Shiny new site!

Hello! If you are reading this message through your feed reader, then my evil plan has not quite worked, and if you're viewing this on my Blogger site, then you are in the wrong place. :) I've moved my blog from Blogger to Wordpress, and also have a shiny new domain: alisonmccarty.com. Please update your bookmarks and let your feed reader know that you want to find me at http://feeds.feedburner.com/PilingOnTheBooks. If you're having any trouble, let me know what's going wrong!

The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells

Things I knew about this book going in:
1) I should have read it a long time ago.
2) Time travel.
3) Something about a morlock.

Strangely, there's not actually much more to the story than that! There is, obviously, a time machine, and a Time Traveller, as he is called. And it's a frame story, so there's a narrator who has dinner with the Time Traveller and hears his stories and then recounts them to us, which is always a good time. And so through our narrator we learn about how time travel theoretically works (just moving really really fast through time, basically) and then later how the Time Traveller is now called Late for Dinner and also managed to travel to the year 802701. That is a big number, dudes.

In the future there are some perfect-ish people who are also totes lazy and boring, and also some terrifying people-ish creatures, the aforementioned Morlocks, who are industrious enough to steal Mr. for Dinner's time machine. Social commentary ensues, Mr. for Dinner gets his time machine back, he goes home, no one believes him, and then he and his machine disappear. The end!

I'm sure that when this book came out in 1895, people were like, holy moly this Herbert fellow is a genius and also possibly insane! But unfortunately here in 2011, I've read one or two books that involve time travel and so I already had that part down and the rest of the book had to carry itself, which it didn't do terribly well. So, as a novella experience, not so great.

But I totally enjoyed the book on its historical merits of introducing time travel (I mean, travelling really fast through time is a genius idea) and the intriguing future that Wells devises. It's not exactly a dystopian future, since there's no real sense of utopia, but it's obviously not the future to which Victorian gentlemen aspired and those Morlocks are pretty creepy. I also like the Time Traveller's nods toward literary convention — he mentions once that in a novel the author could tell you all the intricacies of society, but he was a little too busy experiencing the world, thanks, and while sometimes that can be really annoying, Wells does it just fine.

My only problem with the story is that I'm pretty sure that the Time Traveller should have gotten his time machine stuck somewhere along his travels, considering his explanation of how it works, but I suppose I can forgive Mr. Wells, just this once.

Recommendation: For people who like to know where their contemporary literature came from, also future time travellers (or past time travellers?).

Rating: 7/10

How the Hippies Saved Physics, by David Kaiser

Hey, look, I finally finished this book, first mentioned on the blog back at the end of July. I had to return the book pictured, but then found the audio version on OverDrive, so I couldn't help but listen, right?

Right.

Okay, so. First of all, this book is not exactly about how hippies saved physics. The title is based off of some study called How the Irish Saved Civilization, and the hyperbole is intentional, so I guess I'll let it slide. It is about hippies, and about hippies doing physics, and about hippies doing really weird things with physics, so if you're into that sort of thing you won't be disappointed.

On the actual surviving physics side of things, there's a lot of info in the book about quantum physics and how absolutely insane it is, with entangled particles and the double slit experiment and quantum encryption and of course Schrödinger's cat, which is probably still causing (and not causing) Schrödinger endless amounts of frustration.

I majored in physics, so mostly in this part I was like yeah yeah whatever none of this is really new or interesting.

BUT THEN.

Soooooo it turns out that more than one physicist in the 60s spent some time doing research into extrasensory perception, on the government's dime. And then some more on other people's dimes. And that is really the selling point of this book for me, because WHAT. Apparently there were some physics dudes and chicks totally into that Uri Gellar guy and other people who claimed to be able to see the future or see the other side of a playing card or whatever, and the U.S. government was like, well, we'd better play it safe and pour some money into this research just in case the Ruskies get there first. Fantastic! And even when said government stopped pouring money in and most people were like, eh, whatever, probably not, there were still physicists who were like, but MAYBE.

And I am a sucker for a crazy person story, so I liked this part of the book, and the part where Kaiser goes off about one of the non-government money-pouring people who totally turned out to be a murderer. WHAT.

Also, I love the guy who narrates the audiobook (he also did The Disappearing Spoon), whose delightful voice got me through all the boring parts just fine. I totally want to go find a list of his work and see if he's done any other books I'm interested in reading.

Recommendation: For those who need some crazy science-related anecdotes to throw around at parties.

Rating: 7/10

Wreck the Halls, by Jen Yates

Hee hee hee hee hee! I love Cake Wrecks, and also Cake Wrecks, and really just cake wrecks in general. I love stopping by the cakes on display at Publix and hoping one of them might be terrible enough to go on the internet, but also hoping that none of them are.

Unlike the previous general-wrecks book, this one is particularly focused on the end-of-year holidays. And Star Wars. Obviously. There are phallic poo-turkeys and a Super Bowel cake, really terrifying Santas and gingerbread men and Care Bears, and the last cake on this page that made a finals-addled husband of mine practically pee his pants laughing. It's not that funny, but law school is apparently very difficult.

There's also the patented Jen Yates patter, which here includes some re-written Christmas carols and several pun-laden paragraphs, which I would reproduce for you here except I do want to you keep reading my blog. Let's just say there's some fantastic wordplay involving bread and also poo, because this woman cannot stop talking about it.

Someday I will get that coffee table and then I will purchase this and its predecessor and any future Cake Wrecks books and scare people away from my home with them. And you should, too.

Rating: 8/10

Geek Girls Unite, by Leslie Simon

Hokay. So. I mentioned in my last post that I had picked this book up for no real reason but that it looked interesting and name-dropped some people that generally intrigue me. It is possible I did not even crack it open to look inside, just said, ooh, pretty purple cover and went for it.

Because prooooobably if I had looked inside I would not have brought this home. See, what I thought I was getting was a look at "geek girl" culture and, per the cover, how these girls are "taking over the world." Well, I did get that, I guess, but I also got a lot of stuff I was not expecting.

The book is set up so that each chapter covers a specific style of geek girl, starting with a quiz on your knowledge of the style (spoiler: all the answers are C and the A and B answers are often ridiculous), providing a stereotypical description of such a geek girl, giving a history of awesome girls who fall into the category, naming some current "geek goddesses," describing people these geek girls shouldn't be friends with and boys whom they should date, and offering up required reading/listening/clicking/watching/etc.

The parts with the historical context and the current "goddesses" are interesting, because they give me cool people and things to look into and are, like, factual and stuff. But all the other parts were either just okay or kind of lame, and I think it's at least partially because Simon and/or her publishers don't seem to know what audience this book is for.

Is it for girls who want to find their geek clique? Well, they won't be able to tell from the quizzes, since the right answer is generally very obvious even if you haven't figured out that it's always C. Is it for girls who want to read about themselves and their chosen clique? Maybe, but when I turned to what I thought would be mine, the "Literary Geek Girl," I found out through the "character sketch" that I'm going to have to become completely immune to fashion and popular music and also go back in time to undo all that Cliffs-Notes-ing I did of really terrible books, and I'm just not willing to do that. Is it actually for boys, considering the "geek love" sections seem directed at the boys (very specifically boys, too) who want to win over a geek girl's heart?

I don't know. I wish the book had been less segmented and more about the generally geeky girl, and I wish there had been more factual stuff and less Seventeen filler, but I suppose that wasn't meant to happen here. And so I am disappointed by my own high expectations. But I give Simon props for using actual geek girls as primary sources for the book and giving me scads of new books and albums and websites and movies to procure and devour, and really any book that's going to get people interested in new things is good by me.

