lotr

i finally read all three of these books (isn't it pathetic that it took me this long??) and i totally have a book hangover. i can't stop thinking about them. SO GOOD. highly recommend to all of you.

gale or peeta?

sadly, yes--i just reread the hunger games again. you would THINK i have enough going on, what with my schoolwork up to my ears and our impending move across the country for tommy's internship, but I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF! we went to see the movie on saturday night (last-minute, spur-of-the-moment, we-won't-be-able-to-do-this-after-the-baby kind of thing) and i thoroughly enjoyed it--enough that i couldn't stop thinking about it and had to pick up the books again. luckily, they only take me about three or four hours to finish, so i started the first one at 4:00 yesterday and just finished the last one a few minutes ago, AND went to my internship and taught class in the meantime.

but i thought i should just let everyone know which team i stand on. i know bethany's on team peeta--she's got josh hutcherson all over her room at home, thanks to the posters we bought her while we were in california. and i've got to agree with her--even though i'm not a josh hutcherson fan (sorry, bee). in my mind, peeta looks more like tommy, possibly because tommy IS peeta--everlastingly nice, unselfish, muscular. (his muscles were my roommates' favorite thing to tease me about when we were dating.) he even bakes. last night, he made our favorite chocolate chip banana bread, and i told him he WAS just like peeta. (he wasn't impressed.)

so even though i liked gale better the first time i read the first book, should katniss actually have ended up with someone like that? fiery, angry, really opinionated and wanting revenge? what an awful marriage that would make. no way--who wouldn't want to marry the nice, loyal guy who has ALWAYS loved you?

she made the right choice.

bee, take note--nice guys are the way to go. GO PEETA!

2011 books

one of my new year's resolutions for LAST year in 2011 was to read 30 books throughout the course of the year. 30 is not an especially high number for me, since i am (and always have been) an obsessive, committed reader, but i always fall out of the habit when i'm in school and always working on homework. so i thought 30 would be a reasonable goal to have. but i blew through book number 30 sometime back in april or may and ended up at 86. i am THRILLED to be back on the book-reading train, after a few years of being too focused on school and too out of the habit to read books that i wanted to for fun. my goal for 2012 is to reach 100 books for the year--should be easily done, since i'm graduating in may and have NO PLANS beyond that.

some of the books i especially enjoyed in 2011 were:

-The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: i had never actually read this book. i was supposed to when i was in high school and i only read the spark notes because i thought it was SO BORING. but i listened to it on audiobook early this year and couldn't wait to get back to the car every day to finish it--the narrator was great and the story was excellent. i am a fan.

-Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand: an absolutely INCREDIBLE story, and written so beautifully. i really appreciated how she wove all of the facts about WWII into the narrative about louis zamperini's life. i give this book five stars and would recommend it to anyone.

-Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith: i heard about this book probably two or three years ago and thought it would be SO DUMB and the english major in me avoided it with high-minded dignity. but i found it as an audiobook at the library and needed something to listen to for the week and i just could NOT stop laughing as it was going. so many of the lines come straight from the original Pride and Prejudice, intertwined with gory zombie scenes and elizabeth's ninja training. it was hilarious.

-East of Eden by John Steinbeck: the actual storyline of this book is so heartbreaking and depressing, i won't even describe it to you. but the lesson and the SYMBOLISM is so inspiring. it's totally mormon doctrine.


-Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sherry Wudunn: it really is incredible to read about real women's situations throughout the world today, and to hear about how progress is being made to help them become more independent. i kept trying to explain how powerful this book was to my freshmen and they were not super impressed--but i loved it.


-Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver: i just finished this in hawaii, and i keep telling everyone about it. i read a lot of food books this year, and this was the one that finally made me actually interested in really changing the way i eat (who knows if i'll actually go through with it, of course). she makes me want to eat more vegetables and learn how to garden, and i love thinking about the new options for eating and shopping she introduces. i want to be more food-conscious this year, thanks to her.


there are many reasons why i've been trying to be more committed to reading the last year, but one of the major ones is because i always feel like there are SO MANY BOOKS out there that i've never read and will never get the chance to read. i want to read all the really good books out there that i've always heard about (huck finn? i'd never read it before? are you SERIOUS?) and keep improving my mind, even while i feel like i'm wasting away in pointless work in school or at home. when i read, i don't feel like i'm wasting my time or being lazy, which i ALWAYS do when i get off the computer after spending too long surfing the internet or facebook. i'm so excited about all the books i'm going to read this next year.

where i was from: california

"i was born in sacramento, and lived in california most of my life. i learned to swim in the sacramento and the american, before the dams. i learned to drive on the levees up and downriver from sacramento. yet california has remained in some way impenetrable to me, a wearying enigma, as it has to many of us who are from there. we worry it, correct and revise it, try and fail to define our relationship to it and its relationship to the rest of the country."

