Confession

So, I guess I have to edit my goal.  Instead of reading 5 books a month, I'm going to read on AVERAGE 5 books a month.  I got a little behind in March.  Hopefully I can make it up in the coming months.  


My goal is still 60 books this year.


Just not 5 a month.  


I guess I have another confession to make.  I'm writing this in September.  So I am a tad behind by blogging.  Okay ... really behind.  I promise I did read the last 5 months.  Maybe not all the books I needed to make up my lack, but I have made some good head way.  


So as my third confession ... I did not write these posts in the months I said I wrote them.  It is just organizationally more appealing to me to do it this way.  So ... onto my back-log of posts.

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

So ... let's start this story back a little bit.  How I heard about Hunger Games is kind of funny.  A few of my friends started writing book blogs a couple of years ago, and this was one that kept popping up.  I was intrigued because it is a youth book, but dealing with adult themes.  So move forward a couple of months.  My mother comes to me with a coupon for this book, saying that she had heard me talking about it.  So I bought it ... on sale.  And I read it ... in a day.  It isn't a deep book language wise, so it was a fairly easy read.

So when the end of March came around for my reading goal, and I had only read 2 books, I picked up an easy read.  The Hunger Games.  I'm glad I read it again because I found I like the story even more after reading it again.  It was an original interpretation of the distopia civilization.  I'm excited for the movie to come out, though slightly worried about the violence.  Because in the book it is written in such a way that it isn't overly violent, but I fear it will not translate well to the movie.

It reminds me a lot about Lord of the Flies, and the lowest common denominator in a population.  I do not know if I agree with the Hobbian idea that if you strip everything away, man is naturally evil.  In many of the creative manifestations of this idea, the artist uses the individual to negate the idea.  There are a lot of examples of this ... including the movie I just watched last night - Contagion.

My final feelings about the book - I liked it, a unique story and I am excited to see it as a movie and hope that it stands up to my expectation.

Final Score: 5 out of 5 stars

Emma - Jane Austen

I finally finished it. I have had this book on my self for years, and I have always wanted to read it because Emma and Mr. Knightley are my favorite literary couple. I have started reading it multiple times, but got stuck half way through it, put it down and then don't pick it up for a year and start all over again. [I have a habit of doing this]

I really enjoyed the book. I don't know why, but ever since I was a little girl, I have wanted to find my Mr. Knightley. Someone that was always there, and someone that I always had feelings for, but those feelings you don't quite understand until something happens. I don't know how to describe it. But I love the relationship between Emma and Mr. Knightley, because it isn't one of "love at first sight" but it isn't one like Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. Emma and Mr. Knightley are simply friends who have always cared for one another, and that feeling grows and matures into love. It seems to me that that kind of love is strongest. Neither Mr. Knightley or Emma are perfect, and in the novel those faults and mistakes are amplified, but still even after their arguments and shortcomings, because that love came from genuine friendship, it can survive. Now I am not bashing the Mr. Darcy/Elizabeth way of doing things, because to tell you the truth my other favorite literary couple is Benedick and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing which follows the same pattern.

There are parts of me that yearn for Emma's time. I think I would have enjoyed a society where woman are encouraged to study drawing, music, language, writing, and were able to go to parties and balls. On the other hand, I quite enjoy the freedom of choice that I now have that would not have existed back then. It's a mixed bag to say the least.

Final Score: 4 out of 5 stars

The Giver - Lois Lowry

This book is such an amazing story. I remember reading this book in high school. It is a short book, but when you read it, the Distopia that it creates almost seems real. I also remember that for a master's class, my mother wrote a play off of this book. We went to the reading of it. It is amazing the feeling that those words carry.

Sometimes I feel as if I am in such a world like Jonas. Where everything has to be the same - especially in the way my life is "supposed" to turn out. [ie - go to BYU, get married, and have a kid before the age of 21] But my life is not like that, and so sometimes [meaning- all the time] I feel outside looking in. I can relate to that feeling of Jonas' when he cannot understand the choices he sees around him because he knows something more. And when he has to save Gabe, it is a touching moment when Jonas sacrifices himself and all that he knows for a better world - one that he isn't even sure exists. I love this book because it is a book of hope.

Though this time, I read more than just the story. In my copy of the book there is a "bonus" section, with some questions you can ask at a book club. One of the questions asks at the end of the book, if Jonas and Gabe are dying or not. It is a hard question to answer, and it made me look at the end of the book a couple of times. I hope that they aren't dying, but are truly reaching a home full of love. But on the other hand, another part of me can see this as an end to their journey and that the home that they might be going to can only be achieved through death. Either way though I still find it an ending full of hope - either way Jonas and Gabe are going to a place full of love, and are finding peace at the end of their journey. I don't think you have to decide whether or not they are dying at the end of the book. Because I think in either scenario, they are at peace and that is what matters.

This is one of my favorite books, and is one that I probably read frequently. It's short so it doesn't take long to read, nor is it dense. But it brings to mind a lot of questions - something that is always a plus for me.