Recommendation: For the girl who has always wanted to be a [insert geek style here] Geek Girl but never knew where to start.

Rating: 7/10

Six more reasons to keep me away from cataloging!

I know, you're like, "Just six? Not eight? Thirteen?" And I am like, dudes, this would be so much worse if I hadn't figured out how to keep all of my holds from coming to me all at the same time. I think I have about eight queued up just right now to come to me in January!

Also, this pile is much better because I've actually finished half these books already! Go me!

Here's what we've got:

1. Small Space Decorating, from Better Homes and Gardens. This is one I've read through already — I've got a smallish space and I have really no idea what to do with it, so picking this one up made lots of sense. There are lots of interesting ideas for maximizing storage space and making rooms look larger, but unfortunately not a lot of ideas for what I can do within the parameters of my existing furniture, my smaller-than-their-spaces space, and my current lease agreement. I will definitely go back to this if it's ever time to throw out all my furniture and just start over, though!

2. Upcycling, by Danny Seo. I found myself paging through this instead of working, so of course it ended up coming home with me! My dear Scott is a big ol' packrat, so I figured it might be a good idea to make something useful out of all that stuff he hoards. :) A lot of the stuff in the book is a little too purely decorative for me, but I'm definitely going to copy out the instructions for a wine-cork bathmat, glass bottle plus take-out chopsticks diffuser, and the take-out chopsticks trivet... and maybe get around to making them sometime.

3. Geek Girls Unite, by Leslie Simon. I just finished this one, so expect a real review in a couple days. But here's why I picked it up: nerd glasses on the cover, the tagline "How fangirls, bookworms, indie chicks, and other misfits are taking over the world," and the name-dropping of Amy Poehler, Felicia Day, and Zooey Deschanel on the back cover. Could you help but be intrigued? I think not!

4. Physics on the Fringe, by Margaret Wertheim. I've mentioned my love of physics in previous installments of this series, and so, really. It's got a pretty cool cover, but what really interested me is that this book talks about "outsider physicists," who are not generally academics or even degreed physicists but who make awesome giant smoke rings in the back yard with a fog machine and some garbage cans. That's cool physics and I am excited to learn more.

5. Those Across the River, by Christopher Buehlman. It is possible I am just a sucker for a sufficiently creepy, backlit, leafless tree. This book has two of them on the cover, and also sufficiently creepy, backlit, Southern woods on the endpapers. And that's almost enough for me! I nearly did decide to just let it go, but then I read the jacket copy, which promises small-town intrigue and a mysterious presence, and I was so in.

6. The Language Wars, by Henry Hitchings. As you may already know, if there's any non-fiction topic I'm a sucker for more than popular science, it's language. So of course this title grabbed my attention right away. It's subtitled "A history of proper English" and purports to discuss the ever-changing nature of "correct" English and how we decided what was correct and what was HORRIBLY TERRIBLY WRONG, anyway. Considering the recent loss of "literally" to the non-literal masses, I figured it might be interesting to see how else we've destroyed the language over the years. :)

Also, how do you like that Christmas tree we've got up? There are about four ornaments and ten lights on it, which is not really enough, but I figure we've got a month to make it look a little nicer!

The Postmortal, by Drew Magary

Dudes. Dudes. How did you let me not read this for so long? I picked it up because a) it has to go back to its library home soon and b) I hadn't read anything in a week and it looked like it would go quickly. You should pick this book up because it turns out to be pretty fantastic!

I guess there are some caveats to the fantastic, as you kind of have to like a few different kind of things to get into this story. For one, it's a semi-dystopia — "semi-" because the world isn't ever really advertised as utopia, but it's definitely got that dystopian/apocalyptic air to it. Two, it's written as a series of blog posts, which I of course think is delightful but maybe you read enough blogs already? Three, for a book about quasi-immortality, a lot of people die in it, and not very nicely at that.

So. Yes. The background to the story is that some ginger guy invented the cure for aging instead of the cure for gingerness (sorry, Mary!) and everyone is like, "I gotta get me some of that." And that's kind of the story itself, too. We follow this guy John's blog posts as he guides us through 60 years of almost no aging, from right before The Cure is legalized to everyone getting them some of that to those who aren't everyone beating up/throwing lye in the eyes of everyone to some people deciding that cure, whatever, it's time to die if that's cool to government-sponsored bounty hunting to government-sponsored murder. It's pretty intense. And of course the whole time the population is increasing like crazy and all the countries are freaking out at each other and a plane ticket costs $12K because there is no oil left and the lines just to get on the highway (in your plug-in, of course) are hours long because America still won't get behind useful public transportation.

That last is probably (and sadly) the little detail that makes this story ring most true to me, but there are plenty of those little details in Magary's story. This whole book, although it's told as John's story and follows his generally poor handling of all the crazy going on in the world, is really about those details and how on earth the Earth is going to handle a population that suddenly can't get old. And Magary does a great job of showing every facet and really making you think about how this universe is going to play out.

And I really like the blog conceit, which exemplifies the intense nose-to-smartphone social media obsessiveness that Magary predicts will only increase in the next seventy years (right, the book starts in 2019, which is not that far away oh no!). There's a brief intro at the beginning that sets up the story as coming from a hard drive on a discarded old smartphone, with the entries in this book selected to construct a narrative, so right away a couple levels of unreliable narrator, which is excellent. But also I like the blog posts because they convey the right tone for the story, which is this sort of personal-but-one-level-removed, kind of journalistic, kind of diary-ish tone that, and this is key, doesn't really allow John to go exposition crazy because he's nominally writing for people who know what the hell is going on. It would be so easy to go exposition crazy in this kind of story (see Torchwood: Miracle Day, which I would compare and contrast to this except it would end in me yelling), but for the most part Magary avoids it (except for a stray "as you know," which, yelling).

It's not a perfect book, and I found myself super-annoyed with John at many points in the story, some of which were probably not supposed to make me annoyed, but on the whole I found it quite intriguing and thought-provoking. In fact, I had to stop more than once along the way to play "what-if" with my husband, who was trying to play a video game and is probably now trying to figure out how to get one of those cycle marriages all the fictional people are talking about, only maybe five years instead of forty because he's not going to live forever.

Recommendation: For enjoyers of dystopia, sad truths, and a little gratuitous violence (not too much).

Rating: 9/10

Fables Vol. 1, by Bill Willingham

Man, I really wanted to like this book. I tried to like it, all the way through, but save for a few moments of amusement I was largely unimpressed. This is not The Unwritten, sadly, and maybe my love for that comic colored my view of this one? I'll need to do some SCIENCE to find out.

In the meantime, let me tell you why this book should have been awesome:

First, I mean, fables. I have really grown to enjoy satires/homages of fairy tales and the like, and that's exactly what this is. In this comic series, the inhabitants of, like, any imaginary story have been exiled from their respective homelands by some mighty Adversary and now live mostly in NYC, except for the non-human ones (or non-able-to-pretend-to-be-human ones) who live on a farm upstate. Which sounds kind of ominous, actually, I hope they're okay. In this particular volume we have Old King Cole as the mayor of Fabletown, Snow White as his deputy, the Big Bad Wolf (aka Bigby) in pretend-human form as a cop/detective-type, and lots and lots of other favorite characters doing many and varied things. Oh, and Bluebeard shows up and I totally know who he is this time! Thanks, Neil Gaiman!

Second, it's a murder mystery. Bigby's case here is the mysterious disappearance slash probable murder of Rose Red, whose apartment is covered in blood almost like that one episode of Dexter and whose man-friend Jack (of Beanstalk fame) is eager to find out whodunnit. I love murder mysteries, and in this case I get to actually see the crime scene for a change! Graphic novels are cool like that.

