Bk 39 Dear Dear Brenda

I slipped one in on the side. I love Shipping News, but I started this other book and it was due back at the library so I finished it up.

Dear Dear Brenda: The Love Letters of Henry Miller to Brenda Venus is my book 39. I have adored Henry Miller since I was 18 and had my first bookstore job. A co-worker told me Henry was depraved and pornographic. I read Crazy Cock that night. It was his first book. It wasn't very good because it was a novel; my real love of him came later with his non-fiction about traveling around the US, tramping in France and retiring in Big Sur. I think I fell in love with him because he was so smart and knew about being sophisticated and a class act but he talked like a sailor and had sex with everything. I like contrast.

This book is heart breaking. I am sure that he always wrote with the expectation that they would be published one day, so I don't think he was exploited or anything, but I think that it is sad to publish these letters because he is a crazy old pervert. He was always a pervert, but he knew what he was doing and he had publishers and editors to help him even it all out. Not that he should be censored, but I just think these letters expose him in a way that he loses credibility. We all get crazy when we are that old, but it is sad to see someone you admire act like a dumb ass over some slutty actress. Maybe I am jealous or just disgusted, I don't know. But I thought it was disturbing.

New Year's resolutions be gone!

I am not making resolutions this year. That isn't to say that in my head I am not still thinking that this year I will: eat better, be nicer, read more, smile more, care less, care more, and try to get along with my family.

I have had this revelation recently that I am much older than I am in my head. Though this was startling, I think it was a good thing. So I made a bit of a resolution of my own to decide what I really wanted for always and not just of 2008. And in true OCD list making form, I needed to join a social network to do it. Here is my list of things to work towards.

Shipping News is great. I love the stark, chilly atmosphere and the goofy names. I even tried out the name Wavey with my boyfriend's last name. I don't think he will go for it. Wavey Garcia sounds like a chick who sells incense at Phish shows with poopy white girl dreadlocks and lots of jingly anklets.

I am about half way through this book (book 39), and my instincts about feeling a fire under my tushie once the year ended was correct. I do want to read 100 books by July 4th. Compared to some of my goals it is so tiny and it is the only one that other folks are observing, so it would be nice to see it through.

The good/bad news is: I was looking at my Goodread's to-read list and I realized that only about half of those books are on my written up to-read list (that I have toted around since I was a teenager). Additionally, many of the books on the Goodreads list have only been there since I was introduced to that site (by the lovely, talented, trend setting Karla Ann) so it isn't really fair to the books that have been on my list forever to be superseded by all these newcomers. The problem lies in the fact that I can't find my little black book with my written list anywhere. So I am not going to be too strict with following a list, but I am going to do my best not to read any books that I am not interested in. My horizons are plenty expanded who needs new interests.

Can of the Clave Bear #38

I am finished with CCB. Though I loved the middle parts with Ayla being all defiant and making her way alone, it got a little too spirits and cavemen for me later. I am not a fan of the drug or dream sequence, or vision hippie-crap. I always envision Lou Diamond Phillip's painted up skull face from The Young Guns, and then I just think it is all silly.

I think that I will like the next Auel book even more. The Valley of the Horses is more of Ayla being off by herself doing her thing. I think I am just jealous. I love the idea of burrowing into a cave and fending for myself.

My next book is The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. I have been dying to read this since I saw the movie when it first came out, but alas, my horrid ex-boyfriend's W.A.S.P. mother went to college with Proulx and never stopped gushing about the experience. It wasn't until recently that I could even see the book without her voice blah blah blahing in my head about Vermont and her days as a girl there. Ugg. Why must my grudges extend to literature?

Anyway, I have read 6 chapters so far this morning and I love it! The way it is written is so weird and beautiful; I like the way the sentences are choppy and you have to think about it as you read it to get it all, fantastic. Are all her books written this way? I should check them out despite my misplaced anger towards her.

CCB

The book I am reading is now referred to as CCB because I am incapable of saying the title now. Can of the Clave Bear, Clan of the Clave Bear.....Can't do it. I am in the 300's and really enjoying it, it is like a drug because I wasn't even sure I like it for a good 200 pages, then I couldn't stop and now I am not even ashamed of it anymore. It IS good, it IS. They aren't crazy, it isn't a cult, it is just THAT good. Yum. Addiction.

The beginning

Clan of the Cave Bear after 190 pages, is indeed starting to taste like crack. In the good way.

Merry Christmas

Christmas in Miami was hectic and mad as usual, but festive and tasty. I had a lot of fun, but I am so happy to be home. Finally some well deserved time off after a rough semester and a crazy year.

I tried to read The Dance of Anger on the recommendation of my therapist, but it was so dated and silly to me that I just couldn't get into it at all. And I can dig the touchy feely self-help books sometimes, but this one was just over the top. Oh well, at least it knocks a book off my to-read list.

I am still reading Clan of the Cave Bear and I am really enjoying it, but it hasn't hit a delirious drug-like book lust yet. I am a little over 100 pages. My boyfriend asked me if I am going to watch the movie afterwards. I really don' t know if that is a good idea; I hear it is pretty awful.

