New Book by Burroughs

"From the author of 'Dry', 'Running With Scissors', 'Wolf at the Table' and 'Magical Thinking'  is the latest offering from the viciously funny Augusten Burroughs, 'You Better Not Cry' from St. Martin's Press:

Augusten Burroughs has, and in this caustically funny, nostalgic, poignant, and moving collection he recounts Christmases past and present-as only he could. With gimleteyed wit and illuminated prose, Augusten shows how the holidays bring out the worst in us and sometimes, just sometimes, the very, very best."

Okay, now my words:  I love Burroughs.  Running with Scissors and Possible Side Effects are hilarious, insightful, and well written.  If you still aren't sold, check out this book trailer:

Now then, how do you win a copy you might ask. St. Martin's is offering you the chance to win the book in a sweepstake, so head over to http://us.macmillan.com/smp/promo/youbetternotcry and get entered!

Movie Review: Snapshots

The Littlest Princess - Aug. 1

I was just looking for something, anything to watch, so when I flipped to some opening credits, I figured why not. About one minute in, I realized I had seen this film before and while I didn't remember the plot, I did remember the feeling. The film features a young girl at boarding school, who after her dad dies in the war, is relegated to the position of servant by the evil, spinstress mistress of the school. It is a typical plot, but the film has interesting details and subplots that make it less formulaic than one would think.

The Incredible Hulk - Oct. 11
Edward Norton and Liv Tyler star in the film. Relatively good movie, action, and - thank heavens - no intense focus on the love story. All I can think about is the enigmatic ending with Robert Downey Jr. as Stark/Ironman telling the General “they” are putting together a team. When is that film coming out?

The Parent Trap - Sept. 3
Why was Sammy, the dog played by Bob? Or rather, why couldn't they just keep the dog's name Bob? And that's all I have to say about this film. It was the remake with Linsey Lohan by the way.

Smart People - Sept. 6
A quote from Mr. T: "This movie is boring as all hell, but kinda good and funny too." Dennis Quaid, Ellen Page, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Thomas Haden Church all put in wonderful performances, and the film itself is oddly moving, but yep, kind of boring simultaneously.

Bottle Rocket - July ?
Friends work to become thieves under the misguided tutelage of Dignan (Owen). The Wilson brothers rock my world and Wes Anderson rocks my world. This movie, however, did not. I try to like it. Every time I watch it, I try to like it. I just can't.

Sunday Salon: Lucky Seven

Weeks Reads

This past week I've finished four books and three short stories:

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
The Bro Code by Barney Stinson
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
Cinnamon by Neil Gaiman
I Cthulhu by Neil Gaiman
How to Talk to Girls at Parties by Neil Gaiman
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

The ones I've reviewed - obviously - are linked. It was an excellent week as I enjoyed all I read, but it's a toss up as to whether Cat's Cradle or Ethan Frome was my favorite read.

Currently Reading
Feminine Mystique: I haven't touched this book in quite a few days, and I don't think I'll be picking it up again any time soon.  I am just too far removed from the exigence; the consistent repetition of what are to me obvious insights is too much for me.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep:  This is another book I can't seem to get in to.  But I'm not sure why.  The novel seems like one I should be loving, and while I'm reading, I don't have a problem with the style or plot/characters/etc, so why do I never want to pick it up?  Anyone else read this and have any advice?

Whom God Would Destroy: The author, Commander Pants himself sent me this book, and I am just thrilled.  I actually haven't started reading it yet, but I have plans to start today.

Challenge Update


Click on the pretty picture to the right if you'd like to see my spreadsheet listing books for challenges.  There are two sheets: one for ongoing challenges and one for completed challenges.

100+ Challenge: 105/100  FINISHED!
The Dream King Challenge: 13/12  FINISHED!
Sookie Stackhouse: 6/9
SciFi Challenge: 1/8
101 Fantasy Challenge: 0/12
Unlock Worlds Challenge: 5
Women UnBound: 1/8
18th and 19th Century Women Writers: 0/2
YA Reading Challenge: 0/25, starts Jan. 1
GLBT Challenge: 0/4, starts Jan. 1
Flashback Challenge: 0/6, starts Jan. 1
TBR Challenge: 0/12, starts Jan. 1
Books to Read Before I Die: 0/10, starts Jan. 1
100+ Challenge: 0/100, starts Jan. 1
Rory Gilmore Project: 38/244 read; only 5 reviewed

My challenge lists aren't even close to being finalized, so if anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them.  I hope everyone has a happy reading week.

