Book Talk
Ugh, I am on a serious bookfest this month. I won't be able to read more for a while, but I'll start putting up what I am reading so I can remind myself.
My friend Jana just dropped off her course books from last term and the ones she doesn't need yet for this term, so I've got some new material. I also saw my aunt recently, and purchased books on Monday after work. (I love working across from Chapters.)
I had the day off, so when I finished class I took off shopping with Jana, much to the consternation of the roommate who thought I had no plans (as I never do) and wanted to watch a French film I've never heard of. Oops. Cuticle oil with tiny waterlilies for my stepmother, I Quit! gum for my stepfather, etc. She went looking specifically for the beautiful new OPI nail polishes for Alice in Wonderland.
SO. Today I got through One Fifth Avenue, which... okay. (My friend pleaded the fifth when I asked her about purchasing it.) I hated Lola, but you were supposed to. The whole thing felt unnaturally harsh about Mindy and too soft on James: this is a failed power couple, where Mindy is so bitter she can never be nice or soft, and James is treated so kindly by the author - "Oh you poor beleaguered husband" - and as a result his cheating is looked upon too gently. The rest... ehhh. I feel writers are always writing about writers, and it's just bothersome. Unless you're Auden and you're writing Possession...
I also read through The Style Strategy, which is quite good for right now, as most of these are. I liked the quotes (Michelle Obama - "If I can have any impact, I want women to feel good about themselves and have fun with fashion.") and anecdotes (paper dresses! Campbell Soup making a paper dress called The Souper after Andy Warhol, lol). I thought initially it was badly balanced since it spent so little time on hair. Parts of it unintentionally made me laugh - "When in doubt [re: garment mending] consult your tailor." HANDS UP FRIENDSLIST - WHO'S GOT THEIR OWN TAILOR? And if you bought everything they said you NEEDED you'd have tons of items in your closet. I like having 10 scarves and 2 pairs of shoes.
Re-read Mordecai Richler's Barney's Version, since I recently read Still Alice. If you must read a book where the protagonist is suffering from Alzheimer's, READ THIS ONE. And yes, he's an intolerable ass, and yes, that first wife of his, Clara? :D It's incredibly CANADIAN and would barely make sense to someone who is only passably familiar with Canada, but it's powerful and well-written, and the author writes in such detail.
I do love where he - the narrator - describes Canada as being a "cloud-cuckoo-land, an insufferably rich country governed by idiots, its self-made problems provide comic relief to the ills of the real world out there, where famine and racial strife and vandals in office are the unhappy rule." I LOVE this - it comes after how, throughout the novel, Barney has been making his money off the new regulations of a certain media percentage required to be Canadian by producing Canadian shit. No, really.
I wish I could locate Size 12 Isn't Fat, which is by Meg Cabot. I'm mostly ambivalent about its lessons in size; I like the style. And the finale! It's so ridiculous.
I've also lost my earlier one about the French reaction to the Holocaust - I KNOW I read that post-NYE, what was it called? The Key? Sarah's Key! I wished they'd drawn out the WWII story longer, rather than solving that and moving it on to this one woman's modern day marital issues. It had a weak resolution compared to the powerful beginning.
I MEAN HI FLIST HOW ARE YOU?! :D
My friend Jana just dropped off her course books from last term and the ones she doesn't need yet for this term, so I've got some new material. I also saw my aunt recently, and purchased books on Monday after work. (I love working across from Chapters.)
I had the day off, so when I finished class I took off shopping with Jana, much to the consternation of the roommate who thought I had no plans (as I never do) and wanted to watch a French film I've never heard of. Oops. Cuticle oil with tiny waterlilies for my stepmother, I Quit! gum for my stepfather, etc. She went looking specifically for the beautiful new OPI nail polishes for Alice in Wonderland.
SO. Today I got through One Fifth Avenue, which... okay. (My friend pleaded the fifth when I asked her about purchasing it.) I hated Lola, but you were supposed to. The whole thing felt unnaturally harsh about Mindy and too soft on James: this is a failed power couple, where Mindy is so bitter she can never be nice or soft, and James is treated so kindly by the author - "Oh you poor beleaguered husband" - and as a result his cheating is looked upon too gently. The rest... ehhh. I feel writers are always writing about writers, and it's just bothersome. Unless you're Auden and you're writing Possession...
I also read through The Style Strategy, which is quite good for right now, as most of these are. I liked the quotes (Michelle Obama - "If I can have any impact, I want women to feel good about themselves and have fun with fashion.") and anecdotes (paper dresses! Campbell Soup making a paper dress called The Souper after Andy Warhol, lol). I thought initially it was badly balanced since it spent so little time on hair. Parts of it unintentionally made me laugh - "When in doubt [re: garment mending] consult your tailor." HANDS UP FRIENDSLIST - WHO'S GOT THEIR OWN TAILOR? And if you bought everything they said you NEEDED you'd have tons of items in your closet. I like having 10 scarves and 2 pairs of shoes.
Re-read Mordecai Richler's Barney's Version, since I recently read Still Alice. If you must read a book where the protagonist is suffering from Alzheimer's, READ THIS ONE. And yes, he's an intolerable ass, and yes, that first wife of his, Clara? :D It's incredibly CANADIAN and would barely make sense to someone who is only passably familiar with Canada, but it's powerful and well-written, and the author writes in such detail.
I do love where he - the narrator - describes Canada as being a "cloud-cuckoo-land, an insufferably rich country governed by idiots, its self-made problems provide comic relief to the ills of the real world out there, where famine and racial strife and vandals in office are the unhappy rule." I LOVE this - it comes after how, throughout the novel, Barney has been making his money off the new regulations of a certain media percentage required to be Canadian by producing Canadian shit. No, really.
I wish I could locate Size 12 Isn't Fat, which is by Meg Cabot. I'm mostly ambivalent about its lessons in size; I like the style. And the finale! It's so ridiculous.
I've also lost my earlier one about the French reaction to the Holocaust - I KNOW I read that post-NYE, what was it called? The Key? Sarah's Key! I wished they'd drawn out the WWII story longer, rather than solving that and moving it on to this one woman's modern day marital issues. It had a weak resolution compared to the powerful beginning.
I MEAN HI FLIST HOW ARE YOU?! :D