Thank Goodness for Winter Break (lots of reading)

So I have a lot of reading to talk about--so much that I'm going to do a quick summary and give my thoughts on each in one post. I'm on Winter Break (yay!) so all I've been doing is sleeping, eating, and reading- my three favorite things. Anyway, here's the rundown:

1. The Hunger Games Trilogy by Susanne Collins: a bleak young adult series that I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm a big fan of YA- it's easy to read, and most of the time it's fun and entertaining. This is certainly much better than Twilight, although not quite as awesome as Harry Potter. The themes are quite mature, however. I would definitely recommend- and Target has the entire series for a reasonable price.

2. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer: continuing in the bleak reading theme, this nonfiction follows the story of Chris McCandless as he gives up a comfortable life, disappears off the grid, and journeys across America, eventually ending up heading into the bush near Denali National Park in Alaska. It's an interesting read, if a bit graphic and gut wrenching at times.

3. Songbook by Nick Hornby: I started this blog with a post about Nick Hornby's book about reading; this book follows in the same tradition, though it's focus is on music and how it relates to life and the memories a particular song can hold. It's a nice read, though if you don't know the songs, it can seem a bit tedious.

4. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Steig Larsson: I'll spare you another long winded post about my love for Larsson's Millennium trilogy and simply say: I LOVE THESE BOOKS. I finally got to finish the last one, and it was great. Just like the others, it was suspenseful, well written, and the details were amazing.

I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday! I'll be back soon with another combo movie/book post. Until then, Happy Reading!

Angel Headed Hipsters (Howl by Allen Ginsberg)

A few weeks ago I went to see a film with a friend of mine entitled "Howl." Obviously, being a good bookworm, I had heard of the poem by Allen Ginsberg, but I had never read it--my beat reading was cut short after On the Road because I got distracted by Hemingway, which is much more to my tastes.

The film focused on the obscenity trial surrounding the publication of the poem "Howl." Jon Hamm was in it! I do love me some Don Draper...and also, James Franco played Ginsberg. Those of you that know me know that I'm slightly obsessed with James Franco; he can do pretty much anything. He was excellent and almost unrecognizable as Allen Ginsberg. The film was interesting; it juxtaposed the trial with a reading of Howl (which Franco did, it was easily the best part of the film) and with episodes out of Ginsberg's life. The only parts I didn't like were the cartoon interpretations of the poem--it was much too literal and it kind of took me out of the film.

Anyway, I watched the movie, and still hadn't read the poem. So my friend lent me his copy, and I finally got to sit down and read it today. I turned on some music, and sat in my papasan reading and feeling a bit like a hippie (the music definitely helped with that--it was kind of a sixties soul type thing). Although I liked Howl, I liked some of the other poems in the book much better- for example, "Transcription of Organ Music" and "Song."

I'm not a huge fan of poetry, but I can stand a little. I'm not going to recommend this, per se, but I know I have some friends that would enjoy it.

I'm almost done with my semester, so I'll have plenty of posts during the winter holidays. Until next time, Happy Reading!

The Beginning of the End (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I)

The bookworm went to the movies!

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE Harry Potter. I've been reading HP since I was 11 (half my life) and I feel that I grew up with Harry, Hermione, and Ron. I was at the midnight releases for the last three books, and most of the midnight releases for the movies. So obviously I had to go last night when Deathly Hallows was released.

In my opinion (and we all know I have one), this was the best of the films. I have a few minor critiques that I'm not even sure are worth mentioning. My only real problem was with the handling of the way Harry was moved from Privet Drive to the Burrow. In the book, it was a huge deal that they would be breaking Lily's protective charm when Harry and the Dursley's parted ways. The emphasis in the movie was instead on the way the six decoys transformed into Harry. Although funny, I would have liked more emphasis on the actual fighting. Furthermore, they didn't go to any of the safe houses before taking portkeys to the Burrow (that's one of my minor critiques- it didn't bother me quite so much).

The film was as bleak as the book, and in many ways, a lot more shocking; seeing Charity Burbage suspended above Voldemort's table, then avada kedavra'd was intense. The other most shocking moment was seeing "mudblood" carved into Hermione's arm, and, of course, Dobby's death and Hedwig's death. And when Ron had to kill the horcrux...it was slightly disturbing.

Overall, this was a perfect way to start the end of Harry Potter. The last film comes out in June...it seems like a long wait, doesn't it?

