14 posts tagged “30 by 30”
Finished Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. I am officially now halfway done with my 30 by 30 project. :)
This is an interesting (and very creepy in parts) story about what happens when a carnival comes to town.
Will Halloway and his best friend Jim Nightshade do everything together, so when the carnival comes, it's not that surprising that they go and explore it together. Except it's a scary carnival and the guys who own it are even creepier.
This isn't a favorite of mine, but it was definitely a very compelling book; it was hard to put down.
So I'm currently reading The Help, which is brilliant. After that, though, I think I'll head back to my 30 by 30 project.
I've read 14, which means I'm almost half done.
What should the next one be? Here are your choices (and these are your only choices):
The Handmaid's Tale
Sense and Sensibility
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Running With Scissors
In Cold Blood
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Name of the Rose
Harriet the Spy
Everything Is Illuminated
The Cider House Rules
Never Let Me Go
Love in the Time of Cholera
Anne of Green Gables
1984
The Catcher in the Rye
East of Eden
Finished The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett for the A-Z Challenge.
I'm sure everyone's heard about The Secret Garden, whether or not you've read it, so I'm not going to do a synopsis.
I did like this, and I wish I had read it when I was little, because I think I would've loved it as a small Kelly.
If you haven't read this, I definitely recommend it. It's fun and I preferred it to Little Women. You'll never be nicer than Beth, but you don't have to work too hard to be nicer than Mary Lennox. :)
Finished Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov for the Casual Classics Challenge and my 30 by 30 challenge.
This is a brilliant book, one we've all heard of. I don't think I'd go so far as to say that I liked it, but it's an amazing book and I'm glad I've read it.
According to the front cover and Vanity Fair, it's "the only convincing love story of our century."
I really hope that's not true, because Lolita has nothing to do with love.
Humbert (the narrator) tries to convince himself that he loves Lolita and that she loves him back, but in his more honest moments (there aren't many, but they are there), he knows that she doesn't and that she stays with him because she feels trapped. (He tells her that if she tries to go to the police or to tell anyone, he'll go to jail and that she'll be put into the foster care system or in some sort of facility for wayward girls.)
The book's more about obsession (on his part) and helplessness (on hers). He tries to paint it as love and as concern for her (he decides at first that he's going to drug her before touching her so that she can stay pure) but really, not so much.
Finished Hell House by Richard Matheson for the Celebrate the Author Challenge (he was born in February). It's also part of my 30 by 30 personal challenge.
I don't like Richard Matheson very much. I Am Legend was entertaining enough and quite scary in parts, but Hell House was just weird. And based mostly on this and partly on I Am Legend, I'm going to guess that he had some sexual hangups. (Or maybe not.)
Hell House is about a group of people (scientist-type guy and his wife, medium and psychic who survived in the house the last time people went in) who are investigating the "Everest of haunted houses."
So what's the deal with this house? Apparently there were a lot of orgies there and eventually it deteroriated into other weirdness and people died, so then there was cannibalism and necrophilia.
This book wasn't scary at all--it was just gross.
And for what it's worth, I am totally not a repressed person, but talking about wanting to give God a blow job? Gross. Creepy and inappropriate and gross.
Finished I Am Legend by Richard Matheson for the A-Z Challenge (and as part of my 30 by 30 challenge).
This book is the basis for the Will Smith movie of the same name. I haven't seen it, but I have DVRed it and hope to watch it at some point over the next couple days.
In this book, Robert Neville is pretty sure he's the last person alive. Vampires have taken over his town, and he devotes the daytime to (a) making sure his house is still a fortress, (b) foraging for food and books [library books on biology and blood so he can understand exactly what's going on] and (c) killing as many vampires as he can find.
If you like books that are scary (because parts of this are incredibly scary) and love anything related to science, you will adore this book. If you do not like science, proceed with caution. I do not like science AT ALL, and I still enjoyed it but it was very dry in parts.
Finished Little Women by Louisa May Alcott for the A-Z Challenge (A for Alcott) and this also finishes the 20 books in 2009 challenge.
This book is a hard one to review. I wish I had read it when I was younger, because I think I would've loved it a lot more than I do now.
For one thing, Louisa May Alcott has a lot of opinions and she's not subtle in sharing them. You know how in Wall*E, there's a big message about consumerism and how, if you had a brain stem, you got the message? It's like that.
Louisa May's not a fan of alcohol. Or people who drink alcohol. Or people who have fun. Or people who aren't poor (except for Laurie).
Also, the characters aren't very realistic. I was talking to Jenny on AIM today and we were discussing it and while, yes, Beth is an absolute dose of perfection, Meg, Jo and Amy aren't exactly awful. It's basically three angels and an incarnation of Jesus in one house. (Seriously--much is made of their "faults," but I think anyone would be happy to have even one of those girls as children, but all four? Wow.)
That said, I did enjoy it. There's a lot in the book that wasn't in either of the movie versions I've seen, and it's hard not to like Jo.
And yes, I cried when Beth died.
I finished The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. This is for the TBR challenge (free, because I got it as a birthday present a long time ago). This is also part of my own little 30 by 30 project. :)
I don't know how I feel about this book. It's definitely a good book and worth the time to read it, but I can't say I really enjoyed it.
It's about a Baptist preacher, his wife and their four children who leave Georgia to be missionaries in an African village. Most of the book is set in the early 60s, when there's a period of great unrest there, but the last hundred or so pages are set later.
It deals with issues of politics and faith and, not surprisingly, there aren't easy answers to be found.
Finished Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. This is the last book I have to read for the Rescue Project. :) So that's two challenges down (I finished From the Stacks last month) and 18 to go. Wish me luck next year. :)
Apparently I came late to this party because I'm pretty sure every reader I know has read this. In case you haven't, it's about a young girl named Chiyo who eventually grows up to become a famous geisha, Sayuri. I don't want to ruin anything, so if you haven't read this (and haven't seen the movie), you definitely should. It's definitely one of those things where the glamour you may associate with being a geisha really isn't there.
And it made me very grateful to be living in the time I do live in. :)
But wow, so, so good. :)
I don't know if I'll be finishing Poisonwood Bible by the end of the year, but it's what I'm starting next. :)
Finished The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler. I had seen the movie but hadn't read the book. I hope by now everyone else has read this, because it was really, really good.
In case not, it's about Macon Leary, a man who writes guidebooks for people who have to travel and want to basically be able to pretend that they are still in their hometowns (as in, "I am in Europe and I want to be able to find a McDonald's"). His wife has just left him (their son was murdered a couple of years before) and he's basically floundering. And then he meets Muriel, who is his exact opposite. Bet you can't guess what happens. :)
But the thing with Anne Tyler is that things usually don't go exactly the way you expect. I'd recommend this. :) And I'm excited for next year, because I'm going to read at least one more of hers.
