satty

...another Saturday at work nearly done and thankfully it's been pretty slow. I'm petsitting so I have a steady block of Dirty Jobs to watch last night and who even knows what I'll find on the telly this evening! I don't consult lists or anything because then it would be too much like work. I'll just roam around and find something that catches my fancy...several things more like. I'll be back home tomorrow evening and then....*sigh*, then a whole week's staycation! Whatever will I do with myself? As I posted on Facebook last week, sadness is watching the very last episode of True Blood that Netflix can send you :-(

Maybe I'll order them all over again and start over as I don't imagine that Season 2 will be here any time soon. I could just read the books of course, and I will, but that takes a little time as there are a few others interested in the series right now as well. I'm equally sad because these are not widely available on CD...my preferred mode of hammering out some quality reading since I'm in the car, uninterrupted, for at least 2 hours every day.

Anyway, I am sorry to be so absent except for book reviews but my life has been fairly monotonous of late. Work, sleep, rinse, repeat...that's pretty much it. Hopefully the next week, in which I spend copious amounts of time with my mom, will yield some simply fantastic blogging fodder. Mom is usually pretty good for that, even if she doesn't know it.

And hey! I need to share Halloween photos too! Me and the new laptop will get that figured out immediately.

Gotta go. Time to shut 'er down!

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

This great, fun little adventure is a book of what I’d call biographical essays. David Sedaris is funny, wicked, irreverent, and heartbreakingly honest about the pros and cons of growing up in a (to me) large and somewhat unusual family. I have only recollections of my own family with which to compare and we were an unusual lot too, but Sedaris’ kin are just a little farther out there.

From therapy for a lisp and guitar lessons with a midget to the fastforward existence of a life lived on speed and crystal meth and the ultimate in total immersion French lessons, Sedaris has done it all. I laughed out loud regularly while reading this and am definitely interested in reading some of his other work. Another similar book that I heartily enjoyed (maybe even a little more than this one) is Jenny Lancaster’s Pretty in Plaid.

Me Talk Pretty One Day is another bookgroup selection. This is what happens when you are in three bookgroups; personal reading takes a back seat to required. It’s kind of like being in school except there are not really any tests and you frequently are provided with wine and other refreshments. That’s school I can deal with and I’m fairly certain Mr. Sedaris would agree.

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

Kitty marries Walter Fane more out of a need to be wed before her dull and unattractive sister than from any great idealist love for the rather dour bacteriologist. When they journey to Hong Kong, Kitty rather quickly falls into an affair with a well to-do politician, Charles Townsend. Walter learns of the affair and offers her an ultimatum: travel with him to work in a cholera-ravaged village or he will pursue the public scandal of divorcing her for adultery.

When things with Townsend don’t go as she’d planned, Kitty is forced to travel with her husband to the afflicted village. Dealing with the specter of death and her husband’s cold disdain lead Kitty to many realizations about herself and her life.

My bookgroup at work is reading fiction set in an Asian country so I was thrilled with reading The Painted Veil because I loved, loved, loved the movie! Since the book is usually better than the movie, I picked it up with much anticipation. Just to top things off, the audiobook has a fantastic narrator!

Neither the book nor the movie has what I’d call a happy ending, but the movie ends on a much more positive note. I think, possibly, the book ends more realistically. TPV was published in the mid-1920’s so it has a sort of Great Gatsby feel to it, especially as Kitty relates her upbringing and how she came to marry Walter.

I waffled back and forth between liking and hating all of the characters at one time or another and I count that as a serious point in Maugham’s favor; to be able to make the characters so real and malleable. A spoiled, yet redeemable woman, an irreverent playboy, a rigidly reserved and complex man…such is the stuff of which good drama is made! I love this book and look forward to a re-read. I did listen to it but I do own a paperback copy as well and it is one classic I’ll be holding on to for future enjoyment.

for sure not in kansas anymore

I LoVe indie horror! This is one making the festival circuit right now.

keeping Halloween just a *little* longer

50 vintage horror movie posters

I would SO hang these in my home!

Halloween!!

Is having the BEST time in a bar full of gay men!