Until next time, everyone go watch HP, Happy Thanksgiving, and Happy Reading!

I get by with a little help from...the help? (The Help by Kathryn Stockett)

I was recommended The Help by Kathryn Stockett several months ago by a lady I sat next to at a training class for my after-school tutoring job. She said it was the best book she had read in several years, which I doubted I would say since I read a lot of great books. But I decided to give this book a chance, and I was not disappointed. It was a fantastic book.

I love historical fiction, despite the fact that most of it is terrible. The Help focuses on one of my favorite periods of American History, the Civil Rights Movement. It takes place in Mississippi, a hot bed of civil rights activities, in 1964. The story revolves around a young Ole Miss graduate named Eugenia but called Skeeter, who was too tall and too immersed in her education at Ole Miss to catch a husband, which was her mother's greatest desire (my mother's too, I suppose). Skeeter wants to be a journalist, so she starts out by writing the weekly housekeeping column in the Jackson newspaper. Unfortunately, Skeeter knows nothing about keeping house, since she grew up with Help.

So Skeeter asks her friend Elizabeth's maid, Aibileen, to help her write the column. From there, Skeeter gets the idea to write a book about what it is like to be The Help in Mississippi. She asks Aibileen to tell her stories, and it takes a lot of convincing. 1964 Mississippi did not look highly upon those stirring up the status quo, particularly white women.

It's hard to imagine a world where segregation and racism so pervades the daily lives of everyone. I did grow up in the South, and vestiges of that racism still exist. People down here still call it "The War of Southern Independence," after all. This book, however, gives a different look to the impact of the Civil Rights movement. You hear in school and in American History classes about all the important civil rights leaders- Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers...you can list as many as you want. What you don't hear in history class is the impact of the civil rights movement on those who had to go to work everyday for white women or white men. The hotter the civil rights movement got, the worse they were treated, at least in the Deep South.

Stockett provides an interesting perspective, by telling her story from the points of view of Skeeter, Aibileen, and another maid named Minny. From the very beginning, the consequences of breaking the status quo is clear, and by the end of the book those consequences are made real.

Go read this book. RIGHT NOW.

Until next time, Happy Reading!

I should be tired of Swedish Fish by Now (The Girl Who Played with Fire)

I went to the redbox again!

If you haven't figured it out by now, I adore the Millennium trilogy by Steig Larsson (although I haven't read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest yet). I outlined the plot of this in my post about the book The Girl Who Played with Fire, so I won't do that again, but I finally got to see the Swedish film this weekend.

I, obviously, loved it. The movie had an excellent pace, and despite being in Swedish (and thus having to read subtitles), it was a fun movie to watch. If I didn't know what was going to happen, it would have been suspenseful, and Noomi Rapace plays Lisbeth Salander perfectly.

I can't wait to both read and watch Hornet's Nest. And I really hope that the American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is not completely screwed up. Go watch these movies if you have a few spare hours, it's an excellent way to spend an afternoon.

Next time, I'll have a post about Allen Ginsburg's Howl, and the film Howl, based on the poem and the obscenity trial surrounding its publication. Until then, Happy Reading!

Attraction and Alienation (Prep by Curtis Sittenfield)

This was another re-read for me. I went home for the weekend and left without any for-fun reading materials, so I had to pick something from my extensive collection of already read books.

Prep follows the experiences of an Indiana high schooler by the name of Lee Fiora who decides to attend the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. It is Lee's first experience away from home, and she soon finds herself as a fish out of water. The classes are hard, and she had trouble making friends. Furthermore, she finds herself nursing a crush on the star basketball player, Cross Sugarman, and desperately wishing that she could be one of the popular kids.

Prep chronicles all four years of Lee's experiences at Ault, and the reader witnesses her grow from an awkward 14 year old to an awkward 18 year old. At times, Lee can be tiresome, constantly worrying and doubting herself, and I see bits of Holden Caulfield in her. The first time I read this book, after I had been away from home at college, I identified a bit with Lee. Now, several years later, I have a hard time relating to her and I found myself annoyed by the end of the book. Teenage angst is harder to understand the older you get, I suppose.

Filling in a Hole (Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut)

So I've been told recently that there are some holes in my reading since I had never read a Vonnegut...so I decided to correct that. I picket Vonnegut's most famous novel, Slaughterhouse Five. Looking back, I really am not sure how I made it through two years of AP English in high school without reading this novel.

