Books Read:
Coffey's Hands by Stephen King
Tender as Hellfire by Joe Meno
The Bad Death of Eduard deLacroix by Stephen King
The Stand by Stephen King
I only want to talk about The Stand this month as it took up the last two and a half weeks at least and I have a lot to say about it.
My copy is a used paperback with a great little reaction jotted on the inside cover. I love it. However, I did not realize that there was an extended edition until I had already started and it wasn't available at my library so I would have had to wait for a copy to come in and I was mostly ready to get going and take on the beast, if you will. At the start, 817 pages seemed like a daunting task and I didn't want to tackle the 1153 page uncut edition. I wonder if I will beat myself up over this choice forever and eventually give in and read the uncut edition.
I loved this book. King writes in such a way that 10 pages can feel like 40 but sometimes 40 can feel like 10. The first week was kind of rough. The book looked so big that I handled it much how I handle other tasks that seem daunting... Every time I caught sight of the book and thought that I should read a couple of pages I loaded up Facebook. It made the first week pretty slow but after that it seemed to stick.
The best part of this book is definitely the characters. King produces such a wide array of characters and they are all very well developed for their purpose. A lot of the bad guys seem more two dimensional than 3-D but it works for them. My boyfriend kept trying to convince me to watch the movie and at one point let it slip that Molly Ringwald plays Frannie. I never would have guessed that and it messed with my idea of Frannie for the rest of the book. However, I looked up the pictures of Harold Lauder and they were pretty right on.
Harold is a character that I want to talk a bit about. He reminded me of my ex who spent a lot of time feeling angry about things that had happened to him in high school. If he got off on a rant, he would grit his teeth and growl, "They'll pay! They'll all pay!" This was something that contributed to our eventual split. I was teased in school and instead of being angry and a little demented about the whole thing, I'm actually pretty thankful. I am who I am because of where I have been. I would totally end up on Mother Abigail's side.
I really think that King can be an actual literary author. This didn't feel like a novel of terror to me. Sure, there were some grisly parts (read: awesome but no decapitation) but this was about good vs. evil. Randall Flagg makes his appearance. Did you know he is in like 8 King books, and that doesn't include movies like Perfect Storm. Randall Flagg is ultimate evil. He is Legion, which is worth looking into when reading these deep Stephen King books.
My ruling on this one is that it was a great, if long, read. I loved the characters. (How is it that I wrote a whole blog without mentioning Nick or Stu or Ralph or Larry? I LOVED Larry!) There's even a cheat sheet to help you keep the characters straight online. I loved how the characters drove the plot. I loved imagining whether or not I could live in this world.
What a great way to spend 817 pages!
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
April 2011
BOOKS READ:
-American Vampire, vol. 1 by Stephen King
-Petite Suzanne by Marguerite de Angeli
-Labyrinth of Desire by Rosemary Sullivan
-Other People's Love Letters by Bill Shapiro
-Smashed by Koren Zalickas
-Peace and Plenty by Sarah Ban Breathnach
-Two Dead Girls by Stephen King
-My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster
-The Mouse on the Mile by Stephen King
-Orchids on Your Budget by Marjorie Hillis
10 books! 10 books in one month! Anyone would consider that impressive.
Okay, you busted me. I've been reading Stephen King's The Green Mile in its original form, the series. I started this purely because I wanted to up my book count and that is probably cheating but I've decided that every Stephen King novel needs to be made into a mini-series. I love Stephen King but so many of his books are large enough to be downright daunting. Proof? The Stand has been in my stack of books to read for nearly a year. I just keep moving it instead of reading it. If it were in handy installments it would be done by now. American Vampire is an graphic novel co-written by King that takes place in the old west and in Hollywood. I liked it but it was pretty standard.
It was a really weird reading month. I can't quite figure out how to tackle this list!
I read two books about love this month, Other People's Love Letters and Labyrinth of Desire. Other People's Love Letters was a collection of love letters (Imagine!) similar to Post Secret. They were sometimes silly, sometimes dirty, sometimes heart wrenching. The whole experience made me wonder if I would someday regret not writing a love letter. Labyrinth of Desire was a study in obsessive love. Sullivan starts her study with a story and then breaks it down into pieces which she analyzes. It was a surprisingly good read and I am not doing it justice.
