Review of: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys by Greg Behrendt, Liz Tuccillo
There are very few exceptions where I don't read a book before ever seeing the film version; however, having sloughed through endless recitations on the absurdity of the (NY Times Bestseller) book, I thought a safe distance from the text was fair.
I saw the film and am glad to report that it was only slightly (devastatingly) sexist. I don't want to imply that it wasn't perfectly terrible (and that I enjoyed at least 2 of the 5 love complications) but I did find the casting to be noteworthy. Also, I am an avid supporter of the Sex and the City collection which I find to be smart and witty. I am sad to report that the only thing in favor of HJNTIY is that it was drafted by two SATC writers.
When my friend (who shall remain nameless out of protection) suggested I read the book (post-film), I was hesitant. Hadn't I got everything I needed to know from the film? Yet, when I found myself on a metro with nothing else to do for an hour, suddenly reading this little book had merit. I earnestly read the introductions in their entirety, wanting to understand how the book came into being and why it might be relevant. First, it's clear that Behrendt (the guy) is running the show and Tuccillo (the woman) is just his "yes man" for agreeing that his tactics work. What an annoying concept considering Behrendt's whole methodology is for women to stop questioning a guy and just let him be in the proactive role.
Tuccillo was initially doubtful of Behrendt's methods--she likens it to a diet. She is won over when her co-workers see "he's just not that into" statements provide clarity for their otherwise cloudy-headed female cohort. She reminds us that we COULD eat those bad-for-you-items sometimes, but where is it going to get you in the scheme of things?
The book isn't like a novel, but a self-help manual: situation, Greg's answer; situation, Greg's sarcastic answer, followed by Liz's approval of all things Greg ("even if it's hard.."). The fonts are annoyingly multitudinous and the research is frustratingly simplistic ("Twenty out of the 20 guys I emailed said they will talk about marriage if they are really interested in a girl").
The truth is, what the book states is common sense. Women KNOW that they are being hurt by men, we understand that we are completely abandoning reason and rationality; but I fail to find a poem which likens love to rationality and ever have it be successful. I'm not sure this book will change the rate at which women allow themselves to be emotionally entangled--it is our nature, I believe--but there is an opportunity here for women to be smarter about who they entangle themselves with.
As for the question we all wonder--why isn't there a book that will encourage men to re-think their dating habits? Greg tells us it is because exactly 5 men know how to read and only 1 of them would buy the book. And he's probably gay. Okay, he didn't say that last part. So what about a TV show then? I'd much rather see someone like Gloria Steinem write that script.
I don't think that ignoring Greg's advice will make a woman less powerful, nor do I imagine taking it will either. It's a matter of where you're choosing to get your information--Wikipedia, anyone?
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Poetry
My first introduction to Czeslaw Milosz was during the film Under the Tuscan Sun, when the main character and her repairman have no common language except that of the poet, Czeslaw Milosz. I always intended to discover what made his work translate across cultures so effortlessly.
I didn't even realize Milosz was a poet until I stumbled upon his book, A Book of Luminous Things, in the library a few weeks ago. At no point have I ever been fond of the poetry genre--too often the verses' significance is lost on me along with their rhythm and meter--and discovering this long-sought author was of the poetic nature, I was disappointed.
I grabbed the book based completely on the use of "luminous" in the title.
A few weeks later and I am completely engrossed in the pages. Luminous is divided by sections and are meant not to educate us about the austerity of poetry but to remind us "that for some very good reasons it may be of importance today." In an age fraught with technological and epistemological reasoning, I can't help but find the simple aesthetic of a poet to be reassuring. Milosz does not write his own poetry here, but instead edits a collection of sometimes prolific, sometimes quiet authors.
Many of the poems are from Eastern writers of a different era--the early 700s. Although the Eastern poems were naturalistic in their discussion of mountains and the buds of spring, I found the beauty stunted--trying to discern how their fragile, patroned lives could figure into this century. There were few American writers and many translations of Polish and Russian poetry. Each poem begins with Milosz's brief thoughts--which can be somewhat frustrating, to have an image superimposed before you even make conclusions for yourself.
Since my own poetic experience is limited, I'm reminded of one of the few other books of poetry I've read and enjoyed, which you can take for what it is worth. Garrison Keillor's collection of "Good Poems" is unpretentiously filled with some of the better modern poetry I've read. Both of these poets take little known selections and have their subtle impact bounce from the middle of a perfectly adequate text.