I'm sure most of you have read this, so I won't spend much time rehashing the plot. It's an absurdist classic that relies on autobiographical details from Vonnegut's experiences in WWII. I rather enjoyed reading it, best of all, it was fairly short and I read it it in a couple of nights.

I'll repeat what I was told: if you haven't read Vonnegut, GO DO IT. You have holes in your literary experience.

Where Have All the Cowboys Gone? (So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger)

It's definitely been a while since I've posted! I've read a few books, and watched a few movies, so I'm going to try to update my readers on all of that...

First up is a book I read a couple of months back, So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger. Anyone who knows my reading habits knows that I love Enger's freshman novel Peace Like a River- I recommend it to pretty much everyone. His sophomore effort, while it doesn't have the same magic quality at the first, is still an excellent read.

The story follows an ex-train robber, outlaw, and boat craftsman by the name of Glendon Hale, as told by his friend and companion Monte Becket. It hearkens back to the westerns that were popular in the 1950's, and it has a pleasant, lyrical quality to the writing that makes it a pure pleasure to read. The book is about suffering, loss, love, and in the end, redemption, as all good cowboys stories are. It made me long for the days where you could hop on a horse, ride west, and have an adventure.

The book also incorporates Charles Siringo, a non-fictional Pinkerton agent who has been on the trail of Hale for years. I actually didn't know that until I looked the book up on Amazon (which offers it on Kindle, if you have one of those or the iPad app). I definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good adventure novel, or anyone who enjoys a poetic, light touch to prose that Enger employs with great success:

"You can't explain grace, anyway, especially when it arrives almost despite yourself. I didn't ask for it, yet somehow it breached and began to work. I suppose grace was pouring over Glendon, who had sought it so hard, and some spilled down on me."

Until next time, Happy Reading!

Swedish Fish...again. (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)T

The Bookworm went to the redbox again!

So yesterday I was faced with a weekend of rain and plenty of reading to accomplish, and after my trip to Kroger to stock up on groceries, I made a detour to the redbox and checked out a couple of movies, one of which was the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. You'll remember I read the first two books in the series over the summer, and I recently found out that a version of the film had been made in Sweden already. I found it at redbox, yay!

So this afternoon, after I cleaned my apartment and finished reading The American Voter, I curled up in my papasan with some raspberry lemonade, hummus, and a toasty bagel to watch the movie. As it was rainy outside, and I was slightly sleepy, I turned off the subtitles and instead put the English dubbing on the movie. That was a bit disconcerting; none of the words matched the lips of the actors when they spoke.

Otherwise, the movie was awesome! I definitely wouldn't watch it without reading the books first, because obviously the books are just so much better and you wouldn't want to ruin it. But it was a great film, and did follow the events of the book fairly closely. Obviously there is more exposition in the books so it's a bit easier to follow, and not as much emphasis is placed on the Wennerstrom affair in the movie. Other than those minor quibbles, I would say rent it.

Until next time, Happy Reading (and movie watching)!

A Journey to the Top of the World (Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer)

So this may be the last post I make for a while (about books, anyway, unless you all would like to hear about lovely things like The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisted or The American Voter. I'm sure you don't). I'm just beginning my Master's in American Politics at UGA, and while I'm very excited, all the required reading leaves little time for reading for fun.

Anyway, I did manage to finish Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer before I started my grad classes yesterday. It's about the 1996 Everest season, in which 11 climbers were killed in just one day (more died that season, actually) by a terrible storm that hit as the climbers were reaching the summit and beginning the descent.

Krakauer gives a compelling portrait of the personalities of the climbers that decide to summit Mt. Everest- one trait that ties them all together is their determination to reach the top. At over 29,000 feet, it definitely takes determination and reaching the top is not easy. To be denied the summit when one has worked so hard to get there is difficult to deal with.

In the years previous to 1996, commercial expeditions had started going to the top of Everest. Krakauer climbs with one of these expeditions; they are considerably easier because a climber does not have to deal with getting permits from the Nepalese government, organize sherpas, and set up their own camps at various points on the mountain.

Although commercial expeditions have taken a lot of heat for guiding people to the top of Everest that otherwise would not have been able to do it, these expeditions also make it possible for more people to summit. It's a two way street, I suppose, and Krakauer reserves his judgment on whether or not they are actually a good thing.

