I read:
Thoughts:
- Boy Snow Bird by Helen Oyeyemi: I’m going to forget I read this novel. It just isn’t going to stick. Like right now, I’m trying to remember which is Snow and which is Bird and I can’t. I remember Boy though, and her father. So some stuck I guess.
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The Enchanted Wood and The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton: I know these books are considered declassé, but I still love the Faraway Tree books, probably because I read them so often when I was younger. There’s not too much questionable content in these two; there are brief mentions of golliwogs, but no pictures and I can just say gnomes or something else when I read it aloud.
I have the old English versions, not the new releases that Americanize it all. So lots of biscuits and jumpers and the like. Expand Tesfa’s vocabulary.
- A Calculated Life by Anne Charnock: I reviewed this book earlier this month.
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The Series of Unfortunate Events Books by Lemony Snicket: Whenever I come across what seems like a misprint or an odd word in the books, I keep thinking that it must be a Verse Fluctuation Declaration and I wish I’d known about it sooner so I could make a note of all of them and see if it actually is a code, but some of the books have gone back to the library, so I can’t.
I’m not sure of the ending. In some ways I appreciate it, but in others, I am quite unsatisfied. I feel a little cheated, like Lemony Snicket/Daniel Handler made this whole universe, and then, rather than resolving anything, just said Yep and put down his typewriter.
I still like these books far more than Harry Potter though.
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Gilead by Marilynne Robinson: I am going to take some words I wrote in an email earlier about this book and put them here:
My views might be tainted, since I haven’t been feeling great (physically or mentally) the past few days and I kept falling asleep when I was reading it. I thought it would be more approachable then it ended up being – some critic wrote that Marilynne Robinson is religious for the formerly religious, or something like that; that if you had once been religious, it would warm you up again. But I didn’t find that very much. There was a level where I thought the book didn’t even need religion, except for the character’s struggle with forgiveness, especially towards John Ames the younger. I guess I thought it would put me back in the mind of being really religious, as really religious as one can be at 18 and in the United Church. But it didn’t do that. I don’t know why I thought it would really.
- Mrs Stevens Hears The Mermaids Singing by May Sarton: I reviewed this book earlier this month.
- A Book of Canadian Animals by Charles Paul May: Ignoring the educational aspect, in one way this book is great since all animals are it unless specifically discussing male or female behaviour, and so we avoid the dogs and smurfs phenomena. On the other hand, this is a book from the sixties, so all the people discussed default to male. Can’t win.
- Collected Stories by Frank O’Connor: I reviewed this book earlier this month.
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All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu: This book was far too similar to The Dissident for me to really enjoy it. Also, there were parts that reminded me of a story I tried to write, vaguely about Ethiopia. Do you think Dinaw Mengestu found my old drafts online and then used them as a starting point?
I don’t either, but it is nice to dream.
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Caught by Lisa Moore: A book club book.
I’d been reading about point-of-view right before I read this book, so that ended up being what I focused on while reading. I can never remember all the terms, but the narration was third-person, but with little internalization from any of the characters. So everything felt floating and distanced, unreal, which was, I suppose the point as the situations all felt unreal to the people involved.
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The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice: 1. I’ve read this book before, but not since 2010. It is one of my favourites.
2. I bought a copy to give someone this year as a Christmas present. But the book is hard to find in Canada, so it ended up being used. I hope that goes over all right with the recipient.
3. Not that I’m planning on telling them this, but I read the copy I am giving them because I wanted to read this book again and it isn’t in the library.
4. Eva Rice, the author, also wrote a book about Enid Blyton. I haven’t read it, but I hope she would approve of my month’s earlier Enid Blyton choices I shared with Tesfa.
Favourite book of the month:
As opposed to last month, I had a more pleasant book month. Lots of 4.5 or 5’s out of 5’s (Enid Blyton’s, Capital, Lemony Snicket, Olive Kitteridge, Interpreter of Maladies, The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets). But, of course, best was:
See my review for glowing praise.
Most promising book I put on my wishlist:
I watched:
Thoughts:
- Happy Endings: Meh. Still not seeing why everyone was so upset it was cancelled. Not an awful show, but it’s gone from my mind now. I watched all the episodes and now one to something new.
- Office Space: TPS reports. Hee hee hee hee hee.
- Happy Valley: Half-way through. So far, the portrayal of violence isn’t as problematic as, say, The Fall. Maybe it will end up being so and then I’ll be annoyed.
- Cosmos: Why do they make it all cuts and green screen and nonsense in an attempt to make the content interesting? Science is inherently interesting. It hardly needs to be gussied up. Only watched one episode so far. Don’t know whether to continue.
- Zodiac: American movies are too long.
- The Secret in their Eyes: I have a hard time understanding Argentine Spanish accents. Paint-by-numbers thriller set in South America.
- The Wizard of Oz: Geoff rented this to watch with Tesfa, I think not knowing that it was a musical. Tesfa can remember one line from all of the songs, We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz, which she sang over and over and over again, off-key and loud, until I felt like clawing my ears out. She has since moved on to practicing Christmas carols for the school concert. The universe is guaranteeing that I will go crazy before Christmas I’m sure.
I wrote: Did I finish typing my Log Driver’s Waltz story in October or November? I don’t recall, but it’s done typed. I wrote a story about Chagall paintings. I wrote some of a story about a glass of spoiled milk. I fiddled around with my faerie story. I got rejection after rejection, including one saying mine was one of the stronger stories submitted, so maybe it got to the last round of that contest and Margaret Atwood, the judge, read it? Maybe December will be full of acceptances.
And now, where do I put Serial, as I neither read, watched, or wrote it. Listened? I listened to Serial.