As for Milosz, I have every intention of finding some of his poetry to read. However, I have little doubt that his ability should be in question, based on his ability to select a series of achingly fantastic samples.
I will include some samples below, once the book is returned to me from a co-worker who also saw the title and quickly pilfered it from my desk...
I didn't even realize Milosz was a poet until I stumbled upon his book, A Book of Luminous Things, in the library a few weeks ago. At no point have I ever been fond of the poetry genre--too often the verses' significance is lost on me along with their rhythm and meter--and discovering this long-sought author was of the poetic nature, I was disappointed.
I grabbed the book based completely on the use of "luminous" in the title.
A few weeks later and I am completely engrossed in the pages. Luminous is divided by sections and are meant not to educate us about the austerity of poetry but to remind us "that for some very good reasons it may be of importance today." In an age fraught with technological and epistemological reasoning, I can't help but find the simple aesthetic of a poet to be reassuring. Milosz does not write his own poetry here, but instead edits a collection of sometimes prolific, sometimes quiet authors.
Many of the poems are from Eastern writers of a different era--the early 700s. Although the Eastern poems were naturalistic in their discussion of mountains and the buds of spring, I found the beauty stunted--trying to discern how their fragile, patroned lives could figure into this century. There were few American writers and many translations of Polish and Russian poetry. Each poem begins with Milosz's brief thoughts--which can be somewhat frustrating, to have an image superimposed before you even make conclusions for yourself.
Since my own poetic experience is limited, I'm reminded of one of the few other books of poetry I've read and enjoyed, which you can take for what it is worth. Garrison Keillor's collection of "Good Poems" is unpretentiously filled with some of the better modern poetry I've read. Both of these poets take little known selections and have their subtle impact bounce from the middle of a perfectly adequate text.
As for Milosz, I have every intention of finding some of his poetry to read. However, I have little doubt that his ability should be in question, based on his ability to select a series of achingly fantastic samples.
I will include some samples below, once the book is returned to me from a co-worker who also saw the title and quickly pilfered it from my desk...
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Books I've Read (BBC List)
The BBC thinks most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
I couldn't find the hyperlink to this list, so you will have to trust me (or my friend Olivia whom I stole the list from) that these were indeed the represented 100.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'X' after those you have read.
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X+
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X+
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X+
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible (what really counts as reading here? No, I haven't finished this book yet)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X+
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell *
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott X+
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X+
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller *
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare *
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (Missed this one in book club)
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger X*
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot *
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald X+
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy *
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X+
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy X
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen X+
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen X+ (One of my favorite Austen books)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini X+
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X+
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan *(Actually the next book on my list)
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel X
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X+
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley *
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *(Book club selection)
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X+
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac X (I say I've read this, but I didn't get to the VERY end, per se. I need to pick this back up)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding X+
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie *
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce *
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath *
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - A.S. Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell *
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert *
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White X+
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom X
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X+
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Books I've read: 33
Books I loved: 16
I'm astonished that I've read many of these "classics" but don't even touch the 54 that my friend Olivia has conquered. I've always wondered why books are chosen for lists like these (for example, I would not have put Mitch Albom's "Five People You Meet in Heaven" on here, but would have put his work "Tuesday's with Morrie").
How many have you read?
I couldn't find the hyperlink to this list, so you will have to trust me (or my friend Olivia whom I stole the list from) that these were indeed the represented 100.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'X' after those you have read.
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X+
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X+
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X+
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible (what really counts as reading here? No, I haven't finished this book yet)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X+
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell *
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott X+
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X+
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller *
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare *
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (Missed this one in book club)
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger X*
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot *
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald X+
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy *
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X+
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy X
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen X+
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen X+ (One of my favorite Austen books)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini X+
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X+
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan *(Actually the next book on my list)
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel X
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X+
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley *
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *(Book club selection)
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X+
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac X (I say I've read this, but I didn't get to the VERY end, per se. I need to pick this back up)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding X+
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie *
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce *
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath *
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - A.S. Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell *
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert *
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White X+
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom X
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X+
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Books I've read: 33
Books I loved: 16
I'm astonished that I've read many of these "classics" but don't even touch the 54 that my friend Olivia has conquered. I've always wondered why books are chosen for lists like these (for example, I would not have put Mitch Albom's "Five People You Meet in Heaven" on here, but would have put his work "Tuesday's with Morrie").