It takes a while for Krakauer to build up to the actual summit bid; once he does, the reader can tell that writing about that fateful day is very difficult. Many of the climbers that were killed were personal friends of Krakauer, and he writes with an emotion and an intensity that makes it difficult to read the book. It's heartbreaking to read these personal portraits of people that existed, and died in a terrible way on the highest and one of the most cruel mountains in the world.

It's an interesting and compelling book, and one that I'm glad I read. I'd like to read more of Krakauer's books (he also wrote Into the Wild). I would also definitely recommend this book if you, like me, enjoy a good adventure every once in a while (I prefer ones that you don't have to suffer frostbite for).

Up next for me on the required front is The American Voter by Angus Campbell et al. On the just-for-fun front, I've got several, but I think I'm going to try So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger. Anyone read his previous book, Peace Like a River? If you haven't, please do. It's a fantastic, beautiful work.

Until next time, Happy Reading, bookworms!

A Journey to Find One's Self (Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert)

I think I may have said before that sometimes a book just comes along that is absolutely perfect for that moment in your life, and for me, Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert has been that book. I started reading it last week, and finally finished it (mostly laying by the pool at my new apartment). It's been a tumultuous week, one in which I had to start acting like an adult (even though I don't feel like one) and moved away from my family.

Life is a journey, and Eat Pray Love explores that journey in a most interesting way. It begins with Eating in Italy- "no carb left behind." It continues in India with Prayer at an ashram, where Gilbert learns meditation and yoga. Finally, it concludes in Bali, where Gilbert falls in Love once again.

It really is a beautiful story, one that explores pleasure, devotion, and finally finds a balance between the two. That's what life is about, isn't it?

This is a beautifully written memoir of a journey into a new beginning, one that has been perfect for me as I begin again as well.

Until next time, find some balance, and Happy Reading!

Oh frabjous day! (Alice in Wonderland)

This bookworm has been in the midst of a move, and although I have been also reading my next book diligently, I was feeling a movie tonight. So I went to the redbox just down the street, and what did I find? Alice in Wonderland (not the Disney version, the new one that came out this year).

So since Alice was technically based on Lewis Carroll's stories (I say stories here, because there were elements pulled from both Alice in Wonderland and the following book, Through the Looking Glass), I decided I would blog about it. I read both a few years ago; I actually found an excellent edition called "The Annotated Alice" and if you're interested at all in reading Carroll's stories this one gives a lot of backstory and information that makes reading it way more fun.

I'm just going to throw it out there that I liked the Disney version of Alice way more than this one...Tim Burton makes everything a little bit creepy for me. And Johnny Depp's weird little dance at the end of the movie just kinda freaked me out.

So this has been the first edition of The Bookworm goes to the Movies...I may post more as I watch more movies based on books. Until next time, Happy Reading (and Watching!)

Revisiting the Joys of Childhood (Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt)

The best first paragraph ever written:

"The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank which dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after."

(from Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt. Published 1975, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)

I read Tuck Everlasting every single year during the first week of August. It is a perfect book; and, for me at least, it can't be read any other time. It is a children's book, but the writing is eloquent and beautiful and the story resonates long into adulthood.

The book centers around the Tuck Family, who drank water from a magic spring and now do not age. Winnie Foster is a young girl, almost a teenager, who wanders into her family's wood and comes across Jesse Tuck drinking from the spring. What follows is a tale of kidnapping, loss, heartbreak, and a moral to always enjoy what life brings you.

List time! My favorite children's books (besides Tuck Everlasting):

1. The BFG by Roald Dahl

2. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

3. The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

4. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

5. Holes by Louis Sachar

6. The Silver Crown by Robert O'Brien

7. Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

8. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery

9. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

10. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

It may be a while before I can post again (the impending move to Georgia and all), but until next time, Happy Reading!

This is your Brain on Books. (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith)

I am a terrible blogger! I want to apologize for the delay, I have been incredibly busy going to Zac Brown Band concerts, balloon races, and getting ready for my impending move to Georgia for graduate school. But somehow, in between all of that, I managed to read a couple of books.

First up: a satirical take on Jane Austen's masterpiece, Pride and Prejudice. A few years ago, a non-fiction writer named Seth Grahame-Smith decided to take his life into his own hands (those Austen fans can be a rabid bunch) and write a rather different take on Austen's book. The result? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

For the record, I hate zombies. They're rather stupid, aren't they? And not at all hard to kill, like say, vampires. Or werewolves. Or Lord Voldemort.