Unlock Worlds

Unlock Worlds is my year long (or maybe more) challenge to read and review books which have been challenged or banned from schools or libraries.  I've invited everyone else to join me on this quest to have a website where we can catalog these reviews for all to enjoy.

First a big thank you to the other bloggers participating currently!  I hope the rest of you join us in reading and reviewing these books in a show of solidarity for our freedom to read.

Gavin at Page247
Cara at Ooh...Books!
sharazad at Dangerous Pages
Mee at Books of Mee
Alyce at At Home with Books
Stacy at Stacy's Books
Melissa at Betty and Boo Chronicles
Padfoot and Prongs at Good Books Inc.
Louise at Lou's Pages
Elizabeth at As usual, I Need More Bookshelves 

If you are interested in participating, head on over to the Unlock Worlds website.  It's almost time for the next giveaway - the number of entries you receive is equal to the number of review links you submit.

Book Review: Neil Gaiman

To top off my Neil Gaiman reads for The Dream King Challenge, I decided to read a few short stories which are available online.

I'm not going to tell you much about these three short stories by Gaiman. A taste is all you shall receive, a little piece of temptation which will hopefully inspire you to click on the story name and read the stories for yourself.

Cinnamon - A princess, whom none can make speak, has a life changing talk with a tiger. Mentioned at A Striped Armchair;

I Cthulhu - Also known as What's A Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing In A Sunken City Like This (Latitude 47° 9' S, Longitude 126° 43' W)?, I Cthulhu reads like the journal entry (technically a speech to a subordinate) from a powerful being that came to Earth literally in the primordial sludge. And two awesome quotes:  "...born of nameless nightmare parents" and "Riot and revel, blood-food and foulness, eternal twilight and nightmare and the screams of the dead and the not-dead and the chant of the faithful."

How to Talk to Girls at Parties - Two boys wind up at the wrong party with unusual girls. Vic, a more alpha male, is good with the ladies, but our unnamed narrator is a bit shy. As Vic says, "They're just girls...they don't come from another planet." But he could be wrong. Reviews:  Gripping Books;  

If you've reviewed any of these three stories, let me know, and I'll add in your link.

Buy  |  Borrow  |  Accept  |  Avoid
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Challenges:  Dream King Challenge

Book Review: Persepolis

Title: Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
Author: Marjane Satrapi
Published: 2003  Pages:  153
Genre: Graphic Novel, Nonfiction

Buy  |  Borrow  |  Accept  |  Avoid

Plot Synopsis
Persepolis is the remembrances of a young girl growing up in Iran during the Revolution.

My Thoughts
The limitations placed on people and the struggle to free one's self from those limitations is a heartbreaking topic.  Each story Marji relates and illustrates reminds me of how good I have it, and reminds me that those across the oceans are not so different.

Marji's Marxist parents allow her to be a freethinker, challenge her to question the Shah and the subsequent regime which attempt to impose ideology upon the country.  Marji questions her teachers, revels in stories of revolutionary heroes, and rocks out to rock and roll in her Michael Jackson jacket and forbidden blue jeans.  In the midst of cultural repression and the subjugation of women, Marji is all punk and sneakers.

In this graphic novel, the relationship between the images and text is symbiotic, each necessary to the other for the full story to be told. The images do not merely visualize the text, they add to the text, and sometimes do so in a dramatic fashion.  Juxtaposing words of pride in the heroic men with images of the dead really highlights the ideas of a child with the reality of a war.  I was impressed by the starkness of both the words and the images.

Side Note: Persepolis has a sequel which I'm bound to pick up sooner or later.  Some of the linked reviews below discuss both stories.

Memorable Scene:  A teacher who had been telling her students that the Shah was put in power by God does a complete turnabout once said Shah has been displaced.  Marji calls her on this contradiction.  Go Marji!  Bad teacher!


Memorable Quote: If hair is as stimulating as you say, then you need to shave your mustache! You have to read the book to see the funny.

Other Reviews
If I've missed yours, let me know!

Book Nut; At Home with Books; Rebecca Reads; things mean a lot; Trish's Reading Nook; Worducopia;

Question:  Do you guys know of any other non-fiction graphic novels? I really enjoyed this - and probably would not have read it if it wasn't a graphic novel.

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Challenges: Unlock Worlds, Women UnBound

Ge-go, I pee!

...for a second Gregor succeeded in thinking of himself as a warrior. A bold, brave, powerful warrior that the Underlanders would tell stories about for centuries. He could almost see himself leading a squadron of bats into battle, stunning the rats, saving the Underland from -

'Ge-go, I pee!' announced Boots.