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games was an amazing book and the second in the series, Catching Fire, does even more to fire me up (pun intended) about this author’s work!

The books are set in a U.S. destroyed and replaced by the dystopic state of Panem. There are 12 districts ruled by the Capital. After the Capital ruthlessly destroyed the 13th district and put down the revolution by the other districts, it sets in place a method to lord over the defeated districts AND remind them of their place, the Hunger Games.

Every year, each district holds a drawing in which all children over the age of 12 must participate. From these drawings, each district must send two tributes, a boy and a girl, to the Hunger Games. The children must battle to the death and only one winner may be crowned. We meet Katniss and Peeta in the Hunger Games and Catching Fire is obviously a continuation of that story. The Hunger Games go on and the Capital is even more despicable, but there is unrest in Panem and all it may take is a leader spark the flame of rebellion.

Sorry to use so much fire imagery but you read this book and see if it doesn’t get to you. I am SO hooked and the thought that I now have to WAIT until next year for the third is driving me bonkers!

Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

My book group was reading National Book Award winners so I decided to pick Tree of Smoke because it has been a long time since I’ve read any truly literary fiction, much less 614 pages of it. I started off listening to the book, and the narrator is great, but the story shifts perspective so effortlessly and the time periods (even within the same year) shifted around a lot and I was losing track of the story line. So, I checked the actual book out and things began to flow and I loved it!

This novel spans from 1963 to 1983 and is about the Vietnam War…or at least the war from Skip Sand’s perspective. The character list is pretty long and the plot not at all straight forward. You have Colonel F.X. Sands and his legendary exploits combined with a slightly shady association with Psy Ops now. No one seems to like him or to really know what he’s doing in Vietnam. Skip looks up to his uncle and wants to help out with Psy Ops but the colonel doesn’t let him do too much except look after three footlockers of notecards full of incomprehensible information. A Canadian missionary/nurse, two brothers suffering all the different consequences of wartime service, a Vietcong operative turning spy for Colonel Sands, and a handful of other characters keep the smoke thick and further obscure what’s going on.

Even after finishing this book, I can’t really tell you what it is about. It was dense and complex and hard to keep up with and I loved every minute of it. I don’t know who on earth I’d recommend it to. It is not a straightforward war novel. It is more a philosophical, somewhat stream-of-consciousness exploration of the tolls of war on the human psyche. The book’s customer reviews on Amazon pretty much sum it up.

5 Star-32
4 Star-13
3 Star-15
2 Star-17
1 Star-31

I don’t remember ever encountering a book where there is such a spread between love-it and hate-it. I loved it and I’d love to hear from someone else who enjoyed it though of course I won’t ignore you if you loathed it either.

! ! ! this just in ! ! !

someone called this morning and wanted me to send one of our books to another library system using the library card from that system...I wonder if she's ever tried to use her Macy's card at Sak's...

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

With World War Z, I have completed the R.I.P. Reading Challenge Peril the First (four books from any subgenre of horror by Oct 31st) and am edging ever closer to completing the 100+ Reading Challenge (100 book by December 31st) with a total of 89 so far.

For the R.I.P. Challenge my completed list is as follows:

A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans

Chasing the Dead by Joe Schreiber

Eat the Dark by Joe Schreiber

World War Z by Max Brooks

World War Z is part political satire, part dystopian fiction, part zombie novel, all good! It is set up as a series of interviews with survivors of the Zombie War and you get a great look at this fictional Armageddon through their eyes. It wasn't exactly scary per se but many of the interviews were quite chilling.

My favorite interview was Arthur Sinclair (Alan Alda on the audiobook), who was in charge of retraining a usable workforce. Virtually all he had to work with was executives and consultants and the like who had no viable skills for the world after The Crisis. These people were having to be trained and managed by the very people who had cleaned their houses, repaired their cars, and maintained their existence before the infection spread....makes me want to go out and learn how to fix something.

I really enjoyed this book! It is not only an excellent work of zombie fiction, but also a unique lens through which to view our current world. It is amazing that something that has been made up in the mind of one person can be so capable of making my own world seem a bit more tenuous. I don't look on that as a bad thing. Now is as good a time as any to be more aware of what goes on around you.