But back to the book at hand. It's definitely funny! And this coming from a girl who has read P&P several times, notably on the L going into downtown Chicago when I was in 7th grade...but I digress. I love Austen, but this is a really fun and interesting take on her book. Lizzy and Darcy are both badass, and Jane is not quite so annoying with all her "oh, I'm so in love with Bingley" stuff that she throws out every few pages. It's like a feminist take on Austen, where the ladies in the book are not such ladies that they can't kill a few zombies (and ninjas too. Did I mention that? Lady Catherine de Bourgh has a squad of ninjas as protectors.)

But it is a really fun book to read, it just took me a few days. The basic plot of the book hasn't changed much, but the characters do read a little differently and there's much more action. Check it out if you have some free time, and you like Jane Austen, or Zombies, or both.

Until next time (later today), Happy Reading!

Swedish Fish Number Two (The Girl Who Played With Fire by Steig Larsson)

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a fantastic book I had read before I started this blog, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I had the second book in the series, The Girl Who Played with Fire, in my basket waiting to be read. Well, after reading numerous other books, I finally picked it up. I guess I was afraid it wouldn't be as good as the first one, as many times sequels are terrible, particularly the second book (look at Harry Potter. I don't know anyone who would pick Chamber of Secrets as their favorite HP book. Although, the foreshadowing is brilliant...).

I was wrong.

The Girl Who Played with Fire was BETTER than Dragon Tattoo. One problem I often have with sequels is that the characters become boring; the reader has already learned everything about them that is pertinent to the book. Larsson's characters, however, remain multidimensional and are constantly full of surprises.

The one problem that I have with these books lies in the translation. Since they were originally published in Sweden, they had to be translated into English, and at times the writing style is inelegant and clumsy. Also, there is too much attention to detail at times--the reader really doesn't need to know what time the characters showered or ate a pizza (I guess that goes along with the clumsiness of the style too, though. And maybe that's typical in Swedish novels? I don't know...).

Overall, though, the book was fantastic. I would certainly recommend both of Larsson's books that I have read to anyone. They're interesting, fast-paced, complicated, detailed, and un-put-down-able. Yep, I think I made that last one up. Anyway, go pick one up. They're a great summer read.

Next up: Elizabeth Bennett, Mr. Darcy, and....Zombies? Until next time, Happy Reading!

Katie the Bookworm and the Reason I Stay Up Late At Night (Harry Potter and the... by J.K. Rowling)

I'm a nerd. If you haven't discerned that already, I'm just going to throw it out there for you. And, being a nerd, I like to do nerdy things, such as re-read series of books that I have read enough times to have them practically memorized. And anyone who knows me knows how much I adore the Harry Potter series. Which leads into this:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: I started with Book Five, for reasons that sounded ok at the time. I let boyfriend borrow my copy of Prisoner of Azkaban almost TWO YEARS AGO and he still hasn't returned it (or even finished it, despite my harping), and I really didn't want to trudge through 735 pages of Goblet of Fire yet again, so I started with Book Five. It's my favorite (maybe...) and, for me, it's where the series of children's books becomes a series of adult books.

I grew up with Harry- I read the first book when I was 11, and I was 19 when the last book came out. Book Five was released when I was 15, and Harry and I were the same age. I identified with him- to the extent that you can identify with a boy wizard who is being hunted by an evil Dark Lord, anyway. But I do love Book Five- it's frustrating, yet hopeful, and terribly sad at the end.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: yet another fantastic book. I went to the midnight release for this book and I started reading it while I was walking to the car, using a cell phone as a flashlight. I was done with it before midnight the following night. This book has much less action than OOTP or Deathly Hallows, and I view it as a necessary precursor to Book Seven. Of course, all the books are necessary, but HBP does a lot of exposition that sets up to Book Seven perfectly.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Ok, so maybe this one is my favorite. We've come full circle with the series, we've reached the end. It's bittersweet, in a way. The first time I read it, I cried for the last 150 pages or so, and today, when I finished it (for only the fourth time!) I was crying again. I realized as I was reading it that, in the two years since I've picked up a Harry Potter book, I had forgotten a lot of what happened in DH, so parts of it seemed new again.

In a side note, ABC Family was having a "Harry Potter Weekend." I skipped the first two movies, but I tivo'd Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, and Order of the Phoenix. And I may go rent Half-Blood Prince, just so I'm prepared when Part One of Deathly Hallows is released in November.

