What's on your bookshelf?

[Natasha (candygirl)]

In my experience, the book is almost always better than the movie. It's very rare that I find a movie that lives up to the book.

I hate when the movie has a totally different ending. I really hated the movie version of The Firm. I spent the entire movie yelling at the tv about how none of that happened in the book. They changed so much that they should have done one of those old movie of the week disclaimers at the beginning that said the movie was based on characters from the novel so that people would know that it was way different than the book.

I remember reading Jacob Have I Loved when I was a kid. I liked it then, but I grew to appreciate it a lot more as an adult.

One thing that has started happening to me as an adult is I begin remembering settings from books and realizing that I can look them up online to see if they're real. I read a cute teen novel when I was maybe 12 or 13. When I later read The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert, she mentioned the town of Boone which played a significant role in the teen novel I read. It had never occurred to me that Boone was a real town or that I could visit it. I looked it up online and found out that it's about two hours from where a friend of mine lives! I'm thinking about going to see it the next time I'm in North Carolina!

Katherine Peterson said that Rass Island is a fictional place, but that it's based on both Tangiers and Smith Islands so you could visit one of them!
http://www.ipl.org/div/askauthor/paterson.html

[Cami A.]

Thanks for the link, Natasha! I'll definitely check it out...There's something just so timeless about Jacob Have I Loved! I too appreciate and better understand the characters' motivations now that I'm older. Louise's infatuation with the Captain fascinated me, and I felt angry right along with her when Call ended up with Caroline towards the end! Nothing seemed fair for poor Louise! And her god-fearing grandmother was such a rich character. For a long long time I used to sing that "I wonder as I wander.." hymn pretending I was on Rass. It also appealed to me because I've got a twin brother - although there was never a jealousy complex between us, since we are opposite sex and both lack any real talent, lol.

I think there was a movie made of JHIL.

What is The Firm about?

[Tish]

punk
and i don't want to live this life
please kill me
passion is the fashion: story of the clash
come as you are: story of nirvana
courtney love: the real story
catcher in the rye
iggy pop: open up and bleed
i'm with the band
take a little piece of my heart by pamela des barres
lets spend the night together by pamela des barres
no one here gets out alive
rimbaud and jim morrison
'scuse me while i kiss the sky
lolita
she's come undone
on the road
naked lunch
a clockwork orange
works of edgar allan poe
great expectations
northanger abbey
and more...

[Brunkster]

I recently went to a used book store and picked up about a dozen classics that I felt I should have read by now but hadn't. Last weekend I read A Tale of Two Cities and totally loved it! Okay, there's not a lot of character development and the plot isn't exactly mind-bending, but Dickens' mastery of language blew me away. Who knew Dickens was such a good writer? (Ha, just kidding!) I can't believe it took me 35 years to read my first Dickens novel - better late than never, I suppose. Great Expectations, you're up next!

Oh, and I read The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway right after I finished A Tale of Two Cities. Wow, I can't imagine two totally different styles of writing. One is lush, descriptive, and subtle. . .the other spare and even minimalist. It was quite a rollercoaster ride.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

I love The Sun Also Rises. It was one of my favorite books from American Lit. I haven't read A Tale of Two Cities yet, but I remember liking Great Expectations when I read it in high school. I didn't love it, but I liked it (which is not bad for assigned reading, right?).

I just got back from a trip and I normally read on the plane, but this was a really long flight so I ended up watching movies and sleeping. I just started reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. My friend gave it to me for my birthday a few years ago and it got buried under a pile of crap. When I found it, I thought ooh, a new book!

[emmie]

Brunkster, You should read For Whom The Bell Tolls by Hemingway, one of my favorite books of all time. your post is also funny to me, because I've been meaning to read Dickens for a while. I had the same thought too, how have I not read Dickens ever?! ha ha

[Natasha (candygirl)]

I recently finished The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman. I started to realize a few years ago how much I like biographies and autobiographies. Maybe I'm just too lazy to find new fiction books!

[Jody Barsch*]

I recently finished The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman. I started to realize a few years ago how much I like biographies and autobiographies. Maybe I'm just too lazy to find new fiction books!

I've flipped through that book several times in stores, did you enjoy it? I haven't totally gotten into auto/bios (though I've been ever-so-slowly chipping away at Emma Goldman's two-parter for YEARS), but I've definitely been on a nonfic jaunt the past couple of years, although I did just start Vonnegut's Mother Night a couple days ago. I still intend to read the Dare Wright book you posted about years ago. The lists just get longer andd the piles higher : )

On the subject of Dickens, i don't know that I've given him a real chance, I think the only novel of his I've read all the way through is Hard Times. I like it, with reservations. They just seem so contrived, and the humor's so... it's likem you three pages later you top and go, "Oh, that was a joke. 'Ha.'" Least that's been my experience. I love Hemmingway's short stories, but never picked up another novel of his after not finishing farewll to Arms in high school. Emmie I'll take your reccomendation. In the realm or classics never read, i'm supposed o read Ivanhoe for a yearly summer library book club, so we'll see. For books I want to reread for having been too young for when I first read them: Scarlet Letter (but not promising to like it any better) and Song of Solomon.

If anyone's looking for a fast but delightful reading experience, here's two titles: The Clothes they Stood Up In (so small it fits in your pocket!) and Peter Pan in Scarlet (I may have mentioned that one before, but I do love i so).

[emmie]

one of my favorite autobiographies is Beverly Cleary, the woman who wrote the Romona series. the book is her life up until she's 18, but it's really powerful. it's all about her growing up during the depression as a child. in fact, I need to reread it, it's been a while.