Books and Movies

Kevin and I watched The Bucket List last night. Not quite what I expected - the trailers led me to believe that it was a comedy. And, yes, there were many humorous parts, but it is a movie that deals with serious issues.

Carter and Edward meet in the hospital - both of them being treated for cancer. Carter is a family man: married to the same woman for 45 years, worked as a mechanic, raised his kids. Edward is a wealthy businessman whose main pursuit in life has been to make money and spend it on himself. These two completely different men form an unlikely friendship. When they are both given less than a year to live, they embark on a trip to cross items off of their “bucket lists” - lists of things to do before they “kick the bucket.”

The best thing about this movie is the casting. Watching Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson is like watching two old masters. They are brilliant actors, and they make their art look effortless. Definitely a must-see.

My mom and I took the kids to see Kung Fu Panda this afternoon. An air-conditioned theater is a great place to spend a 99-degree afternoon. The fact that the movie in question turned out to be really good is just a bonus.

Jack Black was the perfect actor to voice Po, the overweight Panda who works in his father’s noodle shop. His father inherited the shop from his father, and he expects to hand it down to Po. “Noodles are your destiny.” Po, however, has bigger dreams. He dreams of being a Kung Fu master.

Due to an accident, Po is chosen as the long-awaited and prophesied Dragon Warrior. In spite of the fact that everyone thinks he is hopeless, Po finds his true destiny. All of the “Furious Five” were voiced well, Dustin Hoffman steals the show as Shifu, the little Kung Fu master charged with traning Po.

Kung Fu Panda is the best kind of animated film. The kids loved it, and it entertained me, too.

Our week of endless VBS is almost at an end. I must admit that the free time in the mornings and evenings has been very nice, but I’m not sure it’s worth the over-tired and cranky-from-too-much-sugar kids. Next year will be different, since Natalie will have finished 6th grade, and therefore aged out of the VBS they’ve been attending for the past several years. I’ll have a daughter entering junior high next August - how did that happen?

Our weekend is looking to be much slower and quieter than our week, and that’s just fine with me. We need a quiet week to gear up for Independence Day weekend, when my sister and her family will be visiting, and we’ll be spending the bulk of our time at Mom and Dad’s. The following weekend we take Natalie to Bible camp. She comes home on Thursday the 17th, and on Saturday the 19th, the kids will participate in a Tae Kwon Do tournament. The following weekend, we leave on our trip. When we get back, it will be three weeks until school starts again. When I look at it like that, the summer’s almost over already!

Some great videos:

~ Electric strings group Scala appears on Britain’s Got Talent. These girls are amazing! Hat tip: Angela Hunt.

~ Where the H*ll is Matt? Hat tip: Chris Rice’s blog. Check out Matt’s web site, and his about page that explains how we had the opportunity to travel all over the world to make the video.

~ BBC Worldwide has its own YouTube page. Check out the QI clips - they are hilarious!

Movie stuff:

~ The movie version of Inkheart is coming in January - here’s the trailer. Looks like they made quite a few changes to the plot. I’ll reserve judgment until I actually see it. I guess.

~ Another book to movie: The Tale of Despereaux - coming in December. Here’s the trailer.

Win a book:

~ Head over to Puss Reboots for a chance to win Virus Games, the first in a new series geared toward 9 to 12 year olds.

I guess that’s it - that’s enough, right? Oh, I also joined Facebook, so let me know if you’re there, too, so I can add you to my friends list.

I finished reading Maus by Art Spiegelman today. This was my first foray into the world of the graphic novel, and it was a good choice. I had been unconvinced that a “comic book” could grab my attention and emotionally involve me the way a “real” novel does. I’m glad to say I was wrong.

Maus is the story of Art Spiegelman’s father, Vladek Spiegelman, who survived Auschwitz. Spiegelman uses the medium of the comic book to reduce the story to it’s barest elements. The Jews are drawn as mice, the Germans as cats, the Poles as pigs. Spiegelman tells the story of his father’s survival of the holocaust, and juxtposes it against his own troubled relationsip with his father. Even though Vladek survived the concentration camps, his personality was shaped from his experiences, and his relationships with his family members suffered for it.