And there he stood, a boy in a goofy hard hat with a beat-up flashlight and a bunch of batteries he hadn't even tested to see if they still had juice.

The mighty warrior excused himself and changed a diaper.

~Suzanne Collins
Gregor the Overlander

Where's the strangest place you've changed a diaper?

Movie Review: Idiocracy

Title: Idiocracy
Director: Mike Judge
Starring: Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shephard
Release: January 25, 2007
Country: America
Genre: Comedy
Rated: R
First Viewing: June 5, 2009

Plot Synopsis: Joe Bauers wakes up 500 years after agreeing to participate in a government cryogenics-style project to find that the human population has devolved dramatically.

My Thoughts: The movie was alternately hilarious and saddening. First, the funny. The language being spoken by the population is dumbed down English. Second, the sad. Some of my students sound like this. The funny: people spend all of their time having sex, drinking, and watching people get kicked in the balls. The sad: is that any different from now? So while I was laughing during the movie, I was also extremely uncomfortable as I wondered if this dystopian version of the future is more correct than Orwell's, Huxley's, or Bradbury's.

The highlight of the movie for me was the first ten minutes in which the viewer is treated to an extremely believable and logical look at how humanity degenerates into the infantile idiots of the future. The exposition begins with two couples:  One pair is an intellectual upper-middle-class couple who are seen discussing the logic of having a child: financial and career difficulties, etc. The other is a lower class family who discover they are pregnant again; they already have three children.  To top it off, the lower class husband has been sleeping around and has fathered more children, and his eldest son, the football star, is on the same path of prolific childbearing.  We then see these two couples' family trees.  Zero for the "smart" couple, and as time goes on hundreds for the lower class couple.  After these first ten minutes, I began seriously considering the viability and necessity of putting birth control into our water supply. And this theme is what carries the film.

I do think my enjoyment of the film was partially hindered by the fact that I was watching it on Comedy Central and the film was certainly edited for time and content. Still, my overall judgment is funny but a bit depressing.

Book Review: Cat's Cradle

Title: Cat's Cradle
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Published: 2006/1963  Pages: 287
Genre: Science Fiction - although I'm not quite comfortable with that

Buy  |  Borrow  |  Accept  |  Avoid

Plot Synopsis
The narrator, "Jonah", sets out to research the everyday lives of people on the day the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, but finds his life woven into a complex and absurd narrative.

My Thoughts
The two Vonnegut books I've read have both struck me as primarily anti-war texts and manifestos to man's stupidity.  I approve wholeheartedly.  I feel man's stupidity is most nicely bound up in the concept of granfalloon, a Bokononist concept where people believe they have a connection with others that does not in fact actually exist.  Religion, Nationality, Race, Clubs and Organizations, these are all false connections.  We choose to identify with particular people based on associations that are inherently meaningless, and sometimes we protect this absurd relationship in violent and stupid ways.  The philosophy of Bokononism is sprinkled liberally throughout the text and is, for me, the force driving the story; without it, the story loses its essence.

Vonnegut's writing is so much like speech, his chapters so short, and his themes so intriguing that reading his books is an almost frantic activity for me.  I move through them quickly but don't lose comprehension.  I enjoy the quick movement, the short fast-paced sentence and chapter structure.

There is so much more to say about this book, but as always I believe that discovering the story on your own is the best bet.

Memorable Scene:  Angela bundling up her two brothers and her father before they went out into the cold is a scene that affected me.  Her father is useless as a parent and when her mother dies, Angela, only a teenager, has to take on responsibility for the family, giving up her life for them.  This image of a young girl playing the role of mother in one of its most cliched forms - protection and caring before leaving the safety of the home - was especially poignant for me.

Memorable Quotes:  Americans are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be.


What hope can there be for mankind...when there are such men...to give such playthings...to such short-sighted children as almost all men and women are? 

Other Reviews
If I've missed yours, let me know!

Padfoot and Prongs; A Striped Armchair;

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Challenges: Unlock Worlds, 100+ Reading Challenge, Sci-Fi Challenge,

Sunday Salon: I Will Conquer

I put a visual post up about challenges here.  Now it's time to start getting down to the fun part: coming up with book lists for my insanity.  I love creating book lists; researching and choosing books to read is part of the fun for me, even if I don't end up reading what I initially put on my lists - it's very rare that I actually stick to a plan.  I'm too spontaneous for that.

The only problem I foresee: It's not even December yet, and I'm already piling on the 2010 challenges.  But I have faith that I will conquer Mt. Challenges.


