and starships. Can you imagine how the world would change if you could order a book on Amazon and it would be teleported to you? You think that the USPS has a hard time now?! Also discussed are class II impossibilities that might be realized within a millennia or more (time travel, parallel universes) and class III impossibilities which violate the known laws of physics which would require a fundamental shift in mankind’s understanding of physics (perpetual motion machines).

Kaku takes great care in honoring the past scientific discoveries by giving a bit of history from the scientists whose research has brought us to where we are today. Sadly, many of these great thinkers were persecuted for their beliefs (some even committing suicide) that were later proven in labs. Ludwig Boltzmann was hounded for his belief of atoms and hanged himself in 1906 because of the intense pressure. What Boltzmann didn’t realize was that Einstein had written a paper in 1905 demonstrating their existence.

While the research from the past has made possible everything society takes for granted today (the internet, cell phones, computers, space travel), we are an infantile society when it comes to scientific discovery. It is highly likely that societies are thriving in the universe (or in other universes) that are much more advanced than we are. Kaku paints a broad picture of how we may discover and use technologies to become a more advanced civilization, and on the extreme long-term timescale, survive. Kaku does so in a way that someone with little scientific background but a little bit of nerd in them can understand. I myself can’t wait for his next book Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100.

Mockingjay

2011-02-23T20:29:00.003-06:00

Note: As with my last post, I can't discuss this book without revealing SPOILERS. Read on at your own risk.

Well, the Hunger Games trilogy just got more disappointing with each book. I thought Mockingjay was pretty boring, and just when it would seem to be getting good, it would end up disappointing me. The districts are in rebellion and Katniss is the Mockingjay, but so much of this book is spent with her delirious, weak, confused, etc. Sure, the girl's been through a lot, but she's also stronger than this.

I hated that she wasn't leading the mission to save Peeta from the Capitol. And that she didn't try to save him ASAP. I feel like the Katniss from Book 1 would've done that.

I thought it was boring that so much of this book was about training and prepping and shooting propos.

It finally got interesting, near the end of the book, when Katniss and her group got near the Capitol and broke away from District 13's instructions and went on their own to assassinate the president. Finally, there was some fighting and Katniss got to lead like she should've been leading all along.

But, the ending sucked. Sucked. Not one part of it made me happy. I was on Team Gale from Day 1, and I think it's totally unrealistic how that relationship was (un)resolved.

I think an unnecessary person was killed. And I think the way she was killed was a lame attempt to make it seem OK that Katniss and Gale ended up the way they did. A ridiculous ploy.

I don't think Katniss ended up with the life she should've had.

My thoughts: Collins didn't want to be predictable, so she came up with ridiculous and poor attempts at keeping readers on their toes. All the things I wanted to happen, I admit, would have been predictable outcomes. However, for young adult novels, that's OK most often. Plus, I think in the name of being unpredictable, Collins made Katniss out to be weak and boring, and as a fan of our heroine from the beginning, that hurt me as a reader. I was actually angry about it.

Maybe I'm missing a deeper meaning, or I'm missing the point. But, in my opinion, the trilogy peaked with The Hunger Games. That book was great. The series as a whole? Just, eh.

Catching Fire

2011-02-15T14:41:00.004-06:00

Note: If you have not read the Hunger Games and plan to, there are mostly likely SPOILERS ahead. However, because all three books are out, and you can easily read the book flaps and other reviews, I don’t know how much of a spoiler I’m actually being. And, I can’t really talk about how I feel about this book without mentioning certain details, and I really want to hear what other fans think, too. So: SPOILERS. There. I warned you twice. :-)

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Not surprisingly, I gobbled up (no pun intended) the second Hunger Games book, Catching Fire, in less than a week. Surprisingly, I’m having a hard time deciding how I feel about it. When the book opens, Katniss and Peeta are off on their victory tour through the districts. Of course, here comes their design team to dress them all up again and prepare them for the tour. While I love the design team (Cinna definitely captured my heart), I thought to myself, “I already read this in the first book.” So, right away I was disappointed. And then I wondered, “Is Collins going to drag us through each and every one of the 12 districts?” Because: Boring. But she didn’t, so she redeemed herself there.

But when we’re only a few chapters into the book and the tour is over, then what fills the rest of the pages? Oh, another Hunger Games. She can’t possibly figure out a way to throw Katniss back in to this hot mess that makes sense, can she? Oh, but she can. Granted, it was a surprise to everyone – a completely unorthodox move by the Capitol. However, I’ve already read about the Hunger Games, so again: disappointed. I felt like Collins was taking the easy way out.

Another note: As an editor, it drives me CRAZY that they spell Capitol with an “o.” It’s a city, not just a building. It should be spelled Capital. Who let that get by?

To be fair, I can see why providing us with another Games isn’t completely stupid. We get to see a different environment then the one the Capitol created in the first book. We also get to meet a whole new slew of characters - though not quite as deeply as we could’ve, I don’t think. But another Games? Eh.

However, in the end, there was a scheme to it all. There was a reason, and I have to say it’s a good reason. So, again, Collins redeemed herself. In my opinion, if you cut out some unnecessary sections—and the few “review” pages up front of each book (just assume we read the previous book(s) and move on!)—this series could have been two books instead of three. Though, how many two-book series are there in the world? I’m guessing not too many.

So. I’ll say I liked it. It offers up good characters, it’s easy to read, it’s engaging, and I love Katniss. And maybe after finishing Mockingjay, I’ll like the series as a whole better than each individual part? To be continued...

The Book Thief

2011-02-08T08:10:00.000-06:00

The Book Thief is a haunting, yet wonderful book. It’s actually considered a young adult novel in many places, though it seems much more of a mature and complicated story than I would’ve enjoyed in my young-adult days. It takes a little while to get used to the narration and the structure of the book. The book is narrated by Death, and at first, I wasn’t sure it would work for me. Plus, Death has these bolded, starred outbursts (that my bff cleverly compared to the bubbles in Pop-Up videos) within his story, which causes a bit of disruption while reading. But after several pages, I got used to it and actually grew quite fond of Death as a narrator.

The story follows Liesel, a young girl growing up in a foster home in Nazi Germany. The Hubermann’s have taken her in when it was clear to her own mother that their family was in danger. Death comes across Liesel’s path in a couple of instances in her lifetime and is struck by this special girl, which is why he chose to tell her story.

A few themes I loved:

Death’s compassion. It hit me about halfway through the book that Death, at least The Book Thief’s Death, isn’t scary. He’s sad. He’s busy. He’s compassionate. He’s devastated about sitting up top bath houses and catching body after Jewish body that’s been gassed and killed. He can’t believe the things humans do to one another. He talks frankly about when he takes people and when he doesn’t. I learned to love Death as a character.

In the back of the book, there’s a Q & A with the author, Markus Zusak, and he says this about Death as a character: “Death was to be exhausted from his eternal existence and his job. He was to be afraid of humans – because after all, he was there to see the obliteration we’ve perpetrated on each other throughout the ages – and he would now be telling this story to prove to himself that humans are actually worth it.”

Hans & Rosa Hubermanns love. When we first meet this couple, they poke at each other, gripe at each other, call each other names. You think, 'Wow, this couple must loathe one another.' But it’s exactly the opposite. They are so much in love. When your husband brings home a Jew to hide in your basement and you ask no questions because you would do anything for him… Well, that’s love. And they loved Liesel like their own. It’s almost heartbreaking.

A favorite quote: “Life had altered in the wildest possible way, but it was imperative that they act as if nothing at all had happened. Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing that 24 hours a day. That was the business of hiding a Jew.”

The other side of the story. When we think of Nazi Germany, it’s so easy to hate all the people who lived there. How could they let this happen? How could they just stand by? Sure, we know the stories of people like the Hubermanns who were brave and helped those who need it. But, some just choose survival. They might not agree with the Nazi party, but they join, just to survive. They might not want to go fight for them, but they do so their son doesn’t have to. There is always another side. And it makes you wonder: Who would I be in that situation? Would I risk my butt? Or would I fly under the radar? Either way works, just as long as you live, right? And the same goes for current times. I try to remember to always give someone the benefit of the doubt. Because people can be going through some tough stuff and just need a break.

I loved this story. It was engaging and special and it sticks with you once you close it. It’s not joyous by any means, but there are several happy parts to it. Happiness to hang on to amongst the rubble.

I seem to enjoy books about WWII. A few other posts: The Zookeeper's Wife; City of Thieves; The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society; Those Who Save Us; and Sarah's Key.

My Kindle: First Thoughts

2011-01-27T08:45:00.000-06:00

The Hunger Games was my first Kindle purchase. It was $5. I clicked “buy” on Amazon and within 30 seconds, the book was on my Kindle. I have to say, that’s pretty amazing. The Kindle pages look very similar to book pages, and turning the page took just a press of the forward arrow.

As I started reading on my Kindle, this is how I felt for about the first half of the book: I missed that feeling of accomplishment. With a real book, you get that satisfaction as the pages you’ve read start outnumbering the pages you haven’t. You can physically see how far you are. You can also easily flutter through to see how many pages you are away from the end of a chapter. With a Kindle, sure you can page to the end of a chapter, but it’s not as easy as holding your finger in the book to mark your spot. Along the bottom of a Kindle page, it shows the percentage of what you’ve read. So, this should give me that feeling of accomplishment… but as a visual learner, this meant very little to me. But, I assume as I read more and more books this way, I’ll get use to this method.

But, I have to say, by the last half of the book, I forgot I was reading on my Kindle. I got used to the “flipping,” it read easily on the e-ink, and it was so convenient to slip into my purse. (Maybe I would’ve stuck with Pillars of the Earth if I had it on a Kindle instead of lugging around 1,000 pages? Probably not.) I’m reading a real book again at the moment, and love holding it in my hands, but I have to say, the Kindle isn’t so bad to hold either.

Another downfall: I’ve told one of my bffs that she’ll really enjoy The Hunger Games. And I realized I can’t lend it to her. And that makes me sad. But, I have a goal to declutter even more in 2011, which means selling lots more of my books. The reason I keep books is to lend them out. But, having more space and a more peaceful mind needs to outweigh keeping books just for the possibility of lending them (sorry, please still be my friends!), and maybe more Kindle books is the way to do that.

Commenting on my first Kindle post, Manda asked me if using a Kindle means I still feel “connected” to everything. Manda said she likes picking up a book and turning off all that technology. I didn’t feel that way at all. My Kindle isn’t connected to anything. I’m not planning to sign up for news through it or anything. Nothing bongs or tweets at me while I’m reading. It’s going to strictly be for books and just because it’s “electronic,” well, even after just one book, it doesn’t feel “electronic” to me. I’m just reading as I always have.

Other people commented on missing libraries and bookstores. First, I’ll never stop perusing bookstores. I love them, even when I don’t buy anything, which is most often. However, I’ve been buying (or having people buy for me) a majority of my books online for years now. They’re cheaper. They come right to your house. It’s easy for gift-giving. So, that part I won’t miss, actually. I can still stop at B&N over lunch – and buy children’s books now! – and the only thing that really changes about my buying habits is that my books get delivered to the Kindle in seconds as opposed to the house in days by mail.

In the end, I really like it. I do still feel a touch guilty about that, though. And, like iTunes, when you can just click “buy” and instantly have a book in place, it’s important to learn restraint. Because I still have plenty of books on my shelf left to read, too, I’ve put a limit on my Kindle purchases. Right now, nothing more than $5 or so - and with $40 in gift cards to spend, that's a lot of books. After awhile, I’ll re-evaluate. And I’ll obviously still be reading both ways. I don’t expect ever to give up actual books, but if it comes cheaper on the Kindle and it’s something I really want to read, the Kindle it is.

So, now what do you think? I think I've struck a good balance, plus I tried, and enjoyed, something new. Have I changed any minds?

The Hunger Games

2011-01-21T08:22:00.003-06:00

Kind of like Twilight, I really didn't know what The Hunger Games trilogy was until I read in my Entertainment Weekly about the movie being made about the books. Then the third book was listed on several Best Of 2010 lists, so I thought maybe I'd give it a try. The first book was $5 on Kindle, and I needed to try that out, too (more on my first Kindle experience in another post), so I decided The Hunger Games would be my first Kindle book.

Synopsis:

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before - and survival.

When I first read the synopsis, I wasn't sure. Seemed a little too Sci-Fi for me... however, I've enjoyed Sci-Fi a bit more lately, plus this was a young-adult novel, so I knew it wasn't going to get too complicated or out there for my liking. The premise is obviously depressing and I couldn't imagine actually enjoying a book that kills off teenagers one by one - for sport. But the author does a decent job of making several of Katniss' competitors, and the residents of the Capitol, unlikable while at the same time making our heroine our primary concern.

The Hunger Games are kind of like the Olympics because there's training, an opening ceremonies, costumes, interviews and performance. A good portion of the book is devoted to all these elements leading up to the actual Games. While it was interesting and you meet some important characters during this part of the book, I was anxious for the action to start. And, I have to say that while reading about kids killing each other (sick, right?) was hard, the Games were the most interesting, fast-moving part of the novel. You learn about strategy, survival, greed, alliances, trust and love.

When you go into book knowing there are sequels, you lose part of the mystery, but then The Hunger Games ends on a loose end and definitely makes you want more. I really liked the book, it was written very well and was very engaging. I read for two hours straight last Saturday night and I haven't done that in a long, long time. So, I'm very excited for the next two books.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

2011-01-11T18:45:00.001-06:00

Henrietta Lacks was a thirty-something black woman living in the 1940s when she died of cervical cancer. The way the cancer ravaged her body, doctors knew there was something special about those cancer cells. They took a sample, and long story short, those cells never died. All cells eventually die, but not Henrietta's. They went on to become HeLa cells and helped scientists do many, many things, like cure polio, discover the many strains of HPV, perform cloning, discover drugs for leukemia and influenza... it goes on and on. Because these cells never died and continued to reproduce at an alarming rate, they gave scientists a set of base cells to always pull from and experiment on. Today billions of HeLa cells can be found in labs around the world.

However, Henrietta and her family were never aware these cells had been taken from her and then passed around the world. It took decades before articles about HeLa cells even got her name correct (they used Helen Lane and others) that it came as quite a shock to her children and husband (again, decades later) that her cells were still alive. This raised major issue because here was a poor family with many health problems among them and there seemed to be unfairness that while their mother's cells were helping science and making money, they couldn't afford health care.

Author Rebecca Skloot was a ambitious and determined 20-something (and white) woman when she decided to write this book. It took her a long time to just get permission from the family to talk to them. They had been through the ringer and stepped on enough by people with other motivations - they weren't willing to talk to another reporter. She endured hang ups. Abandoned meetings. Complete ignoring. Once they decided to let her in, they let her in very, very slowly and it took several more years to get all the information about Henrietta and her family and her cells that Skloot would need to write this book.

The book follows Skloot on her journey to write the book, while also alternating between chapters of Henrietta's history, Lacks family history and the science behind the HeLa cells. I thought the layout was well done. I liked learning about Skloot's struggles and fears. She also wrote about the science portion in a very digestible manner. Cell division and its experiments are not easy to understand, but she made it easy. And while they were hard to get to know at first, you grow a fondness for the Lacks family, particularly Henrietta's daughter Deborah. She was Skloot's main ally - though she had many fears and doubts and even some paranoia (how Skloot kept up her patience, I'll never know). Deborah was so young when her mother died, she just wanted to learn more about her.

The book brings up so many ethical issues. There are no laws on the books that say patients have a right to the tissue samples that doctors take (with or without their knowledge), even if those tissue samples go on to make millions. While it seems very unfair that the Lacks family received nothing from Henrietta's cells, if they were to sue, they would most likely come up empty.

Is this fair? I can't really wrap my head around it. One expert Skloot talked to said that it's our moral duty as humans to provide parts of ourselves for research to help the greater good. That makes sense. If the Lacks family were asked way back then about using Henrietta's cells for science and said no, where would we be? Or, if they got permission to stop usage of HeLa cells now, science would take huge steps back. But, then you go back to the fact that they can't afford many, many things you'd want them to be able to afford. Is there a middle ground? Probably not without opening a huge can of worms.

Reading about Skloot's journey, but also Deborah and her family's journey of acceptance for what has happened, is so interesting. They're insanely proud and also pissed at the same time. And I think I would be too. Deborah said, "If you're gonna go into history, you can't do it with a hate attitude. You got to remember, times was different."

Skloot meets another relative of Henrietta's who believes, along with many family members, that Henrietta is alive as an angel - as the cells. She's doing God's work as the cells, helping people all over the world. I loved this sentiment.

The book is well written, easy to follow and wholly entertaining. It's a great and very impressive effort by a first-time author. I highly recommend it. It gets you thinking.

Quick thoughts on Huck Finn, Stieg Larsson & Best books of 2010

2011-01-06T14:24:00.006-06:00

There have been several bits of book news lately that I’ve wanted to comment on. I had dreams of separate posts for them all, but that’s not going to happen, so I’m smashing them all into one post instead.

1. Huckleberry Finn Censoring.
This came as quite a shock to me when I heard it on the news the other day. It seems very strange and misguided to change the text of a historic book in order to protect innocent readers, increase use in schools or just be more politically correct. Like Dr. Sarah Churchill says in a Guardian article,

“The fault lies with the teaching, not the book. You can't say 'I'll change Dickens so it is compatible with my teaching method'. Twain's books are not just literary documents but historical documents, and that word is totemic because it encodes all of the violence of slavery. The point of the book is that Huckleberry Finn starts out racist in a racist society, and stops being racist and leaves that society. These changes mean the book ceases to show the moral development of his character.”

However, an EW blogger points on that this censorship would only happen in certain copies of the book – most likely those meant for school-aged children. So, is this any different than censoring R-rated movies on TV so an immature audience doesn’t see/read something its not ready for? I thought that was an interesting point, at least. [Edited to add: This post by Flavorwire, changing other challenged books to be more "appropriate" is great. Also, Susan Orlean's take in the New Yorker.]

In the end, I think I fall on the side not changing the book. It just seems wrong. If I wrote a book one day, I would hate for the powers that be to decide to change it after I’m gone. (Yes, this is a short and simple thought on an very complex issue. But, I don't have the energy to really get into it right now.)

2. New Yorker’s Millennium Trilogy column.
Critic Joan Acocella asks Why Do People Love Stieg Larsson’s novels? She points out many reasons not to like them. Bad dialogue. Loose ends. Unnecessary detail. Not enough detail. A poor choice in male protagonist. I read other bloggers commenting on Acocella’s column saying they agreed with her – they hate the books, too. However, I don’t think Acocella hates these books. She does defend Larsson and the books a bit as well. She thinks the claims he’s a women-hater because of the scenes of violence against women are unwarranted. She likes Lisbeth as the heroine. And, she praises the books use of technology.

I agreed with her on all accounts. Sure, the books have too much detail – I barely kept reading Dragon Tattoo because the first 100 pages were so hard to get through – and there were huge loose ends (Lisbeth's sister??) and bad dialogue. I chalk the loose ends up to the author’s early death. And bad dialogue? Well, see Star Wars and Twilight, and I still love those. I too loved Lisbeth as a heroine, and I was very impressed by Larsson’s knowledge of computers and hacking. He was very up-to-date - if not ahead of our time considering when he wrote these - on security measures and hacking abilities when it comes to technology.

Something I found interesting was Acocella's analysis of Larsson’s view of Sweden. Perhaps it isn’t the Utopia of everything that we Americans think it is?

3. With the New Year came several Best Of lists. Here are just a few:
Goodreads Choice Awards
New York Times
Time Magazine Fiction & Nonfiction

I was pleased to see The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks on several lists. I’ve had this book for several months and am reading it right now, so I feel proud to have picked this one out on my own before seeing it make all these lists.

