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!