Currently Reading
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut:  I'm absolutely loving it.  I started it yesterday, and I guarantee I'll finish it today. The characters in this novel are proving to be infinitely interesting, and the 'religious aspects' of Bokononism are oddly appealing...even the foot part...

Challenge Update
100+ Challenge: 98/100
The Dream King Challenge: 10/12
Sookie Stackhouse: 6/9
SciFi Challenge: 1/8
101 Fantasy Challenge: 0/12
Unlock Worlds Challenge: 4
Women UnBound: 1/8
18th and 19th Century Women Writers: 0/2
YA Reading Challenge: 0/25, starts Jan. 1
GLBT Challenge: 0/4, starts Jan. 1
Flashback Challenge: 0/6, starts Jan. 1
TBR Challenge: 0/12, starts Jan. 1
Books to Read Before I Die: 0/10, starts Jan. 1
100+ Challenge: 0/100, starts Jan. 1
Rory Gilmore Project: 38/244 read; only 5 reviewed

Now wait, the beginning of this post suggested some lists didn't it?  All that talk about creating lists and the such not.  Well, I'm posting my reading challenges list in a Google Doc to share with everyone; unfortunately I'm not quite done yet, so link coming soon.

If you have suggestions for books for these challenges or for other challenges, let me know.

Book Review: Interworld

Title: Interworld
Author: Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves
Published: 2007 Pages: 239
Genre: YAL, SFF

Buy  |  Borrow  |  Accept  |  Avoid

Plot Synopsis
Joey Harker, a normal boy, stumbles into another dimension, and so begins his journey, fraught with peril, as a Walker. The other Walkers are Other Joeys from various worlds in the Altiverse, and as if that isn't enough for Harker to contend with, the army of magical beings wants to boil him up and use his soul as fuel.

My Thoughts
I love the premise for the fight in this book.  It isn't good versus evil; it is science versus magic, and they are both evil. Each side wants to conquer and control the gazillion other worlds, pushing each to one side or the other. The good guys belong to a understaffed, underprepared, oddly young group of Walkers, who are committed to ensuring the balance between science and magic in all the worlds of the Altiverse.

The premise of the Pendragon series is eerily similar, and I found myself thinking about this similarity while reading (I reviewed books 1-8 in the series in May and June).  In Pendragon, the lead character is not leaping through various versions of Earth, but in fact is going to entirely different worlds, but still both main characters are walking through wormholish thingamabobbers in order to fight an entity/group that wants to control all worlds.  And of course both are mid-teen males who have the whole reluctant hero thing going on.

My favorite character in this book is not the lead, but rather Jai, an enigmatic sesquipedalian (logophilia baby).  Every sentence he utters is like taking a trip through a thesaurus. Afterall, "What good is a vocabulary that isn't used?  My second favorite character is Hue, a blob of somethingoranother that communicates through color changes.  My third favorite...okay, I liked the characters.

The story is quick, moving from action-sequence to action-sequence with less reflective abstractness than is typical in Gaiman; in other words, the story didn't make me contemplate any deep universal truths like with American Gods, Anansi Boys, the Sandman series, or Good Omens. But it was just what I needed to keep my attention for a nighttime read-a-book-in-one-sitting-marathon.  I quite liked the story in general.  I want sequels, a whole series, and the door is wide open for future books.  Alas, no plans on that front.

Memorable Scene: Joey's first walk into the In-Between was a setting I will remember. I loved imagining this world which made me think of dropping acid while taking a ride through some strange combination of Disney World's Pirates of the Caribbean and It's a Small World and simultaneously having someone read Edgar Allen Poe's poetry to you. Yep. (Note: I have never dropped acid.  And I don't even know where I would drop it if the chance ever came.  Seems like something you'd want to hold onto being all expensive and everything.)

Memorable Quote:  Commence our intradimensional excursion.  I can so picture Spock saying this. 

Other Reviews
If I've missed yours, let me know!

Fyrefly's Book Blog; Books & Other Thoughts; things mean alot; Becky's Book Reviews;
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Challenges: The Dream King Challenge,  100+ Reading Challenge, Sci-Fi Challenge, 

Book Review: The Graveyard Book

Title: The Graveyard Book
Author: Neil Gaiman
Published: 2008 Pages: 307
Genre: YAL, SFF

Buy  |  Borrow  |  Accept  |  Avoid

Plot Synopsis
The man Jack failed in his mission to kill the boy, lost him in a graveyard, which is where this boy stays.  Called Bod, short for Nobody, this boy lives between worlds, a graveyard where strange beasts live in deep hills, ghoul-gates guard other worlds, and young girls come to play. But Bod is alive and belongs in the world of a living, a place he can not go because some still want him dead.