The third book in the Hunger Games series, Mockingjay, also made many lists. I’m late to the game on this series – much like Twilight – but I’ve heard good things, so I plan to start it soon.

Room is also all over these lists. I’ve read about this book and heard from trusted sources that it’s pretty amazing, yet quite sad and disturbing. I’m not quite sure it’s up my alley, at least for the moment.

The Emperor of All Maladies also made several lists. This has been on my Amazon Wish List for awhile. I’m waiting for this book to either drop its Kindle price or come out on paperback, but I’m definitely interested.

I didn’t read The Corrections, so Freedom, even though it made ALL lists, isn’t high on my own reading list.

I couldn’t believe Time picked Faithful Place as a top book of the year. While I liked it, it wasn’t as good as her others, and with only picking 10 books out of all from 2010, I couldn’t believe this was one of its choices.

What are your thoughts? Censorship opinions? Millennium lovers or haters? Your top books published in 2010?

Juliet, Naked; Or Breaking Up with Nick Hornby

2010-12-27T14:14:00.000-06:00

Oh Nick, I think it’s time we part ways. I really, really do. We’ve had some amazing times - High Fidelity, About a Boy, Fever Pitch – and during those times, I never thought this day would come. But Nick, you’ve disappointed me too many times in a row now. And I’m puzzled. What happened? What happened to the great “maleness” you gave your characters – those funny, self-deprecating, quirky yet redeeming men that graced the pages of my favorites of yours? Sure, we all evolve and I understand you had to try something new, like speaking from a female voice (How to be Good) or the voice of a child (Slam), but when those things didn’t work for you (and honestly, they so didn’t work for you), why didn’t you go back to what did?

I talked you up, man. I would rave about you. I wrote papers in college analyzing your complex characters. Those first books are ones I keep on my shelves – they’ve moved with me from dorm room to first apartment to condo to townhouse. They've never been thought of as bait for Half-Priced Books. That’s how much they mean to me. Yet, with each following book you’ve written, part of my love for you dies. Your stories aren’t funny anymore. They’re actually either puzzling or quite boring, in fact. And why should I continue to love someone who bores me?

This last book, Juliet, Naked, was the nail in the coffin, I’m afraid. I did finish it, for the most part because it was quick and something to do on the bus, but I was never attached to any of the characters. Not the jerk/creepy music fanatic, not the lonely middle-aged woman, not the washed up, lazy rock star. Nothing stuck with me, and really I didn’t see the point in the story at all. And that lackluster ending? If I had liked the book, it would’ve been a complete disappointment. But then, its lackluster-ness might have just been on par with the rest of the story. If so, you get props for consistency, I suppose.

So, Nick, I’ve been disappointed one too many times. I’m going to have to say goodbye. I’m too busy to waste my time on you anymore. I would say: it’s not you, it’s me. But that would be a lie. It’s you.

I Got a Kindle. Am I Sellout?

2010-12-20T12:47:00.004-06:00

For the past month, the hubby has been talking to me about the Kindle. “Don’t you think you’d like one of those?” Books are cheaper, it’s easier to carry, yadda yadda yadda. I always said no. I like my books. I like seeing the covers. I like turning the pages. Mostly, I like the community of sharing books with friends like Willikat and CMS and my mom and mother-in-law. Plus, as a devoted reader (and a magazine editor), I want to support the publishing industry as much as I possibly can.

[Note: However, when my hubby, the music lover, couldn’t quite get on board with iTunes right away and kept purchasing CDs to show his support, I was on him about all the space they take up (!) and how much easier and cheaper iTunes was. Same argument, different genre. A tad hypocritical?]

Well, I got a Kindle for my birthday. It was a very generous gift from my MIL; she was super excited to buy it for me, and even though Jon told her I didn’t want one, when she asked a second time, he told her to go for it. I was very surprised by the gift. As we were on the way to our birthday dinner, Jon asked me if I really liked it. I told him I thought it was cool, it’s convenient, the books are cheaper…but it will take me awhile not to feel like a sellout. The publishing industry is my world; am I betraying it by reading books like this? Even my boss, who does everything via iPad, has yet to purchase a real electronic book.

However, it is very easy to read on. I don’t have books on there yet, but I’ve been reading the user’s manual and the e-paper is pretty cool. Plus, the books are like 50 percent cheaper, which in tough economic times, that means a lot. And, as a friend pointed out, I don’t have to read all books this way.

I’m going to keep it, because it was a lovely gift from someone who cares about me a lot. And I don’t remember the last time I received (or treated myself to) something this extravagant. (I use the free cell phone from our plan and a hand-me-down iPod; I don’t have my own computer.) And it’s not like I won’t use it. I’ll just use it while having an internal struggle and a bit of book-lover's guilt. All the while still reading physical books, too, and sharing those with my friends.

So, am I a sellout? I’ll keep you posted on my thoughts on the Kindle.

Best Books I Read in 2010

2010-12-15T10:11:00.000-06:00

Well, 2010 was much slower in the reading department for me, which kind of sucks when you have a book blog that you like to keep up with. But, for three months out of the year I didn’t pick up one book, let alone a magazine. Newborns tend to have that affect on you. I had no idea what was going on in the world. Things still pop up in random conversations and I’m like, “What? When did that happen?” Oh, it happened in April, May or June… That’s why I don’t remember. And then, after you become a parent, things like reading on a snowstormy Saturday goes out the window too. I remember when I read Deathly Hallows and Breaking Dawn over 24-hour periods the weekends they came out. Yeah, never doing that again, until perhaps age 50. Anyway, when the only time I have to read is on the bus and the occasional lunch hour, it’s slow going. However, each December I’ve compiled a roundup of my favorite books of the year, so here it goes:

The Help. One of my first books of 2010 and I’m so glad I read it. This book was touching, educational, funny, sad, joyful, vengeful and moving all at once. I fell in love with Skeeter and Aibileen, and I grew more and more embarrassed of our past. I laughed, I cried. Two things that always guarantee I’ll like and remember a book. I’m very interested in the movie, too.

Millennium Trilogy. Yep, I was one of the millions who got sucked into Lisbeth Salander’s three-book adventure. While the books could be quite detail-driven and it was easy to get lost in side stories that were overwhelmed with information and Swedish-sounding surnames, there was enough action and female kick-ass-ery in these books to keep me flipping the pages. Plus, being a journalist, I very much enjoyed the evolution of Millennium magazine. They were tough, conscious-driven editors – we don’t have enough of those these days. But, in the end it was all about Lisbeth and she’s definitely a character for the ages.

Where Men Win Glory. Once again Krakauer taught me a bunch of things I didn’t know. He did it with Under the Banner of Heaven and Into Thin Air and once again with this book. I learned so much more about the wars we’re fighting, basic training, friendly fire, the (despicable) marketing of war, and a man who was truly unique. Pat Tillman was a thoughtful, generous, caring person whose life ended much too early. The book made me mad and sad and depressed about our current situation, but it also made me a bit hopeful that perhaps there are more men like Pat Tillman out there. God knows we need them.

So, what were your favorite books you read in 2010?

Archives:
End of the Year, 2009
A Look Back 2008
Top Books 2007

SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance

2010-12-09T14:19:00.004-06:00

I just finished SuperFreakonomics. I really enjoyed Freakonomics, the first book, but since I read it so long ago, I couldn’t remember why (a curse of a mega-reader; don’t you hate that?). Superfreak (as I’ll call it for short) reminded me why. I’m not a data head, but these two guys – an author and an economist – present data in the most interesting, most digestible way. And about the most interesting topics. Who knew I could read a chapter on prostitution and leave it thinking, ‘Hmmm, I can see why that profession works for some people. Good hours. Good wages. You’re your own boss.’ Or, as a mother, these two actually got me thinking about the necessity of car seats. CAR SEATS. Yes, they claim (with data!) that after age 2, regular seatbelts work just as well, if not better. Also: An entire chapter on why this whole global warming thing is kind of bunk, or if it’s not bunk, then about how we’re handling it in the completely wrong way.

When a book shocks you, makes you think, makes you laugh, makes you shake your head in disbelief, and it’s about real stuff… Well, I loved it. I was dog-earring practically every other page because either what they said was smart, awesome or hilarious and I wanted to go back and read it again.

Some interesting tidbits:

+ When families in India got cable TV, suddenly the women stood up for themselves and wouldn’t put up with as much crap from their husbands.

+ The feminist revolution has harshly impacted school children. As more and more women went to college and went into higher paying fields, they stopped becoming teachers. Teachers test scores went down, as did their salaries, which keep more women from becoming teachers. A vicious cycle.

+ Due to police resources being flooded into terrorism-fighting efforts after 9-11, perhaps less were watching Wall Street?

+ In most cases, chemotherapy is ineffective. It can cost tens of thousands of dollars per patient to extend life by as little as two months. Cancer patients make up 20 percent of Medicare cases but use up 40 percent of its drug budget.

+ Iran (I know, we don’t like Iran) pays people if they decide to donate a kidney; and they have no wait list for organs. Demand met. Here, we feel paying for organs (but not sperm or eggs) is immoral yet 50,000 people in the past 20 years have died while on the organ donation list. Does this show that money is a great motivator, more so than “the goodness of our hearts”? Um, yes.

+ Global warming scientists with the craziest, yet perhaps most workable, ideas, change their skew more toward what’s considered “acceptable.” If they didn’t, they wouldn’t get funding. That’s why we never hear about some of the crazy, yet cheap and workable, global warming fixes the authors list in this book. If these scientists said what they really wanted to try, they would never get the money to do it.

+ Solar panels, which are black, send 88 percent of their heat back into the atmosphere – contributing to global warming. Shut up.

+ Airplane contrails help prevent warming. When planes were grounded for just 3 days after 9-11, the ground temp increased by 2 degrees.

I don’t think the book is necessarily meant to change minds, but it does get you thinking. There’s no one answer. The popular answer is not always the right one. Things that are bad can sometimes turn out to be good for you. We should really listen to everyone’s ideas because you never know who’s got the next fix, for cheap. Real life scenarios spelled out simply and economically – it’s good.

Holy Ghosts: Or How a (Not So) Good Catholic Boy Became a Believer of Things that Go Bump in the Night

2010-11-19T07:55:00.005-06:00

I've always kind of believed in ghosts. I'd hear stories of people's ghosts and they'd sound believable. My mom once brought home a picture that was taken in a friend's basement and you could clearly see the silver outlining of a man in a hat holding a shovel. Then, about a year ago, the hubby and I started watching Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel. Three guys travel to some of the most haunted places in the world, get locked in overnight, walk around with night-vision cameras and high-powered digital recorders and catch shadows, lights, voices, noises, etc. If you get us going, we can talk about that show for a long time. The things these guys have experienced - intelligent conversations, scratches on their bodies, objects moving when no one is around - there's no way it could be fake. (If we're watching it before bed, we have to watch something funny afterward for a bit, or I will have ghost dreams.)

My husband found this book online, and because of our recent fandom of ghost stories, bought it and read it. He really enjoyed it, so I gave it a go, too. Author Gary Jansen is an editor at Doubleday Religion, a pretty devout Catholic (though he swears like a sailor) and is/was studying to be a deacon. So, here's a man who really believes in his Bible. And then he started feeling very weird in his own house. Electricity running over his body, cool breezes, dark shadows. His kid's toys would make noise by themselves. Weird, weird stuff.

As a natural researcher, he read as much as he could about ghosts. He wasn't convinced at first that he had ghosts (wouldn't he be a bad Catholic if he believed in ghosts?), but as he did his reading, he found there were actually more ghost stories in the Bible and religious texts than he realized. And, as more and more weird, creepy things started happening in his house, the more he couldn't deny that something "bigger" was going on than just creaks and groans of an old house and malfunctioning batteries.

He calls up the real Ghost Whisperer for some help. Now, while I think I believe in ghosts, I've never been very certain about psychics or ghost whisperers. But, this lady is the real deal. If everything Jansen writes is true, and I believe it is, this woman is amazing at what she does. She helps him, that's all I'll say.

I don't want to spoil the story by going into what/who is haunting his house, but it's pretty awesome, and the reasons why and the coincidences that appear - it seems insane, really. The book is quick. I skimmed some parts where he talks a lot about his research. While it's interesting, I just wanted to read about the present-day ghost story happening right in his own house, so I would try to hurry and get to those parts. If you like ghost stories, this is a real-life one that's pretty entertaining.

Do you believe in ghosts? Know any good ghost stories?

Things I Learned About My Dad (in therapy)

2010-11-12T09:00:00.004-06:00

I just finished this book of essays, edited by Dooce's Heather Armstrong. Books of essays can be hit or miss, but I loved nearly every essay in this book. I either laughed or cried (or both) at each one. Some authors reminisce about their fathers, some author-fathers talk about fatherhood, some author-wives talk about their husbands as fathers. It was very entertaining. (Is it more entertaining if you have a child? Perhaps.)

The most humorous essays were those by new fathers. "10 Conclusions from Four Years of Fatherhood" discussed everything from new parents' obsession with poo (so true!) to how your home will be a disaster area for the next several years (unfortunately, so true again, but maybe I should feel better about it knowing I'm not the only parent with a messy home?). I loved how "Sam I Am" compared pregnancy to Lord of the Rings. Wife = Frodo, who has to bear the burden the entire way. Husband = Sam, who is just their for moral support but can't really do anything. I loved "The Force is With Us. Always" in which the author described her husband's love for Star Wars and how it took just two years for him to introduce it to their now-obsessed son. Why I liked it? I believe it's my future, which is great because while the kid and dad play "light saber," I get to read a book or take a bath.

Of course, the essays that made me cry? The ones about the authors' own dads. I've always had a wonderful relationship with my dad. He was very present in my life. He's proud of me, he loves me and he's not afraid to tell me. So reading about how other people love their dads...well, it pulls at the heart strings a bit, you know?

This book is quick and fun. So if fatherhood from any level interests you, or if you just like good writing, I recommend it. A couple fun/true passages:

From "Peas and Domestic Tranquility"

A couple of years ago, we spent an afternoon at the park with some friends and their three girls. While the girls sat in the sand and shared toys and bonded in a way that was only missing a few glasses of wine or some chocolate ice cream, my sons ran in noisy circles around them, trying to punch each other in the face. "Wow," my friend said. "Is that what boys are like?"
"Yeah"
"Man. They just...Wow."
"If it makes you feel any better for me, your kids are going to mutate into teenage girls at some point, and that will make this little melee look like tea with the Queen. The boys are just going to keep hitting each other. The only thing I have to worry about is fratricide. Your girls are going to run psy-ops campaigns that would make the CIA curl into a fetal ball and cry itself to sleep."

From "Not My Problem"

I had more questions than answers. Little did I know, that would never change.

There is something to be said for the phrase "day by day." Just take it one day at a time, they say. Each day was a new adventure and we were amazed at how excited we were about little changes. Sitting up was a big deal. Crawling gave us personal entertainment. Walking was a milestone and speaking drew us into rapt attention.

In time the manual wrote itself. What they never told you is that your child will write the manual, adding a few words every day. As a father, my job was to support the author, edit the work when I could, and hope that the book would be a best seller.

The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters

2010-11-03T09:16:00.003-05:00

My friend CMS loaned (Chrissy, is that the correct term?!) me this book because she read it and enjoyed it. Hunt Sisters is told completely through letters from one sister, Olivia, to a bunch of different people in her life: parents, exes, best friend, sister, brother, work folks, etc. Olivia is a newbie producer in Hollywood, trying to get a movie made. Her little sister has just been diagnosed with leukemia. The story follows Olivia over the next year as she helps her sister through her illness and also tries to get her movie made.

As always, like with The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, novels written only in letter form are a bit jarring to begin with, but I always get used to them and things tend to flow. Olivia is a great writer and her letters are full of humorous language. You'd think it would be hard to tell a complete story just from the letters of one person, too, but the author, Elisabeth Robinson, makes it work. Sure, Olivia has to recreate every scene for us within letters, but it doesn't seem weird. I like her honesty (in letters to her family) and her spunk (in letters telling off her movie counterparts).

At the end, in an author's note, we learn Robinson was a movie producer in Hollywood for 10 years. And her sister was sick with leukemia. When she finally decided to fulfill her dream of writing a book, she contemplated writing a memoir vs. a novel. But when she realized with a novel she could say and be all those things she couldn't say or be in real life, that pushed her toward novel writing. So, how much is true is left up to our imagination, but I think the book comes across so truthful feeling because so much of it is in fact based in truth.

It's nothing groundbreaking, nothing fabulous, but it's a sweet, entertaining story. I found one passage on relapsing cancer that I thought was beautifully written (and could only be written by someone who knows), and I wanted to share it here, just to remember it:

Maddie relapsed. I hate to put it that way; it suggests responsibility that she did it, she relapsed, when it's the cancer that did it. There is a continual balancing act between acceptance and defiance, between being the victim and being the attacker. As a fighter, she just lost, which implies weakness, ineptitude, a lack of some crucial smarter strategy, greater strength, and this defeat would have been, should have been, a victory. You can't say, well, this enemy is just too strong for any fighter, because she is the enemy, too; the cancer is a part of her, as much as her will to conquer it is.

Books to Movies: The Help (yay!) and What to Expect When You're Expecting... (um what?)

2010-10-29T07:55:00.005-05:00

This week's issue of EW had a first look at The Help movie. (The article's not online, otherwise I'd link to it.) The lovely and sweet Emma Stone as Skeeter? Awesome. Bryce Dallas Howard as Hilly? So awesome. Viola Davis as Aibileen? Perfection. I cannot wait for it. I think it'll be fabulous! I loved, loved the book.

Then I saw this on my Twitter stream this morning: Someone is making What to Expect into a movie? Huh? The post says it'll be sort of like Love Actually (one good thing about Christmas coming soon - my annual viewing of Love Actually...sigh) following five pregnant couples around. Well, OK, maybe that could work, but obviously it's very loosely based on the book then.

Any other books-to-movies you're excited for?

Top 100 Children's Novels

2010-10-19T14:57:00.003-05:00

I was at home with a brand-new baby when the School Library Journal's Top 100 Children's Novels list came out in mid-April, so I'm definitely behind the curve on this one. However, I love me some lists, so it was fun to look this one over (filled with the help of multiple entries from J.K. Rowling, Roald Dahl and Judy Blume) and count how many I've read. I also loved this second-grade teacher's breakdown - with charts and graphs! - of the list. Book-nerdy fun. It's interesting that series books accounted for 61 of the 100 books and that a good percentage were written in the past 20 years or so.

Anyway, I've read 30 out of 100 of the children's novels. Which is just OK, I think, but also considering several were written after I was of age to read these types of books (Harry Potter notwithstanding). And several bring back fond memories: anything Ramona; The BFG (which I can't help but think about every time I write my initials ABFG); The Witch of Blackbird Pond (I forgot about that book!); and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (reading aloud in sixth grade.)

What about you? How many have you read?

For more fun, see last year's list of Top 100 Picture Books. I've also read about 30 of these, and we have a few on the shelf as we speak.

[Quick pet peeve note: Why does Blogger insist that "children's" is misspelled? Drives me crazy!]

Every Last One

2010-10-13T09:02:00.003-05:00

I just finished Anna Quindlen’s Every Last One. As promised, my next book was by an author I’d never read before. Even though Quindlen’s written plenty of well-known novels, I’ve never picked one up. Somehow I must’ve put Every Last One on my Amazon wish list, so I had it on my shelf to read.

I can’t really summarize the book too much without giving everything away. But, the story focuses on Mary Beth and her family of five: her, her husband and three teenage children. The first half of the book builds the family. We learn about Alex’s athleticism, Ruby’s individualism and Max’s loner-ism. From the beginning of the book, Mary Beth looks at her life from afar. She knows she should be thankful for all she has, yet it can also feel like something is missing. Every day is the same – get up, take care of the kids, worry about the kids, kiss the husband, work, make dinner… lather, rinse repeat. Then halfway through the book, tragedy strikes and everything unravels.