Another side note: Cedric Diggory plays Edward in Twilight, and I just want to make it known that, although I have seen all the Twilight movies and read the books, Harry Potter could take Edward and Jacob. And J.K. Rowling is so much awesomer than Stephanie Meyer.

Until next time, Happy Reading!

PS- Ryan, finish Prisoner of Azkaban or I'll sic Kira on you. She's fierce.

I Spent My 4th of July Learning How to Fight Terrorism (Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin)

Three Cups of Tea is the true story of an American who, after a failed summit attempt on K2, decides to build a school in the remote Karakoram region of Pakistan for the small village that helped him recuperate from his expedition. Mortensen, the American, soon learns that a) it's a lot harder than it looks to build a school in Pakistan and b) that education for all children is really the only way to effectively combat fundamentalist Muslim teachings and, therefore, fight terrorism.

Everyone out there who has ever taken a world history or global politics class (or even if you just read a lot of newspapers) knows that in places like Central Asia and the Middle East, an army can't just swoop in, take over, and expect to be loved by the people in that country. You have to not just learn the customs, but understand the reasons for those customs. The title of the book says it all: Three Cups of Tea. It is explained later in the book: you sit down for the first cup of tea as a stranger, by the second cup, you are an honored guest, and by the third cup, you are a member of the family. In order to help others, you have to take the time to know, understand, and be accepted by them.

The lesson put forth in Three Cups of Tea (besides the trite "one person can change the world") is that education is the root of all problems; or, perhaps more to the point, a lack of education is the root of all problems. In areas like Pakistan and Afghanistan, the educational system is extremely flawed, and it does not even exist in some places. But with education, lives are changed. Young men are less likely to fall prey to the fundamentalist teachings of conservative mullahs and Muslim schools and are more likely to help pull their families and villages out of poverty. Young women are able to learn and become equals with their husbands, and are able to adequately nourish and care for their families. Poverty rates and infant mortality rates drop, and this can all be accomplished for about $12,000 American dollars. That seems like a bargain to ensure the security of our great nation, right?

Mortensen began a nonprofit organization, the Central Asia Institute. You can check them out at www.ikat.org to find out more (or donate a few dollars to help build another school). And please, read Three Cups of Tea. It's fantastic, especially for my fellow humanitarian tree huggers (as my Dad would say). And as always, Happy Reading!

One can't have it both ways (Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy)

Love. Loss. Innocence. Guilt. Desire. Maile Meloy's short stories in this collection (Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It) encompass all of these themes. Bound together by snow and ice, by love and infidelity, the eleven stories are all richly drawn and some of the best I've ever read. They're haunting and lovely, and short enough to leave a reader wanting more.

Meloy's style is lyrical and poetic, reminiscent of Capote. The stories themselves are all snapshots of life; they depict moments in life that one can imagine happen everyday all over the country. One of my favorites is "O Tannenbaum," the final story in the collection. It leaves the reader with a sweet taste and certainly wanting more.

I'm definitely adding Meloy's other works to my list!

And here's a new list- my favorite short stories:

1. Truman Capote (anything.)

2. "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

3. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor

4. The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst

5. Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha stories (his short stories are so much more readable than his novels)

So I finished two books today...I really should get a life. I'll have another post soon, hopefully. And until we meet again, Happy Reading!

This one took a while... (Empire Falls by Richard Russo)

So it's been a few days! I spent a few days at the beach, and I didn't get much reading done, so this one took a little longer to read. Empire Falls is the story of a town told through the eyes of a local diner owner, Miles Roby. The town is like many in the northeast; its livelihood was the textile mills, and once they were closed, the town began to slowly die.

What is so compelling about this story, which is like so many others, both true and fictional, is that the characters are so richly drawn. By the time you close the book on the last page, you feel like you've known these characters your entire life. They're funny and heartbreaking at the same time, and you want to hope that everything turns out all right in the end.

The most interesting parts of the book for me were the flashbacks to Miles' mother, Grace, who had an affair with the owner of the mills, C.B. Whiting. The affair, which did not last terribly long, has had lasting effects on Miles' life, even though he did not know about it until many years later.

It's an interesting read, although it took me several days to finish. I added it to my "Books to Read" list a few years ago after watching the superb miniseries that was shown on HBO (I think). Ed Harris is in it! If you're looking for a good way to waste an afternoon, definitely head over to Blockbuster and check it out.

