2012 Movies, TV, and Books (October - December)
Okay, I feel kind of bad that I haven't posted anything for three months, and even that was a quarterly review of what I'd been watching/reading. The job has kept me busy, but that also means I have stuff to write about (like my crazy first week, when someone sort-of resigned). Once I get home from work I usually spend time reading or watching something, but I also have kitten cuteness to rave about. I've been spending plenty of time with family, and that can be interesting, but then I have family secrets I can't post about. Like the fact that I have a nephew due in May. My sister's finally told the whole family (ours and her husband's), so we should be able to talk about it on facebook soon. It's been kind of hard to keep a secret like that, so it's easier to not say anything at all.
I promise a more substantive update soon, but in the meantime here's a tally of everything I've been watching and reading for the last three months. I'm still doing two book clubs, and one has two selections each month (a primary selection, plus a back-up for people who want to do more), so that's structured my reading a bit when I can't decide. I'm proud to report that I've been using the library for the book club selections so I don't spend too much money on books. On the other hand, my local used book store has a fire sale every quarter, where most paperbacks are $.50 and hardcovers are $1. I went to one over Labor Day weekend, and spent about $20. And only one book was a hardcover. I really didn't have room for more books, but books are one of the few things that I've fully unpacked. While everything else is in boxes, my bookshelves are up and stocked with the books I haven't read yet. My mom doesn't have bookshelves anywhere else in the house, and that seemed wrong to me.
When I was at the fire sale, I was debating buying a copy of The Host by Stephenie Meyer. As a Twilight fan, I've had mixed feelings about this book. The premise doesn't appeal to me, it's huge, and Meyer is not the best author, but there's a sense of... loyalty? Something like that. Even though I had a bunch of books in my basket, this one made me think about how long it would take to read, how much shelf space it would take, etc. I decided to pick up the only paperback copy and decide at check-out. Then I realized that it wasn't on sale. There were still hardcover copies on sale for $1, but that was really easy to walk away from. If $.50 is the difference between "maybe" and "nope," that's probably a good sign that I didn't really need it.
Anyway, here's my log for the fourth quarter of 2012. I guess I've been in more of a mood for reading, on top of book club assignments and self-imposed challenges.
Movies and TV seasons, in chronological order. * means I've seen it before, bold means I can't believe I haven't.
Books...
I promise a more substantive update soon, but in the meantime here's a tally of everything I've been watching and reading for the last three months. I'm still doing two book clubs, and one has two selections each month (a primary selection, plus a back-up for people who want to do more), so that's structured my reading a bit when I can't decide. I'm proud to report that I've been using the library for the book club selections so I don't spend too much money on books. On the other hand, my local used book store has a fire sale every quarter, where most paperbacks are $.50 and hardcovers are $1. I went to one over Labor Day weekend, and spent about $20. And only one book was a hardcover. I really didn't have room for more books, but books are one of the few things that I've fully unpacked. While everything else is in boxes, my bookshelves are up and stocked with the books I haven't read yet. My mom doesn't have bookshelves anywhere else in the house, and that seemed wrong to me.
When I was at the fire sale, I was debating buying a copy of The Host by Stephenie Meyer. As a Twilight fan, I've had mixed feelings about this book. The premise doesn't appeal to me, it's huge, and Meyer is not the best author, but there's a sense of... loyalty? Something like that. Even though I had a bunch of books in my basket, this one made me think about how long it would take to read, how much shelf space it would take, etc. I decided to pick up the only paperback copy and decide at check-out. Then I realized that it wasn't on sale. There were still hardcover copies on sale for $1, but that was really easy to walk away from. If $.50 is the difference between "maybe" and "nope," that's probably a good sign that I didn't really need it.
Anyway, here's my log for the fourth quarter of 2012. I guess I've been in more of a mood for reading, on top of book club assignments and self-imposed challenges.
Movies and TV seasons, in chronological order. * means I've seen it before, bold means I can't believe I haven't.
- October
- The Secret of Kells
- Katy Perry: Part of Me
- Blood In Blood Out
October highlights: It's hard to have "highlights" when you only have three choices. I guess the new job and lots of reading (9.33 books this month) didn't leave much time for movies.
November - I Don't Know How She Does It (Hanging out with Mom.)
Preparing for the final Twilight movie: - Twilight*
- New Moon*
- Eclipse*
- Breaking Dawn, Part 1*
- Breaking Dawn, Part 2
- Extract (Pretty much what you would expect, based on the cast.)
November highlights: Breaking Dawn, Part 2
December - Silver Linings Playbook
- Jane Eyre (1943) (Mom was browsing the free movies.)
- High Anxiety
- Skyfall (Everything you want from a Bond movie, including an old-school opening credits scene, a shaken martini, and a new Ms. Moneypenny!)
- BUtterfield 8
- The Notorious Bettie Page
- My Idiot Brother
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Pretty!)
- The Rage in Placid Lake
- He Died with a Felafel in His Hand
- This Is 40
- Sunset Boulevard
- A Shot in the Dark (1964)
December highlights: Silver Linings Playbook, Skyfall, This Is 40, The Hobbit
Books...
- X in Flight by Karen Rivers (Needed a title starting with X. Wasn't impressed.)
- Y in the Shadows by Karen Rivers (Needed a title starting with Y. I liked it a little more than X.)
- What Z Sees by Karen Rivers (This didn't give me the Z title I was looking for, but it did complete the series. After being unimpressed with X in Flight, I thought about skipping this one, but Y in the Shadows raised my expectations a little. And it was short, so I figured I might as well finish the set. I liked it, but I would've liked it more if the author had used quotation marks. It was especially challenging in the sections written in the first person.)
- Zel by Donna Jo Napoli (Rapunzel, basically. It was short and the title started with a Z, and that's all that mattered.)
- Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
- Lexapros and Cons by Aaron Karo
- Oh, Say Did you Know: The Secret History of America's Famous Figures, Fads, Innovations, and Emblems, from Ben Franklin's Turkey to Obama's Blackberry by Fred DuBose and Marth Hailey
- Jane Slayre: The Literary Classic with a Blood-Sucking Twist by Charlotte Brontë and Sherri Browning Erwin
ABANDONED: The Magus by John Fowles (Book club selection which apparently required a lesson in existentialism before we could really appreciate it. I still didn't.) - Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt (A bit of a slow start, but then I couldn't put it down. I was in tears by the end.)
- The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
- Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson
- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
- The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
- The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (Okay, now the last seven books have been for book clubs. Glad my book clubs weren't reading anything new (to me) in December, so I could get back to that A-to-Z title project.)
- Quentins by Maeve Binchy
- Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stout (Didn't realize this was more of a collection of short stories (Olive is barely mentioned in two of them) than a novel. It never grabbed me, and some of the grammar bugged me. Still, I finished it in a day and it filled out my A-to-Z challenge, so I'm happy.)
- Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story by Carolyn Turgeon (This was a lot darker than I expected it to be.)