I think the book was good. The writing was good and Quindlen can paint a picture and create a cast of characters with the best of them. However, because of the subject matter, the book also haunted me and made me very sad at some points. Now, one could say this obviously means the book was good, since it made me feel so strongly. Which is probably true. But it also made it very hard to read, too.

There’s been conversations on the blogosphere and Twitter (I know both Jennie and Jen have mentioned this recently) that one of the things that changes when you become a parent is that it’s nearly impossible and completely heart-wrenching to watch or read anything that has to do with a child struggling, being hurt, dying, etc. It can be as minor as a baby hitting his head to a story about a cancer patient giving her Make a Wish to someone else…as a parent you just die a little inside. (There’s a trailer for Paranormal Activity 2 out right now that shows a baby in a crib…I have to close my eyes.) Maybe that’s why the struggles of this family in the book affected me so much? I guess I won’t ever know since I can’t go back in time and read it 15 months ago, childless. But, it does show me that I’ll have to be a bit more careful picking my books. Again, while I thought the book was good, I’m just not sure the heartbreak I felt is really worth it, you know?

What do you think? Do you read books that you know will make you sad? Are there different kinds of sadness that are easier to deal with than others? What books have haunted you?

Procrastination Rules My Nation

2010-10-05T02:34:00.001-05:00

"Later: What does Procrastination Tell Us About Ourselves?" is an interesting, thorough look at why people procrastinate. Author James Surowiecki provides several examples, several means of thought and several different discussions on the case. As someone who procrastinates with the best of them (or perhaps better than most), I was most definitely interested in the article. As with many New Yorker pieces, the prose was slightly overblown and a little long, but many of the examples Surowiecki offers ring true. For example:

A similar phenomenon is at work in an experiment run by a group including the economist George Loewenstein, in which people were asked to pick one movie to watch that night and one to watch at a later date. Not surprisingly, for the movie they wanted to watch immediately, people tended to pick lowbrow comedies and blockbusters, but when asked what movie they wanted to watch later they were more likely to pick serious, important films. The problem, of course, is that when the time comes to watch the serious movie, another frothy one will often seem more appealing. This is why Netflix queues are filled with movies that never get watched: our responsible selves put “Hotel Rwanda” and “The Seventh Seal” in our queue, but when the time comes we end up in front of a rerun of “The Hangover.”

Hence, the reason why (besides having a baby) The Hurt Locker has been sitting next to our TV since March, and movies such as Couples Retreat have been watched and returned.

Another example:

We often procrastinate not by doing fun tasks but by doing jobs whose only allure is that they aren’t what we should be doing. My apartment, for instance, has rarely looked tidier than it does at the moment.

So true. It’s only the home tasks, like laundry, grocery shopping and dishes, that get done when they need to – because we have to eat and wear clothes to live day to day, but we don’t have to have dusted tables or clean bathrooms - and even then, I only do these at the absolute last moment. Or, why when I have a pending freelance assignment, I can surf the Internet for longer than I believe one should surf the Internet.

Surowiecki wonders if procrastination is a sign of weakness. While in some cases it could be, I also think it’s just the way some people’s minds work, especially if we don’t have deadlines to work with. The author provides an example of college students, who are given the choice to turn three papers in at staggered deadlines or all at once at the end of the semester. Smartly, the students pick the staggered deadlines, knowing enough about themselves that if they didn’t, they would all be writing three papers during the last week of the semester.

Procrastination also depends on what type of task we’re working on. Writes the author,

That’s why David Allen, the author of the best-selling time-management book “Getting Things Done,” lays great emphasis on classification and definition: the vaguer the task, or the more abstract the thinking it requires, the less likely you are to finish it.

This can go right along with the idea of having too many choices in life, which we do. He writes,

Another way of making procrastination less likely is to reduce the amount of choice we have: often when people are afraid of making the wrong choice they end up doing nothing. So companies might be better off offering their employees fewer investment choices in their 401(k) plans, and making signing up for the plan the default option.

How many times have you let an opportunity go by because you just couldn’t decide what action to take? It happens all. the. time.

In the end, I’d say I’m a middle-of-the-road procrastinator. When something’s due far out, I’ll put it off and put it off, even if I could get it done in 30 minutes and cross it off the list today. But, I also think I need those deadlines - and produce some pretty good work, when I have the pressure of looming deadlines. I also have the strong mentality that things will just work out, which is why, even though I was panicking a bit when I was still searching for daycare after our baby was born, I wasn't too panicked. Everything, for 30 years, has just always worked out, or gotten done, and that did, too.

Why do you think people procrastinate? Is it just human nature?

[Edited to add: Willikat brought to my attention the term incubator, which may be a better word to describe some of us who consider ourselves procrastinators.]

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

2010-09-30T09:06:00.003-05:00

Since I love most everything by John Krakauer, I knew I wanted to read Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. It’s been on my Amazon wish list awhile, and when I finally got it, it was already out in paperback. Turns out this was great because a few things happened since the book was first published in early 2009 and Krakauer was able to add some snippets in and fill out the story even more.

After just the first five pages I was already sad and depressed. War really sucks. However, I tend to live in my own little world and go about my day, so I felt a bit out of the loop when it came to some of the aspects of the war(s). Krakauer alternates telling us about Pat Tillman with telling us about Afghan history and the war. It would’ve been easy to just think of Tillman as your typical football jock, a rough-and-tough meathead. But Tillman was the opposite. Sure, he was strong and fast and could tackle like any other NFL defensive player, but he also read the classics, wrote in a journal, cried when he was overwhelmed and hiked alone so he could think. For him, football wasn’t about the money (i.e. he turned down a $9 million deal from the Rams and continued to play for Arizona for $500,000), it was about the challenge. He didn’t enlist after 9-11 just to go “shoot ‘em up.” He believed it was his duty. And then when he got to boot camp and was surrounded by a bunch of immature babies, he questioned his decision. When he felt the war in Iraq was illegal (he enlisted to fight in Afghanistan, not Iraq), he thought about quitting. And if he wasn’t so strong willed and committed, maybe he would’ve quit. But he made a deal, and he wasn’t going to break it. He was honorable. His journal entries were amazing and really let you see inside the man he was. He was a true hero, and it’s insulting and criminal the way the Army and the government disgraced him and his family.

I know politics is all about the spin. And I fully learned through Where Men Win Glory just how much spin there is. I work in the media, so I understand, too, what it means to market something. And, sure, it makes sense that a government may have to market a war. I just didn’t realize to what extent the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were marketed. They actually have their own marketing departments; people paid to spin the bad news into good, or if there is no good, do their best to cover up the bad. To use the “rescue” of Jessica Lynch as a means to cover up the fact that the first dozen or so deaths of the war were actually deaths by friendly fire? That takes some serious spin. To burn the uniform of Pat Tillman and force his comrades to lie to the Tillman family (and so many other bad, bad things) as a means to cover up his death by friendly fire? To make his mom fight the government for three years just to get the truth? I have no words; it’s just so sad.

And this whole friendly fire thing? I had no idea how common it was. I knew it happened, but I had this weird notion that it only happened in some confusing ground battle, where amongst all the ruckus, it’s hard to see who’s the enemy and who isn’t. Well, we don't really fight wars like that anymore, do we? It seems friendly fire really happens because these kids are inexperienced, have never shot weapons before, aren’t trained to use radios properly and everything just becomes a big hot mess. All the kids get on the radio at the same time, jam the frequencies and the necessary messages aren’t relayed, so our jets never learn that those tanks they’re dropping bombs on are actually American soldiers. Are you kidding me? Or, the mixed messages from the top commanders - who aren't on the ground themselves - are forced upon lieutenants who, while they disagree, must follow orders and people end up getting hurt. I understand there will be casualties of war, and I understand mistakes will happen and people will die, but after reading this book, I wonder if we’re even learning from our mistakes? Things don’t seem to be getting better.

The book was eye opening and informative. I learned a lot about the war that I think I either glazed over previously or just didn’t know about. Or, I heard the first spinned account of some story (Jessica Lynch) and then when the truth came out, I never heard the less-publicized follow up. And while the war part of the book was most definitely interesting to read, I truly loved learning about Pat Tillman and his strong and charming family. His strength, his truth, his beliefs were heart warming and inspirational and I’m glad I got to know more about him.

Freakonomics: The movie

2010-09-28T07:56:00.002-05:00

I loved Freakonomics, the book. Even though the authors were sometimes talking about complicated functions and pieces of cultural life, the everyday language and great humor made the book come off really well. It's one of those books you read where you just want to tell everyone you see about what you just read. Things that people think are related are not. It's pretty cool. I have the sequel on my shelf ready to read.

When I heard they were making a movie out of the book, I wasn't sure how it would come across. But the movie has some pretty important and talented people behind it. Looks good!

Can't wait.

2010-09-23T07:54:00.003-05:00

October, here we come.

2010-09-22T09:37:00.006-05:00

As I've done last year and the year before, I'd like to take a moment to celebrate the Twins. While it may not be as edge-of-my-seat crazy as last year's game 163 or 2008's tie breaker loss to the White Sox (though I think we forgive Jim Thome by now), I'm actually happy to skip the drama this year and have our team wrap it up a whole three series before the end of the season. The fact that we did this after a pretty depressing first half and without our favorite Canadian and stellar closer, well, once again our scrappy team proves they ain't so scrappy after all.

Now, as always the playoffs will prove to be ridiculous. Yankees or Rays? Really? Like Aaron Gleeman says, Pick Your Poison. I cautiously choose the Rays, because man, do I hate those Yankees. Even if we're close to being the better team, we just lose our mojo around those guys. And while it'd be better to just have to play a five-game ALDS series against them instead of seven games in the second round, I'd rather give another team (ahem, Texas) a chance to beat them first. But the Rays are awesome, too, so I repeat: Ridiculous.

Yet, exciting. Go Twins!

And maybe it's because I'm utterly exhausted today from a night of only 1.5 hours of straight sleep, but this Sports Illustrated article on new fan-favorite Jim Thome made me cry. He's a class act, that man, and I'm so glad he's coming with us to the playoffs. Hopefully his awesome attitude and mega muscles will get us past at least the first round. I'm also glad we get SI at home. That cover is going on the fridge.

Gender Bias and the Written Word

2010-09-20T14:22:00.002-05:00

Meghan O'Rourke of Slate asks a very intriguing question: why are women so infrequently heralded as great novelists? I never really thought about it (stupid, I know) until I read this column and began nodding my head over and over. So often women's fiction is considered "rom com," "click lit" or "beach read." Nothing more. But there are plenty of fabulous female authors out there - current ones, even, not just your Brontes, Austens, etc. - so why aren't they considered more frequently on the best-of-all-time lists? Is it because most of our reviewers are men? Is it merely an unconscious movement? Is it because female authors tend to write about female characters? If those "great American novels" had been written by women, would they never have been called great? Should women authors start sending in manuscripts with male pseudonyms? Something to think about at least. A few quotes from the article that I enjoyed:

"In many circumstances, we also simply assume men are more talented: Before the advent of blind auditions, fewer than 5 percent of the players in major American symphonies were women. But after blind auditions began to be held, the percentage of female players soared almost tenfold. Is there any reason to believe our evaluations of literary talent (which almost always happen with full knowledge of a writer's gender) are uninfluenced by that kind of unconscious bias?"

"Studies have shown, for instance, that in the face of subtle discouragement (facial expressions and so forth) candidates perform less well. It's really, really hard to write a book. It takes a lot of time and solitude. In my experience, women are not as good at insisting they need that time and solitude. (I wonder how many female writers have, like me, sometimes wished they were a man so everyone—family, friends, partners—would understand a little better when they go in the room and shut the door for weeks on end.)"

"There's the provocative female writer who was asked if she had an eating disorder because she is naturally skinny, and whom reporters badgered for information about the number of men she'd slept with... There's the author who sent out a proposal about John Lennon and learned that editors worried readers might not believe a woman could write with authority about a musician."

Talking to Girls about Duran Duran: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut

2010-09-14T08:37:00.004-05:00

Ed Note: I can now see that once I started reading again after having a baby, I chose to stick to those authors I know. The last five books? Sequels or books by authors I've read before. I guess I find comfort and ease with the familiar. I'm doing it again currently with Where Men Win Glory by John Krakauer. After that one, I'm determined to read someone new.

I read Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield and loved, loved it. It was a sweet, heartbreaking sonnet to his late wife who died suddenly and much too young. Even if I didn’t know the music he was referring to as he memorialized their relationship through songs, I didn’t have to because the writing and the message took over.

I was hoping Talking to Girls about Duran Duran would give me the same feeling. This book is another memoir and it takes a peek insides Rob’s life during the ‘80s. Each chapter relates his experiences to a song/artist – Pat Benatar, Flock of Seagulls, Prince, etc - during a year of the decade. While his writing is still great and his self-deprecating humor still funny, I just couldn’t relate to this book very much. I found myself skimming chapters that meant little to me.

Now, this is not Sheffield’s fault. Once again, the writing is great, I was just born too late to appreciate his musings. Sheffield loved all kinds of music and most of it I’ve never heard of, or had no way of picking out the tune in my head. But, a few of the themes he focused on did resonate with me. I loved his relationship with his younger sisters. You can tell Sheffield learned a lot from these women while growing up, and I can guarantee that’s why he turned out sensitive, respectful and thoughtful. I also understand the way certain songs can stick with you and remind you of certain moments in time – though, I think a memoir about growing up in the ‘90s might hit closer to home with me. The chapter on his relationship with his grandfather was also super sweet. Plus, many of these years coincided with his teenage angst - sitting in his room alone listening to the radio and thinking about life and love - which we've all been through no matter what decade.

Funnily enough, the chapter about the New Kids on the Block (my Duran Duran – the band that all the girls loved and the boys hated and that, while no longer popular, I will defend to the grave my past love for) song Hangin’ Tough was actually the one I could relate to most. Sheffield talks about being 23 and his sister being 13 and the two of them creating mixed tapes for each other. He’d give her tapes with Depeche Mode and she give back something she was most interested it. Make my brother Sheffield and me his sister, same age difference, same music (my brother actually sent me a mix tape with Depeche Mode and I returned with Garth Brooks; I think we both didn't "get" the other's love, but we still shared and created the memory). I was nodding my head and remembering back fondly.

So, if you were a music-loving teenager or early-20-something during the ‘80s, you’ll probably love this book. Or, if you’re just a huge music fan, you could too. I’m just not quite the right demographic to love this book, though I definitely appreciate its sentiment.

Faithful Place

2010-08-14T10:15:00.003-05:00

I read Tana French’s first two books and really enjoyed them. Each book can be read separately from each other, but characters do overlap. Here’s the B&N synopsis of Faithful Place:

Back in 1985, Frank Mackey was nineteen, growing up poor in Dublin's inner city, and living crammed into a small flat with his family on Faithful Place. But he had his sights set on a lot more. He and Rosie Daly were all ready to run away to London together, get married, get good jobs, break away from factory work and poverty and their old lives. But on the winter night when they were supposed to leave, Rosie didn't show. Frank took it for granted that she'd dumped him-probably because of his alcoholic father, nutcase mother, and generally dysfunctional family. He never went home again. Neither did Rosie. Everyone thought she had gone to England on her own and was over there living a shiny new life. Then, twenty-two years later, Rosie's suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank is going home whether he likes it or not. Getting sucked in is a lot easier than getting out again. Frank finds himself straight back in the dark tangle of relationships he left behind. The cops working the case want him out of the way, in case loyalty to his family and community makes him a liability. Faithful Place wants him out because he's a detective now, and the Place has never liked cops. Frank just wants to find out what happened to Rosie Daly-and he's willing to do whatever it takes, to himself or anyone else, to get the job done.

I really liked Mackey as a character, and stories of people “going home again” can always be intriguing, especially when they don’t fit in all those years later. Mackey’s childhood has a real Angela’s Ashes feel to it, and as a reader you’re thankful he got out while he could. The mystery isn’t so mysterious; I pretty much had the outcome pegged early on. But, that doesn’t mean the story still isn’t interesting and entertaining. French can really create deep, flawed characters, and I like that about her. I also like the Dublin setting of all her books. While this one probably falls third, behind The Likeness and then In the Woods, it’s a close race among all three of her books. Classic mysteries with action, great detail, a little gore and main characters you can really root for.

My Life as an Experiment

2010-08-01T09:55:00.003-05:00

Because I’m a fan of his, I wanted to read A.J. Jacob’s latest go round. I don’t know if other essay fans agree, but once you start reading someone frequently – like Sedaris, Orlean, etc. in places like The New Yorker, Esquire, etc. - and then they release their latest book of essays, you’ve already read a few. Same thing happened here. Because we used to get Esquire at home, I’d read a few of these essays previously. I did reread them here, but you do lose a bit of the excitement for the new book.

I’m jealous of Jacobs. He gets to work from home and think up crazy experiments to live for a week, a month, a year. Sure, it drives his wife (and soon his children) crazy, but the guy gets paid to be curious and screw around. Tough life.

My two favorite essays were when he outsourced his life to India, and when he spent a month being the perfect husband. In the first, he hired two sweethearts of assistants from India to do everything for him – shop, send his e-mails, organize his life, make his decisions. One even apologized to his wife for him and also sent his boss a disagreeing e-mail. Thing is? Both recipients were perfectly happy with their e-mails from A.J.’s assistants. She obviously handled things much better than he ever could. A truly funny essay.

To be the perfect husband, Jacobs decided to be less disagreeable to his wife’s requests, and also to be all-around more respectful to her. He also said he would do anything she asked and try to do all the chores. In her words, it was the best month of their marriage, and Jacobs actually agreed that they got along much better. He wasn’t snippy at her, he didn’t ask “why” or provide a snarky response to everything she said (in fact, he realized on like day two how often he did that and how that really was a jackass way to be). When she listed off the chores she does around the house, he fully admitted he had no idea how much she does. And, that he had no idea some of those things even qualified as chores – filling the soap dispensers, buying birthday cards, buying gifts, DVRing shows, paying bills, scheduling doctor appointments… Again, when he realized how much she did, and how little he contributed, he grew to respect her and their relationship a lot more. Grand experiment; I loved this chapter. I always thought in his other books that he gave his wife kind of a bad time.

So, fast, quick, funny read. However a touch repetitive, since I’d read a few already. But, I’m anxious to see what’s next from Jacobs. Again, what a life.

Eclipse: The movie

2010-07-25T10:38:00.003-05:00

Since Mason was born, I've seen three movies in the theater. The hubby and I went to Iron Man II (not as good as the first, but a good, fun movie nonetheless) for our first date post-baby; the girls and I saw SATC II (also not as good as the first, but I'm sorry, I just love the girlfriend power of those four ladies. The movie could completely suck and I'd still love them all). And then, because grandma is always willing to babysit, I was able to make it to Eclipse as well. It took me about a month, and it was killing me that I couldn't get there sooner (thus is parenthood, though, and we're OK with it. Toy Story III looks like it'll have to be a rental). Wow - summer of sequels I guess!

I was extra excited for Eclipse because this was my most favorite of the four books in the series. There was ACTION in this one. Fighting! Vampires being ripped to shreds! Blood suckers and smelly dogs uniting together to fight! Unlike the other books, there wasn't any 'let's talk this out... OK, we'll let you live...'... there was violence and killing, and I liked it.

The movie didn't disappoint. The werewolves looked better than in New Moon. The actors weren't so teenage-angsty, though Taylor Lautner could still use some help in the acting area. I loved Charlie even more in this movie. The newborns were totally frightening. So like the third book, the third movie was definitely my favorite. I'm unsure how the two-part fourth installment will turn out, though, and the fact that we have to way TWO YEARS until it's over? Stupid.