-joan didion

i just read where i was from by joan didion, and i wanted to write down some thoughts about it. i've read several of didion's books now--she wrote the book that i wrote the magnum opus of my college experience on (baby's first fifteen-page paper!). i really like her minimalist writing style and (excuse the cliche) the depth of her ideas. i'd never even heard of this one, except when i was at border's and bought several too many books, i randomly picked this one up and saw her name on the cover, so i threw it in my basket. it was interesting--thought-provoking, if not amazing--and on a topic i've thought a lot about for a long time: california, and what california means. this book (and this blog post) would be probably boring to those of you who aren't from california, but it was fascinating to me.

i won't tell you all the stories didion shares or explain the conclusions she comes to. i just loved that didion wrote this book, as she said, attempting to resolve the inconsistencies, discrepancies, and provocations in california's image and history and ideals. of course, she goes a lot deeper than my thoughts ever have; for example, she talks about how californians imagine that they're so self-sufficient and pioneering and original, but california has historically relied on more than their fair share of federal government handouts.

but what has always really caught my imagination and made me question my home state is the contradiction between its image and its reality. i still think of myself as a californian, even though i moved away from there five years ago and there's not much chance of us moving back there any time soon or ever. ever since moving away from california, to utah and then to north carolina, i've gotten reactions from people when i say i'm from california, from orange county, of all places. the positive reactions: "cool!" "i'm so jealous!" "do you spend all your time at the beach?" and the negative: "just like everyone else" (and the other thoughts they keep inside--judging all californians as being shallow and worldly and all those other negative traits). very few other places get such visceral and strong reactions as california (other than texas, maybe). these reactions--and my own reactions to the other californians i've met outside of california--have made me start to think.

on the one hand, i can see why people think california is all just "cali". look at the media--i was in high school when shows like the o.c. and laguna beach and real housewives of orange county began and became countrywide phenomena. it really does look like all we do in southern california is party and lay out at the beach. when people talk about "cali," that's the california they're talking about (let me assure you, real californians do NOT call it "cali").

but then again, on the other hand, i don't get why people think california is cali. because guess what? california is not just the beach. it's not just disneyland. orange county, even, is bigger than the beach and disneyland. living in california is 99% the same as living in any other state. my life in north carolina--my everyday, real life--consists of the same activities and places as it did in california. i go to school. i go to the grocery store. i hang out with friends and i hang out with my family (just tommy here, but same idea). sure, we never had tornadoes trample through irvine, but i don't know when there's last been an earthquake in durham. the beach is twenty minute away, but nobody really spends all their time at the beach. (okay, very few people really spend all their time at the beach.)

but california can't be, isn't, just a place like every other place, as much as i like to act like it is. that's why people think so much about it. those shows, and those people, have turned it into more than the place where i used to live. and i don't like that part of california--the cali part.

my feelings towards california are like those i used to feel towards my siblings when i was living at home: i might complain about them and fight with them, but when outsiders make fun of them, i want to beat them up. it's really just like that. i love california. i hate california. i love californians and i hate californians. it's all mixed up and it all depends on what part of it you're talking about. (but i know i don't love the outsiders who hate [or love] california without really knowing california.)

what are we going to do tonight, brain?

"the same thing we do every night, pinky--try to take over the world!"

if you don't blog for a while, you forget how to do it. i haven't been able to think of anything to blog about this week. i finished the semester one week ago and it has felt FANTASTIC, except that i've been sickish and had a perpetual headache and sore throat (why does that always happen right when you go on vacation?). i've spent a lot of time reading, taking care of projects around the house, exercising, and doing a little of work on the side.

also, i made some really excellent guacamole today. for the first time.

so my "work" for the summer (i put it in quotation marks because it's not really work in any real sense of the word--it's just that i'm getting paid obscene amounts of money to do the really boring copying and pasting work that professors don't want to do themselves) is so mindless that i can listen to books and music as i work. i foresee me getting through more books than i was expecting this summer. which is GREAT!

