Author: booknutgirls

booknutgirls http://thebooknutdotcom.wordpress.com I read. I blog. I sell books. I chauffeur my kids. What more do you need to know?

Ooh, ooh, me, me!

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Iliana tagged me for the 8 random things meme. It seems to be petering out, and it looks as if practically everyone’s on the bandwagon. Just about time for me to get mine out there.

The rules:

  • Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
  • People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
  • At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
  • Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

So, for the random facts (that I haven’t posted about yet):
1. When I was 11, I really wanted to be a radio DJ.

2. I got married on Friday the 13th. It also happened to be my dad’s birthday.My oldest child was born on my mom’s birthday. I always remember my parents birthdays but never remember to get them anything.

3. For the longest time, I told people I was allergic to cinnamon. I wasn’t, I just didn’t like it, and didn’t want to deal with people saying, “You don’t like cinnamon?!” I’m okay with it now, but I won’t cook with nutmeg, cloves or allspice, and I think ginger should be limited to Asian cooking.

4. There was a point in my life when I could tell you all the lines to The Last Starfighter, Star Wars (all three original movies, actually), and The Princess Bride. But it’s been a while since I’ve seen any of them, so I’m not sure if I could come up with much more than “Help me Obi wan Kenobi. You’re our only hope.” and “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.” anymore.

5. I’m a lousy garage sale goer and sale watcher. I need things when I need them, and I’d rather pop into a store and get them. I feel guilt over this.

6. I can touch the end of my nose with my tongue. (I used to say it eliminated the middle man, but only when I wanted to gross people out.)

7. I don’t care for camping (sorry, Dad.). My idea of roughing it is a bed and breakfast without a TV (even if I don’t watch it).

8. I love to cook. I could never cook professionally, though, because I can’t keep my fingers out of the batter/dish/whatever. I have to consciously remind myself when I’m cooking for others not to snitch.

There you have it.

I’m tagging, if they want to play:
Russell, In Medias Res (gotta tag the spouse, eh?)
Corrine, Littlest Bird
Amira, The Golden Road to Samarqand
Mary Ellen, Rio Grande Valley Girl
Booklogged, A Reader’s Journal
Julie, Bookworm
Inkling, Small Inklings (if she can get it up before the baby comes)
Bookfool, Bookfoolery and Babble

Bridget Jones’s Diary

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Since pretty much all of you have read this one, I figured I’d just write some notes:

It’s not The Bridget Jones Diary. Didn’t know that.

It doesn’t exactly mean you have a stellar life if you’re feeling smug and superior to a fictional character.

She was really annoying. But not half as annoying as her messed up, but very loyal, friends. Or, worse still, her really messed up parents and parents’ friends. I couldn’t stand Una and Geoffrey. Ugh.

I went back and forth between amusing and irritating during their rants about emotional f***wittage. Usually ended up on amusing.

Kept seeing Colin Firth in my mind while reading. But couldn’t picture Hugh Grant. Daniel, as written, just didn’t have that certain Hugh Grantness.

Best line: “It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It’s like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting ‘Cathy’ and banging your head against a tree.”

Best explanation of Jane Austen-mania: “Tom says football guru Nick Hornby says in his book that men’s obsession with football is not vicarious. The testosterone-crazed fans do not wish themselves on the pitch, claims Hornby, instead of seeing their team as their chosen representatives, rather like parliament. That is precisely my feeling about Darcy and Elizabeth. They are my chosen representatives in the field of shagging, or rather, courtship. I do not, however, wish to see any actual goals. I would hate to see Darcy and Elizabeth in bed, smoking a cigarette afterwards. That would be unnatural and wrong and I would quickly lose interest.”

The second half of the book (after she ditched Daniel) was better than the first. But, I liked the ending of the movie better than the ending in the book.

For a chick-lit book, it was an okay read.

A Brilliant Idea, eh?

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So, this morning in Time online there was this interesting little article about Yann Martel and his campaign to send Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper a book every two weeks. The reason? Well, one, to protest against some cuts made in funding the arts. But, also, because “I’m not saying he has to read all of War and Peace in a week, but to never be engaged in the imaginative work that is fiction, to not go to museums, to concerts, to ballets, to plays, to not engage in cultural life at all, to me, it’s slightly scary.” Martel has even set up a website detailing the books and letters he’s sending Prime Minister Harper. Brilliant.

All of which got me wondering: do you think President Bush could benefit from something like this? If so, what would you send him?

The Legend of Lady Ilena

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When I picked this book for the Once Upon a Time Challenge, I did because I thought it was a King Arthur book. At least, it came up when I searched for “King Arthur” in the library database.

Well, it isn’t.

That’s not exactly true, though. It does take place during the reign of King Arthur, but not the Arthur of myth and legend. It’s set in 500 AD, when most scholars figure that if there was an Arthur, that’s when he lived. Which kind of bummed me out.