My Thoughts
I caved.  I completely, utterly, and uncontrollably caved.  I had promised myself - no buying books.  I have more books in my TBR pile than most have in their homes, so I was determined to get through a large chunk of them before buying a book.  But everywhere I turned, there were wonderful reviews of this book. And I thought, well it does count for like three of my challenges, and I do so love Gaiman, and then I caved.  Just this one book, I promised myself.  Then at the bookstore, three other books managed to jump into my hands...but more on that later.  Back to this book.

While many gushed compliments like the Las Vegas Bellagio Fountains, my compliments are a bit more tempered.  I enjoyed the book, absolutely enjoyed it, but when it comes to Gaiman, I'm a bigger fan of American Gods, Good Omens, and the like.  As a rule, I enjoy 'adult' books more than 'kids' books. 

The Graveyard Book, a kid's book, tells a wonderful story in a unique setting with memorable characters.  I felt a part of the graveyard community, found myself wanting Freedom of the Graveyard, and more than anything I wanted to know more....more, more, more.  The mini-plots and adventures ended too soon and begged for more detail, the characters cried out for further exposition; I wanted backstory, mini-plots rich in detail and action, intricate weavings of history and present.  In other words, I wanted something that isn't a kids book.  I do think it is a mark of a master creator for a book to capture me so intensely that I don't want it to end, that I am unsatisfied with what I've been given.

Question:  Do you find yourself disappointed with books that made you want more or do you find this a mark of a good read?

Memorable Scene: *PLOT SPOILER* I can't get the end scene out of my head.  The image of Bod leaving the graveyard in burned in my mind.  It is a moment bittersweet and yet filled with such potential.

Memorable Quote: You're always you, and that don't change; and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it. ~ I love the seeming contradiction in this quote; it's obviously perfectly correct and perfectly contradictory at the same time.

Other Reviews
If I've missed yours, let me know!
The Zen Leaf; Page247; Rebecca Reads; Stainless Steel Droppings; things mean a lot; Books & Other Thoughts; Bart's Bookshelf; Fizzy Thoughts; Becky's Book Reviews; Fyrefly's Book Blog; Books of Mee; Multi-Genre Fan;  Puss Reboots;

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Challenges: The Dream King Challenge, 101 Fantasy Reading Challenge, 100+ Reading Challenge,

Piling it On

How many challenges can I join?

Finished Challenges




Current and Upcoming Challenges







And that's not all...but you get the idea. I haven't "officially" signed up for many of the above, but I'm seriously considering it. I think I'm addicted, but if I go for this, I'm seriously stunting my ability to spontaneously read which is my usual modus operandi.

What about you guys? Getting bogged down in challenges? Do you have criteria for joining?

Logic

You can't change the world just by describing it differently, or replacing nasty old words with nice new ones. If your shithouse stinks, you won't make it smell any better by calling it a public convenience. You need to clean it. And a cripple won't stand and walk because you call him alternatively-abled.

~ Jamie Whyte
Crimes Against Logic

Do you have any funny examples of this logic (a la shithouse and cripple)?

Book Review: Wilkie Collins

Title: The Moonstone
Author: Wilkie Collins
Published: 1999/1868 Pages: 466
Genre: Classic Literature, Detective Fiction

Buy  |  Borrow  |  Accept  |  Avoid

Plot Synopsis
A yellow diamond with a rich history is stolen from a young girl's bedroom. What follows is a whodunit of extraordinary detail and tone.

My Thoughts
Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone is widely regarded as the first piece of detective fiction. Including an intelligent, eccentric detective, a gem stolen after a party in a country manor, and of course opium, I can feel the beginnings of the popular and Gothic mystery in its pages.

But it isn't the original plot line that captivated me; it is the characters. The Moonstone contains some of the most intriguing characters I have ever read. From the humble servant Gabriel Betteredge to the prissy and self-righteous Drusilla Clack to the opium-addicted Ezra Jennings, these are people you want to know about, and they speak directly to you as The Moonstone is an epistolary novel with multiple characters recounting firsthand events in their unique tone of voice.

I won't go into detail on the plot as I would hate to spoil it for any readers, and I honestly believe these characters should be discovered through reading the novel. Plus, the other reviewers of this book have done a tremendous job introducing you to the plot and characters.

Memorable Scene: I can't get over the part in the beginning where Betteredge is describing how he chose his wife. He decided to marry the woman who kept house for him so that he didn't have to pay for her services. He believes "it will be cheaper to marry her than to keep her." Sexist but particularly hilarious to me because you can't help but love Betteredge.