Final Score: 5 out of 5 stars

Into the Woods - Stephen Sondheim & James Lapine

This is one of the last plays I saw in Stratford. Therefore this is one of the plays I remember best. Other than watching Shakespeare, one of our favorite things to see were musicals. And this one is a good one. I love plays/stories where they take something that I (or we) all know and love, and either provide the "back story" or another prospective. Another way to see the worlds and characters we know and love. (Examples: Wicked - the Musical not the book, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead)

This play is just that. It takes all these fairy tales and bedtime stories that everyone knows so well, and creates this other world. The other side of the "Happily Ever After" that we as children don't see or as adults we don't want to see. The play is a little hard to read because so much of it is placed to music which is not provided in the book. But I still have some recollection of the melodies so it is like seeing the play all over again.

This story really touched me when I saw it. I was about to go off to college the next year, and so the shelter of home was no longer a constant for me. I was about to leave all that I knew to be safe. In the play there is a witch of course (what good fairy tale doesn't have one?) - who, in this play's light is only a mother trying to protect her daughter from all the evil in the world. After this play my mother looked at me and bemoaned the fact that she was my "wicked witch". That she had tried so hard to protect me from the world, that she feared my 'entering' it. I called her (lovingly of course) my "wicked witch" from then on. Luckily I did not end up like the Rapunzel in the play, so it's okay.

I just really enjoyed this play because, now in this stage of my life, I'm wishing for a lot of things. And sometimes we don't always see the consequences of those wishes. This play, to me is a reminder of that. That I should be grateful for what I have and not wishing for a castle in the clouds - because it will always cost more than you bargain for, and it will never be as beautiful when you're staring right at it.

So if you can SEE this play first, before reading it ... or somehow listen to the music first ... then read the play, I think you will enjoy it too.

Final Score: 4 out of 5 stars

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead - Tom Stoppard

Where to begin with this play? I watched this play ... I don't know when. I think in a literature class in high school. I loved it! I don't know how else to put it. I absolutely loved it. It had Richard Dreyfuss (he's in What About Bob? & Jaws) and Gary Oldman (he's in Harry Potter & Batman Begins). It was witty, it was hilarious. It was all my favorite things in one. I really don't know how to describe how much I like this movie. Because when I did finally buy it and watched it with my mom, she looked at me and said, "I don't get it." It made me laugh, because I thought everyone would love this movie. This is my guilty pleasure/no one understands why I enjoy it movie.

I thought this movie was a deep existential journey. It is the story of two characters - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Anyone who has read Hamlet should recognize their names. That is where they are from. They have very limited screen time in the play - essentially they show up out of no where, have one or two scenes, and then at the end of the play it is announced that they are dead.

This play uses that as a starting point. It is the story of Hamlet from their point of view. It is hauntingly real to me. The feelings that these men feel are ones that I feel. Where things seem to happen to them, out of their control and out of the reach of their understanding. They are victims to the ebb and flow of other people's choices. Or is it fate? There is a part of the play (well, it actually happens a couple of times), when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are trying to think back to how they got involved in this mess. They remember a man knocking on their window, on the saddle of his horse, saying that they have been royally summoned. At one point in the play, the two characters reminisce and contemplate that they must have had the choice to say no.

I don't know why I keep choosing books/topics on which it is so hard to explain. But this is one play that I love reading over and over again. The movie has some interesting additions to the plot that add to its enjoyment. In particular I love the scene when the "play" questions. So if anyone does indeed read this blog (or find it for that matter) I would HIGHLY recommend this play, and the movie. And for those who have read/watched/have some kind of knowledge about Hamlet, I think you will enjoy all the illusions to events in that play as well.

Final Score: 5 out of 5 stars

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abriaged] - Adam Long, Daniel Singer, & Jess Winfield

To begin this post ... I guess I should admit my overly ambitious nature. I was entirely planning to read all 6 Jane Austen novels for the month of February. And I had a good start when I read Sense & Sensibility and Northanger Abbey in essentially a weekend. Then I got tired of reading after that. I didn't pick up a book until two weeks latter. I am in the middle of Emma but I soon realized that I was not going to finish 3 more books, let alone 4 books in a matter of days when most days I had previous engagements already planned.

So I went to plan B.

I read 3 plays. I love these plays so it was good. Theater is one of my true loves. I remember for 10 years we would go to the Shakespearean Festival in Stratford, Canada. Usually it was for weekend trips, but some years we only went to one play. But I loved it. I was 8 when we first started. I can still see in my minds eye the beautiful sets of The King and I, the costumes of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the cast of A Much Ado About Nothing. And those are just the first ones that come to my mind. I grew up on theater. It helped that my mom got her Master's in Theater while I was in middle school. Me and my sister use to go with her to Eastern Michigan University to her classes. We played theater games for FHE. It's in my blood.

And this play ... well, I don't know how I first got introduced to it. I think it was a conversation once that I had with an aunt maybe. Where they mentioned that there was a group who did something like a shortened Shakespeare play. That was the first I heard of it. And then I think one of my high schools did it as a school play. Anyway ... flash forward to when I am at school. For some reason, this play comes back to my mind and I buy it on a whim.

I love this book - because it is more of a diving board of ideas than anything else. It is one example of how to have fun with Shakespeare. At times it gets a little raunchy, a little gory - but what Shakespeare play isn't?!?! The first time I read it I thought how funny it would be to do it at BYU ... with a Mormon twist. I love this play just because it is the beginning step to a whole lot of ideas. It's an inspiration. It's a really quick read (one of the reasons I chose to read it. I got it out in a baby sitting appointment).

Final Score: 4 out of 5 stars