Other than that, the book was okay. But, it was missing that… zing?… that would make it really really good. There’s a good strong girl, Ilena, as the main character. But, she spends most of the book confused about her life. Her parents have died, and her dad’s last words were a cryptic message to go to Dun Alyn and find Raymen. Going off of that, Ilena heads out, and meets (of course) with trials along the way. When she does get to Dun Alyn, things are in a state of indecision… the Chief and her daughter were just recently killed. And it’s up to Ilena to figure it all out.

And it sounds like a decent plot, right? And there’s a good twist at the end. And even a bit of romance. But it all falls, well, flat. I don’t care about Ilena and her questions, in fact, I kind of got tired of them way before they were answered. The romance didn’t work, either. It wasn’t there, then, all of a sudden, it was. The only thing that I felt worked was the bad guy, the druid Ogren. He was a good bad guy. (Though he wasn’t really the bad guy, he was working under the instructions of someone else.) And even though Arthur was mentioned, he didn’t really play much of a role at all.

It’s too bad. I was really looking forward to a good King Arthur book.

You Can’t Get There From Here

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On a lighter note…

This book, by Galye Forman, is subtitled “A Year of the Fringes of a Shrinking World.” Perhaps it would have been more accurately subtitled: “Interesting Stories Interspersed with a Whole Lotta Whining.” Because that’s what I felt like after reading the book.

Gayle and her husband Nick check out from life for a year to travel the world. Gayle’s a NYC reporter, world traveler, extrovert, etc. Nick is an ex-punk rocker, introvert, and librarian. He’s never traveled, and he talks Gayle into going. (First warning bell: she whined and complained that she didn’t want to go, and then condescended — or at least that’s what it felt like to me — to go with him.) They start in Tonga, then head to China, Cambodia, India, Kazakhstan, Tanzania, South Africa, and the Netherlands, stopping at various other locations in between.

When I started it, I was all interested, comparing it to the world-traveling experiences of Michael Palin. The places she stopped and the stories she told were fascinating. She rarely stopped in touristy places, doing touristy stuff. And because of that, she met some interesting, out of the way people. My favorites were her visit to Bollywood (she’s an extra in Humko Tumse Pyaar Hai), and her hanging with the Tolkienists in Kazakhstan. (The most weird and slightly disturbing was the chapter, amusingly titled Laid Off, about the prostitutes in the Netherlands.) Sometimes her stories were funny, sometimes poignant (like the down-and-out kids in Cambodia and her experiences with them).

The problem is that I would have enjoyed all this much more if she hadn’t spent the book whining. I suppose it was part of her world experience, and she tries to draw relevance from it in the end. But I was put out with all the time she spent fighting with her husband. I understand why she went with him — he was going to go whether or not she came along — but, stop the complaining and obsessing already. Or, at least stop writing about it. If she had, I, at least, would have enjoyed the book a whole lot more.

Another take on Caddie Woodlawn

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I’m just a white gal, just a reader, and not necessarily a scholarly or heavily critical thinker.

I had to get that out of the way before I posted a link to this. (The link appeared in a comment on my review of Caddie Woodlawn.) It’s by a Native American woman, a scholar, and one with a mission to change the way that Native Americans are portrayed in literature. All of which I can support. But something about her post on Caddie Woodlawn bothered me. It wasn’t that she couldn’t find evidence for scalp belts (probably there were never any), or that she disagreed with the use of squaw or brave to identify Native American men and women. Fine, that’s racist, and I can understand that. No, it was this:

With deeper knowledge of American Indians, we all might be able to get books like Caddie Woodlawn off the shelves. They have use for study and discussion of stereotypes and bias, but the misinformation they impart to children must not continue to go unchecked.

Tell me, how is this different from an ultra-conservative trying to get the book about the gay penguins off the shelves? Or the anti-Harry Potter diatribes? Or any other book that someone wants banned? Are there no allowances here? If her logic holds, then we should probably take everything off the shelves that wasn’t written before, oh, say 1970. Yeah, there’s a lot of racist and insensitive stuff out there. But even Shakespeare was racist. Does that mean it’s not good? What’s the line here?

Interview Meme

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Andi did this one, and I thought it’d be fun to play along. I so very rarely diverge from my script of book reviews around here, and it seemed like just the thing to liven this place up. So I had her send me interview questions.

First, the directions: Want some questions of your own? Leave me a comment saying, “interview me!” and I will respond by e-mailing you five questions (if your email is not on your profile, email me (ack! I have to give out my email: mmfraf@sbcglobal.net. No spam please.) your desire to be interviewed so I know your address). I get to pick them, and you have to answer them all. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

1. I know you’re a children’s/young adult literature lover, like me. What is it about the genre that appeals to you?
I don’t remember reading YA fiction as a kid. It seems like I went from reading little house to reading Agatha Christie (and wanting to read War and Peace) without much in between. I read a lot of crap, too. So I think one of the appeals of YA literature is just that there’s so much I haven’t read. I also think that some of the best storytelling is found in the children’s/young adult section, and a good story is what really draws me in.

2. What is the perfect meal?

For me, a meal isn’t about the food. Even though I’m slowly becoming a food snob. (I hate church potlucks. The food’s terrible.) It’s all about the conversation. So, the perfect meal would either be: 1) my family sitting around the table talking and laughing while eating something yummy that I’ve cooked (and all of them liking it!), or 2) Thanksgiving dinner with extended family or friends, or 3) a nice quiet dinner out with my husband at a good, not terribly overpriced restaurant, or 4) having dinner with some good friends and good conversation.