Memorable Quote: Once self-supported by conscience, once embarked on a career of manifest usefulness, the true Christian never yields. Neither the public nor private influences produce the slightest effect on us, when we have once got our mission. Taxation may be the consequence of a mission; riots may be the consequence of a mission; wars may be the consequence of a mission; we go on with our work, irrespective of every human consideration which moves the world outside us. We are above reason; we are beyond ridicule; we see with nobody's eyes, we hear with nobody's ears, we feel with nobody's hearts, but our own. (This is my problem with religion stated quite succinctly).

Other Stops on the Tour for Wilkie Collins and The Moonstone

Kay's Bookshelf; Ooh...Books; Rose City Reader; Michelle's Masterful Musings;

Other Wilkie Collins Tour Stops can be found at The Classics Circuit


Other Reviews of The Moonstone
If I've missed yours, let me know.

things mean alot; Farmlane Books; A Guy's Moleskine Notebook; books i done read; A Striped Armchair; S. Krishna's Books

If you haven't yet read this book, I recommend running out and picking up a copy now!

Movie Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Title: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett
Release: December 25, 2008
Country: America
Genre: Drama, Romance
Rated: PG-13
First Viewing: May 19, 2009

The film follows the life of Benjamin Button who was born as an old man and gets younger over time.

A poem of a life in reverse, that is the essence of this film to me. I felt pulled along a winding path of beauty and mystery much like reading a really good poem. Leisurely, we follow the discoveries and the losses, the celebrations and tragedies. Pitt embodies this unhurried and deliberate stream of events, maintaining an evenness of depth that adds to the mood of the film as a whole. Actually, I think that is one of the successes of the film; everything worked together to create this mood. The acting, the sound, the cinematography and juxtaposition of images, the storytelling, even the color tones, all flowed over and around each other forming a cohesive experience for the viewer.

That being said, I have to agree with the many people who have said that the film may be a bit reminiscent of Forrest Gump. To me, Button was more fluid and more...warm, but it took very little watching time before I was reminded of Gump. I still haven't decided if the similarities between the two films are merely superficial and unimportant or well, not. Eric Roth did write the screenplay for both films.

Finally, I just can't seem to figure out why Hurricane Katrina was part of the film. That annoyed me a bit. Can anyone explain?

Rating: 4/5

Sunday Salon: Personal Essays

My reading this past week has been focused solely on non-fiction.  I've read a handful of personal essays and the first two chapters of The Feminine Mystique.  The essays certainly don't seem to be generating any interest among bloggers, and I'm thinking I might be one of the few who read them.  Any other personal essay readers out there? If so, do you review them individually or as a bundle?  I ask because I am not reading a collection of personal essay; I'm reading personal essays that strike my fancy from the multiple collections I have.

As for The Feminine Mystique, I'm still unsure of how I feel about this book.  I realize it is a significant work in women's history/studies/feminism.  But so far I feel like the book might be 400+ pages of repetition.  Has anyone read this?  Should I stick with it?
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Congratulations to the winners of the two giveaways I hosted recently:

Night Giveaway Winner: Anna at Diary of an Eccentric

The Chosen One Giveaway Winner: Tam at Bailey's and Books

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I want to remind everyone about the Unlock Worlds Challenge which is running until September 2010's Banned Books Week.  No specified number of books, just a group dedicated to our freedom to read.  Giveaways will happen throughout the year, and you get one entry to the giveaways for every link you submit.
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Currently Reading
Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford
Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique
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And finally, I'm thinking of joining SwapTree. Anyone out there a member?  Anyone think I should / shouldn't join?  I'm already a member of BookMooch but I've racked up a large number of points and I'm having difficulty spending them.  There's no point in having 148 points if there are no books you want.

Book Review: U and J

I've decided to use personal essays for my U and J letters in the A-Z Challenge, in part because I seem to have an inability to find appropriate books I wish to read and in part because I really like personal essays and need to get back into reading them.

Upside Down and Backward by William T. Vollman
Vollman discusses the popular trend of looking at the unreal instead of the real through sections on a camera obscura, personal experiences as a journalist, and thoughts on television. As Vollman writes, "freshness wilts", and what was once miraculous about the real world has been replaced by the imitation which is touted as something which "will soon be better than the real thing". Like Vollman, this idea terrifies me.

The essay is mildly reminiscent of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death and dystopic novels such as Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. In one section Vollman describes a night scene in Kabul and then says: "Have I 'understood' Afghanistan? Not by a long shot. But at least I saw it. I didn't just watch it on CNN." The difference between authentic and inauthentic experience is one I've contemplated often. I envy the concreteness of a real experience even as I overwhelm myself with inauthentic experiences through reading.