(Next up, Harry Potter. I get goosebumps in anticipation.)

The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag

2010-07-14T15:49:00.001-05:00

I so enjoyed The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, so I was excited to read the second tale of 11-year-old Flavia de Luce, The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag. In this book, little Flavia once again comes across a murder, which somehow connects to a murder several years prior. Through her own cunning and swift questioning of the townspeople Bishop’s Lacy, Flavia once again trumps the local investigator and solves the case.

From a mystery standpoint, this story didn’t grab me quite as much as the one in Sweetness. Also, the villain wasn’t really a villain at all, unlike the dangerous murder from the previous book. Flavia was in real danger in Sweetness. In Hangman, she seemed more like a curious kid rather than a sleuth. But, the book was still cute (Flavia’s a superb character), fun and a quick and easy read. I would read more about Flavia if more books should come out. I just think author Alan Bradley should move her up to the next level in investigating, rather than pull her back.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

2010-07-01T13:42:00.004-05:00

My first book read after maternity leave was The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest of the Millennium Trilogy. I very much enjoyed the first two in the series. Hornet’s Nest works as an ending to the trilogy, too. I would have to say that of the three, Played with Fire is probably my favorite because it was the most action packed. Hornet’s Nest takes place more in the hospital and the courtroom, however while there’s not tons of action, Larsson does still make the story interesting. It was a bummer that Lisbeth and Blomkvist had zero scenes together, but you can appreciate the reason why. I liked the wrap up of the mystery, too, though one part (Lisbeth’s twin sister) was left wide open. Was this an error? Was Larsson planning something for this part of the story before he died? I don’t know, but it left a big question mark in my mind.

This review is pretty vague because I would hate to ruin any surprises for people still reading the series. I have the Swedish version of Dragon Tattoo set to stream from Netflix, too, though I’ve heard it’s pretty graphic, like the book but unlike what I would expect an American version to be, so I’m not sure I want to watch it. I will see the American version when it comes out, especially since Daniel Craig will play Blomkvist and not Brad Pitt. It’ll be interesting how Hollywood condenses the book into a movie.

I know there are some detractors out there about these books. I’ve read pretty convincing arguments about Larsson’s use of sexual violence against women, and how even though he made Lisbeth out to be an ass-kicking women, does the violence still paint a masochistic picture of Larsson? I don’t personally know, and I just chose to breeze over the gory details onto more of the mystery and interpersonal relationships between the characters. I’ve also read reviews that claim so much of the action takes place on the Web – hacking, money transfers, texting, chatrooms, etc. – and particularly in the last book and how that’s boring. I actually thought it foreshadows where crime-fighting and crime-prevention are going these days.

All in all, I’d give the trilogy 4 out of 5 stars as a whole. The books are detail enriched, sometimes slow, but overall very entertaining. And I think Lisbeth is a great character.

Hiatus

2010-04-15T09:41:00.003-05:00

Meet our little one, born April 7. And the reason this blog will be going on a short hiatus; not much time or will to read at the moment. :)

The Girl Who Played with Fire

2010-04-05T08:13:00.001-05:00

I have to say, as much as I enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the second book in the trilogy is even better. There were some slow parts in Tattoo, primarily the first 30 pages and the last 45-50 pages or so. This one has kept me hooked from page one. The story is action-packed, the characters are interesting and Lisbeth Salander, our heroine (if you can call her that), kicks butt.

When Lisbeth finds herself in a heap of trouble that has to do with three murders, she's forced to go into hiding and try to solve the murders, and clear her name. Turns out she's the link, and her shadowed past, which we learned so little about in the first book, takes center stage. The journalist Blomkvist believes her innocence and starts his own journalistic investigation, parallel to the police investigation, to find out the truth. The truth isn't pretty - it involves sex trafficking, sexual abuse and considerable brutality - but it definitely grabs you and draws you in anyway.

We get a whole new cast of characters in this book. With series I'm always wary of new characters. Will the author make me care about them as much as I do the main characters? Will these new guys be fully formed and worth my time? Will I hate one so much it'll ruin the story for me? But, I've enjoyed the new characters in this book - both the good guys and the bad guys. And when the bad guys get their comeuppance, I give a little cheer.

When the book trades off between the investigation from both the police's and Blomkvist's perspective to Lisbeth's, there can be a little repetition. The author takes us through some of the same information, just through Lisbeth's eyes as she finds out. Part of me thinks this is unnecessary; and I tended to skim those few parts. But, they were so few, they didn't take away from the story.

I can't wait for The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest to come out in May. I'm anxious to learn the rest of Lisbeth's story. (Warning: Do not read the synopsis to the third book if you have yet, and want, to read the first two. There are some spoilers.)

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

2010-04-01T07:23:00.006-05:00

OK, Twilight fans, we're in for another treat. Stephenie Meyer announced that she's releasing a short story called The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. Bree was a newborn vampire in Eclipse, so this 200-page story tells about things from her perspective. Meyer says that the short story came in handy for the writers, director and actors in Eclipse, the movie, when they were trying to really get a feel for what newborn life was like.

The physical book will be available for purchase June 5, but Meyer is also offering an electronic copy for free to fans during the month of June. It comes out before Eclipse does, so fans can really learn about Bree before seeing the movie.

Two years ago when I was devouring the Twilight books, I would have about dropped dead from excitement about this news. I'm still excited, but I can tell my fervor over the books has definitely decreased a bit since then. But this book and the movie both coming out in June - makes for a fun month!

Harry Potter Theme Park

2010-03-30T07:57:00.005-05:00

If there was ever a reason to have a kid, it's so I can finally get to Disney World (she says, being sarcastic and exaggerating, yet somewhat serious). The idea is even better now that the new Harry Potter Theme Park at Universal Studios will be open. This place looks awesome. Sure, it'll be several years before we get there; the boy has to be old enough to appreciate Disney and Harry. But I'm no less excited. Seriously, look at this place. You can walk by Hogwarts? Have a butter beer in Hogsmeade? Are you kidding? Truly magical.

"How do you two not have a show on Bravo?"

2010-03-25T08:21:00.003-05:00

Seriously can't wait. Sue Sylvester, I love you.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

2010-03-18T15:32:00.005-05:00

The book started out a touch slow. The language was a bit cumbersome at first, and the story didn’t hook me instantly. Instead it had to fill the reader in on some background information, and the author decided to do that first, even though it was a bit boring and confusing as to where it was leading. But, once I got about 20 pages in to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I was hooked. The story weaves together a wronged journalist, a disturbed 20-something private investigator/researcher and a powerful Swedish family. Together they try to solve a 40-year-old mystery of a missing girl. You wouldn’t think a cold case like this would be that interesting to read about, especially when things take place in the frozen tundra of northern Sweden, but it was, in fact, very engaging.

I enjoyed all the characters. The powerful family, the Vanger’s, have a weave of interesting members and the reader, along with the journalist Blomkvist, get to learn all about their dark little secrets. The mystery is a good one, and while I did suspect the true ending right away, there were still plenty of surprises in store. There are also a few other minor mysteries that weave throughout the main story, and though they’re not quite as interesting, they don’t take away from the enjoyment of the story by any means.

The detailed writing and family mystery reminds me of other authors I enjoy, like Tana French and Stephen Carter. And while the book was pretty graphic in violence, especially violence against women, it wasn’t too harsh that it made me want to put the book down. I have the second book, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and the third comes out in May. Both continue to follow Lisbeth, the researcher, and Blomkvist, so I’m very excited to read those, too.

Eclipse Movie Trailer

2010-03-11T16:25:00.001-06:00

Coming June 2010!

Happy National Reading Day!

2010-03-02T02:33:00.002-06:00

In honor of National Reading Day, which is celebrated on or near March 2, the birthday of the popular Dr. Seuss, I ask the following question (a hard one for many, I'm sure): What's your favorite Dr. Seuss book?

Mine would have to be And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street. I loved this book when I was little, and I still love the craziness of it. The things he sees! I also love The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, which I remember seeing a play of at the Children's Theatre when I was small. With a baby on the way, I fully expect the classics like Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham to take up permanent residence at bedtime.

A Three Dog Life

2010-02-24T07:30:00.003-06:00

Abigail Thomas (who grew up in Minnesota, by the way) was married to her husband for 12 years when he was hit by a car and suffered from a serious brain injury. He was never the same man again. He lost his short-term memory and was impossible for her to care for on her own. A Three Dog Life is a short memoir made up of quick vignettes about Thomas' life after her husband's accident.

This book was very moving, touching and incredibly sad. While it's not the same situation (Thomas' husband didn't die instantly), it's very reminiscent of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Here are two older women (strong, independent women, I might add) trying to come to terms with their new lives without their husbands and the emotions they feel: sadness, guilt, confusion, numbness...

One of Thomas' ways of coping is to have dogs. She eventually winds up with three and they end up being her lifeblood. When she goes on vacation, she misses them. She sleeps with them. They can read her mind. Anyone who loves dogs knows the kind of connection you can have with those animals, and I'm happy that Thomas had her three dogs to help her through the difficult years of living without and visiting a husband who had a limited memory of their times together.

One chapter in particular was amazing. It focused on Thomas' husband, Rich's, premonition-like ability, even with such a massive brain injury. She describes a time when she was in Mexico and called him at his care facility to see how he is. As she's talking to him, she's staring at the Aztec tiles on the wall. She asks what he did that day and he says, "We painted tiles." Later she asks his caregivers who tell her never in the history of the place have they ever painted tiles. Another time, Thomas is struggling with the thought of selling their apartment in NYC. She hasn't told Rich about this - does he even remember the apartment? And if he did, he wouldn't remember she sold it anyway - but when she arrives to visit him, he tells her he can't go with her because he has to get their apartment ready to sell. In her mind, this was his way of saying, even if he didn't know what he was saying, that it was OK to sell it. The brain (not to mention the mental connection between a couple) is so amazing.

For a quick, albeit sad, read, this memoir is a good one.

Glee!

2010-02-17T07:16:00.002-06:00

I can't wait! (...to set the DVR and try to find time to watch the rest of the fabulous Glee season while taking care of a newborn...)

Baby Books!

2010-02-12T17:46:00.000-06:00

My girlfriends all gathered together this weekend for my baby shower. Part of the theme was books - go figure! Each guest brought along her favorite childhood book to give me (us, the baby). What a selection, and so many I was unfamiliar with, which just shows how many books there are out there and how different everyone's childhood is from everyone else's. Here's what I got:

The Monster at the End of This Book, Sesame Street (thanks Willikat!)

The Little House, by Virginia Lee Burton

Pajama Time!, by Sandra Boynton (thanks CMS!)

Clifford the Big Red Dog, by Norman Bridwell

Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown (a complete classic)

Me Too! and I Was So Mad, by Mercer Mayer (I read ALL of these books when I was little.)

Mouse Paint, by Ellen Stoll Walsh (the illustrations are beautiful)

The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams (thanks maega!)

Richard Scarry's Best Story Book Ever and What People Do All Day (Willikat again)

The Mitten, by Jan Brett

They all make me so happy!

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

2010-02-08T07:18:00.002-06:00

Taking place in 1950s England, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie tells the story of Flavia, a smart, chemistry-loving 11-year-old with no mother and two sisters who ignore her. When Flavia discovers a murder in her garden (which just thrills her, by the way), and her father is taken away, she goes to great lengths to solve the case.

I enjoyed this book a lot. It's a quick, easy read. Flavia is a darling character. She's witty and smart and brave. At times I thought she was a little too witty and too smart - no 11-year-old could really be like that, could she? - but when I just stopped thinking of her as a typical preteen, I could enjoy her character even more. Her inner monologue was hilarious, her chemistry experiments were clever and her intelligence threw for a loop even the smartest men in town. (Her relationship with the Inspector on the case is tons of fun.)

With there being a murder, there is obviously a mystery she's trying to solve. Right in the middle of the book, she gets a great help from her imprisoned father, who has stories from his past he tells her. While I was reading this part of the book, I thought the author was giving too much away, and I thought he was kind of taking the easy way out. Show us, don't just tell us, what happened. But as the story went on, I realized Flavia had much more of the mystery to solve and not too much was given away too soon. This is definitely a cute and fun read, with a sweet ending to boot.

(And thanks to Bending Bookshelf, now I know there's a sequel in the works!)

The Happiness Project, Finale: September-December

2010-02-01T20:07:00.002-06:00

For parts I & II.

In September, Rubin decided to pursue a passion: Books. What a perfect topic for me! She took time to try and write a novel - taking a page (ha) from NaNoWriMo. She also vowed to make more time for reading, which made her rethink how much TV she watches. As fellow reader AND TV watcher, I liked that she understood that watching TV with your spouse can be a companion activity, even more so than just reading in the same room. This was shorter chapter because, as one would think, if you already enjoy doing something - here, reading - then it'll probably be pretty easy to do. I can't decide, but maybe she should've picked a different (more complex, challenging?) passion?

In October, she talks about mindfulness. This can be looked at any many ways, whether spiritually or just by paying more attention. But, it did make her look at those "rules" we all create for ourselves (Exercise! Eat right! My children come first!) and reevaluate and maybe rephrase them so they don't seem so overwhelming and impossible to meet every day. This month also made her try new things, such a hypnosis, dancing around the house and portrait drawing. While certain things made her feel more aware, others didn't. As with any passion or new thing we learn, Rubin did become a bit obsessed with happiness - and she realized she could sometimes bully people into taking on their own happiness. Here again she showed some true colors that she could've very easily kept to herself.

November was all about attitude. She wanted to "cultivate a light-hearted, loving and kind spirit." When I read this, I said to myself, 'Maybe this should've come earlier in the year?' It felt like the entire project really boils down to attitude. Maybe in January she should've focused on her attitude and worked on that all year long? Or, does it make more sense to wait until the end? Maybe our attitudes are so hard to change that she needed to warm up with all the other things? In any regard, I find attitude so important. I've found that the days I can "let it go," or just laugh at the annoying and feel happier just because - those are the good days, those are the days I can fall asleep much better at night.

The last month of the year was to practice everything. Rubin also reviewed the year and looked at how things had changed. Was she happier? If so, did her happiness rub off on the rest of the household? While her conclusions were fairly obvious, or just restated from portions of the previous chapters, I still found them rather enlightening.

I've had some discussion with friends about the purpose of this book. I know people who went into reading it expecting more of a "self-help" type of book: Tell me how to find happiness. It's not that. This is one woman telling you her story of a year trying to make herself happier. But the thing is, you don't have to look too deeply to find the lessons. You can very easily take what she learns and apply them to your own life (pay attention, clear clutter, pursue a passion...). Those that work, work. Those that don't, skip. So, in the end, I think Rubin, through memoir, does offer up some self-help - you just have to look for it.

The Happiness Project, Part II: April-August

2010-01-22T06:34:00.000-06:00

For Part I.

In April, Rubin decides to Lighten Up in regards to parenthood. She takes more time for projects with her girls, instead of sighing about the waste of time they may seem to be. She decides to sing more, which not only brightens the household but also helps her keep her cool. She makes an effort to remember that the years really go fast and she needs to cherish each moment with her family. In this chapter, Rubin also showed her less favorable side, but as a parent-to-be it's always nice to know others get frustrated and angry at their children. She also writes about memory, "People remember events better when they fit with their present mood, happy people remember happy events better, and depressed people remember sad events better. Depressed people have as many nice experiences as other people - they just don't recall them as well."

In May, Rubin wanted to Be Serious About Play: have more fun, be silly, stray off the path. One of the best lessons in this chapter was about discovering what she thought was fun. There are plenty of ideas of what sounds fun. Sure, I can imagine that rock climbing or scuba diving could be a blast, but for me, it would be more an entire experience of stress and nervousness. She gives you the permission to realize if reading and watching TV is what's fun for you, that's OK. Don't underrate what you think is fun.

In June, it's all about Friendship. She yearned to remember birthdays, not to gossip and make new friends. Being there for friends can be a very fulfilling lifestyle. Helping them, supporting them, anything can turn around and make you very happy. She writes, "I certainly get more satisfaction out of thinking about good deeds I've done for other people than I do thinking about good deeds others have done for me." I somewhat agree with this, but I also get very warm-hearted when I think of the lovely things my girlfriends do for me. I think it's kind of equal both ways.

July was about money. Can money buy happiness? Rubin finds her answer, but also finds many disagree about this topic. It's another interesting chapter. I like when she gets into "overbuying" and "underbuying." I'm definitely an underbuyer. I don't buy toothpaste until right when we need it. We can be down to one roll of toilet paper before I buy more. We've thought about a membership to Costco, but that would really go against my underbuying personality! However, she points out that sometimes overbuying can be OK because it could mean less trips to the store, less stress about being out of things...

In August, Rubin Contemplated the Heavens. While part of the chapter was about spirituality, it didn't completely focus on that, but also on gratitude and, again, being thankful for what you have. One point she makes that I really responded to was about being excited when people are excited for you. She says she's not easily thrilled. Neither am I. But there are plenty of people around me who get thrilled for me about certain things (ex: baby inside me). Me? I'm always thinking ahead - where will this lead, what will this bring? Perhaps my less-than-thrilled nature makes me seem ungrateful for their excitement. I discovered that's something I could work on.

So, what do you think? Can money buy happiness? Do you get more from doing for others or what others do for you? Are you an overbuyer or an underbuyer? Do you remember happier moments better than sad ones or vice versa? What do you consider fun?

The Happiness Project, Part I: January-March

2010-01-19T17:48:00.005-06:00

One of my bffs turned me on to Gretchen Rubin's blog The Happiness Project, a blog she started while she was working on her book The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. Rubin's blog is interesting; she posts six days a week relevant interviews, thoughts, quotes, etc. that have to do with happiness. I've learned some good lessons from her blog, while other posts aren't quite as helpful. I've gotten off reading it daily recently because I've found she's started to repeat herself a bit, and now that I've read her book, it feels even more redundant. But, for a new reader, it's quite inspirational.

One day as she was sitting on the bus, Rubin asked herself about her happiness. Now, many people could think (including another of my favorites, and probably an opposite of Rubin, Penelope Trunk), "Hey lady, you work from home, have two beautiful girls, a successful husband...what don't you have to be happy about?" And it's kind of true, but then plenty of us have it pretty darn good, but the daily grind and stress of it all can weigh on our true happiness. So, if you can get past that and just hope to learn from her year-long pursuit of happiness, you'll find the book is very good.

As she worked on her happiness, she came up with Twelve Commandments (i.e. "Let it go" or "Identify the problem") and Secrets of Adulthood ("People don't notice your mistakes as much as you think," and "By doing a little bit each day, you can get a lot accomplished"). She came back to these throughout her year, and I found these were some of the points I loved most and latched onto the most. I also loved that she wasn't a memoirist who had to travel great distances to find happiness. She writes, "I didn't want to reject my life. I wanted to change my life without changing my life, by finding more happiness in my own kitchen."

The book is very honest. She doesn't fly over the times she gets frustrated. She doesn't hide that she gets crabby or feels resented. A huge beef for her is doing things for her family and not getting a "gold star." She wants that gold star, but that's not how life is. Reading about her practicing this (to do things and not keep score with her husband) was very interesting and relevant to anyone who is married. We all feel resentful or taken advantage of sometimes, but is it really worth the fight? No. I appreciate the fact that Rubin lets it all hang out.

Each month Rubin worked on a specific goal for her happiness, adding to each month and by the end of the year hopefully doing it all at once. January - Boost energy. This involved sleeping more, exercising more, getting organized. Very obvious New Year's resolution stuff, but as we all know, very practical and stuff that works at making us feel better if we just stick to it. Her tactics for organization and her idea to just act energetic were very inspiring.

