Hokaye, so. Here is the Earth.
David's (the Rhein-storm) talking about using his Livejournal as a place for food pr0n (Kuro, thank you for using this phrase and being the gastronomical dork you are) has made me think about how I haven't really been checking my friends page as regularly lately. Ehehehe?
(Ow. Ow ow. My stomach just gave a very painful twang. Anyway.)
I figure there's a reason I started this thing in the first place, so I might as well write in it every so often.
So I'm at work. (Yes! I am employed!) I actually spend some time on the computer or reading because working in a lab involves a lot of do-this-now-wait-for-30-minutes and such. I've gone through about seven or eight books in this fashion.
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer--
Lots of people have been recommending this book to me for a while, so I finally got around to reading it. It is excellent. It's a layered story about a Jewish American who travels to Ukraine looking for the woman who might have saved his grandfather during the Holocaust. He finds a translater (who sounds as if he looks up every other word in the thesaurus in hopes that he'll sound more impressive), and together they search for "Augustine". The book is hilarious at times but builds itself to a stark revelation that I thought was powerfully written. And, of course, it is the source of the "resplendent eyes" joke you may have heard me talk about.
The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett--
One of his Discworld books. He's written a lot of books in this universe, but thankfully, you can pretty much pick up anywhere and still understand the story he's trying to tell. So the idea is that someone has managed to kill the Hogfather (analogous to our Santa Claus), and a hooded, scythe-carrying someone has to fill in for a while. Pratchett's style is a wry, facetious kind of humour that I enjoy quite a bit. And how can you go wrong with characters like the Death of Rats? (Death isn't going to bother with every little thing that passes on -- he's got helpers for that.)
Stardust by Neil Gaiman--
So I wanted to read this because the movie that's coming out in August looks really excellent. And just by principle, I like to read books first before watching the movies based off of them. Anyway! Neil Gaiman is another one of those authors that people keep telling me is really good -- and he is. Stardust takes inspiration from John Donne's "Song" (by the way, Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle does, as well, but in a very different way). "Song" is all about catching falling stars, and women true and fair, and all that good stuff. Stardust is about a dreamy boy who sets off to find a falling star in hopes of winning the heart of the prettiest girl in the village. The star, however, is not too happy about that (nor about her broken leg, thanks to that nasty fall). I'm really looking forward to the movie now -- and to reading more of his works! American Gods is definitely next on the list. Erin raves about this book. (:
Sabriel by Garth Nix--
So I have to admit, this book took a little time to grow on me. I wasn't too crazy about it for the first couple of chapters. But I stuck with it! Because someone whose taste in books I trust (ahem) said it was good. I'm not completely satisfied with the ending, either (the very end, I mean -- literally the last two pages or so), but overall, it was a good read. The titular character, Sabriel, is the daughter of the Abhorsen, a necromancer whose job it is to keep the Dead from returning to life. Her father disappears, so she sets off in hopes that he is not yet dead. It's a fantasy story, but the writing is grounded in realism instead of being unnervingly fantastical.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer--
This is another by the same author of Everything Is Illuminated. The main character is a boy who lost his father to the attacks on September 11th. Unable to fully cope with death, the boy searches for an explanation behind a strange key he finds in his father's closet, hoping to find something that was significant to his father. Like Everything Is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a layered story told in a series of letters, journal entries, and narrative.
Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson--
So ever since I read The Passion senior year, I've been enamoured with Jeanette Winterson's writing. The way she paints her stories is, to me, just beautiful. Lighthousekeeping is about an orphaned girl who is taken in by Pew, the blind lighthouse keeper. He tries to teach her about lighthousekeeping, which he describes as not merely tending to the light, but carrying on the stories.
‘[…] but I must teach you how to keep the light. Do you know what that means?’
I didn’t.
‘The stories. That’s what you must learn. The ones I know and the ones I don’t know.’
‘How can I learn the ones you don’t know?’
‘Tell them yourself.’ (40)
The story, I think, is not quite as strong as The Passion, but the writing is still excellent.
Of Love and Dust by Ernest J. Gaines--
So junior year, we read this book by Gaines called A Lesson Before Dying. I thought it was a thoughtful, well-written book, so when I happened to see this one whilst looking for Neil Gaiman, I decided to try it out. Unfortunately, I had to return it before I got very far into it. It seems promising, though -- the story is about a young man (Marcus) in Louisiana who is convicted for murder (yeah, the premise is similar to that of Lesson). He's let out on bond and sent to work on a plantation run by a man who intends to break him and show Marcus his place in society as a black man. In defiance, Marcus sets out to seduce first this man's black mistress, then his wife.
Wow, that was long. Also, it took me the better part of the entire day 'cause I can only sit here and type at odd intervals.