I have no lists for today, and I think I'll head outside and lay in the hammock for a while and begin my next read. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know! And, as always, happy reading!

Curiouser and Curiouser (The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan)

I've read Ian McEwan before- Atonement and Saturday were both beautiful, wonderful, moving novels. And I thought that The Cement Garden would also be interesting....I've learned my lesson that you can't judge a book by the blurb on the back.

Terrible.

Horrible.

No Good.

Very bad.

Now that I've got that out of my system, let me tell you a bit about the book. It's very short, which means that I finished it very quickly (and if it was any longer, I probably wouldn't have finished it). It's a story about children who have lost their parents, and the ties that bind them together. Unfortunately, those ties include incest and other awkward things.

I was vaguely reminded of another book I hate, Catcher in the Rye. Like Catcher, the main protagonist of The Cement Garden was a teenage boy, and his behavior was certainly reminiscent of Holden Caulfield. They're both self-absorbed, miserable, off-putting characters. Ugh. Needless to say, I don't recommend this particular Ian McEwan.

I suppose, in a way, that my last read (The Likeness) led me into reading this book. Some books just set up perfectly for the next one, and I'm not sure that I really would have liked any book that I read after the last one, so I guess it's good that I read a really terrible book. Also, some of the themes were the same (such as the loss of family, which was predominant in both).

I'm taking the other three books I mentioned last time to the beach, so expect a post when I get home. Until then, Happy Reading!

Irish Coffee (The Likeness by Tana French)

I believe I mentioned a book by Tana French called In the Woods in a previous post. It was a fantastic psychological thriller that took place in Ireland and was actually rather spooky. Well, I was doing a little research on Amazon, trying to figure out if the author had written anything else, because she has a very unique and interesting style (Mrs. McMurray, my high school English teacher, would be so proud right now).

Well...I found a sequel that really isn't a sequel, but it does involve the same characters. The Likeness is also a psychological thriller, though it hinges on an extremely unlikely coincidence. This book also takes place in Ireland, and revolves around a detective named Cassie Maddox who goes undercover to help solve a murder...if I say anymore, it may give away too much, just in case you're planning on reading them.

It was an absolutely fantastic novel; I dived into it and although it took me several days to read, I really didn't want to put it down at all. Once again, I've started into my old routine of not getting enough sleep because I'm staying up so late to read a book.

So I'm off to the beach on Thursday, and I really don't know how much reading I can get done before then or while I'm there, but until then, here's a list for you.

Katie's favorite beach reads:

1. Savannah Blues/Savannah Breeze by Mary Kay Andrews

2. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

3. Anything ever written by David Sedaris

4. Anything ever written by Roald Dahl

5. Anything ever written by Augusten Burroughs

6. Anything ever written by Nick Hornby

7. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

8. Marley and Me by John Grogan

9. The Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris

10. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

As you can see, I like easy/fun books when I'm at the beach, although I do read anything there as well. I'm taking with me this time these books:

The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan

Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

So until next time, Happy Reading!

A Terribly Inconvenient Destination (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt)

Savannah has been called "la plus belle des villes d'Amerique du Nord" (the most beautiful city in North America). It is eccentric, isolated, and certainly interesting. And what Savannahians call "The Book" serves to illustrate all of those facts.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt is a study of Savannah and its native inhabitants. It focuses around the murder trial of Jim Williams, who restored Mercer House in the Historic District of Savannah (it's now called Mercer-Williams House and you can take a tour. It's absolutely beautiful). The house was used in the movie Glory, and of course, the film version of The Book.

Berendt portrays a group of extremely eccentric Savannahians, beginning with the art-and-antiques dealer Williams. He also recounts his meetings with a transvestite who calls herself The Lady Chablis (and who actually still performs in Savannah!), and an ex-lawyer piano player by the name of Joe Odom. There is also Luther Driggers, who reportedly keeps a bottle of poison strong enough to kill all of Savannah if he could only put it in the water supply. Then there's Minerva, a voodoo priestess who works curses on those who stand against Williams.

As if the cast of living characters weren't enough, it's the dead that draw the most attention. The most famous Savannahians are dead, of course: Conrad Aiken, the poet, and Johnny Mercer, who wrote "Moon River" and many other famous songs. Danny Hansford, the man that Jim Williams allegedly killed, is also a central figure around which the story is focused.