February - Remember Love, which hit on nagging, expecting praise, fighting right and showing your love for others. If you're in a serious relationship, this chapter is great, especially if you live together. Rubin was very honest about her relationship with her husband - and it's always interesting to read about other people's relationship. She writes, "It wasn't perversity that kept Jamie from being a sympathetic listener; not only was he constitutionally less oriented to having long heart-to-heart conversations, he also tried to avoid any topic that got me upset, because he found it so painful to see me feeling blue." This I can understand.

March - Aim Higher. This month focuses on her work. She started her blog in March; I find it humorous that this woman who loves reading, writing and taking notes wasn't sure about blogging - she was made to blog! She also tried to learn from failure and ask for help. More important lessons. One goal: Enjoy Now. A paragraph I loved, "It's rare to achieve something that brings unadulterated pleasure without added concerns. Having a baby. Getting a promotion. Buying a house. You look forward to reaching these destinations, but once you've reached them, they bring emotions other than sheer happiness. And of course, arriving at one goal usually reveals another, yet more challenging goal... The challenge, therefore, is to take pleasure in the atmosphere of growth, in the gradual progress made toward a goal, in the present."

This post is already pretty long, so I'll write more about the book in another post.

The Help

2010-01-11T01:29:00.000-06:00

I just finished The Help, a novel by Kathryn Stockett. In this book, Stockett writes about the white ladies of Jackson Mississippi in the early 1960s and their "help," the black maids who raise their children and clean their homes. This book made several Best of 2009 lists and received several good reviews when it came out early last year.

I loved this book. Stockett, who grew up in the South herself and was raised by a black woman, tells the story of these maids in an interesting way. One precocious, young white woman named Skeeter decides to write down the stories of the maids in Jackson. This is no easy task, because if any of them gets caught, they're in deep, deep trouble. But many brave ladies come forward and tell Skeeter their stories of abuse and discrimination, but also of love and pride. The chapters alternate between Skeeter and two maids, Aibileen and Minny, who are vibrant characters all on their own. Once the stories get written down, it's a question of whether it will get published, and if it does, just what the heck will happen (to Skeeter, to the maids, to the community, to the country)?

The book touches on many issues in the South during that time like segregation, violence, unfair wages, the civil rights movement and more. You get a taste for the time frame with mentions of Martin Luther King and JFK. As I read, I kept thinking, 'Wow, this seems like such a long time ago.' But really it wasn't, and that's so sad. To think this was the way the country was, riddled in hatred and complete ignorance, less than 50 years ago. How pathetic and ridiculous. And with readers feeling this way, I think that's what makes the book shine. You root for these ladies, you feel disgust for the villains and it makes you want to keep reading to know how it's all going to turn out.

Like the reviews say, Stockett had to walk a fine line when writing this story. It could've come out very harsh against either side, or been completely sugary and unrealistic. She seemed to walk the line just fine, though being raised when and where I did, I can't say for sure (here's a review that asks some interesting questions, like does Stockett have a "right" to tell this side of the story?; the comments are interesting too). But ultimately, it's a novel meant to entertain readers, not necessarily tell it like it was. I got completely sucked in. I laughed and I cried a few different times at the end. I also wondered just how long it would take for Hollywood to turn this into a film. Not long at all.

The Babysitters Club

2010-01-05T07:47:00.005-06:00

Cool news: Ann M Martin is a writing a prequel to The Babysitters Club. It takes place the summer before Kristy had her big money-making idea.

I loved these books. I think I read 30 of them at least, if not more, so I'm glad the series is getting another chance in the spotlight.

Edited to add: Whitney over at PopCandy also posted about this news. She even mentions the graphic novels, which look really cute!

Oxygen

2010-01-04T06:35:00.000-06:00

I recently finished Oxygen by Carol Cassella, a practicing anethesiologist living in Seattle. Cassella uses what she knows to write this novel about an anethesiologist living in Seattle. The story follows Marie, a single doctor, who puts people to sleep for a living. Unfortunately, Marie loses one patient, a child, and the book takes the reader on the journey of a malpractice law suit.

I liked Marie as a character. I enjoyed learning more about anethesiology as a career - it's much more complex and interesting than I imagined it was. It's also interesting to read about the workings of a hospital when it comes to malpractice. I believe as a doctor, Cassella must know these situations fairly well, even if she's never been sued herself (or maybe she has, I don't know), so I took this part of the story pretty literally. Being sued seems like a somewhat lonely position for a doctor, however you're also part of a "club" because so many doctors get sued at some point in their life. I also liked the side story of Marie's sister and father.

However, I'd say the book is just OK. I felt it was a little too long, a little too much about the case (the reader could get the idea in half as many words, I think). The book was also fairly predictable. I figured out the ending after reading just a few pages, and it just wasn't that satisfying of an ending, really. It all kind of added up to an episode or two of ER, which isn't bad necessarily, just not completely fulfilling or all that compelling.

What I Got for my Birthday

2009-12-29T18:05:00.004-06:00

Here is my annual list of books that I received this year for my birthday/Christmas:

The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson. I have yet to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but once I do, I'll have the sequel at the ready.

Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life is Your Hidden Strength, by Laurie Helgoe. I'm always interested to learn how introverts get along in the world, especially since I'm one of them.

Things I Learned About my Dad in Therapy, edited by Heather Armstrong.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley.

Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby.

Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. I loved Freakonomics tremendously - so interesting - so I'm excited for this one, too.

Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood, edited by Camille Peri and Kate Moses of Salon.com

Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write about Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race & Themselves, also by Camille Peri and Kate Moses.

A Three Dog Life, by Abigail Thomas.

The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment, by A.J. Jacobs. I fully enjoyed his first two books, which were big-time experimemts, so I look forward to reading about some of his mini experiments. What a life, right? Just live through experiences and then write about them... nice.

And once again, I have a few B&N gift cards to spend, too. Woo!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-23T09:11:00.000-06:00

How ever you celebrate this time of year, may your days be bright and filled with love.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas
by Clement Clarke Moore

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Sherlock Holmes

2009-12-22T14:17:00.003-06:00

I meant to post this last week. I'll be seeing Sherlock Holmes in the next week or so, most definitely. But it was so interesting to discover that the largest collection of Holmes memorabilia is located right here in Minnesota. In a basement at the University of Minnesota some 60,000 artifacts are at home, including book volumes, magnifying glasses, broadcast recordings and much more.

I haven't actually read much Sherlock Holmes, but the movie and this article might entice me to check out at least a story or two. Are you a Holmes fan?

Sarah's Key

2009-12-16T06:26:00.000-06:00

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay takes place in two different times. Sarah, a young Jewish girl, lives during WWII in occupied France. On morning in July 1942, she and her parents are taken away from their home during a roundup called Vel' di'Hiv'. Thousands of families are taken to a large arena and kept in horrendous conditions for several days, then sent via train to prison camps and later onto Auschwitz. Before the men take her away, Sarah hides her little brother in a cupboard, promising to come back for him. Her chapters are told from Sarah's point of view about how she overcomes her fears, strives to be strong and find a way home to her brother.

These chapters alternate with those of Julia Jarmond, a present-day American journalist who has lived in Paris for 25 years. She's married with a daughter, and is assigned to cover the 60th anniversary of the roundup. In her research, she uncovers the story of Sarah, and makes it her mission to find out how it ended up.

I loved this book. I think by alternating the stories of Sarah and Julia in short chapters, de Rosnay keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. I gobbled the story up in less than a week. The story engages you from the beginning and keeps you turning the pages. I had no idea that France went through such a roundup, and that the French police were ordered to ship tens of thousands of Jewish people to the camps over a period of time (and nearly all didn't come back). It's a very dark period of the country's history, and Julia found that many French people would either pretend like they didn't know what was going on during that time or just wanted to bury the past.

A little more than halfway through the book, de Rosnay shifts the entire storytelling to Julia. While I understand this was probably to maintain the mystery of the rest of Sarah's story, I found I missed Sarah's chapters. I wasn't ready to let her go, which in a way is probably better than getting tired of her. I enjoyed all the characters, I loved the storytelling, I was heartbroken by the events of history. This was a very good piece of historical fiction.

I have realized that I'm drawn to fiction about WWII. I've now read WWII stories from several sides: Polish with The Zookeeper's Wife; Russian with City of Thieves; English with The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society; German with Those Who Save Us; and now France. While they're all fiction, they are seeped in historical accuracy. And while they're all sad, they're all very good as well.

Do you have any favorite books about WWII? Any other war?

Second Chance

2009-12-11T06:51:00.000-06:00

I just finished Second Chance by Jane Green. I've read some of her books in the past. Mostly what you'd call "chick lit," but entertaining and quick reads if that's what you're looking for. Second Chance is about a group of high school friends who have lost touch, but then are reunited around the age of 40 after the tragic death of one of the group members. The death happens quickly in the book, so the rest of the pages are devoted to the grief of the friends and then basically their life stories. They're all in different places in their lives - all at different turning points - and perhaps the friend's death has led them all to look at their lives differently. Will they all get a "second chance"? Ah, yes, cheesy. But entertaining for the most part.

I particularly liked the story line of Holly, a wife and mother who's unhappy but can't figure out why. However, I think the reason I liked this story line the most is because Green spilled the most ink on Holly. She really feels like the central character, and everyone else is just a minor character in the book. You don't really get attached to any of the other characters, which makes you not really care what happens to them. Maybe that was the point? But I don't think so.

And Holly still feels like the main character even though Green uses the technique of writing from everyone's perspective - sort of. It's hard to explain, but sometimes while reading it you feel like you're in the mind of the character and other times you feel like it's just Green telling you what's going on in the mind of the character. This got to be confusing and bit frustrating, and as an editor I would've cleaned this up a bit and made the story feel a little more cohesive.

So, if you're a fan of the green-pink-and-white-covered, female-driven literature out there, this is probably right up your alley. If you're like me and sometimes just want a book that's easy that you can devour in a few days and then forget about - this works, too. Otherwise, nothing to write home about.

End of the Year Post, 2009

2009-12-08T13:12:00.004-06:00

Each December I usually compile a list of five posts of my favorite reads of the year. However, this was a more lackluster year for reading. It started out strong, was mixed with some surprises, but overall, I couldn't really pick five books I loved. At least, not ones worthy of an end-of-the-year shout out. So, in lieu of a series of posts, I'm going to write one longish post, highlighting a couple books I really enjoyed, as well as a few blog posts of which I'm proud.

The Last Lecture
I don't think you'll find a negative review about Randy Pausch's book anywhere. It's engaging, inspiring and heartbreaking. It's short and sweet, but it's a thinker. What if you only had six months to live? What legacy would you want to leave behind? What lessons have you learned that you'd want to pass on to your children? Excellent book.

City of Thieves
This was a fluke. I found this book for free at work and gave it a try. I've since loaned it to three other people who all agreed: extremely good. Disturbing yet real, sad yet uplifting - plus you learn a little something, which is never a bad thing. Good for men and women readers. Definitely one I'll keep on my shelf for awhile.

Pretty is What Changes
While I can't say this is the most impressively written memoir I've ever read, the challenges the author goes through and the decisions she makes about her body are truly thought provoking, especially for women. It forces you to ask yourself some tricky questions, and the story has stuck with me all year.

Dreams From My Father (three parts)
This was also an impulse read. I never really planned on reading Obama's memoir. I'm not like that with politicians and their books. But, for some reason I gave this one a shot. It's completely different than a memoir written after a presidency (or first lady-ship or rogue-ish VP run) because Obama wrote this before the political "machine" started for him. As I said in one of my posts, the absolute coolest thing about our president - whether you agree with his ideas or not - is that he's really one of us: raised by a single mom, middle class, worked hard to go to college, etc. (He's not some entitled kid who grew up in a wealthy family that had political connections from day one.) And he became President. It proves that if your kid says he or she wants to be president one day, you can actually say with some confidence now, "Yes, that's definitely within reach."

So, those four books stood out the most for me in 2009. Sure, I read some others that were cute, or fun, or interesting, but nothing that really grabbed me. I did, however, write some posts about books and popular culture that I thought were good conversation starters (whether they started conversations or not).

How Young is Too Young?
Does Pop Culture Make Us Feel Safe Again?
For the Love of First Grade
My Rant on Journalism Today

Here's to a great new year of reading. Though with a baby on the way, I'm guessing, perhaps, a little less reading than I'm used to.

So, what were your favorite books of 2009?

(Archives)
Top 5 Books of 2007
A Look Back 2008

What No One Tells the Mom: Surviving the Early Years of Parenthood with Your Sanity, Your Sex Life and Your Sense of Humor Intact

2009-12-01T14:47:00.006-06:00

There are many things I liked about Marg Stark's What No One Tells the Mom.

1. It gives you permission to be scared about what you're about to embark on.

2. She uses frank, funny language that's engaging to follow and quick to read.

3. She's not afraid to show her faults and the faults in her marriage, even if it means telling us how disappointed she was in her husband for a very long time (he's a saint by the way, if he's OK with her airing their dirty laundry like that), about how she almost drove away and never came back...

4. ...but then she doesn’t forget to explain how it all got better: her husband started helping out more, how they found more time to be together as a couple, how sweet and special her kids are a majority of the time.

5. The book takes away any preconceived notions, letting you know that things won’t be perfect, and you shouldn’t expect them to be, and that’s OK.

6. Stark and her army of friends and interviewees provide helpful tips for keeping your sanity during an insane time.

A few quotes I enjoyed:

“The standards to which we hold ourselves contribute to the enormous tension we feel, and underestimate a child’s fervent desire to be team player and to help manage family life and its complications. Most moms I know don’t think to delegate chores and they try not to bore kids on weekends with grocery shopping and errands. We’re managing motherhood with white gloves when even in the roughest, dirtiest of circumstances, kids are astonishingly smart, sometimes even prescient.”

She also pulled from another book (The Dance of Anger, by Harriet Lerner) these valuable lessons:

“Venting anger may not help. It tends to protect or solidify, rather than challenge, the existing rules or patterns of a relationship; the only person we can truly change or control is our own self; blaming and fighting are often ineffective methods for exacting change, and ways to avoid the more threatening job of changing yourself.”

One thing that I started to get to me though, by the time I read the 250 pages, was her downer attitude. Stark sought counseling and she suffered from a bit of depression. While this is all fine, and I appreciate her sharing that with her readers, I do think the depression probably made motherhood and marriage seem a little more torturous for her. While I can definitely see the fighting, the resentment, the frustration all coming to fruition in any new family of three (or more), I hope for most it’s much easier to find the happiness than it was for Stark.

So, in the end: loved the lessons, loved the advice, loved hearing from all the other moms. Laughed out loud. Dog-eared pages. I could’ve just used a little more positive words from the author herself.

New Moon: A study in male aggression

2009-11-24T07:07:00.004-06:00

I saw New Moon last night with my two bffs in a theater packed with females. (Case in point: When Jacob first took off his shirt, the gasps and sighs were louder than the movie.) Reviews about the movie have been mixed. I was surprised to see Entertainment Weekly give it a B+, but other reviewers have said the movie was slow. It was a touch slow, but so was the book. However, the second book plays a very important role in the series. The werewolves have to be entered into the story somehow and there has to be set up for the love triangle between Jacob, Edward and Bella.

I thought the movie was very well done actually. You could instantly tell there was more money to work with this time around. When I first saw the previews, I wasn't sure about the werewolves - I couldn't tell how big they were. But watching the movie, I thought they were actually perfect. They were huge and they were scary, but you could also see the cuddliness of the humans on the inside. I'm glad they weren't depicted like the werewolves in Harry Potter, which are more based in fantasy and very creepy. All the main actors have wonderful chemistry with each other, and once again (as reviewed from last year), Bella's dad just makes the movie. Billy Burke was fabulous. One disappointment however is Victoria. I think Rachelle Lefevre does a fabulous and beautiful job as bad vampiress Victoria in both Twilight and New Moon (if I could only have hair like that!), and while I do enjoy Bryce Dallas Howard, I think it's a mistake to change the actress in the third movie.

The theme that really stuck out to me throughout the movie was male aggression. It makes me wonder about the men in Stephanie Meyer's life. Does she know many aggressive men? Maybe not. Maybe Edward and Jacob's anger and angst is based on pent up teenage emotions, but I don't think so. After all, Edward is far from a teenager. I found it interesting that several times during the movie, when the men become angry they turn into their worst part (and they warn people, too: "don't make me angry," "I might not be able to control myself"). Is this a message that all men have a monster (vampire) or an animal (werewolf) inside of them? A part of them that they always have to work to control so as not to maim or attack loved ones or potential competitors? And are females always supposed to put up with it, always supposed to be the caretakers who reassure the males that they're worthy and that everything is going to be OK?

This isn't a criticism of the book, but an observation of how the gender roles are portrayed. (I can only imagine the awesome Women Studies classes out there using these books as resources!) While I do believe the series of books is about Bella's journey...and self denial, and good and evil...I think it's just as much about the journey of Edward and Jacob becoming the men they're supposed to be. And as in real life, it usually takes a woman to help a man figure it out. :)

What No One Tells the Bride

2009-11-16T15:36:00.006-06:00

I know, I know. I'm not a bride. I haven't been a bride is nearly four years. However, I am currently reading Marg Stark's What No One Tells the Mom (a gift from bff Maega) and since I'm not ready to share thoughts on that book, I decided to start with Stark's prequel (also a sweet gift from Maega when I got engaged in June 2005).

Going into any book of this nature (self-helpish, advice-giving, etc.), you obviously need to take what you read with a grain of salt. Not every situation in this book applies to every bride. However, while I think that there is such a thing a too much information (especially during marriage and pregnancy - oy), I think that if you're interested in reading about your current life situation from others who have lived through it, then by all means go for it. Plus, when someone is as humorous and easy to read as Stark, the pages basically turn themselves.

Stark gets into the nitty-gritty of engagement and newlyweddedness. Obviously, there's going to be a transition period between single life and married life. For different people this transition could be tiny. For others, it's huge. Family traditions come into play. Family names become of uber importance. Money. Sex. All these issues come up - and if they don't come up in the engagement period, they come up in early marriage. Stark wants brides to be ready.

Many brides think engagement will be blissful. Everyone will be happy for you. (Actually, some won't and it'll be surprising.) You'll be utterly thrilled and happy planning a party for a hundred people or more. Thing is, Stark says, in reality you may not be so happy. And guess what? That's OK.

Again, not every situation applies to every woman. My hubby and I have never, ever had a fight about money, so chapter five didn't stick with me. But, other chapters did. And if anything, it's the overall message that I hold on to. Women have been led to believe that they must act happy about things that should make them happy: engagement, marriage, children, etc., even if they're not. Many of us continue to perpetuate this phenomenon by refusing to admit when things aren't going our way and not asking for help.

In reality, we should share our struggles and fears with each other. It feels so good to know other people have your same fears, share your same hopes, and that you're not alone. And even if what these books or the things other women share don't apply to us currently, it doesn't mean it won't later on. And we'll be glad we learned now.

The Bell Jar

2009-11-05T14:00:00.004-06:00

This book was borrowed to me by my good friend CMS. I was a little reluctant to read it, because I thought it would pretty depressing. And it was, but not in an awful way. Just sad. I don't know much about Sylvia Plath, but I did know she suffered from mental illness and killed herself and I was pretty sure The Bell Jar told her story, or at least mirrored her real life.

The Bell Jar tells the story of Esther, a college student and talented writer who receives a great opportunity to intern at a big magazine in 1950s NYC. During that summer Esther's mental illness begins, and the story then follows Esther back home and eventually to a mental hospital. (From the mini biography in the back of the book and from other sources I've read, this is pretty much what happened to Plath.)

The writing is fairly good, but parts of the New York story line dragged for me. For me, the story picks up more when she really starts to falter mentally. Which is weird; why, when I knew it would be depressing and when I was actually sad reading the book, would it "pick up" for me when the character's at her worst? I feel awful for this woman (Esther, Sylvia, whomever). How lonely must it have been?