If you are interested in trying a graphic novel, or in reading a thought-provoking Holocaust story, I encourage you to pick up Maus. It was published in two parts, and then as The Complete Maus, which I found at our public library.

In my previous post, I talked about audiobooks. I mentioned author Neil Gaiman, saying he should definitely read his own books for the audio versions. Well, if he’s too busy, Lenny Henry is wonderful, too.

Gaiman’s Anansi Boys is the story of Fat Charlie Nancy. He’s an accountant living in London, happily engaged to Rosie Noah (though not thrilled about his future mother-in-law), and planning his wedding. He’s not discontented, but he should be, because his life is incredibly boring.

While planning the wedding, he learns that his father has died, and at the funeral - presided over by three hilarious old ladies: Mrs. Higgler, Mrs. Dunwiddy, and Mrs. Bustamonte - he is told that his father was a god, Anansi, and that he has a brother. Mrs. Higgler tells him that if he wants to get in touch with his brother, he should tell a spider. One night, Fat Charlie does just that - and the chaos ensues.

You never know what you’re going to get when you read a Gaiman book. Neverwhere is wonderful: dark, foggy, and damp, like the London underground the novel inhabits. Coraline is a creepy, scary story that thrilled the kids and I when I read it aloud. His short stories are horrific, fantastical, humorous, and sly, depending on which one you’re reading.

Anansi Boys is hilarious, bright, and mythical. It takes the old Anansi stories, about the trickster spider, and weaves them into our modern world. The result is often laugh-out-loud funny. The characters are richly drawn, and I won’t soon forget the severe Mrs. Noah, the spunky Maeve Livingstone, the slimy and evil Graem Coates, and police detective Daisy, with her frequent exclamation of “Bless!”

You can listen to a snippet of Henry reading Anansi Boys at Neil Gaiman’s blog - follow this link.

You can also see much of Lenny Henry’s hilarious standup on YouTube.

Entertainment Weekly has a huge issue coming out that celebrates the “new” classics - the books, movies, TV, music, and other media from the last 25 years that grabbed people’s attention and wouldn’t let go. Of course, their list of 100 “new” classic books just screams “MEME” - and I’ve already seen it on at least one blog, at Musings of a Bookish Kitty.

Here’s the list. I’ve read the titles in bold. The titles iin italic are sitting on my to-read shelf (or stacked by my bed). The ones that are underlined are books I want to read, but don’t own yet.

1. The Road, Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
4. The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991) - This one is waiting on the library hold shelf right now!
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)
12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)
13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87)
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992)
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)
16. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988)
18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990)
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)
20. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding (1998)
21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000)
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985)
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989)
26. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)
28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)
29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001)
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)
31. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien (1990)
32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988)
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005)
34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
36. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996)
37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003)
38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)
39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988)
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988)
46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996)
47. World’s Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985)
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998) - I tried; I didn’t like it.
49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)
50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001) - I tried; I hated it.
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)
52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992)
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000)
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)
55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)
57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987)
58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)
60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)
61. Money, Martin Amis (1985)
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994)
63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)
65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003)
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)
69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)
70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)
73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989)
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998)
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)
81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002)
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998)
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)
88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995)
89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999)
90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001)
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987)
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991)
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001)
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998)
96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003)
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)
98. The Predators’ Ball, Connie Bruck (1988)
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)
100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004)

I’ve only read 10 - my reading choices tend to skew much older than the past 25 years. This list, however, makes me wonder if I’m missing some really good stuff.

Like the Literary Feline, there are many authors on this list that I have read, but haven’t read the title that is listed: Alice Hoffman, Nick Hornby, Ann Fadiman, Joyce Carole Oates, Pat Barker, Edwidge Danticat, and Lois Lowry. There are several titles that I’m pretty sure I don’t want to read. What do you think of their list? Did they miss anything? Is there a title on there that you can’t believe made the top 100?

