Real Reading

The other week I finally got around to reading a book that my father-in-law got me for Christmas, and it was a good one.  I wouldn't say that I necessarily say that I have a particular genre that I like to read more than another, but biographies aren't something I naturally gravitate towards.  This book is a biography, but since it is based mostly on oral tales passed down, the author chose to call it a novel.  I had a feeling I would find it interesting based solely on the title (I know, I know... You're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover, but we all do it.)    I wasn't sure though.  Nevertheless, I dove right in, and I'm so glad I did.

What is this book, you ask?

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The author of Half Broke Horses, Jeannette Walls, writes about her grandmother, Lily.  Lily was an incredible woman.  She grew up in a dug out house.  By the time she was 10, she had saved her brother and sister from a flash flood in West Texas.  By the time she was 11, she had been breaking horses for her dad for years and had already had a badly broken arm.  At 15, she took off across 500 miles of desert alone with her horse Patches to take a teaching position in rural Arizona.  At 18, she took off to Chicago to make it on her own.  She broke horses, taught impossible students, learned to drive when many women didn't, learned to fly a plane, and did amazing things to keep her family together and surviving throughout the Depression.  If you want an inspirational read.  This is your book.  The woman was incredible.  

It's not a long book, at not even 300 pages, and the chapters are short.  Each one leaves you craving the next, and before you know it, you've finished the book.  I highly recommend giving it a go.  It certainly puts many things in perspective.  Any time I start thinking I'm in a difficult situation, I now find myself thinking Lily Casey Smith would have faced this dilemma head on and tackled it, so if she can do it, I can too.  

Has anyone else read this book?  If so, what did you think?  

Hope your weekend is going well!

A Good Book-Gone-Movie

Fridays are always kind of blah when Kent's away.  I guess it's because we usually always do something fun on Fridays-- whether it's going out or just ordering a pizza and vegging out on the couch.  Last night, however, I pretty much beat my "Friday blues" by going to lunch and to a movie with one of my good friends here.

I was soooooo excited to see the movie!  I'd been waiting for months for it to come out... basically since I read the book a couple years ago and heard that there would be a movie made.

Know what it was?

Water for Elephants

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I read the book when it was really being pushed in the book stores.  (You know how they always have certain ones facing you, and then the cool cover and catchy title just draw you in?  That's what happened to me.)  I was a little skeptical when I first started reading, but when I really gave it a chance, it didn't take long to become completely immersed in it.  Perhaps it's just that I love reading about anything from that time period-- the 1930s and 40s, but it was a really interesting read.

If you haven't already gathered from the movie previews, it is a bit of a complicated love story between a man who pretty much stumbles into a traveling circus and the circus' star performer, who just happens to be the boss's wife. An elephant named Rosie, who is picked up from the remains of another traveling circus gone under, is the  four-legged lead character.  The book details the way of life for everyone on the road with the circus during the Depression, along with the animals.  The way the story was written, the interesting characters, and the harsh and sometimes brutal ways of life within a traveling circus intrigued me, and when I finished the book I thought about it for a long time.  Even now, it's one of those that I've read and find myself referring back to from time to time when I see, hear, or read something about a circus or sideshow.  I guess it's what book critics mean when they sometimes say a book is "haunting."  It just sticks with you for a while.

Needless to say, I was very excited to see the movie.  I was also a little nervous that it wouldn't live up to my expectations.  Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised with the movie.  Critics had harsh reviews, but that usually means that I'll love the movie. (I can almost always judge how I'll like a movie by critic's reviews.  If they love it, I'll hate it, and visa versa... Is anyone else like this, or is it just me?)  I felt that the writers/directors/producers/whoever did a great job translating the book into film.  It stayed very true to the book, and I always appreciate that.  The characters were veeeery close to what I had dreamed up in my mind, and I felt they chose wisely for just about every character.

 

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I thought that Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson both did a great job and fit the bill for their characters, but I'm not sure that they had quite enough of a spark when it comes to chemistry.  I can't really think of anyone better, though, so I don't know.  Did anyone else see the movie last night and think this?

Anyhoo... I would highly recommend the book and the movie.  However, as usual, I think I would say to read the book first.  It fills in any gaps, and you know exactly what is happening in the movie... It's just like your seeing a projection of the story you already have in your mind, just on the screen. 

All in all, I'd say it was a great way to try and beat my "Friday blues."  I'm interested to know if anyone else has read the book and/or seen the movie.  If you have, what did you think?  

Happy Weekend everybody!  :)

A Pretty Good Book and Two Pitiful People

Although I had grand plans for this past weekend last Friday, something else was in the works.
 
On Friday I had it all planned out in my head.  I would go on a dinner date followed by the bookstore Friday night.

Then, I would spend Saturday here.

With this guy.

Reading this.

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Then, Sunday evening, we would climb this.

And see the sunset from the top.

However, those things just weren't to be.... not this past weekend, anyway.

Despite the fact that Kent and I both sat around Friday afternoon with headaches, we did go out to eat and to the book store.  When we got home, though, uuuugggghhhhh.  Headaches were worse, his ear hurt, and I couldn't stand to be around light or noise.

To make a long story short, Kent had a double ear infection and what they thought was a perforated eardrum thanks to the diving he does for work.. Ouch.  I had one of the worst headaches ever that lasted all of Friday and all of Saturday, followed by a feeling of being totally wiped out on Sunday.  (Talk about things not going according to plan... sheesh...)  All weekend, we were two pitiful people.