So, fables and murder. Fantastic. But, here's why it failed for me: the writing. It was very comic-book-y with the emphasis on all the important words but also sometimes on words that seemed to be fine on their own and I was like, wait, what? He said that sentence how? Does he speak English? (Does he speak English? Does he speak English? I could do this all day...)

Ahem. And then also Willingham tried to be all cutesy and self-aware with the dialogue and it comes out instead all verbose and clunky and awful and like absolutely no one anywhere would actually talk, and I am like, omg chill out, which is easy for me to say from this end of an extremely run-on sentence but WHATEVER. It's a comic book! I want to look at the pictures!

Example: Bigby says to Snow White, "This isn't about Prince Charming. It's about your sister, Rose Red." And of course no one talks like that unless they're Expositing, and so Snow White calls him on his BS and says, "This may surprise you, Mister Wolf, but I'm not entirely an idiot. I actually know my sister's name." Unfortunately, this is ALSO not how anyone talks unless they're putting on a show for a listener, of which there are none that are not the reader. A simple "Yeah, that's her name, what about her?" or "Do I have another?" would easily have sufficed, but no-oooo, and that's how the whole rest of the book goes and it is tiresome.

The concept and the general execution are so good, guys, and if you are more forgiving of terrible dialogue than I am you will probably really like this series, which I imagine goes on in the same vein. But I can't do it. Let me know how it goes?

Recommendation: Fables, MURDER, pretty pictures. Is this your bag?

Rating: 5/10

Before I Go to Sleep, by S.J. Watson

Facts about this book: 1) I put it on hold right when it came into my library in the middle of June, got it quickly, and then proceeded to forget to read it before I had to take it back. But by then people were saying good things about it, so I immediately put it on hold again, on August 1, and it finally came in on November 2.

2) I thought I'd have a minute to start it while waiting for a haircut, but I only got maybe three sentences in. Those three sentences, and the many many following, had me finishing the book in less than five hours after I got home and cracked it open a second time.

Seriously, this book is pretty fantastic. Dennis Lehane apparently thinks that it's "Memento on crystal meth" but, I mean, Memento was already on crystal meth (and AWESOME) so I'm not sure what he's trying to say here.

It is sort of like Memento, though, because our protagonist, Christine suffers from some weird memory problem that only lets her form new memories as long as she's awake, and then once she goes and has a REM cycle her memories are poof gone. So she wakes up every morning thinking she's some single young thing in bed with some old man, except it's her husband and he's actually younger than she is. Oh dear.

But, unlike Memento, we're seeing Christine's world from a very limited perspective — that of a journal she started keeping at the behest of a doctor, with neither the journal nor the doctor known to her husband, Ben. And the journal says not to trust Ben. Suspicious!

So it starts off with Christine getting her journal back (as written in a second journal, or something), and then there's the journal proper, which we go through in chronological order along with Christine, and the facts start piling up on each other and disagreeing with each other and Christine disagrees with herself often and it's all very very very intriguing. And obviously, the journal says not to trust Ben from the beginning, so when Ben turns out to be less than trustworthy it's not surprising, exactly, but I did not quite correctly call the ending and so I declare it a success.

I liked this a lot, just as I liked Memento a lot, because I am such a sucker for unreliable narrators (though Christine is more reliable than Leonard, really). I also thought it was fantastic to watch Christine change her opinions about things slowly but surely as she gets more and more of her backstory, and how also she was very consistent about things she didn't remember. I thought the book was well-paced and didn't go on for longer than it should have (or could have), and that the wrap-up was sufficiently informative and still interesting — it's really easy to throw on the exposition when the character you're expositing to is practically a blank slate, and I think Watson found a good balance there. The only problem I had with the ending was that it was fairly predictable (if not down to exact details), but, I mean, there are only so many ways this kind of story can end and I'd rather it end this way than another.

So, if you're still in RIP mood like I seem to be, this is not a bad way to go! Also, I totally need to go watch Memento again.

Recommendation: If you don't like unreliable narrators, just ignore this book and move on. Otherwise, I don't know why you haven't read this yet!

Rating: 9/10

Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach

What the whatting what. This is like the tiniest of tiny books — 123 very small pages, wide margins, lots of pages dedicated to pictures of seagulls, read it in an hour — and yet I still wouldn't have finished it were it not on my TBR Challenge list. I rue the day I decided against alternates!

I knew pretty much nothing about this book going in. It ended up on my challenge list because a few years ago my sister-in-law said something was "like Jonathan Livingston Seagull" and I was like, who? And she and some random other person were like, how have you not read this book? And then they probably explained it to me, though I don't remember, and I was like, okay, fine, I'll read it.

And what it is, is a tiny little book about a seagull (the eponymous JLS) who really likes flying. He's all about flying to the detriment of everything else including learning how to find food, but apparently he still eats because he continues flying through the rest of the book. He learns how to fly real fast and real fancy, but then he irks the Head Seagull or whatever and gets shunned, and then he goes off to live a life of fast- and fancy-flying solitude. Until some other birds show up and are like, let's go to the afterlife, where you can fly totally faster! And then they're like, but it's not really heaven, just a further world on your way to nirvana, and also you can learn to fly through space and time without flapping your wings! And then JLS goes back to his original flock and teaches some other birds to fly real cool-like, and he gets mistaken for Jesus or something, and then he brings a bird back from the dead, maybe, and then he's like, I'm outta here you guys can take care of yourselves. The end.

Soooooooooo yeah! Obviously there are a lot of religious themes here, with the heaven/nirvana/Jesus business, and I noticed them and I think they could have been interesting but then they just got kind of thrown off to the side? And I really can't figure out just what I'm meant to take away from this book — is it that having a very one-track mind is awesome and somehow leads you to a Higher Power and also keeps you fed? Is it that you should completely ignore your seagull heritage so that you can fly like a falcon and encourage others to do the same? I have no idea. None.

Also, seagulls. I don't really like them. And there were lots of pictures of them. Yay.

Have any of you guys read this? What am I missing?

Recommendation: I have no idea why anyone would read this, but if you have a reason you might as well.

Rating: 3/10
(TBR Challenge)

Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman

Yeah, I know we've been through all these stories together already (see parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), but I want to have a nice little place where I can summarize my thoughts, so bear with me here!

First note: I've read a few short story collections in my time, but only a few, and with this read-along I think I've figured out why — short stories are meant to be read on their own, not all at once. It's just more cost-effective to lump them into a big book and call it a day. For most of the read-along I listened to one story a day, four days a week, and it worked amazingly better to have that 24-hour period to think about the story before moving on than it ever had to mainline a whole book of them. I am going to follow this slow-reading practice in the future, for sure.

Second note: I read each of these stories twice, once with my ears and once with my eyes, generally in that order. This turned out to be a pretty good practice, especially with Gaiman narrating his own stories, because some of the stories and the poems in general were much better when I could hear the cadence and the word patterns that Gaiman had written in, and others were better when I could see how he formatted them or see the sentences to parse them correctly. And of course, the second time around I could get a better appreciation for the story as a whole since I already knew how it ended. That worked out really well for writing up the stories every week, but I probably won't do that in the future unless I know I'm going to discuss the stories!

Third note: I don't usually read story collections that are comprised of such very different stories, and it was really just amazing to me how large the gap was between the stories I loved and the stories I disloved. I don't think there were any I absolutely hated, but there are a few I don't need to ever think about again, and also there are a few that I would like to have metaphorically tattooed to my body so I could read them every day. It also intrigued me to see that the kind of stories Neil Gaiman writes are not always the kind of stories I think that Neil Gaiman would know how to write. I like that Gaiman is willing to write things that are so outside of the pattern of his popular stuff and just let you like it or not.