I planned on reading all day today, but I got sucked into watching Alias because I got the whole series for Christmas break, and it is so good. I never watched it when it was on so it is all new to me. I still think I will read a good bit though because god knows I don't feel like getting out of bed!

I hope everyone had a Great Christmas.

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Everyone told me this book was crap, and that I would hate it. I was ready to hate it after every page, but alas, I didn't hate it at all, yay! It reminded me of Adrian Mole, and it didn't even seem like the narrator was autistic to me. In fact, as far as I am concerned, he makes tons of sense.

I was tested for autism and ausberger's twice when I was a kid, I still think that maybe they were on to something. I am a doofus with math, but everything that guy said about crowds and strangers I am there with him. Not to mention my zillions of other odd traits. Instead of autism, I turned out to be gifted, but my guidance counselor told my mom I was retarded and I wouldn't be able to function by the second grade. Then, of course my mother told me this, so I kept waiting if I would stop "functioning" and I wondered if that meant I would poop my pants, or pass out or something. I was 5. My mother didn't "believe" in children, she said that they were mini-adults and could be told anything. On second thought, I probably don't have autism, thanks mom, thanks for this crazy.

Anywho, I didn't love the book, but I didn't hate it either. It was an easy read, it was endearing and a little sad, but worth a few hours of my life.

I started reading Clan of the Cave Bear. I am sick of looking at it on my reading list, and every girl that has read it goes crazy for it, so hopefully I will too, but if I don't love it in 100 pages, I never will.

Persuasion

I was ready to write this off as boring. Persuasion has been the only Austen novel that I really struggled through, so I went on to Good Reads to see what it is that these Jane Austen groupies liked about it, and though I am not swayed in my opinion. I will never ever ever read it again, I found it endearing that they read such beauty into it.

It was about an aging (27, wow! What a geezer.) woman who was in love with a man in her prime (teen years, it is all down hill from there) that she was persuaded not to marry, blah blah blah years go by and they get together. I think I sleep-read the last 100 pages. It was so boring and I knew the outcome (as do you now, sorry) so it was just agony.

I am 70 pages into Curious Incident...I like it so far, but you know my feelings about reading autistic narrators from the Animals in Translation fiasco, so I am starting a back up. Clan of the Cave Bear,

My boyfriend puts this book in the same category as heroin. He worked at a bookstore for years and likes to relate stories of the ladies scrambling into the store with glazed eyes and foaming lips begging for Jean Auel to come out with a new book. I never really wanted to read this book, but if it comes up my friends do get glossy eyes, so if I like it that much than surely I can make easy work of it and its sequels.

I do remember the scary cave man humping in the movie from the 80's, but that is the only part I remember.

Back on Track

I am on Christmas vacation, not that that means that I have time to burn (or read 70 books), but it does mean if I am still about this project, then I have an opportunity to catch up some numbers. See, I am really torn up about numbers versus reading-list. I am trying to reconcile that by reading to-read list books in a speedy fashion. So maybe I can reach some kind of compromise in my head.

Today I am finishing up Persuasion, then I will hit the Curious Incident....nighttime book pretty hard. I am afraid to even set a number that I would like to reach by school starting back up in January. I am just going to soldier through as many as I can.

Persuasion is boring me to tears, but it didn't really get dull until I was too far to turn back. It is definately the most boring of all the Austen books. I have 20 pages to go, and I don't even car, I just want to wiki the ending.

Hello

I am really enjoying Jane Austen's Persuasion. I never claim to be one of those gals that love the Jane Austen, but I have read nearly all of her books, and have liked all of them. I am about half way through, and I am kinda sad that it will be over so quick. I will have to read some more English fluff soon. I also am a sucker for all of the period movies from Austen and Bronte stories. What is it about them? I can watch them over and over. In fact, I have been checking my Tivo schedule to see if I am going to get some Kate Winslet or Emma Thompson.

Next I am going to read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, BUT I really don't know if this book is going to make the cut. There is a dead dog in the first scene, which is no-no with me, and there are herds of people that despise this book, so I may not waste my life on it.

I am sick of making myself soldier through books if they aren't doing it for me. List or no list they get a chance that is it.

Book List

Okay, I wouldn't say I am not making ANY progress, but I am very stunted in my reading pursuits right now. I am almost finished with The Alienist and I am thinking that Jane Austin's Persuasion is next up. I will say that, though I am not admitting defeat in reading 100 books in a year, I am going to say that it is easy to read 100 books in a year. However, it is difficult to read 100 really good books and savor them accordingly.

I have pretty much thrown the numbers out the window and I am getting back to my reading list. I will be thrilled if I reach 100 with many of my books knocked of my to-do list.

The Alienist was one of my favorite books, this is the first time I have re-read it. I love the seedy post-civil war New York. All Gangs of New York-ish where danger is everywhere. The story isn't as great as I remember, but I am still loving all the NYC references of the day.