The most important thing about the book, though, is it shines light on mental illness and health care, back then and in general. And to me, this is interesting to think about. There has always been mental illness. Since the dawn of time. And yet still, there's a stigma. Back then, the electroshock treatments, the lobotomies - it's all incredibly disturbing. How could doctors really think they were doing the right thing? But then, perhaps people will look back at our current medical methods and question just what the heck we were doing with some of our therapies? But anyway, people have always, always suffered with depression in all forms. And you always have the people who just want them "to get over it." There will always be those of us who don't quite understand, but hopefully more and more of us learn empathy and sympathy instead of denial and frustration.

For another wonderful take on this book, see Bending Bookshelf.

One Year Ago

2009-11-02T14:13:00.003-06:00

Last year at this time, I was on day two of National Novel Writing Month. I was nervous about it and I really didn't know if it was something I could complete. As the month went on, I went through a series of emotions from happiness to frustration, but in the end I finished a 50,000-word young adult novel. (You can review my progress in the few posts I wrote last year.)

Well, with it being NaNoWriMo time again, I'm feeling some nostalgia. I went into this month knowing it wasn't a task I could repeat this year. We have some other things going on, plus the hubby is in school and many of his nights and hours on the weekend are spent in his office studying and using our computer. Last year we didn't have to share the space. This year, I just didn't foresee that working out, even though he said over and over we could make it work.

I'm fine with my decision. I'm tired often and have lots of odds and ends (cleaning, organizing, shopping, painting) that I'm looking to complete before the new year. Adding a 50,000-word novel to that mix, well, I probably don't need the extra "thing" to do. But, I do miss it a bit. I'm very proud of my book I wrote, even if it's just a silly little story about a high school girl and the mystery she solves. But, I wrote a book. With a beginning, middle and end. I bound it so it can sit on my shelf, with my name on the cover and the spine. I'll always be proud of it, and I'm so glad I participated last year.

I also know I would never have written a "first" novel any other way. NaNoWriMo pushes you to get that story out, no matter how awful (or fabulous). So many people say they'll write a book someday, but when they look at it as the daunting task that it is, most never try. With NaNo, you can do it. And it's daunting, sure, but only for a month. Then you can quit. And hopefully you quit with something resembling a full-out novel.

Then it's just editing that you can choose to put off for as long as you want.

The Office. (Deleted scene)

2009-10-30T07:09:00.001-05:00

I can't stop laughing.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

2009-10-26T08:18:00.000-05:00

Honestly, I can't believe it took me this long to read this book (I got it for Christmas last year), especially since you can read it all in about 45 minutes. But it was perfect for a few short bus rides, and I really enjoyed it.

J.K. Rowling wrote and illustrated this book of fairy tales last year and the proceeds go to a children's charity. The book contains five fairy tales that revolve around the wizarding community, but they're just like Muggle fairy tales; they can be scary, they hold a lesson and they toy with good and evil.

The tales themselves are cute, but it's the included notes that were my favorite part. Supposedly, Dumbledore himself was studying The Tales of Beedle the Bard (he also posthumously gifted it to Hermione in the final Harry Potter book and it helped them solve one of their missions) and left copious notes. Dumbledore offers up extra history about each tale (for example, one story was offensive to Death Eaters so they tried to get it banned from the Hogwarts library; banned books being something of which the Muggle world knows plenty) and he also offers up his analysis for each story - what it may mean, why it's improbable it's more than just a story, where Beedle may have come up with the ideas, etc.

I love Dumbledore. He is one of my favorite characters in the series. I love his wisdom, but more I love his wit. His wit shines through in the notes in this book and it reminded me of my love for Harry Potter as a series. The Tales of Beedle the Bard is just more evidence at how talented and imaginative Rowling is, too, to come up with unique fairy tales that continue the magic and traditions that she started with the very first book.

Simple and short, but a classic read for Potter fans.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

2009-10-22T08:16:00.000-05:00

I finished this book over the weekend. It was another lucky find on the free counter at work. It was already on my wish list, so I couldn't believe my luck when I saw it just sitting there waiting to be read. The book is set up as a bunch of letters, which at first was hard to get used to. Would I really enjoy reading an entire book through letters? But as I got used to the technique, it faded into the background.

Juliet is an author living in London after WWII. She receives a letter from a man who lives on Guernsey Island (off the coasts of England and France) because he by happenstance bought a book she used to own (her name was in it). They begin corresponding and Juliet learns about how the island was occupied by the Germans during the war and how the residents formed a pretend book club- which didn't stay pretend for long - as a way to get around curfew rules.

The story is unbelievably sweet. Even just through letter form you fall in love with all the different characters - and what characters they are! You learn of sad stories of the war, but you also learn of heartwarming stories of hope, courage and perseverance. Some of them are really touching.

While I say the letter technique fades into the background, I did try to consciously study the technique and how it works. For example, when Juliet decides to visit Guernsey, how are we going to learn what she's up to? She's obviously not going to write letters to the residents of Guernsey while she's there. Hence, the placement of other characters in the story who live elsewhere. It's very interesting, and I don't think could always be as well done if not done carefully.

I really enjoyed the story, and it ended just the way I wanted, if a bit abruptly, so that always makes for a good book, too.

Where the Wild Things Are

2009-10-19T07:51:00.003-05:00

We saw Where the Wild Things Are over the weekend. I've been anxiously awaiting this movie ever since I saw its first preview months ago. I have memories of reading the book as a kid, and the images that splashed across the screen during the previews - and the music! - looked so magical.

As the release date approached, I had some worries. Was I expecting too much? Would I be disappointed? How could Spike Jonze turn a 300-word story into a 90-minute movie? But in the end, I wasn't disappointed. I really, really enjoyed the movie. I won't say I loved it, but I did love parts of it.

I thought the actor who plays Max (Max Records) was well cast. He was a sweet, lonely boy aching for attention. And as any 9-year-old would behave, he didn't always know the best way to get that attention. But the kid had quite the imagination, and that's something I appreciate. (My imagination ran wild, no pun intended, when I was a kid.)

When he arrived on the island where the wild things are, it was pretty magical. I loved the monsters. I loved how you could see the personalities of the actors shine through the big, furry costumes. (Seriously, KW actually looked like and had the mannerisms of Lauren Ambrose.) Some critics thought the CGI facial expressions and mouth movements didn't come through that well, but I disagree. I didn't think anything about the monsters was distracting from the story.

I also loved how the monsters represented parts of Max's real life. Carol didn't want things to change, and when they did, he destroyed things and threw tantrums (see Max in the first 15 minutes of the film). KW wanted to love Carol, but found it very difficult when he acted that way (ah, see moms everywhere). I loved how Max learned from this. I loved the Rumpus, I loved the sleep pile, I loved the scenery.

I do disagree with some who say it's not a kids movie, though. I definitely think you could take an 8 year old to see this movie and he/she would be fine. There's maybe one or two frightening parts, but they're no more frightening then some parts in the Pixar movies. And because I disagree, this means that some parts of the movie were just a little childish for my taste. Just a few parts dragged - only a few. But in the end I cried because I was attached to the characters and I was quite pleased with the movie as a whole.

The Lost Symbol: Minneapolis Connection

2009-10-08T12:16:00.003-05:00

How awesome is this? A huge clue in the mystery of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol is actually at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. To solve part of the puzzle, Robert Langdon has to look up on a computer a piece of art by Albrecht Durer. In that piece is a magic square with numbers relevant to the mystery. Well, that piece of art is owned by the MIA. The Star Tribune reports that the museum's print curator heard about this, pulled the piece out of storage and hung it up. (Head over to the Strib post to see the painting.)

Awesome!

Un-Freakin'-Believable

2009-10-07T07:14:00.005-05:00

Go Twins! You scrappy little team - you make my heart bigger.

Photo courtesy of Star Tribune.

The Lost Symbol

2009-10-06T07:45:00.003-05:00

Yes, I was one of the millions to read this book within the month it came out. I borrowed it from my mom and read it in less than a week. (If I had a little more energy, I could've read it much faster.) I'm feeling a bullet list coming on, but first I can say I enjoyed the book. It wasn't fabulous, but it was typical Dan Brown: action packed, twists and turns, short timeline (this one took place in less than 12 hours), and cheesy but fun.

+ When I first had the book, I skimmed through the super short chapters (his effective technique to keep you reading) and read some of last lines in different chapters. Most of the chapters end in cliffhanging lines like, "But she was no longer on her feet. She was airborne," or "And then he started screaming and pounding on the walls once again," and so on. I was laughing because it so reminds me of every David Caruso line before the opening theme of CSI Miami. So dramatic, with the gruff voice, the putting on of the sunglasses, and the scream into The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again." Effective, yet so cheesy.

+ I enjoy Robert Langdon as a character. Even though he's been around for three books (and now Hollywood movies), I do still find it refreshing that a geeky professor can be the hero. Sure, it makes for a little less thrilling of a film, but in a book it works. You can also totally tell Brown bases parts of Langdon on himself. Langdon gets crap for his turtlenecks and elbow-patched blazers. Funny, do does Brown.

+ The premise was interesting. I liked that the book took place in D.C. We were there a couple years ago, so the landmarks and the architectural elements (for example the painting on the ceiling of the Capitol building) were very familiar to me. It was also interesting to learn about the Freemasons, on who the book's central mystery surrounds.

+ The symbolism references can also be interesting, but sometimes too intense. I found myself skimming over some of the long-winded explanations for different things. While it's cool to learn that our founding fathers had a very specific plan in mind when designing D.C., I don't need to read on about it for five pages. Get back to the action.

+ The ending was just OK. The mystery and the revelation at the end was nowhere near as fascinating or intriguing as The Da Vinci Code. Sure, Brown messes with religion (and science) once again, and I could see some people balking at his musings, but the end result was anti-climatic. I half-read the last 40 pages while watching the Vikings game, and I don't feel I missed much.

End thoughts: Not worth $25, but if you liked his previous novels, this one falls right in line with those. Borrow it or get it from the library.

What to Expect When You're Expecting

2009-09-29T12:21:00.000-05:00

So yes, this is what I've been reading for the past 12 weeks, which can only mean one thing. Come April, things are going to change around our house.

But, in keeping with the theme of this blog, I'll fill you in on my thoughts of this book. I think it's just OK. When you find out you're having a baby, at least for me, this seems like the must-buy-first book. Everyone reads it, right? I find the first page of each month interesting, because they tell you how big your baby is each week and what part of them is developing that week (though sometimes that can be a little gross, too.) I also have gotten some helpful advice from the Q&As, learning when certain feelings and experiences are normal, etc.

However, I find the book a bit preachy, as well. The authors can take a bit of a holier-than-thou attitude about certain topics, such as organic foods, breastfeeding - you know, all the hot topics of pregnancy and parenting. I don't respond well to that - I try to be more of "to each their own" type of person: you make your choices and I'll make mine. So, I've found that I only read those parts of the book that I enjoy and I skip the rest. Same goes for other parenting books, magazines and Web sites that I come across.

My husband has read So You're Going to Be a Dad and The Expectant Father and he enjoyed both very much; the first is very humorous and the second more serious.

My rant on journalism today

2009-09-25T10:17:00.000-05:00

I'm a journalist. But I'm not the kind of journalist that goes out and nabs the "tough stories." I write and edit for consumer and business magazines. Very little controversy there. However, as someone who went to journalism school and feels she knows a lot about her profession, I feel I can say this: I hate the news.

My hatred for the news has grown consistently and exponentially over the past several years. Why do I hate it? Because those reporters, those network anchors - they're lazy and they're scared. Nearly every time we watch the news at home, which is more and more infrequently lately, I turn to my husband and say:

"Being objective DOES NOT mean you can't ask tough questions. Come on."

I'm tired of network and cable news channels just replaying snippets of the president, republicans in Congress, whomever, spouting the latest crap and then leaving it at that. What? Where are the follow up questions? Where is the research to prove them wrong or right? Why don't you point out how they're being hypocritical? Doing these things does not make you a biased journalist - it makes you smart. It makes you act like a watchdog for the people, which by the way is your job.

You know who was the best watchdog for the people? Tim Russert. That guy didn't care who sat at his table each Sunday morning, he asked the tough questions. He listened to his guest (democrat or republican) and then proceeded to show them a clip of themselves months earlier saying the exact opposite thing. Did this make him biased? No. He was holding our leaders accountable and he was searching for the truth. And I liked that about him. (I have to admit I haven't watched David Gregory in this role. Maybe he does the job just as well, but I don't know.)

(There's another man who shines in this area, though he doesn't call himself a journalist. Jon Stewart. Sure, he may lean left politically and be a comic by profession, but he's not afraid to throw up clips of the president when he's screwing up or Nancy Pelosi when she stumbles over her words, just as he's not afraid to devote 10 minutes to the grossness that is Glen Beck.)

I think I really started turning off the news when the health care stuff kicked into high gear over the summer. The whole "death panel" conversation had me in a tizzy. To me, it didn't even seem like the reporters had actually read the bill. The American people are not going to read this bill for themselves. It's the responsibility of reporters (both print and TV) to spell it out for us. Tell us the truth, and if the truth comes out in favor of the president, that doesn't mean you're biased. Or vice versa. (This was also around the time Obama's citizenship was being questioned. I was so disappointed that story made it on TV news so many nights that it did. Why is that even a story? He was born in Hawaii. Done. Over. Next.)

Anyway, long rant longer, Eric Black of MinnPost has an awesome column that talks about just this stuff - the responsibility of journalists and how they're failing. He points to an amazing article in the Columbia Journalism Review about how journalism is becoming irrelevant. It is. Either people think all news organizations are biased, or they're like me and just sick of the laziness. The author, Brent Cunningham, says some wonderful things and makes valid points. For example:

Meanwhile, American journalism, too, is in a protracted moment of painful change. Both its business model and its sense of mission are in full retreat. Much experimentation is under way, with different financial-support structures, narrower editorial missions, collaborative projects, etc. There is an urgency, a humility, at news outlets about the need to rethink things that is long overdue.

So the press needs a new mission, and the nation needs someone to help initiate and lead the discussion of what kind of place America will be in the twenty-first century. It is not at all clear that our best news outlets have the will to become true arbiters of our public discourse, but given the increasing inadequacy of the journalistic status quo, and the nature of the challenges facing the country, such a mission shift could offer a crucial way forward for both the press and the public.

If you don't want to read the long Cunningham article, Black does pull some other great snippets in his own column. To all of it, I can only say: Right On. And then hope for a change.

Blogfest 2009

2009-09-23T02:10:00.000-05:00

Thanks to PopCandy I discovered Blogfest 2009: 40 authors, 14 questions, 2 weeks, 1 blog. Simon and Schuster got together several of their young adult authors to answer different questions every day for two weeks. The questions range from "Have you ever just wanted to give up?" to "Is it harder to write the first book opposed to the second?"

I've read through the first two days of answers, and they're pretty cool. I'm not familiar with many of the authors as I don't read too many young adult novels, but I like how their answers really vary. I also like how some are long-winded as you'd expect a writer to be, and others have really short answers.

My favorite answer so far came from Neil Shusterman on "What was the first thing you wrote?"

The first thing I remember writing was a Halloween story in third grade. My teacher (who didn’t like me very much) gave me a D-minus on it, because in this story, the ground opened up, swallowed my third grade teacher, and closed up again, squirting blood everywhere (I didn’t like her much either.) She used to get so annoyed at me, she would throw me out of the classroom, and send me to the library just to get rid of me. That’s where I developed a love of reading, and eventually writing.

Hilarious! I plan to keep reading for the entire two weeks. I'm especially interested in the answers to the questions "Is it difficult to get a book published" and "Who are your favorite authors and what are your favorite books?" I can only imagine how different the answers will be.

Book Headlines

2009-09-19T13:11:00.000-05:00

Here's a list of book-related articles I've discovered recently:

+ A few weeks back I happened upon this article where the world's second-largest publisher says eBooks will kill the hardcover. It's an interesting discussion because when Amazon can offer books for your Kindle for just $9.99, and you're the type of person who reads on a Kindle (I am not), why would you ever actually purchase a book again? I find it more interesting of a discussion as to how $9.99 was established as the price (similar to how did iTunes establish $0.99 for a song?). Because once that price is established, no other seller can really dare to charge more than that. (We can get into why this is a problem with the Internet, too: can't start charging people for online content when you've been offering it up for free for so long. But I won't go there.)

Some can suggest that physical books may go the way of the cassette tape, VHS or perhaps soon the CD or regular DVD, but I believe books will be around for a long time. Sure, publishers might have to renegotiate the ways in which they work, but who doesn't these days (i.e. newspapers/magazines)? Because, like the end of the article says, books have been around for hundreds of years, and you can't say that about the VCR or the CD player. I bet we won't even be able to say that about the iPod.

+ If you're into cooking, here's a list the Star Tribune put together: 20 cookbooks every cook should have. I don't own any of these, but then, I'm nowhere near a cook.

+ Minnesota Monthly has a nice Q & A with locally based, but nationally known author Vince Flynn. He offers up some great stories about the White House and other political figures. It's an interesting, quick read.

+ This was a big week in books because Dan Brown's sequel to Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol arrived on shelves. It broke a first-day record, selling more than 1 million copies. If you pay attention to big-time book news, it's no surprise that publisher Knopf Doubleday was counting on this book to make its year. I even heard rumors that a delay in the book's publishing actually caused the hurting publishing house to layoff a bunch of people several months ago. Can you imagine if your book was the lone book that was possibly keeping a publisher afloat? That's insane. What tremendous pressure. EW's review wasn't stellar, but I don't think that matters to Robert Langdon fans. I enjoyed the first two books, as quick, suspenseful reads, so I'd read this one too, though I don't think I'd purchase it for myself.

Book Clubs

2009-09-16T06:40:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, local online news source MinnPost launched its Book Club Club (BCC), a place where Minnesota book clubs of all shapes and sizes can register (for free) and be part of an online community. From the looks of it, BCC will feature different reading-related posts on which book lovers can comment. One of the first posts provides a timeline for the evolution of book clubs in the United States. It's very interesting; some of the highlights:

+ While it would be silly to believe Benjamin Franklin didn't have something to do with book clubs back in the day, I love that a majority of book-club history revolves around women.

+ I also love that in the late 1700s, Hannah Mather Crocker took the position that the study of science and literature was much more important for women than other "frivolous" activities. I can only imagine what activities she was talking about.

+ Mail-order book clubs (ex: The Literary Guild) began in the 1920s. By the 1980s, when big-box discounters really flourished, these mail-order clubs felt the hit.

+ And the best line from the timeline: "It is estimated that there are more than 5 million book club members in the United States. Most clubs have 10 or more members. 70 to 80 percent of clubs are all-female." It goes to show you that women love to learn, we love to socialize with each other, and we're all about putting those two things together.

You can also catch part I of an eight-part series on book clubs in Minnesota.

Lack of reading inspiration

2009-09-14T07:33:00.004-05:00

I'm not sure I've ever gone a full two weeks without a post. But the past month and a half have seen a lack of reading on my part. A big reason for it is because the book I've been reading hasn't been all that fun of a read for me and it took me a long time to get through. I also don't have any unread books on my shelf right now that peak my interest. My mom just loaned me Pillars of the Earth (which numerous people I know have read and have loved), but the thing weighs 10 pounds and is 1,000 pages - so it's a bit daunting to try and start it.

I have been reading lots of magazines though. My husband had like 6,000 Northwest Airlines frequent flier miles and when NWA merged with Delta, his miles were no good. So, to "make up" for it, they offered us the opportunity to get magazines for his miles. So we ordered like six new magazines for free. We had just purged and stopped subscriptions a bunch of magazines to save money, but these were free, so why not? We now get Health, Fast Company, Allure, Travel + Leisure, Details and Esquire (again) - this is on top of Entertainment Weekly, Motor Trend, Playstation, Wired and Sports Illustrated. (I also get Glamour as a replacement for the defunct Domino, and I'm sorry but Glamour sucks - bad design, bad edit, bad everything.)