Okay, I think that covers it! I hope you guys that did the read-along with me enjoyed the experience as much as I did, and I hope that those of you who didn't are at least moderately interested in picking up this collection, because there really are some fabulous stories. I think my Top Five list would be, in rough order, "Goliath," "Sunbird," "A Study in Emerald," "Feeders and Eaters," and "October in the Chair. I think. Care to share yours?

Recommendation: Fantastic reading, a must for Gaiman-lovers and a should for people who like their stories short and a little fantastic.

Rating: Oh, gosh. I'm going to just throw out the stories I disloved and call this a 9/10.
(RIP Challenge)

Fragile Things Read-Along, Part the Eighth

But I don't want the read-along to be over! I've had so much fun these last eight weeks reading and commenting and enjoying everyone's posts! Guys, let's all trade addresses and stuff so we can keep in touch when we have to go back home! Or URLs, I guess. I'm getting old. My point is, I like you guys. Thanks for hanging out with me. :)

I was sort of hoping that this book would go out on some amazing high note and that I would explode from the happiness of it all, but of course this is real life and so it didn't quite do that. But, I did add another story to my list of Awesomest Stories of the Collection, so it was certainly a good week. Let's see what else happened!

"The Day the Saucers Came"
Niiiice. I liked listening to this first, because I couldn't skip ahead and see how long it was or see how it would repeat itself, and so I was pleasantly surprised on both counts. It's a short poem-shaped story about a day when a lot of crazy stuff happened but you didn't notice. I liked that Gaiman just piles on the crazy stuff and that he makes it sound so good — I just want to say "the saucer day the zombie day / The Ragnarok and fairies day" over and over — and I like that the reason you miss out on it all is because you're hoping someone will call you. That is some serious hope, people, and I have certainly experienced it in my life! Did I miss Ragnarok? I'm gonna be so mad if I did, largely because I'm gonna have to go repopulate the world now, and that sounds like effort.

"Sunbird"
This is definitely on my top stories list. I loved listening to it and I loved reading it and I may go do both again because it just makes me so happy. I'm not quite sure why. Let's see. I like the Epicurean Club and how they're all, "But I am le tired of beetles and I've eaten everything else!" I like that no one takes Zebediah seriously until it's way too late. It tickles me pink that one should leave on a Sunday to go to Suntown to catch a Sunbird. I love the line, "I am an academic [...] and thus have no finely developed sense that would be comprehensible to anyone who has not ever needed to grade papers without actually reading the blessed things." And I would really like to try some beer-can phoenix. After I go eat some charcoal, of course.

"Inventing Aladdin"
Eh. This is definitely the weak story of the bunch. It's another poem thing, this time about Scheherazade and her thoughts on making up stories and stuff. So it's really about making up stories in general, and how you work with what you've got and hope for the best. It's not bad, but it's not especially excellent and I've not much to say about it.

"Monarch of the Glen"
Apparently I'm to end up reading through the American Gods universe backward, seeing as how I started with Anansi Boys and may someday get to American Gods proper. So I'm not quite sure what I'm missing in the background to this novella, is what I'm saying. But I still quite enjoyed it. You've got this fellow called Shadow and all he wants is a nice quiet holiday, but then he gets drawn into a very strange set-up perpetrated by our old friends Smith and Mr. Alice. There's a mysterious house and a mysterious party and a very mysterious tradition that I'm still not entirely clear on. But, there's also Norse mythology and Grendel and so who needs clarity? Well, no, I would have liked a bit more... I feel like I'm missing something very obvious (like when I couldn't recognize a vampire in The Graveyard Book) and if someone could just tell me what, exactly, Gaskell was lying about, that would be fantastic. The other thing that kept me from really appreciating the story isn't exactly the fault of the story, but is that after reading, what, thirty short stories in the rest of the book, I was not quite prepared for such a long story, with its description and sidebars and taking its sweet time and all. I think it'll probably be much better once I go get some American Gods in my brain and come back to this story on its own, yes?

So that's it! Thank you all for joining me in this delightful adventure; we really must do it again some time. And maybe this will be the start of a lovely short-story reading habit? I think that's a good idea!

Full Dark, No Stars, by Stephen King

So I was gonna say I haven't read much Stephen King lately, which is technically true, but then I realized that this is my third King book this year! Is it possible I'm coming around to King again, after many many years away? I think it might be.

I had heard of this book but wasn't interested in picking it up, because it's newer and I have this prejudice against "new King" that I picked up around the time I read and was greatly disappointed by Cell. I was like, King has stopped being creepy and spooky and interesting and is instead some crotchety old man and pfft whatever. This may not be a correct assumption on my part, but it's stuck, and so when I saw that this was next up for my book club, I was equal parts "ohhhhh this is going to suck" and "hey, maybe it won't be so bad."

And it wasn't so bad! In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is one of my favorite books out of King, and it is definitely my favorite of his collections (of which I have read not very many). There are four novellas included, though one is like forty pages and seems a little short for that category, and I found all of them to be awesome. And even better, I found all of them to fit in with each other in some way or other, which is a fun thing in a collection — I learned from this one that King has a thing against librarians, a thing for biting, a thing for people getting away with murder, and a thing for making me think a story will go one way and then totally not doing that. Fantastic.

I don't want to say too much about the stories proper, because they are short and I found that the descriptions I read after the fact just did not live up to the stories themselves and I don't want to fail you guys! But if you need something to get you started, I'd summarize the stories as follows: 1922 is a rambling confession letter, Big Driver is the story of an author's trip gone horribly terribly wrong (and then horribly terribly wronger), Fair Extension offers up an interesting way to deal with cancer, and A Good Marriage is about, well, a good marriage that's suddenly not.

Oh, I should also mention that there is rather a lot of violence and horribleness, especially in Big Driver, and so if you are not inclined to appreciate or tolerate such things, I would recommend against this collection. I have to admit I almost quit Big Driver more than once, and at least one person in my book club did give up on it. But in general I don't think it's too much worse than Misery, if that gives you a reference point.

Recommendation: For fans of awful things that aren't happening to themselves and awful people they hope they'll never meet.

Rating: 9/10
(RIP Challenge)

The Lantern, by Deborah Lawrenson

So, in case you haven't been paying any attention to the blog lately, I just finished up a read-along of The Lantern (first week here). If you want my as-they-happened, totally-spoilerful thoughts, you should go check those posts out. If you don't, or if you want to know how I felt about the book as a whole, read on!

The Lantern is not really a story I'd have picked up on my own. It's one of them gothic novels, except set in the present-ish day, and I have not always been a fan of the melodrama and the sekrits and the falling-apart houses. But I think I've read enough of this type of novel to at least sort of know what to expect, and that certainly helps. But but, I have not read Rebecca, which is apparently the basis for this book. Sooooo I may be missing a lot of stuff here.

But but BUT, I still managed to really like this book. It has two narrators, which I love, and goes back and forth in time, which I love, and starts at the end, which I love, and has an entirely unreliable narrator, which I love. It's also got a sensory theme to it, which I am starting to like, and lots of spookyness, which I appreciate. Not terrible, right?