I’ve been asked how I manage to read 100-plus books a year while I’m homeschooling four kids, and the answer is simply that I don’t. Actually “read” all 100-plus. I listen to audiobooks. I know some people who don’t consider this reading, and, frankly, I don’t care. If I can listen to a great book, it makes the time spent folding and spotting laundry, washing dishes, and cooking meals feel like less of a waste.

I have some requirements when I choose an audiobook. The reader must do a decent job. If he or she doesn’t do the voices well, or if they speak in a monotone, I quit listening and determine to read the print version. If you’re an author and read your own audiobooks, you had better be sure you’re a decent reader. If you’re not, who cares? You’re already a published author, and there are a lot of great voice-actors to choose from when making an audiobook.

There are some audiobook actors who do such an exceptional job that I seek out other books they’ve read, not so much for the book’s title, but for their reading style. Here are some of my favorites:

Carol Monda: I listened to her read Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen, then discovered that she also read Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes, so I checked that one out next.

John McDonough: Mr. McDonough read all of Jan Karon’s Mitford series. After reading them for myself at least twice, I listened to them all on audiobook. McDonough is synonymous with Father Tim in my mind, so much so that when I discovered that he didn’t read Home to Holly Springs, the first of the Father Tim novels, I almost gave up on it. I’m glad I didn’t, though, because it was read by..

Scott Sowers: I was sure that there wasn’t another reader that could do a Mitford book justice, but I was wrong. Mr. Sowers did a perfect job, and when I was done listening to Home to Holly Springs and picked my next audiobook, I was delighted to hear on the first disc: “Blasphemy by Douglas Preston, read by Scott Sowers.”

Other great books to listen to:

Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin, read by the author

The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autiobiography by Sidney Poitier, read by the author

Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier, read by Jill Tanner

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, read by Ilyana Kadushin

Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman, read by the author (Gaiman is one of the few non-actor authors who should definitely read his own work.)

Rules by Cynthia Lord, read by Jessica Almasy

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman, read by Linda Emond

The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer, read by Brian Keeler

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, read by Sissy Spacek

So, do you listen to audiobooks? If so, are there any I shouldn’t miss?

This week involved a lot of driving: to and from basketball camp every day, to the dentist, grocery shopping, etc. I love my “new” minivan, but I’m hoping not to spend as much time in it next week! That hope is in vain, though, since VBS starts Monday.

I’m sitting in a quiet house right now. Kevin and all three boys are at archery, and Natalie is at a slumber party. Now that Josiah has decided to take archery, too, I will have every Thursday evening all by my lonesome. Woot!

Kevin and the boys are going camping tomorrow. After Nan’s last day of basketball camp tomorrow, she and I will have a girls’ night and watch 27 Dresses. Saturday, we will head to the lake for Noah’s birthday celebration. Monday, VBS starts…. Things don’t look to slow down any time soon. Sigh.

~ How to Recognize a Blond Antelope. Hat tip: Angela Hunt.

~ For all of you who have sons who have ever asked: What Happens When You Go Number Two in Space. Hat tip: Challies.

~ You know how I’ve been raving about Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series? I’m reading her other novel, The Host, right now - and it’s shaping up to be a great read, too. You can enter to win an entire Stephenie Meyer library at Maw Books Blog.

~ Amazing pictures of ovulation. Hat tip: A Quiet Simple Life.

~ Don’t forget to enter my Gone giveaway.

~ Speaking of giveaways, Booking Mama is giving away a copy of The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton.

~ Video interview with Neil Gaiman, author of Neverwhere, Coraline, and Anansi Boys.

So, did you watch AFI’s special on CBS last night? They counted down the top ten movies in ten different movie genres. Being a complete movie fanatic, I enjoyed it - though I didn’t agree with every single one of their picks.

Here are their top three in each category:

Animation:

1. Snow White
2. Pinocchio
3. Bambi

I would have skipped Pinocchio and added The Little Mermaid - though maybe not at spot #2.

Romantic Comedies:

1. City Lights
2. Annie Hall
3. It Happened One Night

I haven’t seen any of the top three, but I did like some of their other choices. When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle are two of my favorite movies of all time. I also adore The Philadelphia Story. I’m not sure what I would have added to this category. Oh, maybe Bringing Up Baby.