The Joys and Perils of Victimhood by Ian Buruma
In his essay, Buruma points out an issue that I have never considered, but now find myself a real dolt for not taking issue with earlier. Buruma discusses the popular trend for religious, ethnic, sexual, etc. groups of people to identify almost solely as victims. In a world where multiculturalism has become the norm - where the ethnic distinctions between groups of people are diminishing - certain groups are heaving a rallying cry for their historical victimhood in some sort of "Olympics of suffering". While Buruma acknowledges the historical suffering of many groups - he is Jewish - he worries that "when a cultural, ethnic, religious, or national community bases its communal identity almost entirely on the sentimental solidarity of remembered victimhood, for that way lies historical myopia and, in extreme cases, even vendetta." He also worries that this push for a more "feeling" type of history will obscure the fact that historical truth does exist; it's not all about how people felt, real things happened.

I could not agree more. I have often wondered about this overly passionate attachment to past ethnic/cultural sufferings. I can not dislike the English because I'm Irish. Japanese-Americans can not hang on to the internment; African-Americans can not wallow in slavery. We did not experience those things. And while we most certainly can not forget the atrocities that have happened in the past, dwelling on them, identifying ourselves as victims, is counterproductive.

I would recommend both of these essays as they are well-written, insightful, and intriguing.

Book Review: Another Personal Essay

"Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses"
by Mark Twain (Read it online)

Twain sarcastically criticizes Cooper's work. The best part of this essay for me is the list of 18 "rules governing literary art" which Twain says are all violated by Cooper. For example, rule 10 says: "They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. But the reader of the Deerslayer tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together." Apparently Cooper was also an incapable observer with no knowledge of Nature. Twain believes that "if Cooper had any real knowledge of Nature's ways of doing things, he had a most delicate art in concealing the fact."

I have never read anything by Cooper, that I know of, but it matters not even a little to understanding and appreciating this essay. I just adore writing like this. This essay comes from a book called The Malcontents: The Best Bitter, Cynical, and Satirical Writing in the World edited by Joe Queenan. The collection is 1048 pages in length, and I'm picking and choosing from it and my other personal essay collections which includes Best American Essays 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002, and The Art of the Personal Essay which is another chunkster.

Book Review: 3 Non-Fiction Essays

This is not really a book review. There is no book. Instead, it is a review of three personal essays I bound together for my Introduction to Literature course: three essays I still remember fondly ten years after reading them.

The Bone Garden of Desire by Charles Bowden (Read it online here)
Bowden weaves food, flowers, lust, and death in this poetic personal essay. The essay is fragmentary, moving horizontally forward and backward through time even as it moves vertically through the topics. I'm not sure why I assign those particular directions, but I do. Something in the tone, the interrelation of these primal topics, and the melancholy seduces me.

Bookmarks by Rebecca McClanahan
McClanahan exposes herself through her musings on a gray-haired woman's marginalia. The concept of marginalia is one I find fascinating, being a reader and a (gasp) occasional marker of books. I too have looked at a note in the margin and wondered about the writer/reader. The thrust of this essay, however, seems to be the author's failed marriage and her subsequent depression and acceptance.

Refugium by Barbara Hurd
Hurd ponders the necessity and danger of refuges, particularly in swamps. Full of metaphors, the essay offers an enticing view of the isolation and possibilities of self-discovery inherent in refuges. She paints a picture of the swamp that is both terrifying and oddly appealing.


All three essays, like many personal essays, blend together the personal with the factual/historical. Bowden mixes his friends (Art, Paul, Dick, Chris...) with historical figures such as Homer, King Solomon, and Apicius. McClanahan and Hurd thread quotes and commentary from books throughout their essays. It is this mix that I adore, and it is this mix that adds to the fragmentary nature of the essays.

One of my draws to the personal essay is the artful way essayists use fragments to reveal a whole in a way different from a continuous narrative. There is something about the presentation of snippets of time - it never pretends to be the whole story in the way chronologies do - that seems to be both more contrived in its juxtaposition and yet simultaneously more honest.

I taught Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut in the first few weeks of class. Slaughter-house Five contains three separate stories, all told out of order: 'real' life, war life, and abduction life. The use of non-chronological fragmentary story-telling is essential to the theme of the novel in this case, and I wonder how necessary it is to these three essays? Now, I'm off to ponder this question. Perhaps I'll see if my students have an answer...

Giveaway: Night

In honor of Veteran's Day, I thought I would give away a copy of Elie Wiesel's Night.

Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel's memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man.

While this is not the story of a veteran, it is a story of why our veteran's fought in the first place.

If you are interested in receiving this book, leave a comment with your email address. +2 if you are already a follower; +1 if you become a follower.

The Right Thing to Do

"And you don't put stock in gods."

"We give credence only to that which we can prove exists. Since we cannot find evidence that gods, miracles, and other supernatural things are real, we do not trouble ourselves about them. If that were to change...then we would accept the new information and revise our position."

“It seems a cold world without something…more.”

“On the contrary,” said Oromis, “it is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our own actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment. I won’t tell you what to believe Eragon. It is far better to be taught to think critically and then be allowed to make your own decisions than to have someone else’s notions thrust upon you.”

~Christopher Paolini
Eldest

Are there any beliefs you had growing up that you dropped as an adult? Any ideas you thought about and reversed your opinion on?

Better Men Than I

Nor can we...judge what [History's] use and powers were, at a time, when all a man could know, was what he could remember. To which we may add, that in a rude and unlettered state of society the memory is loaded with nothing that is either useless or unintelligible; whereas modern education employs us chiefly in getting by heart, while we are young, what we forget before we are old.

~Robert Wood
Essays on the Original Genius of Homer

Do you think that ancient humans were more or less intelligent than we are?

Movie Review: Choke

Title: Choke
Director: Clark Gregg
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Brian Henke
Release: October 30, 2008
Country: America
Genre: Dark Comedy (maybe?)
Rated: R
First Viewing: June 20, 2009


Plot Synopsis

Vic, a sex addict who dropped out of law school and took a job in a colonial era theme park to pay for his mother's stay in a mental hospital, tries to find himself.

My Thoughts

This film was touted as a "dirty-minded satirical psychotic comedy". Yep. The film flirted with being profane, obscene, funny, and moving. I keep reading reviews saying things like "Even though he's a sex addict, Vic is still likeable". I'm not sure what is unlikeable about a sex addict. Perhaps that's why I liked this movie more than many of the critics. His sexual addiction isn't something sinful or violent; it's a pitiful cry for love in the same manner as Vic's choking con. Watch the film for the details. Sadness, not disgust is what I feel for Vic, so that was one obstacle I did not have to overcome to enjoy the film.

I think I was also in the right state of mind to watch the film. I wasn't looking for funny, and I didn't find it in this film. There certainly were some funny scenes and lines, but for the most part I found the film more focused on the eccentric relationships that exist between people and the fine line between sanity and insanity.

Go out and watch it. Decide for yourself.

On a bookish note, Chuck Palahniuk wrote the book this film is based on. Probably most famous for Fight Club, Palahniuk is a hit or miss with me. I adored Fight Club, book and film, but I've read other books by Palahniuk that I found more purposefully shocking than artfully intriguing. I've never read Choke, and I have yet to decide if I ever will. Has anyone read this book?

Rating: 4/5

Read a Book Song

This is absolutely hilarious, so I recommend watching it; however, it does contain quite a bit of foul language, so consider yourself warned.

Sunday Salon: An Embarrassing Week

Seriously, the past week has just been embarrassing as far reading is concerned. I had every intention of reading Gaskell's Cranford; I even brought it with me to the eye doctor's last Saturday and read a few pages while waiting to be called in. But that, my friends, is the last time I've laid eyes to page. Pitiful. Embarrassing. Sinful.

I have read, just not books. This past week I've read about 75 student essays, 45 short essays on midterms, three chapters in composition textbooks, and over 600 blog posts. I say this in the hopes you will forgive me as the previous sentence does make me look busy. And I have been. But alas, I can not lie to you; I have had time to read. I've just been using it to watch television, a rather obscene quantity of it to be honest.

NCIS, NCIS Los Angeles, Castle, The Vampire Diaries, Sanctuary, Stargate Atlantis, The Mentalist, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Three Rivers, and Criminal Minds were all watched between 7 and 10pm on some night this week. That's 7.5 hours of television watching from Monday to Thursday. It would have been 10 hours, but I'm cool enough to use DVR and not watch commercials. :)

And I'm not done yet ladies and gentlemen: I still have to watch Fringe, Lie to Me, White Collar, Flashforward, and Numb3rs. That's a total of just over 11 hours a week of television. Now, I spend about 80 hours Monday to Friday awake; 24 hours at work; 10 hours working at home; about 10 hours blogging; and obviously 11 hours watching television. That leaves 25 hours unaccounted for; time I can only assume I am actually living a life.

Less tv. More books. That's really the moral of the story.



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