Laura's comments
Laura's comments from the The Next Best Book Club group.
Note: Laura is no longer a member of this group.
(showing 1-20 of 98)
The sea is high again today, with a thrilling flush of wind. In the midst of winter you can feel the inventions of spring. A sky of hot nude pearl until midday, crickets in sheltered places, and now the wind, unpacking the great planes, ransacking the great planes...Lawrence Durrell, Justine
I like Hemingway and have read For Whom the Bell Tolls, but I can see how people would find him disappointing. His writing is very stark. I also read Waiting, and despite popular acclaim, I hated it. There are far better books that reflect on the Chinese cultural revolution and the writing, I felt, was not strong enough to make the characters sympathetic or even interesting.
That sounds like a good one, Ofmatt. I'll have to check it out. I love Javier Bardem.I'm on my way to go catch the new Kaufman movie, Synecdoche, New York. Super excited. Looks like it could be his best one yet.
Yup. A real highlight of my life, that. An artistic statement involving a corporate symbol and a religious institution. Sad, sad life.
Do you guys realize how hard it is to break a bra strap? I think that might be my quote of the day.
I once helped relocate a larger than life fiberglass statue of Ronald McDonald from a recently out-of-business McDonalds onto the main entrance roof of my boyfriend's Catholic High School. He had both of his arms stretched out lovingly, just like Jesus. We made the papers.
The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock is probably my favorite.I love e e cummings, though. Here's my favorite:
Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeons justlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what I want to know is
how do you like your blue-eyed boy
Mister Death
6, actually, but it's okay because I volunteered for a literary event. That's a get out of jail free card for blowing money on books, right?The person below me has gone to see a live performance of some kind in the last month.
Welcome, fellow Portlandite!
Ooooh. Good one Dorie. I laughed all the way through all of the Hitchhiker books.
Read a book of poetry by an author famous for their fiction.
Read a novel by an author famous for their poetry.
Read play written by a novelist or a poet.
Illuminatus Trilogy, various things by P.G. Wodehouse, Catch 22, A Confederate Yankee in King Arthur's Court (though it also made me recoil in horror), I can't remember which one by Evelyn Waugh, Principia Discordia, and so many others.
Used to be. Now I'm more of a color egalitarian. I'm into mint and olive green right now.The person below has dreamt they were gigantic. Not just big, but I-will-destroy-the skyscrapers-of-Tokyo enormous.
Finally decided to spend the bucks and get myself a copy of From Hell by Moore/Campbell so I'm reading that and also just grabbed a copy of McCarthy's The Orchard Keeper. Both are stunning so far. So much for getting out of one's comfort zone.
I finished this about two weeks ago and liked it significantly better than Everything Is Illuminated. It's nice to see the subject dealt with in the way that it is in this book. I feel like I've waited a long time to see made the comparisons that Foer makes here. I can't wait to see what everyone thinks of it.Oh, and by the way. Myth busters proved that you still get biological ick on your toothbrush even if it's in the next room from your toilet. There's ick everywhere. When my ex-boyfriend, who keeps his toothbrush in a hermetically sealed container, heard that, I thought he was going to lose his mind.
The Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
I'm going to throw my hat in the Great Expectations ring (such a wonderful humor to it) but I'm giving a nod to Tale of Two Cities as well. I re-read it not long ago and the final speech had me all choked up like I had never read it before. I was once more reminded of Dickens' genius.
Oh my goodness, bird. That site is crazy awesome. Thanks for the recommendation- like I really needed to find a new addictive site that would make me go out and buy more books. I ran out of shelving a month ago and have stacks of books waist high on my floor already.
Every single Vonnegut title except Cat's Cradle that I owned were on loan to my boyfriend's best friend when we broke up. Ouch.I've had to buy three copies of Blindness, two copies of Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, and three copies of Love in the Time of Cholera.
Also, I've got an old friend who always borrows books (and I mean a stack at a time) from my library and then insists that she doesn't know what I'm talking about when I ask for them back. I was so incautious that I forgot some of the titles I leant her (had to have been a ton over the years) and so can't ask for them back specifically.
I've adopted the attitude that, as much as I love my library, it's better that someone is reading them than that they're just sitting on my shelf. I can always pick up a copy next time I see it at the thrift store. It still stings, though.
I often get daunted by books and then find that they weren't so bad after all.How about
Read a book you are intimidated by
and just to mix it up,
Read a book you consider too trivial or childish to merit your time
Oh my goodness. I'm such a dork. I never realized. I've got to remember that for my reviews, too.