This was a re-read for me. I first read the book when I was in high school, and after a trip to Savannah with my mother, I read it a second time. This was the third time for me...I very rarely read books that many times. Of course, I've been to Savannah enough times now that I can picture very easily most of the places that are talked about in The Book.

It's non-fiction that reads like fiction, and the saying is proved true: you couldn't make this stuff up. It's a must read, if only for Berendt's fluid storytelling and compelling character portraits.

No list today...but next time, in honor of my trip to the beach, I'll have a list of my favorite beach reads. Until then, Happy Reading!

Swedish Fish (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson)

I finished The Polysyllabic Spree last night and immediately started my next read (I'll post about it when I finish), but in the meantime, I wanted to write about a book that I read a while back and thoroughly enjoyed (note: I do not expect to like everything I read. However, this book was fantastic, and really, everyone should read it).

I am a mystery buff--I love novels that involve crime and murder and law and order. That makes me sound really creepy. I'll just throw out there that I really enjoy watching CSI and Law & Order a lot too. Anyone else bummed that L&O has been cancelled?

Anyway...The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first in a trilogy by this Swedish writer Steig Larsson. It would have been a series of six (I think) but Larsson died just after he finished the manuscript for the third novel. So I had been hearing a lot about these books recently and I was in Target one day and happened to see a paperback copy for something like $6. So I bought it on a whim (I don't normally go to Target for books. Everything else, yes, but not usually books) and as I was out of fresh reading material, I started it immediately when I got home.

The book was completely engrossing. The action centers around a writer, Mikael Blomkvist, and a computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander. I won't give away the plot, but I couldn't put it down! At 600+ pages, it definitely took me several days, but I just really wanted to know what happened. And I couldn't guess! Usually I can figure the ending of a book out in the first few pages, but I honestly didn't know what would happen. It was a complete surprise!

Anyway, I bought the second book in the series (The Girl who Played with Fire) when I was at Target the other day, and I haven't started it yet. I'm partly saving it because I'm looking forward to it, and I'm partly busy reading some other books, and I'm partly afraid that it won't be as good as the first one. Anyone else have any thoughts? I know I hate to be disappointed when the first book in the series is the best. And if you've read these books, let me know! I'd love to hear thoughts.

Another list for you readers out there--my favorite mystery/crime books:

1. Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry (not for the faint of heart, as it's a true crime book about the Manson family)

2. In the Woods by Tana French (more of a psychological thriller, but it was fantastic)

3. Devil in the White City by Eric Larson

4. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

5. The Harper Connelly books by Charlaine Harris

6. Death's Acre by Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson (technically, it's about the Body Farm at UT. but it's still really good)

7. The Thursday Next books by Jasper Fforde

8. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

9. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

10. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Happy Reading!

Inspiration (The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby)

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE to read. I will read almost anything (with the exception of Faulkner. I have never finished a Faulkner novel.) that comes across my path. My "Books to Read" list is seven pages long, and it keeps growing. And every time I go to the bookstore, I come home with multiple titles.

So I've decided to write about what I read. The inspiration hit me as I was reading The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby earlier today. It's a book about reading books, which was...well, it was perfect. In fact, my "Books to Read" list has grown considerably while I've been reading about the books he's read...it's a vicious circle.

So this book. (note: Hornby is brilliant. If you haven't ever read anything by him, you must. High Fidelity is great, and it was his first book, so start with that.) It's great- it's a collection of essays that were published in a literary magazine several years ago, and it's about the books that Hornby read and his thoughts. I'm not quite done with it, even though it's very short, but it is very good so far. Unless it just all falls apart in the second half, it will be a book that I keep on my shelf for a long time--and that's high praise, as I have very little shelf space anymore, due to the fact that I can't stop buying books.

So a little about me, aside from the books. I'll be heading to graduate school in the fall, and I have one summer of freedom without a job to do whatever(lucky me). I wasn't an English major in college (I hate all the grammar stuff), and I don't write, but I have always had my nose in a book. I used to read two or three at a time, but I've found that I get through with them faster if I concentrate on one at a time. I do read just about anything. I don't have favorite books, either, though I used to have favorites. The list just got too long. I do, however, have a list of books I believe everyone should read:

1. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

3. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

4. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

5. On the Road by Jack Kerouac

6. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

7. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

8. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

9. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

10. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (in English and French)

So I suppose that's all for now...I'll be posting randomly, as I read things that I like or dislike.