And the stories proper are quite interesting, too. The primary narrator, who is nameless but sort of goes by Eve, meets a guy and sets off on a romantically romantic adventure, moving to the French boonies and fixing up an old falling-apart house, and it's all delightful except that he won't talk about his ex-wife, like, at all. Not a whit. And Eve thinks that's all suspicious and stuff, and so does one of her new neighbors who has at one point met said ex-wife and... misses her? I guess, and then some even more suspicious stuff happens and Eve is like, oh boy. The other narrator, Bénédicte, is from the past and lived in the falling-apart house before it started falling apart. And her brother is insane and her sister is blind and her parents are not terribly good parents and Bénédicte does her best to take care of everyone but you know from early on that they're all haunting her in her old age and she's sure she deserves it.

Quite good, and as of the end of the fourth of five parts, I was like, greatest book ever? It was wonderfully compelling and spooky and interesting and things were quite exciting. But then things kind of derail as the slow build of the book turns into a lot of exposition and explanation, and I think if I had been prepared for this I might not have been so irked by it, so I am telling you now! And certainly with the book a few days in my past now, I'm feeling much better about the ending, but oh my goodness while it was happening... whatever! Moving on!

So I can't give it my endorsement of absolute awesomeness, but I can definitely say that it's worth a read, especially if you can talk about it with others who will pick up on all the things you didn't, like those darn Rebecca parallels. And it is totally perfect for a cool fall evening and a cup of hot cocoa. Mmm, hot cocoa. If you need an excuse to drink some, this is a good one!

Recommendation: For lovers of the Gothic, the spooky, ghosties, and hot cocoa.

Rating: 9/10
(RIP Challenge)

The Lantern Read-Along: Part V

Ehhhhh, I probably should have just kept reading last week like I meant to. This last part just doesn't have the same momentum as the rest, and while sheer interest in the story kept me going, it was not nearly as exciting as the previous sections. But hey, let's talk about that, shall we?

1. Now that it's all said and done; what did you think of the book? Did you see the ending coming? Um, well. Let's see. I called the dead bodies, I did not call Dom's secret, I called Sabine's over-interest if not the reason for it, and I did not manage to call Rachel's pathological lying though in retrospect it seems pretty obvious, I definitely did not call Bénédicte's recordings, I totally called the ghost. So, overall... no, I did not see the ending coming! I am actually fairly disappointed in the ending for being essentially a giant info-dump when Lawrenson did such a good job of weaving in details throughout the story — I would have been content to have fewer answers, better written, I think.

2. What do you think of the characters? Lawrenson took us on a twisty little ride there, I had trouble deciding who was good and who wasn't for a while there! What do you think of Dom? Of Sabine? Rachel? I can understand much better now why Dom was insistent on not sharing his deep dark secret and insistent that it had nothing to do with Our Narrator. I still don't really agree with it, but I understand it. Sabine, I have no idea why she was keeping herself a secret, and so I continue to be very irked with her especially with the insinuations and all. Rachel, I am much more intrigued by — I really didn't give much care to her throughout the book, but with the ending and all it might have been nice to see more of her in the story to take off some of that exposition in the end! Our Narrator, I'd like to see what happens to her the next time Dom tells a half-truth. I don't think she's as comfortable as she thinks she is.

3. Pierre was such a conflicted character. In the end, do you think he killed Marthe and Annette, or did the fall to their deaths because of their blindness? Oh, he totally killed them. He lied about them leaving and blaming Bénédicte, and the fact that he knew he could go get Marthe's stuff shows he knew she wasn't coming back for it. And it really fits in with his completely insane character that he would rather torture Bénédicte for the rest of her life than get any money out of Les Genevriers.

4. The book is being compared to Rebecca and Daphne du Maurier's writing. Do you think the book lives up to that description? I swear I will get around to reading Rebecca. Someday.

5. Did you have any problems with the book? Narration? Plot? The back and forth between two different characters and times? No, I generally liked the format of the book and the way Lawrenson brought the two stories slowly together. I'm just still quite miffed about the ending. In looking back through the book to make sure I'm remembering things correctly to answer these questions, I happened upon this line again: "All of which goes to show how dangerous it is [. . .] to want tidy storytelling when real life is not like that." And I just stared in the general direction of Lawrenson and thought, then why did you work so hard to answer all these darn questions?! Let me have some ambiguity, here. Though the more I think about the ending, the more I'm thinking that it's not really Lawrenson making answers for everything, but instead Our Narrator trying to rationalize everything that she has done and that has happened to her. Oh, this book, it is giving me a headache but largely in a good way.

6. Do you think Lawrenson tied both stories together well in the end? Is there anything she could/should have done differently? I do like the way the stories came together, and how Bénédicte's narrative has this sort of extra layer to it, not just of Lawrenson placing it within Our Narrator's narrative, but of Our Narrator placing it within her own narrative, and so suddenly all of those ghostly things that are happening to Our Narrator ring rather less true. [Insert thoughtful ooooooooooh here.]

7. One problem I had with the novel is the reliability of the narrators. Do you think any of them were telling the truth? Which ones? Oh, I don't trust any of them, which is really how it should be. I can't find a specific reason to doubt Bénédicte's story as told, but I still get the sense that she did a lot of lying to herself, at least, throughout her life. Our Narrator is more obviously doubt-able, with her constant reminders to herself that she's getting a bit hysterical and her own omissions to the other characters. And if that's what she's willing to admit to, I mean, there's probably more to it. And of course the other characters we only see through these two (possibly only through Our Narrator? What's she leaving out of Bénédicte's story?), so I declare them entirely unreliable!

So, true story, I'm way more excited about this book after going through and answering these questions. I stand by my statement about the momentum of this section, but I'm appreciating the results of this section rather more as I think about them. By the time I write up my regular review of this book, I may like the ending even more, but I make no promises! How about you guys?

Fragile Things Read-Along, Part the Seventh

We're closing in on the end of this book! It's been really nice reading this over the course of several weeks, because I feel like I'm really getting to spend time with the stories instead of just zooming through them to get to the end and move on to the next book. I will definitely have to try to try this with short story collections in the future! It's also nice because I'm finding favorite stories each week, rather than ending up with one favorite story of the whole book, as often happens, although I think this week's favorite story might be the winner of the latter crown, because, yes. Amazing. But let's get to that, shall we?

"In the End"
Ohhhhhh. I am so glad I am both listening to these stories and reading them, because when I listened to this, it was too short and I apparently missed the point entirely, which is that this is a reverse retelling of the Garden of Eden story. Reverse. Yes. Excellent. And intriguing. But also only half a page, so I'm not sure I have much else to say. Moving on!

"Goliath"
Yes. This. Fantastic. Best story. And it really reinforces my position that it shouldn't matter if you've done the homework to enjoy a story based in other stories. I managed to completely forget that this was supposed to be a story of The Matrix, even through the bits with the déjà vu, which are excellent, by the way, though I did finally remember once I got to the weird alien ship thing. But even then I was like, oh, right, and just moved on, because it's a story of The Matrix's world, not of its characters, and Gaiman's own character is fascinating in his own right. I love how he deals with the déjà vu, how he manages to get into the military, and how he deals with the harsh reality of his creators. And the last line, which is probably not too spoiler-ful: "But the last twenty minutes have been the best years of my life."

"Pages From a Journal Found in a Shoebox Left in a Greyhound Bus Somewhere Between Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Louisville, Kentucky"
And... this is the opposite. I have no idea what's going on here. There's a chick, and she's travelling, and she's looking for Scarlet, and aside from being intrigued by Friday the 32nd, and being pretty sure that this chick is actually Scarlet, I've got nothing.