Anyway! I am currently re-reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. I didn't care for it much the first time around, but maybe that'll change?
(Ow. Ow ow. My stomach just gave a very painful twang. Anyway.)
I figure there's a reason I started this thing in the first place, so I might as well write in it every so often.
So I'm at work. (Yes! I am employed!) I actually spend some time on the computer or reading because working in a lab involves a lot of do-this-now-wait-for-30-minutes and such. I've gone through about seven or eight books in this fashion.
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer--
Lots of people have been recommending this book to me for a while, so I finally got around to reading it. It is excellent. It's a layered story about a Jewish American who travels to Ukraine looking for the woman who might have saved his grandfather during the Holocaust. He finds a translater (who sounds as if he looks up every other word in the thesaurus in hopes that he'll sound more impressive), and together they search for "Augustine". The book is hilarious at times but builds itself to a stark revelation that I thought was powerfully written. And, of course, it is the source of the "resplendent eyes" joke you may have heard me talk about.
The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett--
One of his Discworld books. He's written a lot of books in this universe, but thankfully, you can pretty much pick up anywhere and still understand the story he's trying to tell. So the idea is that someone has managed to kill the Hogfather (analogous to our Santa Claus), and a hooded, scythe-carrying someone has to fill in for a while. Pratchett's style is a wry, facetious kind of humour that I enjoy quite a bit. And how can you go wrong with characters like the Death of Rats? (Death isn't going to bother with every little thing that passes on -- he's got helpers for that.)
Stardust by Neil Gaiman--
So I wanted to read this because the movie that's coming out in August looks really excellent. And just by principle, I like to read books first before watching the movies based off of them. Anyway! Neil Gaiman is another one of those authors that people keep telling me is really good -- and he is. Stardust takes inspiration from John Donne's "Song" (by the way, Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle does, as well, but in a very different way). "Song" is all about catching falling stars, and women true and fair, and all that good stuff. Stardust is about a dreamy boy who sets off to find a falling star in hopes of winning the heart of the prettiest girl in the village. The star, however, is not too happy about that (nor about her broken leg, thanks to that nasty fall). I'm really looking forward to the movie now -- and to reading more of his works! American Gods is definitely next on the list. Erin raves about this book. (:
Sabriel by Garth Nix--
So I have to admit, this book took a little time to grow on me. I wasn't too crazy about it for the first couple of chapters. But I stuck with it! Because someone whose taste in books I trust (ahem) said it was good. I'm not completely satisfied with the ending, either (the very end, I mean -- literally the last two pages or so), but overall, it was a good read. The titular character, Sabriel, is the daughter of the Abhorsen, a necromancer whose job it is to keep the Dead from returning to life. Her father disappears, so she sets off in hopes that he is not yet dead. It's a fantasy story, but the writing is grounded in realism instead of being unnervingly fantastical.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer--
This is another by the same author of Everything Is Illuminated. The main character is a boy who lost his father to the attacks on September 11th. Unable to fully cope with death, the boy searches for an explanation behind a strange key he finds in his father's closet, hoping to find something that was significant to his father. Like Everything Is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a layered story told in a series of letters, journal entries, and narrative.
Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson--
So ever since I read The Passion senior year, I've been enamoured with Jeanette Winterson's writing. The way she paints her stories is, to me, just beautiful. Lighthousekeeping is about an orphaned girl who is taken in by Pew, the blind lighthouse keeper. He tries to teach her about lighthousekeeping, which he describes as not merely tending to the light, but carrying on the stories.
‘[…] but I must teach you how to keep the light. Do you know what that means?’
I didn’t.
‘The stories. That’s what you must learn. The ones I know and the ones I don’t know.’
‘How can I learn the ones you don’t know?’
‘Tell them yourself.’ (40)
The story, I think, is not quite as strong as The Passion, but the writing is still excellent.
Of Love and Dust by Ernest J. Gaines--
So junior year, we read this book by Gaines called A Lesson Before Dying. I thought it was a thoughtful, well-written book, so when I happened to see this one whilst looking for Neil Gaiman, I decided to try it out. Unfortunately, I had to return it before I got very far into it. It seems promising, though -- the story is about a young man (Marcus) in Louisiana who is convicted for murder (yeah, the premise is similar to that of Lesson). He's let out on bond and sent to work on a plantation run by a man who intends to break him and show Marcus his place in society as a black man. In defiance, Marcus sets out to seduce first this man's black mistress, then his wife.
Wow, that was long. Also, it took me the better part of the entire day 'cause I can only sit here and type at odd intervals.
Anyway! I am currently re-reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. I didn't care for it much the first time around, but maybe that'll change?