Books!

I want to do a quick wrap up of those books I read that I could pull off my Fill in the Gaps list. I'm also going to touch on a book that wasn't on the list, but which I enjoyed immensely.

1. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
I liked this book. I'm not mad about it, but I think I read it at the right time in my life. If I had read it any earlier I wouldn't have appreciated the implications of the technology or the situations the characters find themselves in. Also, I really need to re-watch Blade Runner.

2. Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman
This book made me feel a little defective. I'm so used to just falling in love with anything Neil does that it took me off guard to only be mildly interested in a story. I don't know if it was the way the main character was presented or if it's just that I wasn't familiar with that particular set of mythology, but I couldn't get engaged in it until right near the end. It might also be simply that this is a side story to my previous least favorite of his books, American Gods. But regardless of how I felt about this book, I still think he's capable of magic. This is evidenced by the fact that I met him over the winter and could only spit out 'thank you for being amazing', before having my book signed and scurrying off. That's me. Cool and composed.

3. Tales of Beedle the Bard - JK Rowling
I will admit freely that I am a sucker for her world. She's not the greatest writer technically, but she can build the heck out of a universe, and just keep filling it until it's hard to forget that it isn't parallel to ours. Therefor, little tie-ins like this make me very happy. They're just fairy tales, but I recommend them to people who enjoy fairy tales, because you don't need to know anything about the wizarding world to enjoy them. On the flip side, they say a lot about that world, as good fairy tales are often commentary. Also, the existence of these fairy tales brings me things like this song, so I'm really not complaining.



4. The Invention of Hugo Cabret - Brian Selznick
The reason I picked this book up was the art. It's gorgeous. And even if you're not interested in reading the book, I urge you to at least flip through it. The story is simple, but some of the situations the main character finds himself in aren't simple at all. One of the things that really interests me about YA is that it has the ability to present things that even adults find to be difficult in such a matter of fact way. As if there was no other course of action than the one the character took. Enjoying this book is actually what made me decide to read Scott Westerfeld's book Leviathan. That is also a book well worth reading if you're interested in YA, steampunk, or the way art integrates with large fields of text. (Remind me later to natter on about Light Novels.)

Bonus. A Single Man - Christopher Isherwood
I did not know this book existed until I started hearing buzz about the movie, and after seeing the movie proper I felt I had to read it. So much of the dialogue in the movie is pointed, as if it's reaching back to its literary beginnings and just assuming you can fill in the gaps. I had to know what else was there. There's a large plot device in the movie that isn't in the book, but it doesn't come off as sensational, and I really think that you needed that extra tension in order to feel the catharsis you get at the end of the book. So much of the book is internal monologue. It was a lot like reading a philosophy text, actually, which might be why I fell for it so hard. The text is lush and descriptive and dramatic without trying to be. It's just the story of one man, making it the only way he knows how. I will probably recommend it to everyone forever.

This is a clip of the scene that really made me want to read the book, as it's kind of the crux of the whole thing.



So that's me caught up. More or less. Have you read any of these? What did you think about them? Are there other books you really think I need to read?

*blows away the dust*

Well, hello. Do you ever start something with the best intentions and then get distracted by things that are shinier and wander off? No? That's only me? Fair enough.

A lot has happened since I started this thing with my good intentions and then wandered off. I've gotten a sort of promotion at work. I've decided to go forward with going back to school for my Masters degree and am taking those steps. I'm learning to play the guitar, which is slow going, but ultimately satisfying. And I've read about twelve books, four of which I can cross off my Filling in the Gaps list! My plan for this year is to read 25 books, which I'm right on track for. I'll post about those as I finish them.

I've also spent part of the last year trying to decide what to do with this space. I've finally settled on making it a space for reading and writing and learning. I've never had a devoted space for those things before, and I think it will help me to get more accomplished if I can keep things organized. So here's to organization.

I'm hoping to make at least a post a week. Wish me luck. And feel free to poke me if I don't.