How many have you read?
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The Reader
This novel first appeared on my radar when my friend Allen sent me an email saying he couldn't put it down. Relegated to the bottom of my behemoth inbox, I found it again after the holidays only to discover that this was indeed the same book that was recently produced for a motion picture audience, and staring Kate Winslet (Insert obsessive comment).
Typically I loathe the book to movie translation which tends to lose the detail that accompanies a richly drawn linguistic image. A few exceptions are the Harry Potter books (which perhaps actually might be better than the books minus the whole act of reading part) and Bridget Jones' Diary. But I found myself wanting to both see and read the interpretations of The Reader.
Schlink's plot is decidedly simple; the telling of the story is from the point of view of a German lawyer, who does not absolve the Germans of their holocaust but rather acknowledges it pointedly as if he too tries to understand the purpose of the actions. The language, which often determines the quality of a book, at least for me, hovers above the page touching down lightly with profundity now and then. It is a short book and although I raced through it during my evening metro rides, I couldn't help but feel it moved at a solid pace.
If I have issues with the book they are in the narration--both past and present at once. The loss of the years when Hannah is, we'll say "unavailable, are also a loss for the reader as her uncertainty, her quick anger are fascinating to unravel. If its goal is to have one of those "you'll wish you could read about this but I'm only going to let you infer" moments, it didn't work. I wanted to understand more about Hannah or the narrator. I wanted to have some part of their interaction embrace continuity beyond the initial rush. But the reasons for the narrator and Hannah's first encounter aren't ones which can be explained, it just happened. The war...just happened. Aging...just happened.
It will not be a stretch to bring Kate Winslet to this role...she IS Hannah. The narrator, however, will prove a more difficult feat for Ralph Finnes--the narrator is almost empty in his recollection and offers for explanation--he serves nearly as a bucket and less as a substantial well.
The ending has a slight twist, but it's quiet and necessary.
Typically I loathe the book to movie translation which tends to lose the detail that accompanies a richly drawn linguistic image. A few exceptions are the Harry Potter books (which perhaps actually might be better than the books minus the whole act of reading part) and Bridget Jones' Diary. But I found myself wanting to both see and read the interpretations of The Reader.
Schlink's plot is decidedly simple; the telling of the story is from the point of view of a German lawyer, who does not absolve the Germans of their holocaust but rather acknowledges it pointedly as if he too tries to understand the purpose of the actions. The language, which often determines the quality of a book, at least for me, hovers above the page touching down lightly with profundity now and then. It is a short book and although I raced through it during my evening metro rides, I couldn't help but feel it moved at a solid pace.
If I have issues with the book they are in the narration--both past and present at once. The loss of the years when Hannah is, we'll say "unavailable, are also a loss for the reader as her uncertainty, her quick anger are fascinating to unravel. If its goal is to have one of those "you'll wish you could read about this but I'm only going to let you infer" moments, it didn't work. I wanted to understand more about Hannah or the narrator. I wanted to have some part of their interaction embrace continuity beyond the initial rush. But the reasons for the narrator and Hannah's first encounter aren't ones which can be explained, it just happened. The war...just happened. Aging...just happened.
It will not be a stretch to bring Kate Winslet to this role...she IS Hannah. The narrator, however, will prove a more difficult feat for Ralph Finnes--the narrator is almost empty in his recollection and offers for explanation--he serves nearly as a bucket and less as a substantial well.
The ending has a slight twist, but it's quiet and necessary.
2009 was declared the year of the book and I decided to adjust my own involvement accordingly by joining a book club (BC). My membership in book club was rather pointedly insisted upon by me to my friend, Maggie, a longtime membership holder. The other two members of our club are Leah and Amy and we are all relationship-ed. Meaning our talks can meander to (mice and) men, school (JMU Alums represent), good food and naturally literature. In our Inaugural meeting we determined our list of books for the year, leaving December with an interesting project: choose a book of your own liking and share it with the BC.
So that you're in the loop, I've included our list of books below. Some were re-introduced to the 2009 list because they had not completed the full reading list in 2008, while others were suggested by various members of the club.