So, we've found ourselves surrounded by piles of magazines, trying to read them all. However, if I just flip through Allure and Glamour and recycle after 10 minutes, I don't feel so bad, since we're not paying for them.

POTUS and Reading

2009-09-01T09:31:00.004-05:00

Because the Obama's took a vacation last week, it was necessary for the White House to release a list of books the president was bringing along. I find it all pretty ridiculous, and as the Slate column eludes, it just leads to an over interpretation of his leisure reading material. Can you imagine the thought that goes into this list? There has to be meetings about it, right? "He should have a couple of novels, so he doesn't look too snooty..." "Oh, but he has to read something pertinent to present day, like the environment..." "Something historical, too!" But if this is the case, according to Slate (who is going along with the over interpretation), the meetings weren't completely successful:

But his list is also clearly not poll-tested. Women played a key role in Obama's victory in 2008. They're swing voters. And yet all of Obama's authors are white men. The subject of the longest book, John Adams, is a dead white male. Obama couldn't get away with that in an election year, and, given his aides' penchant for cleaning up little things like this, we'll soon see the president with a copy of Kate Walbert's A Short History of Women.

In the end, do we really care? Does it really matter? Nah. I just want a president who reads, period. And I have no doubt our president has done a little reading in his lifetime. I actually think less of the publicized lists because I think they're manufactured. Maybe Obama really doesn't want to read those books. Maybe he's a closet Twilight fan (doubtful, but fun to imagine nonetheless). Or maybe he just wanted to take this vacation as a break from all the crazy and just spend time with his ladies. Perhaps instead reading bedtime stories to the girls, and spending the evening talking to his wife.

What do you think? Do you care what our president reads? Or does it just depend on who our president is to care what he reads?

****

I have to geek out for a second and summarize what comes to mind whenever I see the acronym POTUS: The very first scene in the very first episode of The West Wing, when Sam Seaborn is awoken out of the bed he shares with a beautiful woman to a text message: "POTUS fell off his bike." (Or something like that.) "POTUS?" asks the woman, wrapped in a sheet, looking over Sam's shoulder. "Who's POTUS?" As he dashingly hops out of bed and starts to dress, Sam says in all seriousness with a hint of a self-important tone, "The President of the United States." Gosh, I miss that show.

In Defense of Food

2009-08-27T08:07:00.004-05:00

Editor's Note: I'm happy to present a guest post written by my co-worker and friend, Marni. She's our foodie in the office, and her knowledge of Twin Cities restaurants and all-around food facts are greatly appreciated. She recently finished In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. (She read The Omnivore's Dilemma a while ago as well.) I have yet to read these books, but I know many people are interested in this theme, so I wanted to share Marni's educated and thoughtful comments. Thanks Marni!

I know it’s the fashionable thing to say now, but seriously, Michael Pollan’s writing in this and The Omnivore’s Dilemma has changed the way I think about food. I no longer pay attention to the “nutrition facts” (you’ll read in the book how we can’t really prove half of what we think we know about nutrition) on a bag of bread or box of crackers—I read the ingredients. I hear Michael Pollan’s voice in my head: “Does this item have more than five ingredients? Would my great-grandmother recognize this item as actual food? Would she ever have cooked with guar gum?”

Of course it’s impossible to expect all Americans to fundamentally change the way we eat—our way of life is dependent on the fact that we can purchase goods that are shipped from far away, that are pumped with preservatives, that last forever in storage and only take minutes to prepare. So while I think Pollan’s general rules of thumb are helpful, most people aren’t going to follow them religiously. At some points he gives some pretty pie-in-the-sky advice too, like how eaters should “involve themselves in food production to whatever extent they can, even if that only means planting a few herbs on a sunny windowsill or foraging for edible greens and wild mushrooms in the park.”

Foraging? For mushrooms? In the park? I think at one point he also recommends people buy a whole pig or sheep and freeze the different parts to make it more cost-effective to purchase grass-fed, organic meats. And while I don’t think there’s any inherent problem with this advice, it’s the best of all possible worlds he’s talking about here. Like I said, too many other things in our lives prevent us from living like this any more. Other parts of our culture—driving to work on highways, telecommuting to get more done, sitting in front of the TV and computer—they’ve all coevolved with this food system that we have today. We would no longer know how to function if we actually had to cook every single meal with natural, in-season ingredients, when really it wasn’t so long ago that that was the case. In that sense, the book causes you to think not just about how you eat, but about how you live. Because Pollan shows you how inextricably the two are linked.

I suppose Pollan can assume a level of commitment to quality food in his audience because of the very fact they have picked up his book. But I think the best of this book lies in what you personally decide to take away from it—not in following everything he says to do. Like tonight, I had a tasty frozen pizza from Target’s organic-imposter Archer Farms brand. It was delicious. But those are more of a treat for me now than a norm. When I go to the grocery store I really do think of the book’s mantra, “Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.” And once you read the book and understand what that means, you can pretty easily begin to apply it in small ways that I think, at least for me, actually make a difference. I cook more now. I eat more fruits and vegetables. Of course I still indulge in frozen pizza, Cheetos and other “edible foodlike substances” from time to time, and I have yet to start an adorable windowsill herb-growing operation or forage in the park for mushrooms, but I guess you’ve gotta start somewhere.

Summer of Movies, Part II

2009-08-24T09:44:00.003-05:00

I didn't plan to write a second act to my first post, but I've seen another handful of summer flicks (and I'm lacking in book posts right now) that I thought were worth mentioning.

Public Enemies: We saw this movie over Fourth of July, I believe. There were reasons I liked it, and some things that were disappointments. Johnny Depp and Marion Cotillard were wonderful. I absolutely believed him as John Dillinger, and their love story was sweet and sultry. I thought the action scenes were pretty well shot. It was interesting to learn about the beginnings of the FBI, bank robbers' lifestyles and the mixings with the mob. It was also amazing to see them have shoot outs in plain daylight and get away. Crazy. However, I thought the movie's cuts between scenes were poorly done and the swelling music was rather cheesy. The sound and the coloring seemed off too, and because I talked to others who saw the movie at different theaters and said the same things, I don't believe this was just at my viewing.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: I already made some comments about the movie in this post, but I'll just reiterate a little bit. I still love these characters to no end, even more so now that they've grown up. While it's hard to condense these books down for screen, I think the film did justice to the book. The only part that lacked for me was the ending. I think the drama could've been played up so much more here. It kind of fizzled. But that's just a small part of the entire film, which I greatly enjoyed. Ron during the quidditch match was hilarious - well played!

500 Days of Summer: This was a trailer I watched at the same time as the Away We Go trailer back in April. I knew I had to see this movie, too. While she tends to play similar characters, I have a tiny love for Zooey Deschanel. And I loved this movie. It's not your typical romantic comedy in any way, and it really gets to the heart of the relationship. The time-shifting technique works well here, and the writing is so funny. I'm not unique in saying that my favorite scene is Tom's post-intimacy song and dance: Who doesn't love Hall & Oates' "You Make My Dreams," and when Tom looks in a store window to see a historical movie stud staring back at him, I almost died laughing. Fabulous and fun this movie. (For the boys out there, the hubby loved this one too.)

District 9: This was the hubby's choice, and he loved it. I thought the movie was interesting in its obviously "bigger meaning" ways. To think about how we separate those different than the majority is pretty sad. It also makes you wonder what we would do if beings from other worlds were to enter ours. But because of the deeper issues it raises, the movie depressed me, which means I didn't enjoy it very much. I have trouble enjoying depressing movies, but that's just me. The effects were great for such a small budget and the main actor, Sharlto Copley (who has never, ever acted before), was pretty bloody brilliant, especially when you know he improvised quite a few of his lines.

We don't have any movies on the list currently (I think I'll keep The Time Traveler's Wife for rental), but I know fall will bring several more we want to see including New Moon, The Informant, Shutter Island, Couples Retreat, Whip It, Where the Wild Things Are, and Sherlock Holmes. How about you?

Book Clutter

2009-08-13T03:30:00.000-05:00

One of my bffs put me on to Unclutterer, a blog about getting and staying organized. I try to check it a couple times of week, and one post from last week fits right along with this blog: Clear Bad Book Clutter From Your Life and Your Bookshelves. Not only does the author say it's perfectly OK to put down a bad book, but she also encourages us to abandon bad books from our homes entirely.

I've talked about my thoughts on "bad" books before. I said that as I get older, I find it an awful waste of time to keep reading a book that can't seem to hold my interest. This has happened more and more lately, and I'm happy to hear someone else (Unclutterer, as well as the Washington Times article she references) say it's OK.

Also, I tend to go through my bookshelves once or twice a year and pack up a bag for the half-priced bookstore. I have one paper bag full now, but I think it's time to do another go round. I only want to keep the classics in my mind (Harry Potter, David Sedaris), my absolute favorites (see sidebar), and those I think others might want to borrow someday (Twilight, most recently). It can be hard to part with books, but I find if I go in with little emotion about it, it can be a quick and easy task.

How often do you purge your bookshelves? What books must stay on your shelves, whether considered "clutter" or not?

I Was Told There'd Be Cake

2009-08-10T06:10:00.001-05:00

I just finished Sloane Crosley's I Was Told There'd be Cake, a book of essays of her "coming of age" in Manhattan. Essay compilations can be hit or miss. You have authors who consistently knock your socks off (Sedaris) and others who don't. I'd say Crosley falls in between somewhere. I wasn't too entertained by a few essays, but others made me smile and nod in agreement. [Added 8-12-09: Crosley has been nominated for the Thurber Prize for American Humor - congrats!]

After I read the book, I listened to a Barnes & Noble podcast that interviewed the author. Listening to her speak about her work, it made me appreciate it more. The book actually stemmed from an e-mail. Crosley decided to compose a humorous e-mail on her adventure in moving from one Manhattan apartment to the other, basically just a rant about her experience with lots and lots of detail. A friend at the Village Voice saw some potential in it, had her add an introduction and, bam, she’s writing for them.

She said the book is about “dashed expectations,” which makes perfect sense and is completely relatable (how often do you expect something, anything in life to be awesome and it turns out not to be?). For example, she was disappointed by her first apartment, her first volunteer job, her first real job, her first bridesmaid experience, her first non-one-night stand. That’s what these stories are really about and once I heard that, more of them became relevant to me and I understood the book a bit more – and found I liked it more than I thought.

I also liked that she didn’t focus on what a lot of female writers focus on: dating. She had maybe two references to dating/sex in the book, but otherwise, she said she purposely tried to sidestep that stuff. While dating mishaps are funny, too, sometimes it's nice to read about other things, like turning 16 or moving to Australia. In the interview she says, “You just jump into it and hope your weirdest, more bizarre experiences someone can relate to.” Overall, more hits than misses in this book.

Jennifer Johnson is Sick of Being Single

2009-08-06T08:32:00.001-05:00

A couple weeks ago I read Jennifer Johnson is Sick of Being Single by Heather McElhatton (another freebie from work). The novel follows the path of Jen, a single Minnesota girl who works downtown at a Macy’s-like department store (in marketing). She has a love-hate relationship with her sister, a gay best friend, a big mouth, an infuriating boss and a long string of bad dates. The book has all the ingredients for a typical, ho-hum chick lit novel. But I give McElhatton some credit, because this one is a bit different.

Her characters are hilarious. I laughed out loud quite a few times. I loved all the Minnesota references. Jen does meet a man and “nab” him, but the way their relationship goes from there is not like every other female-centered novel. There are no cute little jealous misunderstandings, the man is far from Prince Charming, and though she always wanted to meet the man she’d marry, Jen remains, in the long run, slightly ambivalent about it.

It really is a different type of novel masked at chick lit, starting with the Barbie doll on the cover. You can even read nearly the entire thing and think you’re reading a Bridget Jones or Jennifer Weiner book (though this is written better), but you get to the end and…whoa. Threw me for a loop and I closed the book with some shock, some sadness, but then some pleasure because, jeez, I didn’t know that was coming.

The Lovely Bones trailer

2009-08-05T08:05:00.003-05:00

You can click here to watch the trailer for The Lovely Bones. I really enjoyed this book, and I was anxious to see how they would make a movie about it. But after watching this, I'm not sure. The heaven scenes look a little too trippy and the suspenseful music and scary scenes at the end don't really remind me of the book I read. I'm sure I'll still see the movie, and I'm sure different trailers will come out that I'll probably feel differently about, but after first viewing, I have my doubts.

For the Love of First Grade

2009-08-03T06:04:00.001-05:00

When we were at the theater waiting for Half-Blood Prince to start, we saw a “first look” at the new animated movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. It’s based on a children’s book by the same name. [Description from Amazon: “If food dropped like rain from the sky, wouldn't it be marvelous! Or would it? It could, after all, be messy. And you'd have no choice. What if you didn't like what fell? Or what if too much came? Have you ever thought of what it might be like to be squashed flat by a pancake?”]

I loved this book as a child, however, most everyone I know has never heard of it. I gave it to my nephews for Christmas, and no one there had ever heard of it. The friends we were at the movie with had never heard of it either. I’ve had the same experience with other books and authors from my childhood: William Steig (he wrote Shrek, by the way, but also lovely books like The Amazing Bone and Dr. De Soto), James Marshall (Miss Nelson is Missing, Miss Nelson is Back - hilarious), Tomie dePaola (Strega Nona = love for me), Nancy Carlson (meeting her was an elementary school highlight) and so many more.

The one thing all these books have in common? My first grade teacher, Mrs. Larson. I’ve always held a special place in my heart for Mrs. Larson. I think her class is where I got my love for reading. Also writing. She had us write about our weekends every Monday and I loved those assignments (Over the weekend I…). She was encouraging. You always wanted to get your paper back with a little pop bottle drawn on it, because that meant she’d buy you one from the teacher’s lounge for doing such a good job. She was fun. I always wanted to make her proud.

I owe a lot to Mrs. Larson, perhaps more than any other teacher I had, and she taught first grade. First grade. It goes to show you how experiences when we’re young can truly shape us.

Do you have a teacher or another adult who shaped who you’ve become or who guided you toward who you are now?

NPR Audience Votes: 100 Best Beach Reads

2009-07-31T05:53:00.001-05:00

Thanks to the always helpful MinnPost, I came across NPR's Audience Picks for the 100 Best Beach Reads Ever. Yes, ever. It's quite interesting to peruse the list. (Feel free to do the same and come back if you'd like.)

Out of the top 10, I've read seven (and have at least started, but not finished, two others). Out of all 100, if my memory serves me correctly, I've read 20. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and Pillars of the Earth are on my Amazon Wish List already. I've also enjoyed several of these books (Under the Tuscan Sun, The Princess Bride, Cold Mountain, etc.) as movies.

I enjoyed MinnPost's Amy Goetzman's column about the list. She's a bit surprised more Minnesota authors didn't make the list. I agree with her suggestions, particularly Shannon Olson and Lorna Landvik. They'd make my summer reading list (and have) any day.

What about you? How many have you read? Any arguments for those books MIA?

Does Pop Culture Make Us Feel Safe Again?

2009-07-29T18:15:00.002-05:00

Through my Twitter feed at work, I discovered this New York Times article, “Harry Potter is their Peter Pan.” It talks about how Generation Y, roughly those born between 1980 and 2003 (though other articles say Gen Yers are born between 1977 and 1995, which I personally prefer. It’s hard to imagine I have anything in common with someone born in 2003), are latching on to nostalgic movements, i.e. Harry Potter, late- or early-‘90s reunited bands, etc. [Note: I also wrote a bit about Generation Y here.]

The reason? The current state of the world has us searching for the security blanket of pre-9/11 life, when we weren’t at war, our jobs (or our parents’ jobs) were secure, and everyone was just happier.

It’s an interesting theory. I could maybe chalk up my love for Harry Potter and Saved By the Bell (Zack Morris on Jimmy Fallon was more than funny; it was brilliant) to a return to innocence. It’s soothing to think about the time in my life when those things were new to me. When New Kids on the Block got back together last year, it gave my best friend in third grade and I a chance to be those screaming, sighing girls again – however, this time over e-mail: “Did you see them sing on the Today show” and “Donnie hasn’t changed a bit” – and remember our childhood of Jordan Knight t-shirts, collecting stickers and all-around elementary school fun. I connected with her on a level I haven’t been able to in a long time.

And that’s just it. I don’t think it’s necessarily all about remembering better, safer times. I think it’s more about reconnecting. It’s more about reliving, and not because our current lives are lacking, but just because it’s fun. It’s why I still watch Friends reruns. It’s why I can’t believe Ally McBeal could just be coming out on DVD. It’s why I love any reference to The Princess Bride. It’s why I’m nearly exasperated when little kids don’t know who Ramona is or the Muppet Babies (or why I love my brother and sister-in-law because my niece and nephews love Tom & Jerry reruns).

Those bands, books, TV shows made me who I am. And if I like who I am, then of course I’m going to like revisiting how I got here. And while I can somewhat push my favorite things on the little kids in my life (Christmas and birthday presents), I’m also curious to see what will form their personalities and who they become.

What bits of popular culture do you look back on fondly? What will the kids of today have to look back on, do you think?

How Young is Too Young? Plus, Half-Blood Prince.

2009-07-27T09:07:00.001-05:00

I liked this story in our local Star Tribune (courtesy of Associated Press). It talks about how second-generation Harry Potter fans don’t get the chance to “grow up” alongside Harry. If you were 10 when Sorcerer’s Stone came out, then you were 20 when Deathly Hollows hit shelves. At 20, you’re prepared for the darkness of death and war that takes place in the seventh book.

However, if you’re a parent interested in starting your kids on Potter now, and if they really enjoy them, you could end up going from book one to book seven in as little as a year or two (or less). Would your 8-year-old be ready for Deathly Hollows? Your 10-year-old? And if not, how do you tell them, “I know you love Harry, but we have to wait until you’re older to keep going…”

But, as the article says, maybe that’s exactly what you have to do. I loved the story of the 9-year-old boy who was reading Half-Blood Prince before the movie came out this month. Before he gets to the end, he’s so upset he stops reading and tells his dad to sell his movie ticket; he’s not going.

I completely understand, kid. Half-Blood is brutal. I’m surprised he even got through Order of the Phoenix. That ending just about killed me. And I was 22 when I read it.

There are plenty of books like this out there, too—series that grow as their characters grow (Traveling Pants, Twilight). From innocent kisses to sex. From talking it through to major violence. So, if you’re lucky to be there at the beginning, the transition is usually seamless. But if you’re second-generation readers, or parents who can’t wait for your kids to love Harry or Carmen or Bella as much as you did, then you have some thinking to do.

What do you think? How do you rein in little readers if they’re diving into territory they shouldn’t be? What other books offer up this conundrum?

******

I saw Half-Blood Prince over the weekend and I really enjoyed it. Big surprise, huh? I did think it was a touch too long. I can imagine how hard it is to cut down one of those books to fit a movie, but I think even if it were just 20 minutes shorter, that would've made a difference, and maybe left a little more time to make the ending a bit more impactful. Overall, the movies have come a long way. They keep getting more exciting, more humorous and more mature. It's probably because the kids keep growing up, but I like the movies more and more as the series goes on.

Believe Me

2009-07-23T08:33:00.004-05:00

As I mentioned previously, Believe Me by Nina Killham, is about a teenage boy who, despite being raised by an atheist mother, starts going to bible study and church with some kids from school. This really throws his mom for a loop, and like you’d expect, many conversations about the universe and heaven take place.