the best book i've read (aka listened to) this week:

i thought i would hate it. i thought it was stupid and ridiculous, but it was a book on CD i saw at the library and i can't ignore those books that look like they're not cheap romance novels on CD to borrow, so i got it. and it was hilarious. i was laughing all the way through. anyone who likes pride and prejudice should be able to read and laugh at this book. best scene: when darcy proposes to elizabeth for the first time and she challenges him to a duel and kicks him in the face. awesome.

in other news, tommy has his cumulative, terrifying, stressful first-year exam monday and tuesday next week. then we're going down to south carolina for a few days to celebrate afterwards. then i have a week-long teaching-me-how-to-teach workshop the week after. then the week after we're heading up to d.c. for tommy's cousin's wedding and a tours at the white house and capitol building (hopefully). hooray!

i just love looking forward to and anticipating our summer plans.

bill bryson, my hero

is it kind of weird that i really like the man above? i know he's wayyyy too old for me, but doesn't he just look jolly? (kind of santa claus-ish, right?)

about once a year i rediscover bill bryson and dig up another book of his i want to read. i am currently working my way through my sixth book by him: at home: a short history of private life.

the thing that really strikes me about his books--all of them that i've read--is that if i were a creative writer, if i could write books for fun and to sell, i would want to write books like his. they are the only type i can imagine myself doing (because i'm all self-centered and all i can do is write about myself and things that interest me. no, really). i've read several travel/memoir books by him and several trivia/fact/history books by him, and i love them both. i just LOVE how he turns the most seemingly boring facts into incredibly interesting stories. and i wish i could do that too. i also just finished a walk in the woods and really loved that too.

i also wish i could just sit and finish the book in one sitting, but i have that 20-page paper to finish. but hey! it's due tomorrow, and then i will be free, free, free to read (and blog) to my heart's content. (don't be too excited . . .)

a literary binge.

i have a bad habit of getting into the habit of checking books out from the library all at one time. i currently have 16 things checked out of the library and 8 more on hold. (mostly books on CD, but a few movies too.) whoops.

also, i drove past borders and, seeing all the "going out of business" signs, i couldn't help but stop by. and an hour later i came out with these:

whoops. again.

i have problems.

little women

when i found out at 9:30 this morning that my only class of the day was canceled, i closed my computer and promptly did nothing productive the rest of the day except for read little women. it was a lovely day.

(it's even better that the book i'm reading has "to denice, from kaylene and rob, christmas 1985" written in pencil on the front page. apparently my mom took the book from grandma and grandpa's house and then i took it from our house. sorry, denice!)

remember how last semester i read the whole anne of green gables series in a week? this kind of felt like that--revisiting old friends and loving them so dearly even now after years since last having read them. i LOVE this book, probably mostly for the sentimental reasons i just mentioned. and i am now just itching to go watch the movie.

(i will say--the movie always makes me feel so weird about the whole amy-laurie-jo love fiasco. i feel like it's so weird that amy and laurie end up together... but i don't feel that way in the book. much better done.)

i've been reading other types of books lately--good books, books i've been wanting to read for ages, but books i haven't been totally absorbed by. (like the scarlet letter. i mean, has ANYONE ever been enthralled by the scarlet letter? i just felt like i had to get it over with because i felt guilty for just reading the sparknotes when i was supposed to read it in high school.) but reading little women felt just like reading used to, like it should--i wasn't waiting to see when i would get to the next chapter and painfully turning each page as it went. i was in the story. kind of like the millions of times i read harry potter.

i miss reading like that. and i can't wait to find more of it.

too much time on my hands

in case you were doubting . . . i need something else to do. i read all eight books in the anne of green gables series this week. that's > 1 book a day.

but i will say, i love. love. love anne. i was laughing out loud the WHOLE first book--it's hilarious. i don't know why i never laughed so much before--maybe because i was still a part of the dramatics and italics that anne loves so much. maybe i've grown out of them, maybe not. i don't really know. the first book is the best. but you might as well read all of them once you've started.

and now i just want to watch the movie . . . but i'm going to have to wait until i get home to do that.

other than that, i haven't done much else this week. next week, maybe. we'll see. i'm working on my productivity.

the geography of bliss

read this book. read it now.

the author travels to 10 different countries to try and discover why the people there are happy (or why they're not). he's pretty dang funny and it's an easy and fun read. i'm loving it. it makes me want to travel a LOT.