I read two memoirs this month as well. My Fair Lazy is by our good friend Jen Lancaster. I've read the rest of her memoirs and they were all great. Bright Lights, Big Ass may be my favorite. This could come in second. Jen embarrasses herself at a party and realizes that doing something like that could jeopordize her career as an author. She decides to set about culturing herself up. She takes cooking lessons and goes to the theater and opera and museums and it is ALWAYS a good time. My favorite part was when she went to China Town and was horrified of bringing home a gremlin. Smashed, the second memoir was a good read but ticked me off in a number of ways. Like, the author is constantly talking about how typical her experience with alcohol is but I, for one, have never had my stomach pumped and certainly not at age 16. Mostly, it gave me some great drinking game ideas.
There were two personal finance books this month too, but I'll spare you the details. To sum them up, Peace and Plenty brought me no peace at all while I found 1937's Orchids on Your Budget both entertaining and useful. How could you now with such chapters as "Well, Who isn't Poor?" and "Can You Afford a Husband?"
May is already nearly two weeks gone. (Better late than never!) I can promise that it won't be as productive as April. I am nearly three books into the month and the next book is a doozy! Wish me luck and HAPPY READING!
-American Vampire, vol. 1 by Stephen King
-Petite Suzanne by Marguerite de Angeli
-Labyrinth of Desire by Rosemary Sullivan
-Other People's Love Letters by Bill Shapiro
-Smashed by Koren Zalickas
-Peace and Plenty by Sarah Ban Breathnach
-Two Dead Girls by Stephen King
-My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster
-The Mouse on the Mile by Stephen King
-Orchids on Your Budget by Marjorie Hillis
10 books! 10 books in one month! Anyone would consider that impressive.
Okay, you busted me. I've been reading Stephen King's The Green Mile in its original form, the series. I started this purely because I wanted to up my book count and that is probably cheating but I've decided that every Stephen King novel needs to be made into a mini-series. I love Stephen King but so many of his books are large enough to be downright daunting. Proof? The Stand has been in my stack of books to read for nearly a year. I just keep moving it instead of reading it. If it were in handy installments it would be done by now. American Vampire is an graphic novel co-written by King that takes place in the old west and in Hollywood. I liked it but it was pretty standard.
It was a really weird reading month. I can't quite figure out how to tackle this list!
I read two books about love this month, Other People's Love Letters and Labyrinth of Desire. Other People's Love Letters was a collection of love letters (Imagine!) similar to Post Secret. They were sometimes silly, sometimes dirty, sometimes heart wrenching. The whole experience made me wonder if I would someday regret not writing a love letter. Labyrinth of Desire was a study in obsessive love. Sullivan starts her study with a story and then breaks it down into pieces which she analyzes. It was a surprisingly good read and I am not doing it justice.
I read two memoirs this month as well. My Fair Lazy is by our good friend Jen Lancaster. I've read the rest of her memoirs and they were all great. Bright Lights, Big Ass may be my favorite. This could come in second. Jen embarrasses herself at a party and realizes that doing something like that could jeopordize her career as an author. She decides to set about culturing herself up. She takes cooking lessons and goes to the theater and opera and museums and it is ALWAYS a good time. My favorite part was when she went to China Town and was horrified of bringing home a gremlin. Smashed, the second memoir was a good read but ticked me off in a number of ways. Like, the author is constantly talking about how typical her experience with alcohol is but I, for one, have never had my stomach pumped and certainly not at age 16. Mostly, it gave me some great drinking game ideas.
There were two personal finance books this month too, but I'll spare you the details. To sum them up, Peace and Plenty brought me no peace at all while I found 1937's Orchids on Your Budget both entertaining and useful. How could you now with such chapters as "Well, Who isn't Poor?" and "Can You Afford a Husband?"
May is already nearly two weeks gone. (Better late than never!) I can promise that it won't be as productive as April. I am nearly three books into the month and the next book is a doozy! Wish me luck and HAPPY READING!
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