I thought Killham’s portrayal of a teenage boy was pretty spot on. Nic is moody, interested in girls, confused all around. He seemed a touch too smart for his age, but his parents are both college professors, so maybe his high intelligence is probable. I found it interesting that Nic was suddenly so interested in God, but I think the reason he responded to it had less to do with “religion” and more to do with having someone to talk to and believe in (God), knowing there is a place to go when you die (heaven) and just fitting in with a group of kids (his fellow students).

The book brings up the question: How would you react if your child decided to go against all you raised him to be? I actually think his mom, Lucy, handled the situation pretty realistically. Shock, at first, some anger, but then she just let him do his own thing. She was a bit judgmental toward his church friends, but I think his church friends were actually way more judgmental of her. His friends would actually say to Nic that his mom was going to be damned to Hell. Who says that to a kid? Nice.

The book was predictable in the end because (obviously) some sort of tragedy will strike so everyone’s faith comes into question. Is it enough of a tragedy to make either Nic or his mom change their beliefs? As I was reading I thought to myself, if that’s the case, I will not enjoy the ending. Too easy.

The book is quick, funny (Nic is pretty hilarious) and a decent story. There were some parts I thought were a little far-fetched or convenient, and some of the characters weren’t as fleshed out as I would've like. But overall, a decent read. I’m going to look into Killham’s first novel, How to Cook a Tart. I’ve read some good things about that one.

RIP Frank McCourt & the Moon

2009-07-20T08:26:00.005-05:00

I loved Angela's Ashes. While it tells of his quite depressing childhood, and made me very sad at times, the book is a lovely piece of literature. Here is an obit from CNN.

Also, even if you're not that into it, please take a moment to realize how freakin' amazing it was that 40 years ago today, two men walked on the moon. The moon. It's a shame we haven't been back.

Jane Austen and Northanger Abbey

2009-07-17T09:17:00.005-05:00

My bff wants to start a book club, so she charged a few of us with reading Jane Austen. I have to say, I felt this was quite ambitious for a book club start out. Though, maybe it’s just me. I read Pride & Prejudice in college because my roommate at the time loved it and the women in my office raved about the Colin Firth movie. The book is good, don’t get me wrong, but it was my first introduction to Austen – or really any book written from that time – and, well, it made me feel kind of stupid. I’m not sure I understood half of what was going on. What the hell is she talking about, I kept thinking. It takes them a paragraph to say something I could say in a sentence. I’d get snippets of the story eventually, and could piece together what was happening, but it was so wordy, so involved, so old-fashioned. In the end, I enjoyed the story, but I felt it took way too much effort to get through.

So, I was apprehensive to say the least about diving into Northanger Abbey, our first Jane Austen book to read. I found the book on sale at Barnes & Noble (they have really good deals on the classics) and, luckily for me the book came with notes and an introduction by a present-day scholar. I read the introduction and got a really good idea of the story line, which helped me out quite a bit while I was reading it. He also created footnotes to explain the old-fashioned words. Those I didn’t need too much because with the context of the sentence you can figure it out, but still, helpful.

And I liked it. I didn’t love it, but I was able to get through it easier than P&P several years ago, and I felt like I comprehended more of it than I thought I would. There were still plenty of times I thought, Seriously, what are you talking about and please get on with it, but maybe that’s just another Austen trait. (Maega and I were talking about this book the other day, and mentioned how Austen tends to use her books as platforms for what she believes. She doesn’t follow the “rules” that the author should remain anonymous, but instead puts her feelings right out there in the pages. Interesting.)

Her books are also filled with misunderstanding. I think that’s her humor style. It probably sounds weird, but they remind me of episodes of Frasier. Each episode of that show revolved around some stupid misunderstanding. (Daphne hears one thing, Niles hears another, Frasier acts weird, shenanigans follow.) It frustrated me so much! Just figure it out! So, I find myself feeling that way with this book (and P&P) – a little frustrated.

The structure of the story was odd. It took quite a long while, more than half the book, to get to what the back cover said the book was actually about – and even then, it was just a minor part of the story. The book is more about the main character, Catherine’s relationship with two different sets of siblings. It’s not really about Northanger Abbey and “its secrets.” Though, maybe I’m missing some symbolism here, which is quite possible. So, I felt the ending was very abrupt. However, this book was published posthumously and Austen never actually had it properly edited. A good edit could do this book wonders. Tighten things up, fix contradictions, etc. (This is also one of the shortest of her works. I’m worried about getting through the longer ones like Emma and Mansfield Park.)

So, what Austen books have you read? Does anyone else have trouble reading books from so long ago? Or is it just me? I felt really great about myself when I read some customer reviews and the women were saying they read Jane Austen at age 10. Are you kidding?! I read a ton at age 10, but not Jane Austen.

What other classics do you enjoy?

Potter Mania

2009-07-15T07:46:00.003-05:00

In honor of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in theaters today, here's a list of links to Harry Potter-related posts I've written, and anything else Harry I could find today:

Half-Blood Prince trailer.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows.

J.K. Rowling podcast, parts I and II.

Tomorrow night my DVR will be set to ABC for the documentary that followed Rowling during the year leading up to the release of Deathly Hollows.

Last week's Entertainment Weekly's cover story was on Harry. I can't believe how grown up these kids are (and they so far seem very well adjusted). Also, here's EW's review of the movie.

Our local Star Tribune's review. It surprises me that the film is back to being rated PG. They're only getting more scary and more complex.

I'll leave it at that. I plan to see the movie soon, but unlike reading the books, I don't have to see this before everyone else. I've been trying to catch Order of the Phoenix on TV, but it was only playing on HBO. I did watch Goblet of Fire recently though. All the films are fabulous. I love that they're a who's who of English actors too - Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, this time Jim Broadbent who I've loved ever since Moulin Rouge, Emma Thompson, Helena Boham Carter and Robbie Coltrane. Seriously, all they're missing is Hugh Grant and Keira Knightly (though, that doesn't mean I'm suggesting they would be right for these movies... No.).

Anyway, Happy Harry Potter Day!

Post No. 200: I'm Sorry Your Feel that Way, The Astonishing but True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother, and Friend to Man and Dog

2009-07-10T07:59:00.005-05:00

Two hundred posts in less than two years - I feel that's pretty good, especially when most all I write about is books and related topics. When I set out to write this blog in October 2007, I wasn't sure what would come from it. But, I enjoy having this outlet to write about the books I read. I find that I read more carefully now when I know I have to share my thoughts with you. Sure, I phone it in sometimes by pasting a summary here and there, but most often I do that with books I feel just OK about. Books I love or that make me think, well, I'm happy to have this venue in which to write about them. Unfortunately this milestone is being honored with a so-so review.

Diana Joseph's I'm Sorry You Feel that Way was just OK for me. In each chapter, Joseph talks about a different man in her life: her 14-year-old son (at different ages), her live-in boyfriend, her exes, her brothers, her dad, her boss, her dog (not a man, but male). Some chapters, or parts of chapters, were funny. I like the way she described the relationships with her brothers. Lots of siblings have special relationships and they're fun to learn about. One brother is hard to talk to because he just doesn't have that much to say, while the other brother can keep her on the phone for hours talking about his sexual exploits.

I also thought the chapters about her son were interesting. She raised him by herself mostly, and it's always interesting to learn about parenting styles: How do you handle it when he has opinions much different than yours? Why is he always in his room playing video games? Some of her observations about her son were pretty hilarious and the way she talked to him or embarrassed him were funny, too. But, the rest of the book lacked luster, I guess. In some chapters I just wasn't interested at all (her alcoholic boss, her pervert friend, her hump-happy dog) and through quite a few, I just skimmed to get to the next chapter.

It's hard to say you don't like reading about someone's life. It obviously seemed interesting enough for her to get a book published, and I do think she has good writing skills and good humor, but maybe it was the way she decided to write about her life? Granted, this was an unabridged, unpublished version we got free in the mail at work. Maybe it's improved since then?

Middlesex on HBO?

2009-07-07T07:21:00.005-05:00

Rita Wilson, aka Ms. Tom Hanks, is looking to bring the novel Middlesex to the small screen as an hour-long drama on HBO. I'm not sure what to think about that. I can see how it would work - following the life of a hermaphrodite - but do you think people would watch it?

I tried to think of other books that have become TV shows: Little House on the Prairie, Friday Night Lights, Gossip Girl, True Blood (those last two are based on books, right?)... but what else? I think this is less of an occurrence than book-to-big-screen.

Heather McElhatton

2009-07-06T07:59:00.002-05:00

I read Pretty Little Mistakes, by Heather McElhatton, last year and really enjoyed it. I've put her latest book, Jennifer Johnson is Sick of Being Single, on my Amazon Wish List, and I look forward to A Million Little Mistakes coming out sometime soon.

McElhatton is from Minnesota, a former producer for Minnesota Public Radio, so it's obvious the local Star Tribune would interview her for an article. She's a humorous, engaging woman, with a talent I envy. She thinks there should be a genre rivaling Chick Lit called Bitch Lit and she has interesting views on matrimony.

My favorite quote from the article is the last one: "I love traveling, but there's nowhere else in the world but Minnesota where I can recharge my batteries. I think of it as the world's library: It's cold, quiet, calm, peaceful, thoughtful -- and there's plenty of parking."

Summer of Movies

2009-07-02T06:52:00.000-05:00

I know the summer technically just started, but once July hits, for me it actually feels like it's already half over. Even so, this summer has been great for movies. I love the movie theater and we've taken time nearly every weekend to make it to a flick, which is helped by the fact that there are plenty we've wanted to see.

Terminator Salvation: We're Terminator fans. I never was until I met my husband who introduced me to the movies. If you can get over the cheesy '80s-ness of Terminator, the annoying-ness that can be Edward Furlong in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and the I-can't-believe-he's-governor thoughts throughout Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the movies are clever, inventive and action-packed. I loved the short-lived, two-season run of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Fox; I was sad for days when I heard it wouldn't return. Maybe it was because I became a fan 20 years too late, but I was pumped for Salvation. And it didn't disappoint. Christian Bale kicks butt as John Connor, and while many reviews claimed there wasn't much of a story line, I disagree. I really enjoyed it.

Up: I have to say, I had my doubts. Could Pixar really have a hit for the 10th time in a row? Ratatouille was probably my least favorite of all Pixar movies (with WALL-E and Toy Story 2 being my absolute faves), and I still liked that one a lot. But a movie about an old man flying his house to South America? I don't know. I was happy to be proven wrong - so wrong. That movie moved me more than any of the others. Maybe because it was actually about humans this time, instead of toys, bugs or monsters, but I fell in love with Carl (I have always been an Ed Asner fan) and Russell. That movie made me cry three separate times. A feat not achieved by any of the other Pixar films. Squirrel!

The Hangover: Here's another movie that I went into with low expectations. I knew it would be funny, so it's a perfect summer movie to see on a rainy Saturday. But, I'm not a huge fan of gross-out, boy-humor comedies. The 40-year-old Virgin, while funny, was mostly painful for me to watch. Superbad, again funny, but so disturbing to think "that's" all that high school boys think about. But this movie was hilarious and entertaining. I was only uncomfortable during the end credits - really about the only part of the movie that was over-the-top offensive. Otherwise, Ed Helms was in true form and I liked Zach Galifianakis, who I never had seen much of before. Bradley Cooper played the same d-bag character he's played a lot lately (though he redeemed himself at the end a bit), but I can see how this movie will make him the next big leading man. There's talk of a sequel, but I'm not sure what else you could do here - why the heck would these guys ever go to Vegas again?

Away We Go: Two words: Loved It. The moment I first saw the trailer a few months ago, I knew I had to see this movie. And it did not disappoint. Maya Rudolph was beautiful, thoughtful and serious. John Krasinski, while a touch Jim-like, showed extreme depth in his character too, especially in the scenes on the trampoline and at the bar in Montreal. There were several scenes where, while watching, I thought to myself, "That's just like me and [the hubby]," which made the movie that much more special. I loved how each half could freak out about their lives and the other would calm them down. That's important in a relationship. Freak-outs are fine, necessary even, but just try not to freak out at the same time as your partner. And there were so many hilarious supporting characters! I highly recommend this movie.

The Proposal: If you're in the mood for a mindless romantic comedy, this movie delivers. It's very cute, but also very predictable. Me? I don't mind that so much. I was just looking to be entertained, and I was. Sandra Bullock was in true form and Ryan Reynolds is never hard to watch on screen. Plus, I'm thrilled to see that Betty White is getting only more popular as she ages. She's a hit in this movie, as is Oscar Nunez. Maybe it's not necessary to see it in the theater, but it's a great girls'-night rental.

When it comes to movies, I'm not that picky, nor am I the best critic. But I've been loving this Summer of Movies. Movies to see in July: Public Enemies and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

City of Thieves

2009-06-29T11:37:00.001-05:00

I finished City of Thieves over the weekend, and I loved it. Like I mentioned before, author David Benioff, wrote The 25th Hour and was the screenwriter for Wolverine. City of Thieves is actually a novel based on the events of a week in the life of his Russian grandfather when he was 17 years old.

In the midst of WWII as the Germans are closing in on Leningrad and several other Russian cities, Lev is taken prisoner by the Soviets for breaking curfew and stealing. To keep his life, he must find a dozen eggs for the colonel, with the help of fellow prisoner Koyla. The story follows the two boys (they’re so young, I can’t call them men) as they make their way across enemy lines to find eggs.

I loved the book for its different look at the war. I don’t believe I’ve ever read about it from the Russian side. The people were starving and wasting away. They couldn’t find bread, let alone anything else good to eat. So, obviously, eggs were nearly impossible to come by. The book is full of action, Koyla is a welcome comic relief, and the boys’ relationship grows more over five days than they probably ever expected. While it’s quite sexually explicit – they are boys, so what else would be on their minds, even in the middle of war? – you can glide over that if necessary.

I thought the book was extremely well written, engaging, quick, realistic and actually sweet in some parts. And to know that it might be based in a lot of truth makes it that much better. Here’s a quote that doesn’t give too much away, but offers a glimpse at the adventure these boys went on:

The days had become a confusion of catastrophes; what seemed impossible in the afternoon was blunt fact by the evening. German corpses fell from the sky; cannibals sold sausage links made from ground human in the Haymarket; apartment blocs collapsed to the ground; dogs became bombs; frozen soldiers became signposts; a partisan with half a face stood swaying in the snow, staring sad-eyed at his killers. I had no food in my belly, no fat on my bones, and no energy to reflect on this parade of atrocities. I just kept moving, hoping to find another half slice of bread for myself and a dozen eggs for the colonel’s daughter.

Best Picture, 10 nominations

2009-06-24T13:17:00.003-05:00

I know this isn't book related, but I'd love to get some opinions. The Academy has announced that starting for 2009, 10 films will compete for the Best Picture Oscar. With only one winner.

I can see what they're doing. Several times there's been uproar over films absent from the Academy's top category (The Dark Knight, for example, as well as numerous noteworthy comedies that never make the cut. For some reason Best = Drama.). So, increase the number of nominees, and people/studios will be happier, right? After all, it's just an honor to be nominated.

With that in mind, sure, 10 noms sounds like a great idea. However, I stumble on the fact that there will still only be five slots for best director, actor and actress (supporting, screenplay, song, etc.). Does that seem fair? Particularly in the director category? How can you claim a film is one of the best, yet its director is not. (Granted, this still happens with just five slots. Directors get left off all the time. That doesn't mean it makes sense to me.) And, if a wider range/number of films can be up for the honor, why not the actors who starred in them? But then, it would be pretty ridiculous to make every category 10 nominations long, wouldn't it?

My quick opinion: Leave well enough alone. Your thoughts?

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

2009-06-24T07:13:00.004-05:00

I've known for years that Danica McKellar, aka Winnie Cooper, love of Kevin Arnold, on The Wonder Years, was more than just a pretty face. She studied math a UCLA and she's written two books, Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail and Kiss My Math: Showing Pre-Algebra Who's Boss.

When I first heard about her cutesy titled, but brilliant-idea books, I thought how cool it would've been if those were around when I was learning math. Here's a gorgeous, semi-famous woman who actually likes math and is taking the time to explain it in a fun, girly way. It's just what seventh/eighth-grade girls need.

Kiss My Math was the latest book on the counter in the kitchen at work and I snatched it up. I don't plan on reading it cover to cover any time soon, but I don't doubt I'll pull it out at different points in time when I need a little pre-Algebra refresher. Just flipping through it and seeing an x-y axis, negative numbers and integrals made me break out in a bit of a sweat. But the cursive and handwritten fonts, fun preteen quizzes and cute chapter titles make it all seem a little less scary.

McKellar's hit on something here - a child star who's successful, smart and with it, go figure - and I hope she writes a few more books, too. Maybe take on Calculus? Because that crap's hard.

And, for a little nostalgia - a Winnie/Kevin montage:

Fortune Cookie Chronicles Fun Facts

2009-06-18T07:40:00.002-05:00

As promised, though a day late, here are some cool tidbits I learned from this book.

1. There are 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S. More than McDonald's, Burger King and KFC combined. I like what the author says: Think about how many times you eat apple pie. Then think about how many times you eat Chinese. What do you think is more American?

2. A Chinese restaurant in Virginia had to install bulletproof glass around one of its tables - it's where both Bushes liked to eat while President.

3. During the Gold Rush, thousands of Chinese flooded into the West. Americans used the way they ate to help persecute and discriminate against them: "Real Men Couldn't Live on Rice Alone."

4. The Chinese Exclusion Act, passed between 1882 and 1902, was the only law in the history of the U.S. to exclude a group by race and ethnicity. When the jobs and opportunities for them disappeared, the Chinese enterprised and opened laundromats and restaurants.

5. There's an interesting chapter in the book about how "chop suey" was actually one big joke started in the early 1900s. However, Americans loved it and women would try their hardest to make it themselves at home. Soon Chinese dishes could be found in The Joy of Cooking.

6. Because the Chinese (in China) love parts of food that Americans don't (i.e. chicken feet, pigs ears, etc.), these American leftovers are some of our biggest exports to China.

7. Approximately 300,000 Fujianese (from Fuzhou, a southeastern region in China) have come to the U.S. in the past 20 years. If the immigrant paid to be smuggled in, the going rate this decade is some $70,000. I like this quote (and it's why I will now think differently when I go to my local Chinese restaurant):

"There is a fairly good chance that the Chinese restaurant worker who cooked your roast pork fried rice, or the woman who took your order on the phone, or the deliveryman who showed up at your door paid tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of doing so."

8. Because it contains vegetables, busy moms across the country choose Chinese over other takeout options because it's considered more healthy.

9. While this isn't Chinese related, I learned that the nascent restaurant industry boomed after the French Revolution, which is why our vocab is filled with words like "hors d'oeuvres" and "menu."

I'm nearly done with the book. At the end of the book, Lee is traveilng around the world, from Brazil to Vancouver to Korea, trying to find the "greatest" Chinese restaurant in the world. Must be rough, huh?

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food

2009-06-16T15:29:00.004-05:00

In 2005, more than 100 people won some sort of money through the Powerball lottery. This was an unprecedented amount of winners, sucking up a majority of the Powerball's reserves. How did this happen? Nearly every winner found their numbers from a fortune cookie. This led Jennifer Lee on a search for the history of the fortune cookie and the story behind Chinese food in America.

I've found this book pretty interesting throughout. Lee travels all over the world in search of the origins of the fortune cookie (hint: not China), and she travels all over the world looking for the best Chinese food. Chinese people pay tens of thousands of dollars to be smuggled into America just to work in Chinese restaurants - the only place they can work and not have to learn English. Chinese restaurants have exploded in this country, and they change hands between families often. Not only do you learn about the food, but you learn a little bit about Chinese history as well. If you're interested in that, I recommend the book. Just be warned: it'll make you hungry. And even more so, it'll make you look at your favorite Chinese place differently.

Tomorrow I'll post some fun facts that I learned throughout the book. I won't give anything major away, but some of the facts are just too amazing or cool not to share.