There is a solidarity to be found in communal reading, along with a distinct hesitation. When you find that others profess the same reaction to a characterization or a lingering image, there is comfort that the world you have created while reading the book remains intact and even validated. However, sharing your emotional response to book out loud or finding a dissimilar experience among your peers can be...well, disconcerting.
This promises to be a year of good novels that will undoubtedly reawaken my passion for the art of reading.
1. The Reader - Bernhard Schlink
2. The Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales - Angela Carter
3. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
4. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolfe
5. The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
6. Free Choice
7. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
8. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9. I Love You Beth Cooper - Larry Doyle
10. A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway
11. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
12. Free Choice
So that you're in the loop, I've included our list of books below. Some were re-introduced to the 2009 list because they had not completed the full reading list in 2008, while others were suggested by various members of the club.
There is a solidarity to be found in communal reading, along with a distinct hesitation. When you find that others profess the same reaction to a characterization or a lingering image, there is comfort that the world you have created while reading the book remains intact and even validated. However, sharing your emotional response to book out loud or finding a dissimilar experience among your peers can be...well, disconcerting.
This promises to be a year of good novels that will undoubtedly reawaken my passion for the art of reading.
1. The Reader - Bernhard Schlink
2. The Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales - Angela Carter
3. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
4. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolfe
5. The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
6. Free Choice
7. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
8. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9. I Love You Beth Cooper - Larry Doyle
10. A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway
11. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
12. Free Choice
Sunday, November 23, 2008
An Exhaustive List
My dear friend Allen is a bibliophile of the nth degree, having created and read an expansive list of literature, graphic novels and non-fiction. Knowing my book quest well, he has not only presented me with many a title, but also here, an exhaustive list of his recommendations. Enjoy.
# My Sister's Keeper
# Lucky
# Love is a Mix Tape
# 19 Minutes
# Songs without Words
# The Monster of Florence: A True Story
# The House of Sand and Fog
# The Garden of Last Days
# America, America
# 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy
# Complete Short Stories of Truman Capote
# In Cold Blood
# Breakfast at Tiffany's
# Other Rooms, Other Voices
# Out of Africa --
# read the book; then watch the movie Mystic River --
# read the book; then watch the movie High Fidelity --
# read the book; then watch the movie The Myth of You and Me
# Blood Meridian: Or The Evening Redness in the West
# The Border Trilogy ---- All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities on the Plain
# The Road
# -- read the book; then watch the movie this fall A River Runs Through It -- read the novella; then watch the movie (but only maybe)
