Without Question, I Have a Problem

I like to read. A lot.

We're talking possibly unhealthy amounts of love for the act of reading.

In the last 6 weeks, I've read 24 books.

I read books at red lights.

I read books while I'm walking places.

Once, a boy I know who's pretty cute and nice and funny saw me reading a book in the Subway line here on campus. He was waiting in the Teriyaki Stix line. I really liked the book I was reading. He invited me to eat lunch with him. Tempting. But the book was better. I lied. I said I had to get right back to work, that I had things to do at the office during lunch. It wasn't true. I just wanted to keep reading my book in the precious 52 minutes remaining of my lunch hour.

I read every night in bed before I go to sleep.

I read books while watching movies.

I read books instead of doing homework.

I read instead of answering the phone.

I currently have 13 books checked out from the BYU library. I also have 11 books checked out from the Provo public library.

I need help.

For You, Lurlene

I had to read a Lurlene McDaniel book for my Adolescent Lit class. We've got to survey the good, the bad, and the ugly, people.

As restitution for my suffering, I'd just like to take a moment to openly mock Lurlene McDaniel.

Actually, it's the easiest thing I will do today. I will reproduce here, verbatim, her "You'll Want to Read These Other Inspiring Novels by Lurlene McDaniel" list. The mockery will then be perfectly self-inflicted.

Ahem.

One Last Wish novels

Mourning Song

A Time to Die

Mother, Help Me Live

Someone Dies, Someone Lives

Sixteen and Dying

Let Him Live

The Legacy: Making Wishes Come True

Please Don't Die

She Died Too Young

All the Days of Her Life

A Season for Goodbye

Reach for Tomorrow

The Dawn Rochelle novels

I Want to Live

So Much to Live For

No Time to Cry

To Live Again

Other fiction by Lurlene McDaniel

Angel's in Pink: Kathleen's Story

The Time Capsule

Garden of Angels

A Rose for Melinda

Telling Christina Goodbye

How Do I Love Thee: Three Stories

Angel of Mercy

Angel of Hope

Starry, Starry Night: Three Holiday Stories

The Girl Death Left Behind

Angels Watching Over Me

Lifted Up by Angels

Until Angels Close My Eyes

Till Death Do Us Part

For Better, for Worse, Forever

I'll Be Seeing You

Saving Jessica

Don't Die, My Love

Too Young to Die (didn't we already have this one???)

Goodbye Doesn't Mean Forever

Somewhere Between Life and Death

Time to Let Go

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

When Happily Ever After Ends

and my all time favorite,

drum roll please...

BABY ALICIA IS DYING.

Excerpts from Angels in Pink: Raina's Story forthcoming.

Two Nice Thoughts from Daddy-Long-Legs

I finished Daddy-Long-Legs today. It's a super-quick read, but... I only ever managed to read it during class, and thus was limited to Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 10 AM to 2 PM, whilst attempting to look attentive and studious during lectures.

Anyway, the book is written by Jean Webster. Check out this genealogy: obviously, the famous Webster family; her mother, Annie Clemens, was Mark Twain's niece; her father, Charles Luther Webster, was a member of Mark Twain's publishing firm; also in her family tree were the notable Daniel Boone and Eli Whitney. Awesome!

Ironically, no one really took her seriously in the beginning. She was also a terrible speller.

Anyway, her very likable protagonist Judy (Jerusha) has two killer quotes. I know they'll seem ridiculous, but they struck a chord with me.

1. "I don't agree with the theory that adversity and sorrow and disappointment develop moral strength. The happy people are the ones who are bubbling over with kindness. I have no faith in misanthropes."

2. "It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones - I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be forever regretting the past, or anticipating the future, but to get the most that you can out of this very instant."

Nice, huh?

Thumbs up. Thumbs down.

Thumbs up: 500 Days of Summer

Cool cinematography, nonlinear storyline, KILLER wardrobe. Scarily accurate representation of certain aspects of my life. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thumbs down: Letters to Juliet

Wow, so terrible. So painful. Terrible script, worse acting. Good thing Italy is beautiful. That saved the movie. Vanessa Redgrave was the strongest actor; sort of gave one the impression that she was intimidated into doing the movie. Did someone have a gun to her back? Probably. The Taylor Swift song was the highlight of the movie. The highlight. People, that's just sad.

Thumbs up: Pretzel M&Ms and Lindt's A Touch of Sea Salt Dark Chocolate

Ok, I didn't like my first bite of pretzel M&Ms, but after a handful, I was hooked. So scrumptious! I mean, just a chocolate covered pretzel with a hard shell. And if you were to take the pretzel part away, you'd have Lindt's A Touch of Sea Salt Dark Chocolate. Oh. My. Gosh. It's amazing. I know, I was skeptical as well. But it's that addictive sweet and salty element... minus the carbs of a pretzel! Yay.

