Monday, May 17, 2010

I Still Read

While I would struggle to remember what the last movie I watched in a theater might be, I am an avid watcher of movies and television shows of all stripes. But at this point I have gone without a round up of movies/television shows for so long that to do so now would be really boring for all of us. (Sorry Bones, Private Practice, Modern Family, Community, Castle, Lost and a host of others). While in Nashville I found it alternatively easy and hard to read a book or watch television. Television in real time weirds me out now that I have gone completely over to the Hulu/Netflix format, so many commercials. Anyways, here are some books I have read in the last few months. Making Toast is a book written by a man whose daughter died very unexpectedly. He and his wife move their life to their son-in-law's to help with the watching over and raising of their three grandchildren. It can break your heart a little.
The Secret History. I don't know what to make of this book. While I guess it is supposed to take place in the eighties or nineties, there seem to be historical inconsistencies and all the characters and their mannerisms, along with the setting, kept making me think the book was taking place in the 1950s. I guess it's a mystery. Or something. A thriller? A novel. Eh. I read it. I didn't not like it, but I just didn't ever care about any of it really.
I think I read the lastest Margaret Maron in about 36 hours. It was fulfilling in the way her mysteries always are. It has been more than a year since I have been able to read a Margaret Maron book, as I went through a number of them while staying with T. and C. in the winter of 2008.
I bought Chelsea Handlers Collection of One-Night Stands while in Nashville. It was relatively entertaining. It made me glad that I haven't had as many sexual encounters as she has and equally self-conscious that I'm not having as much good sex as she did. Too much information? Too bad.
My parents read this book (not at the same time) and encouraged me to do the same. It was good, though I felt that it could have used its narrative framework a little bit better in the end. Sad. Russia in World War II.
I looked around the house for another book once I finished City of Thieves and picked up Sarah's Key, shrugged, and started reading it. While the beginning is a little tedious (not in terms of plot as much as the fact that everyone and their mother knows at least one parallel from the opening two chapters, so having to wait for that parallel to be revealed to the characters is a little slow going), the actual story was quite moving. France in World War II. French guilt. Jewish children and death, death, death. There was a little redemption, which kept it from just being heavy. I finished it in a day. A rainy day.
Hm. What else. The other day I learned that the red tailed skinks I have been seeing everywhere are the mature form of a blue tailed skink, also known as a five line skink. They also might be males. I don't know. I have given up photographing them. They have some sort of really annoying sixth sense about when I'm out on the rock without my camera and even when I'm sitting there with camera in hand, just waiting, they move so quickly I still can't quite get the shot. You'll just have to believe me.

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