"How to Talk to Girls at Parties"
Well. I had the twist of this story called as soon as I saw the line "'They're just girls,' said Vic. 'They don't come from another planet.'" And I could really have done without the going on and on about alien things. But, otherwise, this was a pretty spot-on story about being a teenager and trying to talk to girls at parties. I love that Enn is just terrified of talking to the ladies, and that when he does he's so concerned about the actual talking part that he just completely forgets to listen and even when he's listening he's just like, whatever, must focus on chatting up this nice-looking girl. AND that he reads more than he talks and therefore mispronounces contradictory. I can't tell you how many times that has happened to me. I really must get out more!

The Unwritten Vol. 3, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

Nooooo I forgot to pace myself and now I have to wait some unknown amount of time for the next volume! Nuts! But my husband got his hands on it and he's the type of person who accidentally spoils things on a regular basis, so really I had to read it. Had to.

And it is so fantastic. Even if you don't want to read this series, track down this volume at your library and find the page with the amusingly terrible rip-off of His Dark Materials. And then flip forward to the other page that looks like that one and that gets in a dig at George Lucas with a reference to "meta-condrians." Totally worth it.

Other things that are totally worth it: one of the issues that makes up this collection is a Choose Your Own Adventure. Did I mention FANTASTIC? My husband and I proved our perfectness for each other by choosing the exact same path through the story (we apparently are fans of evil evilness), but I also went back and read through a few other iterations and a) they were all interesting and b) some paths made sly winks at other paths that you wouldn't notice except if you read them all. Oh, AND, the whole point of the choosing of your own adventure is to make the point that you, you know, get to do that with your life. Hands-on morals? How intriguing.

Story, you say? There is one, but why aren't you just reading it? Seriously. Okay, fine.

Our friend Tom is presumed dead but still on the run from the Shadowy People. Someone has written a terrible fourteenth (yes, fourteenth) Tommy Taylor book and even though the publishing house knows that it wasn't Tom's dad, they're totes willing to make a jillionty-twelve dollars off of it. It includes the aforementioned scene with Lord Gabriel explaining Powder to Tommy Taylor. Oh, yes. It turns out that the SPs wrote it to bring Wilson Taylor out of hiding, which may or may not end up working. Also, we find out who Tom's mum is and we sort of find out what Lizzie Hexam's deal is ("sort of" because part of it is the CYOA). And if they're giving away all this information now, I am very interested in finding out what they aren't telling me!

I'll just wait here, impatiently, until I can find out.

Recommendation: For people who don't mind parodies of beloved children's fantasy series, people who like to choose their own adventures, and fans of the garrote.

Rating: 9/10
(RIP Challenge)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson

So, I read this for RIP two years ago and found it pretty fantastic, if easily spoil-able. And then a while back I found it on OverDrive as an audiobook and plopped it on my "for future reference list" and then I had disappointing times with the audio for The Turn of the Screw and I put off listening to it for fear of a repeat.

But I should have feared not! For this audio version is everything that The Turn of the Screw was not, with the narrator all suspenseful and whispery and actually way more creepy than I had previously thought Merricat to be. Excellence!

And so, yes. There's a Merricat, and her family is about half dead, including one person who is basically half-dead himself, and her sister Constance doesn't leave the house on account of the town doesn't care if Constance was acquitted of murdering her family, they're still jerk-pantses who like to sing songs about murder. And they sing them at Merricat when she goes into town, but she just imagines them all falling dead and she feels better.

That's pretty much how the whole book goes. Also: the town is full of mean people, Merricat's house is a refuge, a relative comes to call who starts to combine the two, hell breaks loose. Don't let townies into your house, is the moral of this story. Also beware the power of people in large groups (this is from the woman who wrote The Lottery, after all), the power of very aggressive people, and the power of superstition. And arsenic. Arsenic is bad stuff, guys.

I would tell you more specific things, but part of the charm of the story is in how Jackson sets everything up to be revealed, although even knowing the "secrets" of the book I still found a lot to love in it. So you should just go ahead and read it twice in a row. It's a short book. No problem.

Recommendation: For people who are or like to be creeped out by children and/or mobs. Also people who like poisonous mushrooms.

Rating: 9/10
(RIP Challenge)

The Lantern Read-Along: Parts III-IV

Augh! Why am I stopping here?? I need to get back to the book and see what happens oh my goodness.

Ahem. No, no, I'll be good and stop and answer these here questions without foreknowledge, and then I'm going to go snuggle with The Lantern some more. Well, probably not, I'm probably going to go watch some television. But the sentiment is there! This book is good!

Questions!

1. The title of this book is The Lantern, and a lantern makes an appearance in both of the stories. In Benedicte’s past, it had a meaning, but what do you think the lantern signifies in her future and in Eve’s story? What is this hard question? Am I back in Marling's class? Is this a terrible dream? Okay. Think. Lantern. Well, so, in Bénédicte's story the lantern is a sign of love between Bénédicte and her man-friend except then that love goes all to hell, so I'm guessing that might play a part in Our Narrator's story. Other than that, I have to admit I wasn't paying as much attention to the lantern as to the insanity of Bénédicte and Our Narrator's lives.

2. Carl mentioned scents in last weeks questions, but they have been addressed even more in these sections. What significance do you think scents have in this story overall? I'm really intrigued by the scents here, as they are more obviously signifying the presence of certain people (or at least their imagined presence), though I'm not keeping careful track. I also like watching the characters try to explain away the scents, unsuccessfully.

3. What do you think of the combining storyline of Marthe? She connects Benedicte, Eve, and Rachel. What do you think will be revealed about this connection in the next sections? Um. Well. It piqued my interest when it turned out that Rachel was also interested in this Marthe person, and that Sabine had had ulterior motives in saying, "Hey, maybe you should look into this." And I like that there is now a second connection (besides place) between the two narratives. But I'm content to leave the connection at that for now.

4. Now that things are beginning to move along, what do you think of the characters? Are any standing out for you? Do you particularly like any? Dislike any? Well, I'm going to go punch Sabine in the face for being completely indirect about everything, and then I'm going to have to go punch... well, every other character for the same reason. I am not a big fan of this lack of honesty and openness here. In fact, I think I'd have to say that I don't particularly like any character in this book.

5. What do you think really happened to Marthe and Annette? What do you think the significance of the bones in the pool are to the story? Especially now that it has been revealed that Rachel is also dead. First, I'm going with it's been "revealed" that Rachel is dead. I'm not trusting anyone at this point. Though dead makes perfect sense. And I definitely think that Pierre managed to bury Marthe and Annette under the pool, considering Pierre and the description of the bones, though I suppose that those fancy forensics people probably should have figured out if the bones were thirty years in the ground by now, so maybe that's just a red herring? It could be that Rachel's under there, too, after poking around too much into Marthe's story. Conspiracies!

6. Do you have any other things you think are significant to talk about? Are there any other predictions to be made for the last two sections of the book? I really want to know who this mystery woman wandering around the grounds is — is she Bénédicte's ghost? Rachel? A figment of everyone's imagination? I'm also a bit disappointed that Papa was dispensed with so easily, as I really wanted to know more about his particular brand of parenting. And, of course, I'd like to know just how large the stick up Severan's ahem is. I don't want to make any predictions for the rest of the book, but let's just say that I will find it very interesting if Rachel ends up under that pool and if mystery woman happens not to be a figment.

7. Lastly, what do you think of this book overall? Other than for the read-along, why are you reading it? Is it meeting your expectations? Oh, I am all about this book. If I didn't want to at least attempt to savor it, it would be read already. And I've already recommended it to my book club in the hopes of reading it again! So... yeah. Excellent. I wouldn't have picked it up but for the read-along, but now that I've started you couldn't make me stop.

Fragile Things Read-Along, Part the Sixth

Wait, the Sixth? There are only two more weeks after this? How did that happen?

