Posts
"Penelope Creed will do anything to avoid marrying her repulsive cousin. Dressed in boy's clothing, she's fleeing from London when she's discovered by Sir Richard Wyndham, himself on he verge of the most momentous decision of his life. When Sir Richard encounters the lovely fugitive, he knows he can't allow her to travel the countryside all alone, so he offers himself as her protector. As it happens, at that very moment Sir Richard could use an escape of his own." (From the back of the Sourcebooks edition.)
When a reader is looking for a bit of fun and romance, she could hardly go wrong choosing just about any Georgette Heyer regency romance. The Corinthian
is light, adorable and a perfect book for when you want to smile from the first page to the last.
. That struck me as so odd that I decided right then and there I needed to read Planet of the Apes. Here we are nearing Thanksgiving, and I've finally gotten around to it.
series and we wanted to reacquaint ourselves with some of the lesser known characters. (If you are a Star Wars fan, I highly recommend that series of books. They are wonderful!) Anyway, Princess Leia passed out with her martini glass was too good to pass up. :-)
is Carrie Fisher's first memoir. As a Star Wars fan, I guess what I really wanted was a book all about her time making those movies, because like so many other narrow-minded fans I believe that her life began and ended with the Star Wars trilogy. This is not that book, because I'm a dolt and there is much more to Carrie Fisher than silly hairdos, awesome metal bikinis, and dating "scruffy looking nerf-herders". This is about her addiction and mental illness, but it's not your typical "woe-is-me, popular-celebrity-brought-low" memoir. It is written in the self-deprecating, humorous style that has made Carrie Fisher a very popular fiction writer. (Remember 
?) And she is very, very funny!
has been praised all over blogdom and with good reason. It is just plain good entertainment. It is chick-lit from a guy's perspective. It's funny and emotional and gives us women some insight into just how a guy's mind works. Or might work, anyway. And, yes, they think about sex all the time. Mystery solved! :-) As I began reading, I was a little concerned that it would be the central theme of the story, but while it is nearly always present on the surface, Hornby handles it in a manner that is not at all off-putting.
, I was all set to find some DVDs of Hector Mann's films until I remembered he's not real. I wanted to experience for myself the magic of the works described so vividly in the book and to suddenly realize that wasn't possible was almost like a slap in the face. The book deeply explores the many people we are inside, the person we choose to present to the world at different times and who those personae belong to, so the need to come to terms with the fiction of all the creations in their entirety was an odd sensation. I could have sworn I knew them for real! Which, I believe, was part of the point. Who, including ourselves, do we know for real? And do we need to really know someone for that particular relationship to be meaningful to us or to be a force that shapes our lives?
, I was becoming bored. Things weren't moving along at the pace I've come to expect from her. I wasn't captivated by any creepy weirdness. Then: Wham! I couldn't put it down. This was the Kalogridis I have come to know and love! Somehow she manages to make the infamous Catherine de Medici a sympathetic character while in the middle of participating in a human sacrifice! Unreal. And pretty gruesome.
is a behind-the-scenes look at the Obama campaign from a man who was there from the announcement of Obama's candidacy in Springfield, Illinois to his victory on election night, inauguration and transition. You'll see Barack Obama when he's not so cool and collected. You'll see his fears and doubts about enduring the harsh grind of the election, and his conflicting emotions about uprooting his young family. And you'll see him grow from a somewhat awkward, unprepared underdog to the man you see in the White House today.
, pg. 13)
. I'll keep you posted as I find them!
is a startling allegory of the war between the oppressor and the oppressed. The Magistrate, the novel's fascinating narrator, has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of the frontier settlement, dabbling in antiquarianism, and ignoring constant reports of a threat from the "barbarians" who inhabit the uncharted deserts beyond the village. But when military personnel arrive with captured barbarians, he becomes witness to a cruel and unjust defense of the Empire." (From the front flap of the 
is the story of the survival of both his body and his humanity. It does not dwell on the deaths, the gas chambers and ovens. It shows the reader how he and a number of others endured sickness and deprivation, cheated "selections", and sometimes just through sheer "dumb luck" lived to tell their own stories.
. I had no feelings at all for the man, the woman or the villagers. The only thing that got to me was the descriptions of sand everywhere all the time -- in their clothes, stuck to their skin, in their mouths, in their food and water. It made me itchy. I found myself very impatient to be finished with the book. But in my push to finish, I did find a great quote that I need to write down and frame: "Defeat begins with the fear that one has lost." I need to remember that when I start feeling like I'm not skilled enough to understand deep literature. Like now. :-) I'm just starting though, right? I have time to figure this out.
:
, you know exactly how I feel right now and how hard it is to express what I'm thinking. While Dawn is not at all a happy book, it is not one of those books that left me depressed. It left me deeply introspective. Given the same history, can I honestly say that my moral integrity would not have led me to the same acts as Elisha? I would like to be able to confidently say yes. I'd like to, but there is a thin black thread of uncertainty that bothers me. And therein lies the power of these eighty-one pages.