Five for Friday: works of fiction April 14, 2006
Posted by hallelujahhatrack in Books, Lists, Uncategorized.1 comment so far
This week’s Five for Friday has to do with one of my favorite topics: books. Fiction in particular. Now, I have to preface this by stating that I am a book snob. There, I said it. Life is too short to read crappy books (you know, the ones that usually show up on the bestseller lists and have to do with some type of lame mystery or contrived love story and are found in the shallow end of the library).
I’m talking about beautifully written, thought provoking works that will make you want to read and reread excellently written passages and that can bring tears to your eyes. Chances are that you can’t buy these in a grocery store and you won’t see someone reading them on the beach during the summer.
See what I mean about literary snobbery?!
Anyway, here’s the list, in no particular order, other than saving my all time favorite for last:
“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee – Many people think she got a little help from Truman Capote, but regardless, this should be required reading for everyone.
“The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – Brilliantly disguised as a children’s book, this is actually the best book dealing with human interaction that I’ve ever read. If you’ve never read this, read it soon, and then read it again.
“The Catcher in the
Rye” by J.D. Slinger – A wonderfully poignant coming of age story. Holden Caulfield is a true hero in a wise-ass disguise.
“The Night Country” by Stuart O’Nan – This story follows a group ofhigh school kids one year after they were in a horrible car crash. The deal is, however, some of them died and some of them lived and we get to follow all of them around. Heartbreaking.
“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer – Foer has hit it out of the park twice, first with “Everything Is Illuminated” and then with this one. Although billed as a boy dealing with the loss of his father post-9/11, that description doesn’t come close to describing this book. I cried when I was done, first due to the story, and second because it was over and I would miss it.
“Jesus Christ's Half-Brother is Alive and Well on the Spokane Indian Reservation” is a short story from the book “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” by Sherman Alexie. Although only about 15 pages long, I can never get through this without having to take a break and contemplate the story as I’m reading it. This could be the most beautiful thing I have ever read.
“A Prayer for Owen Meany” by John Irving – This is the granddaddy of them all. Irving, perhaps
America’s greatest living writer, gave us a classic with this one. If I were a literature teacher I would begin every semester with this book.
Again, I’ve exceeded five, but as I’ve said before, it’s my list and I can do what I want.
What’s your bookmark? April 5, 2006
Posted by hallelujahhatrack in Books, Family, Funny, Kids, Uncategorized.add a comment
I believe that what you use for a bookmark tells a lot about you, as well as a lot about what you read. Maybe one of my personal oddities, maybe some truth.
Let’s look at the books currently being read in my house:
My wife is reading something called “Cracks in My Foundation” by Marian Keyes. The bookmark being used is an emery board.
I am re-reading Truman Capote’s “Other Voices, Other Rooms” and to mark my place I am using my ticket to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I went in November to see the van Gogh exhibit. Perhaps that sound’s a bit pretentious, but it’s not. I’m just a big geek I guess.
Boona is reading one of the Harry Potter books. It’s a thin one, so must be one of the first few. He is using a plush Scooby Doo bookmark.
The Bear is currently knee-deep in “Junie B Jones: Something Smells Fishy.” (these books are classic, by the way!!) For his bookmark he is currently using a pair of green and purple “Monsters. Inc.” underpants.
For him, that’s just about right.
Resolutions, if you must January 5, 2006
Posted by hallelujahhatrack in Books, Kids, Uncategorized.add a comment
A few people have asked the ubiquitous question (and please read this as if someone is saying it in a real pain in the ass way), “So, are you making any New Years Resolutions?
Usually I do not, since I put New Years Resolutions into the same bucket as I do corporate mission statements – i.e.: the only companies who need them are the ones who have totally screwed (feel free to switch ‘screw’ with your favorite four letter “f” word if you’d like) everything up until this point. That’s not to say that I haven’t screwed up, because that would be a lie, I simply consider myself a work in progress so I know I’ll improve without a B.S. group of artificial goals.
However, since I’ve been asked, if I were to come up with a few they’d look like this:
- Lose weight (yeah, a pretty standard Resolution, but I really need to get to a point where my body weight is not higher than my IQ).
- Be more patient with my kids (between expecting a lot from them in the way of behavior and education – I refuse to le them grow up to be a detriment to society – and my quick temper, I tend to go after them a bit harshly at times).
- Read more (I already read a lot, but in this area too much is never enough).
- Be less judgmental about what other people read (if people want to kill brain cells by wading in the shallow end of the library, let them have at it. Anita Shreve, Chris Bohjalian and Barbara Taylor Bradford novels for everyone!)
- Do more artwork (I really kicked it up a notch in 2005, but I’d really like to even more this year – you all know the ABD’s of art: Always Be Drawing!)
- Enter more art shows (this would be the obvious follow up to #5)
- Don’t let my head explode every time I hear the following people speak: Howard Dean (do I really need to qualify this?), Ted Kennedy (how does this guy keep getting elected?), Sean Hannity (probably a nice guy, but I honestly don’t think he believes half of what he says), Ann Coulter (Ma’am, please step away from the cup of Kool-Aid), Beth Holloway Twitty (four words: more harm than good), and anyone on CNN (I wonder if it’s hard to talk with your head so far up your ass?).
- Double my income (shouldn’t be too difficult, if I could only find a half dozen drunks to roll…)
- Realize that there will be new reports regarding people who have seen the image of Jesus in their meatloaf or the shape of Virgin Mary in a flock of geese flying south for the winter and that these people are just sad and empty and grasping for stuff that isn’t there. No need for me to be bothered by this (anymore…).