the best part about this book is that it has A CHAPTER ABOUT ICELAND! because iceland is consistently one of the happiest countries in the world. AND he talks about how icelanders love their books (probably the major reason why i am a book-kleptomaniac. my icelandic heritage). i want to go to iceland so. bad. too bad tommy doesn't have any icelandic heritage that we could find so we're having a hard time applying to the iceland summer program for 2011. we're going to keep trying though. promise.

their eyes were watching god.

i didn't really appreciate the books we read in high school when we read them in high school.

i just re-read this today and it. was. SO. awesome. i don't remember liking it that much in high school but i loved it now. i was THIS close to crying at the end. lessons learned: don't judge what you don't understand. love and people > things and money. (but i knew that anyways.)

i read it because i'm in an african american lit class right now and it has inspired me to revisit some of the good books i've read. next up: beloved by toni morrison. and i just bought zora's autobiography on amazon. she is just joy.

reading

i have read so many books lately, it's been incredible. i've spent the last few weeks making up for the school year where i rarely/never get to read things for fun. so far, i've read:

-all of the work and the glory books

-the hiding place

-a million little pieces

-born to run

-the hunger games (book 1, next is book 2 as soon as tommy finishes)

all of them have been fabulous. i especially recommend the hiding place and born to run. and the hunger games.

next, i'm going to attack the poisonwood bible and re-read the scarlet pimpernel. not to mention the fact that we've checked out all the harry potter books on tape/CD from the provo library for our cross-country journey, which we are totally stoked about.

if anybody has any recommendations, i would love it. i've still got another month before school starts, so plenty of reading time ahead of me!

confession

i'm an english major. and i've only read one book by charles dickens. ever.

(when i was in high school we were supposed to read great expectations and i only read the sparknotes. that was the only time i ever did that. well, and huck finn . . . another literary classic i've heretofore avoided.)

this is that one dickens book that i've ever read:


it's my second-favorite book.

and it always makes me cry.

i'm re-reading it again, and i can't wait to finish it this time through.

extremely loud and incredibly close

"I walked through Long Island City, Woodside, Elmhurst, and Jackson Heights. I shook my tambourine the whole time, because it helped me remember that even though I was going through different neighborhoods, I was still me."
-Oskar Schell (age 9)


love. love. love. this book.
it makes me want to laugh and cry the whole time.
and it makes me think of sister rique.
we're reading it for a class right now--i love when we read books i already like for school.

to read:

i used to never read for fun during the semester because my homework is usually 90% reading. but i've turned over a new leaf (partially in thanks to tommy for being a good influence, and probably partially in thanks to not having a facebook) and i've read several books so far this winter. these two books are my most recent favorites:


i kept walking past them in the BYU bookstore and finally bought them on a total impulse. they're books that change how you think. in blink, he talks about research going on now about how people make split-second judgments and decisions, how those decisions are sometimes more accurate than thought-out decisions, and how stereotypes endanger people's abilities to make decisions. in the tipping point, he talks about what factors turn small trends into crazes (like contagious diseases) and why some things "catch" and other things don't.

they were crazy interesting. you should read them.

next on my list: outliers, by the same author.

robert frost rocks my world.

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

--Robert Frost, "Acquainted with the Night"

virginia woolf

as an english major, 87% of my homework consists of reading delightful (and some not-so-delightful) things. this is what i've been reading tonight, and i loved it so much, i wanted to share:

"There are people who, when they travel, wrap themselves up . . . in silence and suspicion . . . That is entirely the wrong way to set about it. We should start without any fixed idea where we are going to spend the night, or when we propose to come back; the journey is everything. Most necessary of all, but rarest good fortune, we should try to find before we start some man of our own sort who will go with us and to whom we can say the first thing that comes into our heads. For pleasure has no relish unless we share it. As for the risks--that we may catch cold or get a headache--it is always worth while to risk a little illness for the sake of pleasure. . . . Besides if we do what we like, we always do what is good for us. . . .
Every season is likeable, and wet days and fine, red wine and white, company and solitude. Even sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life, can be full of dreams; and the most common actions--a walk, a talk, solitude in one's own orchard--can be enhanced and lit up by the associations of the mind. Beauty is everywhere, and beauty is only two finger's-breadth from goodness."

--Virginia Woolf, "Montaigne"

p.s. i've been listening to michael buble, "i just haven't met you yet", on repeat. i don't even like michael buble. but i like this song.

buying textbooks

so far, i have spent $416 on textbooks. this is ridiculous. and i'm still going to be spending another $20 for books that have yet to be ordered. plus the $$ for the student health plan... hooray! i love the beginning of the semester!