I'm turning out to be pretty bad at keeping up with a blog. Ah well, they say a habit takes twelve good applications to become ingrained. I'll try this. I thought about doing BEDA, but in the end I didn't know that I could come up with thirty days worth of entries. In an effort to become better at vocalizing (mentally, and then typing up and posting) my thoughts, opinions, and professional type writing, I'm going to make a post every other day for the next twenty-four days.

First day's first! This past weekend I went to Disney with the Boyfriend. Saturday was the last day that Space Mountain was going to be up before they take it down for refurb for several months. He wanted to get a few good last rides in. While we were at it I made him come to EPCOT with me so I could take take pictures of the topiaries at the Flower and Garden Festival.





Princess Aurora was my favorite growing up. I think the thing I actually loved most about Sleeping Beauty was the dragon, but I also used to sing all of the songs with what was probably annoying regularity. My parents were glad when I moved on to watching The Last Unicorn every day. At least at that point I was too young to really get into America.



Butterflies actually make pretty bad subjects. They just don't know when to sit still. A few months ago I went to California for the wedding reception of some friends and we took a walk to a grove near their home where monarch butterflies congregate as they're migrating. It was fantastic. There were hundreds of thousands of them flitting about the forest, resting in the trees and weighing down lesser branches. The Disney butterfly garden wasn't quite on that scale, but there was still some beauty.





Norway might be my favorite country in all of EPCOT. I ride the Maelstrom almost every time I go, and can recite the script. It's not the technically best thing Disney has ever created, but it has charm. TROLLS!

There are more photos from EPCOT, and a few from MGM over here at my Flickr. And that is that. One day down, eleven to go. Wish me luck. I better get around to doing some living in the next two days.

Filling in the Gaps!

I've joined the Fill in the Gaps 100 Project and I'm probably more excited about it than I should be. My reading last year was dismal. Not that I read horrible things, just that I read so few things that weren't staring back at me from a computer screen that I'm kind of ashamed to even try and add them up. Meanwhile I didn't stop purchasing half the books I stopped by the bookstore to fondle once a week, so what I'm left with is about 70 books lazing about the apartment and losing their wills to live. It's a pretty sad state of affairs.

Of the books listed below, about 50 are those that I already own. (I figured that since I was going to read say, those Neil Gaiman comics ANYWAY, I really didn't need to add them to the list.)

9 of them I had started at one time or another and forgotten.
2 of them I'm pretty sure I read at a very young age but can't remember anything about reading them.
7 of them belong to someone else and I REALLY need to read and return them.
3 is the number of them that I've chosen to start concurrently and in earnest.

I've never done book reviews before, but I'm kind of excited to start now, and excited to see the reviews of people who are reading some of the same books as me, or who are reading books I've loved in the past. It'll be an interesting experience at any rate.

If you have any thoughts on any of the books below, please feel free to share them. I'm just getting started here, and I'd love to have a dialogue going. And if you're also participating, good luck!

A
Adams, Douglas – Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Amos, Tori and Hoseley, Rantz A. (edited by) – Comic Book Tattoo: Tales Inspired by Tori Amos
Anonymous – The Thousand and One Nights
Anthony, Piers – Hope of Earth
Atwood, Margaret – The Robber Bride
Austen, Jane – Northanger Abbey

B
Baricco, Alessandro – An Iliad
Beagle, Peter S. - The Last Unicorn
Bradbury, Ray – The Illustrated Man
Bronte, Charlotte – Jane Eyre
Bulgakov, Mikhail – The Master and Margarita
Burroughs, Augusten – Running With Scissors

C
Calvino, Italo – The Baron in the Trees
Camus, Albert – The Stranger
Chaucer, Geoffrey – The Canterbury Tales
Clarke, Susanna – Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Crace, Jim - Quarantine

D
Dante – The Divine Comedy
Dawkins, Richard – The God Delusion
Dick, Phillip K. - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dickens, Charles – Great Expectations
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor – The Idiot
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan – The Hound of the Baskervilles
Dumas, Alexander – The Count of Monte Cristo

E
Ellis, Bret Easton – American Psycho
Enthoven, Sam – The Black Tattoo
Eugenides, Jeffrey – Middlesex