Well, it happened happily this week, as I enjoyed every story that I read. Huzzah! We've got a sock monkey with an odd life, vampires, a creepy old lady, and a dude who can't write good, and as far as I can tell nothing that requires any homework on my part, which is probably why I found this set so enjoyable. Let me tell you more...

"My Life"
I only know that this story is meant to go with a sock monkey because the introduction tells me so, and I actually listened to it the first time without remembering that fact. So I can tell you that it is highly amusing whether you're imagining monkeys or a drunk old man. This is probably because whoever it is, his life is awesome. He's got a mum who's his dad (a dad who's his mum? However you want to put that, I guess) and who does underwater tango, and he's got a dissolved wife who was once in a coma for 70 years, but he'll tell you his life's not been very interesting and so I would like to know what else he considers normal! Even if he's making it all up, I'd buy him a drink to hear another story.

"Fifteen Painted Cards From a Vampire Tarot"
This was another one that didn't quite come across in audio because it's a set of very short stories, but it was certainly excellent in print, if hard to describe! Basically you've got a series of vignettes that get at the "truth" of vampires — talking about classic vampire mythology, writing new mythology, looking at how we regular humans react to vampires when we meet them (or "meet them"). I think my favorites are "The Magician", which is just a joke, really; "The Chariot", which imagines vampires as space colonists; and "The Wheel of Fortune", in which my favorite response to missing items — "I got hungry and ate it" — becomes a little more sinister.

"Feeders and Eaters"
Oh. Em. Gee. This is definitely my favorite story of the week, and is at least edging in on "A Study in Emerald" and "October in the Chair". It imagines a man meeting an old acquaintance in a bar, and that acquaintance going on about how he's been these past ten years, doing some work in the area, boarding with a nice family, meeting his fellow boarder and rescuing her from her sick bed with some raw meat that she ate right out of the container, blood dripping on the sheets... you know, the usual story. And then it gets a lot grosser, really, so if you're not of a strong stomach I recommend against this one! I think what's really interesting is that at one point The Acquaintance talks about having done something that anyone would do, and then later all but asks Our Narrator to do that same thing and Our Narrator has no idea what he's on about. And I can't decide whether Our Narrator is meant to be a big old jerk, or if I can rest assured that this is not something that anyone would do, because I probably couldn't do it.

"Diseasemaker's Croup"
This was a tough one — I haven't yet listened to it, but it's darn confusing in print so I may not even try. Basically, it's a story about a disease, as written by a person with said disease, and one of the symptoms is a complete lack of making sense in writing. Which, oh dear. I spent too much time confused by the first bad sentence before I got to the explain-y part, and then I was still baffled by most of the rest of the story, but by the time I got to the end I realized that the sentences weren't so much bad as out of order and I was having fun trying to figure out how the story would otherwise go. I still haven't got it fully pieced together, but I'm much more appreciative of it now than when I started!

The Unwritten Vol. 2, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

I held out as long as I could, but after The Unwritten's super-intriguing start, I just couldn't stay away! And it's still super-intriguing and also baffling and also heartbreaking.

So last time there was Tom Taylor, the namesake of a bigger-than-but-basically-a-ripoff-of-Harry-Potter book franchise who is either not actually his father's offspring and therefore not worthy of the Tommy Taylor franchise or actually Tommy Taylor and therefore an unknown-to-himself Man Wizard. Which is still pretty much where we are, sort of.

Now, at the end of the last book someone murdered a whole bunch of people and Tom was the only one around to take the blame, so this story arc takes place in a French prison overseen by a governor who is not sympathetic to minor celebrity. But the prison thing isn't really important, what's important is all the people in it. Tom makes unlikely friends and allies with some of the inmates and makes a huge enemy of the governor for what seems at first to be no reason at all. Except that then we go look at the events from the governor's perspective and you find out that he has these kids who are obsessed with Tommy Taylor to the point of believing in his real and actual existence, and the governor is not pleased that Tom has effed things up big-time. Oh, and then those shadowy people from the last book decide to burn down the prison. No big.

Also, a trip to Nazi Germany via magical doorknob and an... interesting meeting with Josef Goebbels. Also, also, in the non-Tom comic at the end, an adventure with a foul-mouthed rabbit in a sort of Winnie-the-Pooh land. It's all very delightful, really.

I think the best part about this series so far is that even with the ridiculousness and insanity, it's all very literary. It loves literature and references it, in the form of the aforementioned Pooh spoof and an extended riff on the Song of Roland and of course all of the Harry Potter/fantasy-in-general allusions. It is also way more than its premise; sure, there's adventure and potential wizardliness, but there's also a lot to think about in terms of the role of media, the effect of childhood heroes on children and the adults who love them, and the magical power of attention. That middle one is what leads to the heartbreak in this volume, big time, as it does in real life.

I am definitely in for the next volume, and almost definitely for getting off my duff and patronizing my local comics shop for the issue-by-issue comics when the time comes. It's good stuff.

Recommendation: Yeah, you'd better have that strong stomach for some of the violence in here, and also a strong heart. A love of the f-word can't hurt, either.

Rating: 9/10
(RIP Challenge)

North by Northwest

Oh, right, I did promise to watch some movies for RIP, didn't I? And my list does say, "Um. Hitchcock?", and this is totally suspenseful so first movie DONE.

And it was pretty good! North by Northwest tells the story of this guy Thornhill who gets mistaken for some other guy (who turns out not to exist) and then is almost murdered The Postman Always Rings Twice-style except he turns out to be a pretty awesome drunk driver. Except he gets caught for, you know, drunk driving, and then he's all "Nonono, someone else poured a giant bottle of bourbon down my throat and then tried to kill me," and everyone's like, "Right," and the attempted murderers totally make him look like a crazy person and then like a murderer and then he's on the lam and he meets a sexy lady who is sexy and also not actually on his side. Also there are some FBI or whatever people who are like, "Sweet, this guy is solving our nonexistant-dude problem." But Thornhill is going to prove himself innocent whether anyone likes it or not.

I had some stuff to say on the Twitters (sidenote: it took me way too long to figure out how to do that search) while I was watching the movie, and you can see from the seeming non-sequitur-ness of my comments that it is an odd one. Using murder as a flirting tool? Attempted murder by crop-duster? Annoying an auctioneer to get a police escort out of an auction? Having a chase down Mount Freakin' Rushmore? I don't... I just don't understand.

And I especially don't understand the ending, which is like (SPOILERS), oh, look, she's gonna fall down the mountain, oh, just kidding, now they're on a train and possibly married and OH LOOK AT THAT TRAIN GOING INTO A TUNNEL WHAT COULD THAT POSSIBLY MEAN. The end. That chick is nice and all, but I rather wish she had fallen off the mountain with my beloved Martin Landau, who can stare at me with those eyes all day long.

Ahem.

Anyway, the ending aside, I kind of liked the ridiculousness of the whole movie, which had some wonderfully quotable lines, like "I don't like the way Teddy Roosevelt is looking at me." Excellent. And while sometimes the exposition was a little much, I enjoyed the times when I was like, "How did he get out of THAT situation" and then the character would exposit for me. It's not the most subtle movie ever, but it's certainly an entertaining time!

Rating: 7/10
(RIP Challenge)

The Lantern Read-Along: Parts I-II

This is my second attempt at a read-along, occuring conveniently within the same time frame as my first attempt! This one is a bit different, though, as here I'm reading a whole novel rather than short stories, and there are set questions to answer rather than me just going on about things. So if you're not reading along with me, this might not make a lot of sense. I promise I'll do a regular review post after I'm done with the whole thing!

