The Watchmen: Your Thoughts?
Will this be the hit of 09? I’m looking forward to this. I love the look of it, to be honest. Very noir. What do you think?
Seven Question Writing Meme
It’s short, sweet, and to the point. Stolen from here. 1.) What’s the one book or writing project you haven’t yet written but still hope to?Still would like to write my zombie novel, but I don’t know if that will ever happen. I also have a new dream of writing the great American novel, but with a specfic tinge to it. That probably won’t happen. 2.) If you had one entire day in which to do nothing but read, what book would you start with? I have no idea. I have too many books. I’d probably read what’s on my review list first, but I’ll assume that this question eliminates that as an option, so I’d likely go with the Steampunk Anthology by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer, because I really want to read that (I own it by the way). 3.) What was your first writing “instrument” (besides pen and paper)?Somehow I think it was a crayon. I can’t rememer for sure, but I know I was drawing as a kid, and drawing is a form of writing. If you don’t believe me, then go ahead and argue with the cavemen. 4.) What’s your best guess as to how many books you read in a month?Depends. Sometimes only two, sometimes six. Sometimes none. It all depends. If I am really having problems with a book it can take me a while. 5.) What’s your favorite writing “machine” you’ve ever owned?I’d say my laptop only because the only typewriter I ever had had a malfunctioning “s” key, so I couldn’t really write on it. Ever since I got my laptop, though, I’ve been writing more because I can take it wherever I go. That’s a good thing, in my opinion, because I type faster than I write by hand. I always keep a little moleskine with me, though, in case of a good idea. 6.) Think historical fiction: what’s your favorite time period in which to read?I like ancient European history. I’m talking way back when the bow was just being created and before all those annoying religious wars. 7.)What’s the one book you remember most clearly from your youth (childhood or teens)?From my youth? I remember reading Hardy Boys a lot. I used to gobble those up like candy. Two or three a day sometimes. I just loved those books. I don’t read mysteries now, though, and maybe that’s because it was something that I enjoyed more as a kid. Anyone wanting to do this one can consider themselves tagged.
Book Meme: Which classics have you read?
Discovered this here and thought I aught to do it. The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. Well let’s see.1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.2) Italicize those you intend to read.3) Reprint this list on your blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them 😉 Here goes: 1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee6 The Bible7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I’m bolding this anyway because I’ve read a hell of a lot of his work)15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger20 Middlemarch – George Eliot21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis34 Emma – Jane Austen35 Persuasion – Jane Austen36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis (wat, why is this on there twice)37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne (I’ve seen and read enough Pooh stuff that this counts)41 Animal Farm – George Orwell42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding50 Atonement – Ian McEwan51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel52 Dune – Frank Herbert53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens72 Dracula – Bram Stoker73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson75 Ulysses – James Joyce76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome78 Germinal – Emile Zola79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray80 Possession – AS Byatt81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks94 Watership Down – Richard Adams95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare (this is also on there twice; why does this get separated from the Complete Works rather than Romeo & Juliet, or Macbeth, or Othello…)99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo Twenty-two. That’s not bad I suppose. There are a lot of books on here I’m not really interested in though. So be it. Everyone is tagged, by the way!
Shakespeare and Geeks Unite
By far the coolest infusion of Shakespeare into geek culture ever. Got this from the Swivet. (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Yup, it’s coming, and I’m going to see it because I love the HP movies (even though they are tremendously flawed in adaptation). The trailer suggests they might do well by book six, but I’m not 100% sure. What do you think? Got this from Pat by the way.(Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Fandango Foibles
Having just seen The Dark Knight, I was rather surprised to learn that some people apparently hadn’t seen the same movie I did. Take this “review” for example: this is propaganda to teach the masses that the rich will protect us from the innately evil and violent. lots of bad, boring dialogue, unrealistic fight scenes, etc. i walked out after the joker magically disappears from the trust fund babies party. let me say this “**** THE TRUST FUND BABIES!” some ironman ripoffs badly done Nevermind the fact that the person can’t make a coherent sentence. I wasn’t aware that Batman was a propoganda engine. Is this person even aware that this is based on a comic book about a rich guy who goes vigilante? And doesn’t it make some logical sense that someone with Batman’s technology would have to be relatively loaded to do what he does? Apparently the film was teaching us bad things, like rich people helping other rich people not get killed by evil other rich people…yeah (or rich people protecting not-so-rich people from evil rich people and psychos). We didn’t see the same movie. And then there’s this: My wife and I just went to see this movie today. It’s dark and evil, the plots are convoluted and twisted. It keeps you guessing what’s next and is full of absurd, ridiculous, unbelievable situations. It tries to take away your hope that Batman is a good guy that stays the good guy. City officials, police officers, politicians, attornies, etc. are all up for being in bed with the mob. The mob is outsmarted and evilly intimated and out-manuevered by the Joker. We left with a bad feeling. We like movies like Ironman where evil is depicted as what it is, and there’s a clear difference between the good guys and the bad guys. The bad guys ALWAYS lose. Good ALWAYS triumphs over evil. This movie wants you to doubt. We felt we wasted our money. We will definitely tell our grown children NOT to waste their time seeing it. Keith Ledger did do a GREAT job acting totally psychotic. We wished we could have gotten our money back. It’s a murder and torture fest. I didn’t know that Keith Ledger was in this movie…does Heath have a brother or something (a twin brother, I mean)?The one thing I keep seeing is that the film is dark and people don’t like dark, but then these same people complain about movies being stupid and pointless. So, a movie comes along that has a very good point, is filled with a lot of darkness and strong commentary on human culture, and they just don’t like it cause it pushes buttons…I guess you can’t please everyone.