F
Feldman, Ellen – The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank

G
Gaiman, Neil – Anansi Boys
Gaiman, Neil and Reaves, Michael – Interworld
Gaiman, Neil – M is for Magic
Gibson, William and Sterling, Bruce – The Difference Engine
Going, K. L. - The Garden of Eve
Guevara, Che – Motorcycle Diaries

H
Hawthorne, Nathaniel – The Scarlet Letter
Heinlein, Robert – Stranger in a Strange Land
Hemingway, Ernest – The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories
Huxley, Aldous – Brave New World

I
Irving, John – A Prayer for Owen Meany

J
Johnson, Maureen – 13 Little Blue Envelopes

K
Kay, Guy Gavriel – A Song for Arbonne
Kay, Guy Gavriel – The Summer Tree
Kerouac, Jack – On the Road
Kosinski, Jerzy – The Painted Bird
Kundera, Milan – The Unbearable Lightness of Being

L
Lovecraft, HP – Blood Curdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre
Lovecraft, HP – Dreams of Terror and Death
Lyga, Barry – The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

M
Maguire, Gregory – Mirror Mirror
Mann, Thomas – Death in Venice
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia – 100 Years of Solitude
McCourt, Frank – Angela's Ashes
Milton, John – Paradise Lost
Mitchell, Margaret – Gone With the Wind
Moore, Alan – Promethea
Moore, Christopher – Lamb
Moore, Christopher – You Suck
Morrison, Toni – Sula
Murakami, Haruki – Kafka on the Shore

N
Niffeneger, Audrey – The Time Traveler's Wife
Nye, Robert – The Late Mr. Shakespeare

O
Orwell, George – 1984

P
Palahniuk, Chuck - Haunted
Palahniuk, Chuck - Lullaby
Pasternak, Boris – Doctor Zhivago
Peake, Mervyn – Titus Groan
Pelevin, Victor – The Sacred Book of the Werewolf
Pelzer, Dave – A Child Called “IT”
Plath, Sylvia – The Unabridged Journals
Pratchett, Terry – Equal Rites
Pratchett, Terry – The Light Fantastic
Pratchett, Terry – Night Watch

R
Radcliffe, Ann – The Mysteries of Udolpho
Roach, Mary – Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Robbins, Tom – Skinny Legs and All
Rowling, J. K. - Tales of Beedle the Bard
Russell, Mary Doria – The Sparrow

S
Saint-Exupery, Antoine de – The Little Prince
Sanders, Joe (edited by) – The Sandman Papers
Sartre, Jean-Paul – Nausea
Sebold, Alice – The Lovely Bones
Selznick, Brian – The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Shaffer, Peter – Equus
Sheff, David – Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr – One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Steinbeck, John – East of Eden
Steinbeck, John – Of Mice and Men
Stephenson, Neal – Snow Crash
Stoker, Bram – Dracula

T
Thackery, William Makepeace – Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David – Walden
Tolkien, JRR – The Silmarillion
Tolstoy, Leo – Anna Karenina

V
Verne, Jules – Journey to the Center of the Earth
Voltaire – Candide

W
Wells, H. G. - The Island of Dr. Moreau
Whedon, Joss - Fray
Wolff, Tobias – This Boy's Life

Y
Yeats, William Butler (edited by) – Irish Fairy and Folk Tales

Z
Zusak, Marcus – The Book Thief

Sometimes I let all of the little things that add up to every day life stress me out. Then someone I know will post something like this:

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It's at this moment that I'm reminded that wow, things aren't so bad. After all, it's highly unlikely that any of the contracts on my desk have projectile mouths. Or if they do, they've yet to learn how to use them.

Hello! Please don’t mind the empty spaces. I’ve just moved in, so everything is a little barren. I’ll have posters on the wall in no time. Please don’t spill any grape juice on the new carpet.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my career and what I would like to do in the future. I would like to be published. I would like to do some freelance writing work in order to gain contacts and be able to tap the vast wealth of knowledge that’s out there. I would like to be able to show future employers that I am serious about my aspirations and their possible belief in my abilities. And so here I am. I look forward to getting to meet anyone out there who is interested in the written word.

The blog’s title has been lifted, with great respect, from the pages of the novel Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.