Thumbs down: Taco Time

Just gross. Enough said.

And to end on a positive note, thumbs up: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and Daddy-Long-Legs

Finally back in the reading saddle.

Oh, rapture! I've been invited to join a book club. The Writers Reading Club. Ah, what zen.

Our first book is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer. I need a snazzier name if I'm ever going to write a novel.

That is all.

I really like getting free stuff!

Yesterday, I got several things for free! Belated birthday prezzies!

First, I got an email from Goodreads that I had won the book First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria: How a Peace Corps Poster Boy Won My Heart & a Third-World Adventure Changed My Life by Eve Brown-Waite. Can't wait to get it in my mailbox... for free!!... in a few weeks. I heart Goodreads. Go there. Be my friend.

Then, Simini dropped the happiness bomb on me last night by giving me a free month's pass to Netflix. THANK YOU!!! I knew that I'd get DVDs in my mailbox but I didn't know there were movies online, ripe for the plucking. I'm watching Julie & Julia right now. So charming. I want to whip up chocolate mousse and incredible pans of butter-seared fish! Ah, to be a hip, powerful woman and a domestic goddess as well. That is my life's ambition.

I also discovered MoneySavingMom.com. I think I have some tuna and some toothpaste coming in the mail. We'll see. Oh, the rapture of shiny packages of free stuff in the shadowy recesses of my mailbox!

Livros.

I've been taking an online English class (American Lit 1914-1960, for those who are interested), and so most forms of free reading have been put on the back burner. Today I (finally) finished a YA book I had been trying to read all month. After I finished, I thought, "Hmm, I oughta blog about this." Then I remembered that in early May I read four books in five days, while basting in the Mexican sun. How did I forget to review those reads? My book reviews are some of the only semi-important material I have for my blog! So, I now present, in the order in which I read the books, some literary reviews:

1. The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin.
Yes, Steve Martin. The actor. Just knowing that Steve Martin wrote the book made it infinitely more amusing to read. Martin became the default narrator in my head. The plot revolves around a cripplingly neurotic recluse, Daniel Pecan Cambridge, and his bizarre maneuverings through a world of self-imposed rules and restrictions. The man takes 45 minutes to walk two blocks to Rite Aid because he can only cross the street at particular driveways that must perfectly face each other. Curbs=big no-no. This book was crude at times, but... a laugh from start to finish. Plus, I mean c'mon, Steve Martin?!? The guys a comic genius, on stage, on screen, and in print. I was very impressed.


2. The Man Who Ate the 747 by Ben Sherwood.
Ben Sherwood?!? Okay, maybe his name doesn't instantly ring a bell, but the man is the executive producer of Good Morning America. Pretty dang good, right? And Sherwood still found time to write a couple of novels. You know, in his "spare time" whatever that means! I really enjoyed this book, partly because the premise was so unique. J.J. Smith is Keeper of Records for the Book of Records, and he is sent around the world to document the impressive, the unbelievable, and the downright absurd. He lands in Nebraska for a while, to track a man eating an abandoned 747 to prove his love to Willa, the local newspaper lady. Less crude than Pleasure, and I think a very sincere look into the nature of real love. Not Hollywood love. Just real people who, yes, fall in love. It does happen. Great book.

K, my brain hurts. This shall be continued tomorrow...

Hylton Update

I found a family history site for the family of my book's soldier. This note was attached to his file:

Joe, I have some information and a picture of Wm. H. Hylton that was in the book that belonged to my grandmother. It's titled "History of the First Methodist Church Dallas, Texas 1846-1946" compiled by Adolphus Werry. At the back of the book is a Memoriam section dedicated to 24 young men who lost their lives in service to their country during World War II. It reads as follows "Lieutenant William H. Hylton was born May 30, 1916 in Birmingham, Alabama. He was a graduate from Wilson * High School and was a student at S.M.U. when he enlisted. He was with West Texas Utilities at Dalhart. He was reported missing March 4, 1943. He was awarded the Air Medal with an oak leaf cluster. He is survived by his wife and his mother, Mrs. J. M. Campbell and sister, Mrs. R.H. Reed."

This site also lists Hylton as having had two wives, although that would have been a lot to handle before he even turned 27, although it's certainly possible. The site also listed his death date as 11 Mar 1943. I don't know what the seven days means, if they confirmed he was dead or whatnot. Still looking into it...

Oh, and the "H" stands for Haven.