1. This may seem like an obvious opening question, but what do you think of The Lantern thus far? Oh, hey, just kidding about not going on about things. :) I was iffy at first, with the odd prologue and the boring girl-meets-boy bits in the early chapters, but once Our Narrator and Dom get out to the house, and once Our Other Narrator starts talking about her creep-tastic brother, I was like, please, tell me more! I'm glad this book is broken up into parts, because without the sort-of denoument of the second part, I might still be reading the book instead of answering these questions!

2. The book appears to be following the experiences of two different women, alternating back and forth between their stories. Are you more fond of our main protagonist's story or of Benedicte's or are you enjoying them both equally? Which do I like more? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm... I'm not terribly interested in Our Narrator, though I am intrigued by her investigation into Dom's ex and am hoping to hear more of those fairy tales she found soon. I'm also not terribly interested in Our Other Narrator, Bénédicte, as much as I am interested in her brother Pierre and his interests, namely his homicidal tendencies. I'm sensing that they will come into play later. I suppose if I had to pick one narrator for the rest of the novel, I would at this point choose to stay with Our Narrator, because I like investigation more than dead cats.

3. The Lantern is a book filled with descriptions of scents. How are you liking (or disliking) that aspect of the book? How do you feel about the lavish description of scents? How are the short chapters working for you? I'm not really noticing the scent descriptions as being overly lavish, but I suppose that after the sensory love-fest of The Night Circus I'm almost expecting it! As for the short chapters, I was put off by them at first but now I really think they work well to keep up the suspense of both narratives and allow Lawrenson to easily skip around in time.

4. How would you describe the atmosphere of Parts 1 and 2 of The Lantern? Um, mildly spooky? It's all about that decrepit house, isn't it? Even the things that would normally be completely innocuous are coming across as tinged with spookiness if they happened anywhere near that house. And all the secret-keeping helps, too!

5. Has anything surprised you to this point? Anything stand out? I was rather surprised by Bénédicte's father bricking Bénédicte and her brother into that room. That is a parenting technique I've never heard of before. And the fact that Pierre knew what was happening... I think there's plenty more to come from Bénédicte's narrative. I also want to know more about this pineapple.

6. What are your feelings about Dom in these first two sections of the story? I really don't know how to feel about him. Sure, he's being intensely secretive, but only being able to see it from Our Narrator's point of view, I wonder if he's really being that terrible. Certainly Our Narrator recognizes that she's gone a bit off the deep end in mistrusting him. I think that perhaps he is fueling her neurosis a bit by not even throwing her a scrap of information, but considering my fears that there's only bad information there, I can't yet blame him.

Bonus question: Did anyone else hear "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" ringing in their ears through the first sections of the book? Okay, I get it, I'll get around to reading Rebecca. Someday. Maybe.

Fragile Things Read-Along, Part the Fifth

Man. I think what I'm discovering more than anything while reading through this collection is that I know very little about fantasy. I've mentioned before and I'll mention again this week that I'm sure I would like more than a few of these stories better if I just had any idea what Gaiman was talking about. And that's good, on the one hand, because it inspires me to go learn new things, but bad, on the other, because that doesn't help me understand or appreciate the stories now! Alas.

"Locks"
I get this one! I totally know what's going on here! This is a cute little poem-y story about stories, "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" specifically, and the telling of them. Gaiman writes as himself, talking to his daughter about reading "Goldilocks" to her and how she would take part in the telling of the story and sometimes re-write the story, and that's all cute and adorable. But then Gaiman also takes into account how it feels to be a parent reading the stories, and how there are always parts that read differently for adults (see: my reaction to Peter Pan earlier this year) and how it's a bit sad to know that the adorable child will grow into a cynical adult who locks his doors to keep out strangers who might eat his porridge. This is definitely my favorite story of the week.

"The Problem of Susan"
And here is where I admit that my knowledge of the Narnia books comes mostly from the 2005 movie, which I didn't pay terribly much attention to, and various references to the series in other things I've read. Which is to say that I don't have any attachment toward Susan and so this story is entirely lost on me. What I gather is that Susan, who didn't die in some train crash, has grown up to be a professor of literature, since retired. And she's being interviewed about children's literature by some young thing and Narnia comes up and that's when I learned all that stuff about Susan, and then Susan gets sad or something and goes and has a nap forever. And the young thing has a dream about Aslan and the White Witch having the sexytimes and, um, okay. Ew. I'm not sure I want this one explained to me.

"Instructions"
Props to the awesome poetry this week. I liked "Instructions" a lot because while I may not know a lot about fantasy stories past and present, I am certainly well-versed in fantasy conventions, and that's what this poem is about. It is, as the title suggests, a set of instructions for what to do if you find yourself stuck in a fairy tale. Basically, don't do anything stupid and be nice to everyone, which are not bad instructions in general. Also, there's a cameo from my friends the months of the year, which is delightful.

"How Do You Think It Feels"
Um, yes. Least favorite story. Gargoyles. LOTS of sexytimes, including sort of with a plasticine gargoyle. Extra-marital affair(s?). Not my cup of tea. Things I did like: the reference to the narrator being "by far the older man" at 27 to his lady's 20. The narrator getting totally shut down by his lady when he offers to actually finally leave his family for her. The lady getting eaten by the gargoyle. Can't go wrong with people getting eaten, I say.

Packing for Mars, by Mary Roach

Ah, Mary Roach. It's been awhile. How you been? Oh, you've been gallivanting around the world talking to astronauts and wannabe astronauts and chimponauts and people who pretend to be astronauts for SCIENCE? Tell me more!

And she does! There is much more than I would have guessed to tell about space, that final frontier and whatnot. Some of it I had heard before, like the bit about how a certain president was not a fan of lady astronauts, and oddly some of it I heard on a podcast referencing Packing for Mars after I had started the book but before I got to the part they referenced. That was odd.

Other bits I had not heard but made sense, and were kind of intriguing, like the whole chimps in space program and how it totally ruined the start of our space race and how at one point there was a human testing a spacesuit to see if it was humane for chimps, except that the point of the chimp wearing the spacesuit was to see if it was safe for humans. Oh, science. And the part where she goes off to Japan to visit their astronaut training camp or whatever and you find out that Japanese astronaut candidates have to fold 1000 paper cranes for luck and psychological testing. On that basis alone, I am not cut out to be an astronaut.

And, of course, in true Mary Roach fashion, there were also bits about sex in space and poop in space that I didn't know I didn't need to know until I knew them. Darn her! Suffice it to say that it is difficult to do both, and so NASA at least tries to avoid them when at all possible. Also, you shouldn't talk about your poo problems on a live microphone. For your sake AND everyone else's.

I'm wondering if my lack of love for Spook is content-based or narrator-based, because the woman who narrates this one also did Bonk and I liked the latter equally as much as this current one. I think this narrator has an excellent blend of "Wow, did you know this?" and "Wow, did you need to know this?" and sometimes, "Wow, you definitely don't need to know this but it's written down so I'm gonna have to tell you anyway," like when Roach writes about her lack of knowledge about body odor in the crotchal region, not for lack of trying ew. Sorry. I heard it, so you have to, too!

I promise most of the other fun facts in this book are actually fun, and it's about space! I really don't think you can go wrong.

Recommendation: For lovers of SCIENCE and crazy people who write about science and obscure factoids disguised as science.

Rating: 8/10

(What's in a Name Challenge)

Space space wanna go to space yes please space. Space space. Go to space.
Better buy a telescope. Wanna see me. Buy a telescope. Gonna be in space.
I’m in space.