On a positive note though, since I didn't feel like my head was exploding or being split in two on Sunday, I was able to lay around on the couch like a giant slug and read my new book Fireworks Over Toccoa.  

I found the book to be a SUPER quick and easy read, and like I predicted, it was kind of a combination of Titanic, The Notebook, and The Bridges of Madison County.   It was a love story through and through.  And kind of a bittersweet one.  The plot centers around an 82 year old woman recalling her love story for her granddaughter and a woman who works at a local museum because the museum has something very important to her on display, and she wants it back.  There is also a bit of a sub-plot going on with the granddaughter, but I feel it was left a little high and dry in the end.  All in all, I would say I enjoyed it.  Don't expect too much depth or mystery, as I found it was a bit predictable, but if you're looking for a quick and easy read or a love story with a twist, it may be perfect.  

Now that Kent and I finally feel better, we can finally catch up on the things we didn't get to do over the weekend... like grocery shop... or my dreaded laundry.  After that, maybe I can finally get to work on some new paintings.  I have big plans for something coming very soon, so keep your eyes open!

In the meantime, remember me and my shop for you or the pet lover in your life.... and if you aren't already an "official follower" of this blog, please click on the "Follow" button to the right of this post.  :)  I love knowing who stops by and getting to see comments from you.  

Books and Burns

Kent and I made a special visit to one of our favorite places after our dinner date.

We went to the bookstore!

I love going to the bookstore.  For as long as I can remember bookstores and libraries have been somewhat magical to me.  The distinct smell of the paper, the glue, and the dusty shelves is amazing to me.  It's a smell that means potential.  I start thinking about all the pages represented by that paper and glue smell, and then it makes me think about all the vibrant and colorful stories hiding within the pages of each book.... Each book just waiting to be opened so those stories can leap from the pages and entertain your mind for a while.
 


Seeing the shelves filled with row after row of books makes me so excited!

I had just finished a really awesome book, The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  I loved it and highly recommend it.  It's about maids in the 1960s and all that was going on with segregation and into the time of integration.  A very interesting read, it left me wanting a little more from the ending.  (But that's just because I tend to love everything tied up in a nice little bow when I leave a book.)

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Anyway, since I had just finished The Help, it was time to pick out a new book.  I wasn't sure which direction I wanted to go, though.  Should I go for the "real literature"  that one of my favorite teachers used to call "literary broccoli" or enjoy the fluff stuff that she used to call "brain candy"?

You see, I was an English major in college because I loved stories.  The grammar and all that was fine and dandy, but it definitely wasn't the reason I wanted to major in English.  I wanted to read stories, talk about them, and discuss meanings and truths.  That was what interested me.  Although I did a great deal of that in my classes, being an English major also means writing many many papers about the books I read-- papers on themes and anything special a writer does in a book to convey that theme.  I was fine with all those papers until about my senior year of college.  It just gets old after a while.  To me, it felt like I was beating a dead horse taking all these classic and wonderful pieces of literature, these great stories, and writing over and over about the way they author chose to put them on the paper.  Why couldn't we just read it, discuss it, and appreciate it?  Why did we have to nit-pick it to death???  I made it through my senior year by looking forward every day to working on artwork for my art classes-- which is probably why I changed my mind at the very last minute and decided to do my Master's in Art Education instead of English.  After graduation, I realized that I had a bad taste in my mouth from picking "real literature" to death.

I rebelled (in my own mind, anyway).  I read nothing but "brain candy" for about a year or so-- lots of Nora Roberts and quite a few "trashy" romance novels.  I was so tired of stories without a happy ending, stories about Russia, stories written in diction that I had to think so hard about to understand... or so I thought.  Really, I was just tired of writing about the little things that don't matter. ( To this day, I am convinced that those "great writers" had no idea about all the "conventions" they were using.  Sure, they may have thought of some things, but the rest had to be just a happy mistake.) 

Finally, I got back into some "real literature."  I read The Time Traveler's Wife and Water for Elephants when they first came out, and I really loved them, along with quite a few others.  My love for stories had finally returned.

These days I finally feel the magic of books again... kind of like my "burn" has healed.  I read "real literature," but I also value some "brain candy" every once in a while, too.  It reminds me that the books can be fun and not all serious all the time.

Last night I decided to get one helping of "literary broccoli" and one helping of "brain candy."  (You have to balance it out, right?)

I brought home a book called Fireworks Over Toccoa by an author named Jeffrey Stepakoff.

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It looks like an interesting story.  I was drawn to it because it's set in the real town of Toccoa, Georgia, and I was born and raised in Georgia and went to school very close to Toccoa.  The book is set around WWII, which happens to be one of my favorite time periods to read about, and is a love story with a twist.  A woman marries a "proper" man before he goes off to war, and when he and the other soldiers return, a chance encounter with a handsome immigrant leaves her torn between what her heart and mind are telling her to do. 

Just from reading the back of the book, the basic plot appears similar to The Bridges of Madison County.  I liked that book though, so I'm giving this one a try.  I'll let you know how it turns out when I finish.

Has anyone read Fireworks Over Toccoa or The Help?  Has anyone else had a similar experience to mine when it comes to getting a little burnt out on something?  Leave me some comments.  I'd love to hear!