Westerns:

1. The Searchers
2. High Noon
3. Shane

Have any of you heard of a western called McCabe and Mrs. Miller? I’d never heard of that one. I may be in the minority, but I never really cared for High Noon. If I had to pick my favorite westerns, I’d have to say Support Your Local Sheriff, Two Mules for Sister Sarah, and 3:10 to Yuma.

Sports:

1. Raging Bull
2. Rocky
3. The Pride of the Yankees

Okay, this is one of the categories I completely disagreed with. First of all Jerry Maguire isn’t really a sports movie. Yes, Jerry is a sports agent, but the movie is a romance. I would have loved to see Rudy and A League of Their Own make the top ten in this genre. Oh, and what about a little Oscar winner called Chariots of Fire? Or Cinderella Man, another of my favorites. Oh, and Seabiscuit was brilliant, too.

Mystery:

1. Vertigo
2. Chinatown
3. Rear Window

I haven’t seen some of the top ten in this category, so it’s hard to judge. A couple of my favorites in this category are Wait Until Dark and Charade.

Fantasy:

1. The Wizard of Oz
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
3. It’s a Wonderful Life

I really liked most of their picks in this category - even though I didn’t think of movies like Big and Groundhog Day as fantasy, although of course they are. I always think more along the lines of Harry Potter and LOTR, but of course fantasy is much more than dragons and wizards.

Sci-Fi:

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
3. E.T.

It’s hard to judge on this category, too. I’ve never seen 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Alien, or Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I love sci-fi, but the sci-fi movies I like always seem to do poorly with the critics. Three of my favorites are Signs, The Sphere, and The Abyss.

Gangster:

1. The Godfather
2. Goodfellas
3. The Godfather, Part II

Not my favorite genre of movie, though Kevin loves gangster films. Nothing to add, I guess.

Courtroom Drama:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. 12 Angry Men
3. Kramer vs. Kramer

I whole-heartedly agree with their number one pick - brilliant book, brilliant film. I love A Few Good Men, which came in at number 5. I guess my only add would be A Time to Kill.

Epic:

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. Ben-Hur
3. Schindler’s List

I’ve never seen number one. I hated Saving Private Ryan, which came in at number 8. I’ve never seen Reds, number 9. I would have chosen Braveheart in this category. And while I agree that Gone With the Wind probably deserves a place on this list, I personally can’t stand it.

Click on the genre titles to see the complete top ten lists, and then come back and tell my what you think they missed.

I’m not sure how Susan Vreeland remained under my radar for so long. I know her books are out there, but until my friend Michelle mentioned her Girl in Hyacinth Blue to me, I hadn’t noticed her books. I felt the same way when I listened to Tracy Chevalier’s Burning Bright on audio book: “Why have I not read this author before? I’ve been missing something wonderful!”

Life Studies is a book of short stories, divided into three sections. The first section, “Then,” includes stories that revolve around famous artists and the people in their lives. We see Monet painting his wife’s death, while his mistress waits downstairs with the family. We see Manet’s wife trying to deal with his legacy of infedility after his death. We see a gardner who keeps an older Monet’s garden just perfect for the artist to paint. We see the illegitimate daughter of Modigliani try to find the father behind the artist. And along the way, we see through artists’ eyes, and the world becomes a more beautiful place.

The second section is titled “Interlude,” and includes only one delightful story, “The Adventures of Bernardo and Salvatore.” Two Tuscan men work and save and scrimp in order to make a trip to see Italy’s great art. The friendship between the two men - perfectly captured in an argument about the superiority of Raphael over Michelangelo on their way home - is funny and true.

The third and final section, “Now,” includes more modern stories about how art intersects with life. A young girl experiences her grandfather’s death. A mother sees her son becoming a man before her eyes. A teacher finds that beauty can exist without museums, ballet, and symphonies.

Vreeland’s writing is moving and seems infused with light, just like the works of the artists she writes about. The first section was my favorite, and made me want to find a really good book on the Impressionists. Any recommendations?

4 out of 5 stars