Cynefin

I finished another book. After The Book Thief, it's hard to read any other piece of WWII lit. Talking with one of my professors before dinner tonight, he suggested that Markus Zusak perhaps wasn't the most exceptional writer (I'd agree; he abandoned the intensity of the whole color device pretty early on in the book, and it just wasn't the highest writing I've ever seen), but he was a superb storyteller. I agree wholeheartedly. I became wonderfully attached to the characters, who on paper are quite unremarkable, and are fascinatingly ambiguous, just as we all are. The Welsh Girl did not grip me like The Book Thief did.

But The Welsh Girl is intriguing in its own right. My favorite aspect of the novel was not the plot or even the characters, but the symbol of the sheep herds so vital to life in Esther's small village. Davies paints a world in which herders are tied to the flocks, and flocks are in turn tied to their land, unable to stay on strange land for long. This idea of attachment to a plot of land is called cynefin. Even more interesting to me is the necessity of the female animals to sustain the flock. After they do their duty to the flock, mature males are sent to town for sale for meat. The females, however, are the lifeblood of the flock. Esther wonders why the German refers to is native country as the "fatherland"; in her experience, the only appropriate term for that feeling of obligation to country is "motherland." Interesting.

Gotta love some matriarchal discussion.

Books

So, I'm in London, and I haven't blogged about it, and people are going to be disappointed after today because any reference to London will be strictly coincidental. Sorry!

But I read a lot over Christmas break. And I kinda want to go through what I discovered.

First two books I read: Sequels to the LDS novel Charley, namely Sam and Adam's Story. Would have been a waste of time except they both read in about two hours each. I don't find Jack Weyland to be that gifted of a writer (I really, really don't, yikes), but I do enjoy reading literature about my unique religious culture. We are a nutty bunch sometimes. And even with Weyland's less-than-engaging writing style, it is nice to read about LDS culture without a filter or an encyclopedic narrative of terms and aspects of LDS life. And sometimes you need to read something so culturally "Mormon" to remind yourself that the culture is not the same as the gospel. Good thing, too.
Next two books I read: the rest of Pretties left over from my summer reading, and Specials, the last two books of the Uglies trilogy by Scott Westerfeld. It's hard for me to critique too much because I'm not extremely well-versed in YA science fiction, but I enjoyed them well enough. I thought that as a male writer, he did a good job writing inside a female protagonist's head. As a teacher, I thought that the series could pull well into discussion about dystopia, current environmental concerns, the nature and changeability of love, etc.

And then I read two more books: Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines, both by John Green, of whom I first became aware through the ever entertaining vlog, Brotherhood 2.0. I have to acknowledge that Green can write. Boy, can he write. And where Westerfeld's characters are a little inaccessible due to the futuristic time period, not to mention the fact that everyone has brain lesions and is anatomically reconfigured, I thought of dozens of people I knew in high school when I read Green's teenagers. Language was kind of intense, and though I suppose it's realistic, I don't think it's totally admirable, and I also knew plenty of people growing up who didn't feel the need to drop a vulgarity into every sentence. Still, I laughed, I cried... Green writes very well and is as funny on paper as he is on video.

I read another book my youngest sister brought home from school: So B. It. Wept. What a beautiful, mature story made carefully available to young readers. I highly recommend it, also a quick read.

And the grand finale, to trump them all: I just finished The Book Thief last night on the bus ride home from a day trip to Canterbury, Rye, and Beachy Head (there, gratuitous reference to England). I cried in front of everyone. It's a fairly sizable work for a YA book, over 500 pages with small font, but it reads quickly. It is divided into 10 parts with five or seven vignettes per part that follow a young girl, Leisel, from age 9 to age 14, and her experience living as a displaced child of Communist parents with German foster parents in Nazi Germany with a Jew in the basement. What I appreciated most about this book was its treatment of life for the average German during the war. I feel like general sentiments either highlight this so-called ignorance of Germans that anything like Auschwitz or Dachau was happening, or the belief that everyone living in Germany became a hardcore Nazi. Not so with Leisel and her foster family. I highly value the look into their neighborhood as people struggle to decide which of two evil paths to follow. Another favorite aspect of the book: narrated by Death, and a personified Death that I've never encountered before.

The Book Thief is important. And it's enjoyable. This type of book makes Green's angsty high schoolers seem pretty lame. I'm of the opinion that teenagers today are a bit too self-obsessed. I can verify this because I was myself, although I think not so bad as others. Relative comfort and opportunity has made my generation and the generation behind me soft, weak, and selfish. I'm sorry but I really do believe that. Even on my trip here, I'm surrounded by 39 girls my age, and a good part of them complain about everything and obsess about shopping. I'm sorry, but there are bigger issues in the world, and aspects of life that will be much, much more important than rain in London (hello!), homework on a semester abroad (hello?!?), and $90 leather boots from Top Shop (ugh). So bravo to Markus Zusak. A beautiful piece of literature that I think will become a lifetime book for me.