# Shopgirl -- NEVER see the movie
# Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays
# Blankets
# “Brokeback Mountain” -- short story = way better than the movie
# Saturday
# Amsterdam
# Redemption Falls
# The Lost
# Wonderful Tonight
# Tree of Smoke
# I Love you, Beth Cooper
# Wish You Were Here
# Night Country
# Snow Angels
# 100 Sonnets
# by Pablo Neruda Here is New York
# Complete Poems of James Dickey
# Deliverance
# To the White Sea
# Fun Home
# Summer Blonde
# Shortcomings
# Everything is Illuminated
# 25th Hour
# City of Thieves
# Snuff
# Choke
# Fight Club
# If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home
# Going After Cacciato
# The Things They Carried
# In the Lake of the Woods
# Arcadia
# Maus I + II
# Wonder Boys
# Bridge of Sighs
# One Foot in Eden
# Saints at the River
# The World Made Straight
# Before I Die
# Reservation Road
# In the Wild
# From Hell
# -- read the comic book; then watch the movie Ghost World -- read the comic book; then watch the movie
# The Drowned and the Saved
# Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account
# The Grey Zone: Director’s Notes
# and Screenplay The Grey Zone -- watch the movie
# Judenhass
# “Million Dollar Baby” -- read short story; then watch the movie (again?)
# God Loves, Man Kills
# Gone, Baby, Gone -- read the book; then watch the movie
# Survival in Auschwitz
# The Reawakening
# Flags of Our Fathers --
# read the book; then watch the movie So Sad to Fall -- read and then watch Letters from Iwo Jima
# Unbearable Lightness of Being -- read the book; then watch the movie
# The English Patient -- read the book; then watch the movie
# We are on Our Own
# Life of
# Pi Rape of Nanking
# In Harm's Way
# A Rumor of War
# Shoeless Joe
# With the Old Breed: The Marines at Peleliu and Okinawa
# Friday Night Lights
# Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
# Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines
# Understanding Comics
# Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form
# Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels
# March
# The March
# Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death & Politics
# Prep: A Novel
# The Man of My Dreams: A Novel
# Little Children
# Election
# The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
# In Country
# Then We Came to the End: A Novel
# The Book of Other People
# About a Boy
# -- read the book; then watch the movie Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories
# 400 Photos
by Ansel Adams
# My Sister's Keeper
# Lucky
# Love is a Mix Tape
# 19 Minutes
# Songs without Words
# The Monster of Florence: A True Story
# The House of Sand and Fog
# The Garden of Last Days
# America, America
# 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy
# Complete Short Stories of Truman Capote
# In Cold Blood
# Breakfast at Tiffany's
# Other Rooms, Other Voices
# Out of Africa --
# read the book; then watch the movie Mystic River --
# read the book; then watch the movie High Fidelity --
# read the book; then watch the movie The Myth of You and Me
# Blood Meridian: Or The Evening Redness in the West
# The Border Trilogy ---- All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities on the Plain
# The Road
# -- read the book; then watch the movie this fall A River Runs Through It -- read the novella; then watch the movie (but only maybe)
# Shopgirl -- NEVER see the movie
# Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays
# Blankets
# “Brokeback Mountain” -- short story = way better than the movie
# Saturday
# Amsterdam
# Redemption Falls
# The Lost
# Wonderful Tonight
# Tree of Smoke
# I Love you, Beth Cooper
# Wish You Were Here
# Night Country
# Snow Angels
# 100 Sonnets
# by Pablo Neruda Here is New York
# Complete Poems of James Dickey
# Deliverance
# To the White Sea
# Fun Home
# Summer Blonde
# Shortcomings
# Everything is Illuminated
# 25th Hour
# City of Thieves
# Snuff
# Choke
# Fight Club
# If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home
# Going After Cacciato
# The Things They Carried
# In the Lake of the Woods
# Arcadia
# Maus I + II
# Wonder Boys
# Bridge of Sighs
# One Foot in Eden
# Saints at the River
# The World Made Straight
# Before I Die
# Reservation Road
# In the Wild
# From Hell
# -- read the comic book; then watch the movie Ghost World -- read the comic book; then watch the movie
# The Drowned and the Saved
# Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account
# The Grey Zone: Director’s Notes
# and Screenplay The Grey Zone -- watch the movie
# Judenhass
# “Million Dollar Baby” -- read short story; then watch the movie (again?)
# God Loves, Man Kills
# Gone, Baby, Gone -- read the book; then watch the movie
# Survival in Auschwitz
# The Reawakening
# Flags of Our Fathers --
# read the book; then watch the movie So Sad to Fall -- read and then watch Letters from Iwo Jima
# Unbearable Lightness of Being -- read the book; then watch the movie
# The English Patient -- read the book; then watch the movie
# We are on Our Own
# Life of
# Pi Rape of Nanking
# In Harm's Way
# A Rumor of War
# Shoeless Joe
# With the Old Breed: The Marines at Peleliu and Okinawa
# Friday Night Lights
# Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
# Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines
# Understanding Comics
# Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form
# Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels
# March
# The March
# Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death & Politics
# Prep: A Novel
# The Man of My Dreams: A Novel
# Little Children
# Election
# The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
# In Country
# Then We Came to the End: A Novel
# The Book of Other People
# About a Boy
# -- read the book; then watch the movie Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories
# 400 Photos
by Ansel Adams
Preface
I love to read. The problem is libraries offer too many selections, same as bookstores. This means I've depended heavily on the experience of others to place some of the best reading material in my hands.
Know that "bucket list" idea? That's how I feel about books. Fill my bucket with some reads. Literature, poetry, non-fiction, blogs, news articles, op-eds, fiction, short stories, plays--I dine on them with a palette that is insatiable.
As I complete a selection I will post thoughts so you can fill your own bibliophile bucket with books.
Know that "bucket list" idea? That's how I feel about books. Fill my bucket with some reads. Literature, poetry, non-fiction, blogs, news articles, op-eds, fiction, short stories, plays--I dine on them with a palette that is insatiable.
As I complete a selection I will post thoughts so you can fill your own bibliophile bucket with books.
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