3. Do you have any recurring dreams? If not, what’s the most vivid dream you can remember? (This prompted by the barrage of shark dreams I’ve been having lately.)
I do have dreams of a very old boyfriend occasionally. They always leave me peevish in the morning, though. My dreams — at least the ones I remember — are always littered with people. The most recent one I remember had Michael Palin in it. Hmm… wonder why?

4. Four daughters! What’s the best part about having a slew of girls in your house?
Low instance of property damage. Hand-me downs (we always said they were cheaper in the short run, more expensive in the long run). The fact that they’ll always have each other as friends (we hope).

5. You do such lovely writing here at your blog and at Estella’s Revenge, I have to know, if you could interview any author who would it be and what would be your first question?
Dead or alive? (Do I have to choose?)

I’d love to interview Jo Rowling, ask her what it’s like going from a struggling single-mom to being the richest woman in England. Ask her what she’s going to do now that Harry Potter is finished. I’d love to ask Jane Austen what she thinks of the movie adaptations of her books. I’d love to chat with Bill Bryson, see if he’s really as funny in person as he is on paper.

So, there you have it. Let me know if you want a turn.

Austenland

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There is no way I’ll be able to write anything remotely objective for this book. (Though I’m going to try for the June issue of Estella.)

So, I’m just going to leave you with my favorite quote from the book. Jane’s (she’s the main character) trying to explain her fascination with Austen and the whole Regency thing to a guy she’s met. She says, “I don’t think I could explain it to a man. If you were a woman, all I’d have to say is ‘Colin Firth in a wet shirt’ and you’d say ‘Ah’.”

Ah, indeed.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go pop in the DVD now.

Caddie Woodlawn

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I felt like I was sorely neglecting the Newbery project that I’ve signed up for (not having read anything since Higher Power of Lucky, back in March), so I read this little gem of a book by Carol Ryrie Brink.

My full review is over at the Newbery Project.

Around the World in 80 Days

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Michael Palin is my favorite Monty Python. This is not something I discovered as a teenager — I’d seen Holy Grail, but that’s about it — but as an adult. See, I married a Monty Python Fan. He uses two of their movies in his classes (“They’re full of great philosophical points,” he says). We own not only the entire series on DVD, but also every special that they have come out with. We have books on the Pythons. And, being the loving, devoted wife that I am, I’ve watched it with him (he’s working on getting the girls hooked), and yes, have gotten sucked into it (well, it is funny…). In the process, I’ve come up with my own Beatleesque descriptions of all of them: I don’t get Terry Gilliam, I find Terry Jones often unfunny, Graham Chapman is the straight man (yes, I get the irony), Eric Idle is just smarmy, John Cleese is a great physical comedian, but Michael Palin is my favorite.

So, what does all this have to do with a Jules Verne book?

Well, way back in 1988, when I was 16, and Michael Palin was 45 (I know, he’s older than my dad!), the BBC got him to see if he could do what Phileas Fogg did in the Verne book: travel around the world in 80 days (or less). I’m sure he didn’t know when he started that this would become a second career of sorts for him — he’s done six of these, and is working on a seventh — and that’s how I came to this book. I’ve long wanted to watch these travel documentaries (being a fan of both travel documentaries and Michael Palin), but they were never to be seen in the video stores of Jonesboro and Macomb (same with Bollywood movies, but I digress). Along came Netflix, and I found that they really do carry everything. We’ve watched Sahara — good, but the ending was too abrupt — and are 2/3 of the way through Himalaya (which has been really good so far). And watching those got me curious about the earlier ones.

He’s written a book to accompany each of his travels, and I reserved a copy of the first one. The gimmick was to follow the Verne book as closely as possible, without using airplanes. The book’s basically his diary of the trip — broken up into little segments for each day. And it’s fascinating. He’s an engaging, funny writer (favorite part: the initiation he got for crossing the International Dateline on a merchant ship. At one point, he commented that it was worse than being in a Terry Gilliam film). I loved seeing the world through his eyes. He really is a people person, making friends with whomever will talk to him, searching out the unusual and unspectacular, and he’s genuinely curious about the world. I was saddened by the lack of respect for the earth that many people had in 1988 (but I had to keep reminding myself that it was nearly 20 years ago) — and it made me wonder how much the world has changed, if at all (I doubt he’d do it again, but I’d be to see what it would be like now, 20 years down the road). There was also the constant pressure to keep up with a fictional character. He was lagging way behind Fogg for quite a while — over sea travel isn’t nearly as easy as it was in the 1880s — but caught up from Tokyo to Los Angeles, and across America, so he ended up on time. But only barely. I liked his descriptions of culture shock going from country to country — a realization just how different we really are.

I also realized that there was a lot more information in the book than would or could appear in the BBC series. So, I’m curious and need to get the tape and watch it. And conversely, I should probably get the books to all the other ones, too. And I probably will. Eventually.