Chelsey Cosh's Blog: From Mind to Mouth, page 3

The Rest Is Beautiful Noise

Long story short: I bought a guitar.

Long story long: I needed a family doctor. Scratch that. We needed a family doctor. My husband's doctor is established in a city that he hasn't lived in since he was nine years old; it's such a hindrance to travel there that he rarely went at all. I, on the other hand, had a local family doctor that I just detest. Prone to grave errors due to his advanced age and a darkly warped sense of humour that I can only imagine he's always had, my doctor hasn't seen hide nor hair of me for at least a decade. So, together, we went on the wild goose chase to find that most rare of treasures: a family doctor accepting new patients. What I found is that, after compiling a mighty list of doctors alleging that they were accepting some newbies, the reality was that they were only accepting them this coming fall or in 2017 or on the fifth Wednesday of every month except the one we're in. Anyway, I narrowed and narrowed until we had a meagre list of three. Then off we went for our first visit with one. Now, we didn't choose her for a variety of reasons, but she said something that did pique my interest. In a rather odd line of questioning, she asked me if I played a musical instrument. I said, "No," but the absurdity of the query caused me to dwell upon it. I impulsively purchased Rocksmith 2014 , which I had heard was a fantastic teaching tool, and set about learning.

Now, my husband owns two guitars: one acoustic and the other electric, which is the kind you need in order to use Rocksmith. The problem arose, though, when my left shoulder began to ache from reaching. See, my husband is over six feet tall, so the neck of his guitar, while fine for him, is nearly larger than my entire armspan. So, as an early birthday gift, he bought me a pink Fender stratocaster, one in a more suitable size for someone of my stature. Let me tell you: not only does it play like a dream, but my shoulder is fine and it looks like a work of art sitting on the stand in our bedroom.

It's been a little over a month, but I have already made some progress in my Gitarrelernen. I have already got "Blitzkrieg Bop" down pat although not up to tempo, while I've mastered a few riffs from The Temptations' "My Girl", Magic Wands' "Black Magic", and -- of course -- Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water".

What does this have to do with books? Well, one, and this is a soft connection, I think Goodreads is equally about learning as it is about literature, since most people pursue reading in order to learn something. Even if it's just an escape into a fictitious world, a reader often finds that they learn a little about themselves through the novels they devour. And since I am learning guitar, I figured I'd share that tidbit.

Secondly, and this one is more fundamentally connected to books, I am writing a book where rock music plays a large role. This excursion into actually playing the guitar allows me a greater appreciation of the art form (really, my mind is blown by some songs now) while serving double duty as research for my writing. So, win-win all around.

And, in the end, yes, we did happen to find a family doctor and our blood pressure is fine.

Making Up for Lost Time

June was a busy month. Not only did I have family over for my wedding, but -- hello! -- I got married. I had a wedding in two parts: an intimate ceremony and dinner with family, and then, a few weeks later, a reception with DJ and dinner for more family and friends. So, a busy bee I have been.

I tried to read, but nothing came to fruition. I did chip away at it, though, so as not to fall too far behind. I really tried to get back in stride for July.

This is what I managed to muster this month.


Book #22: A book set in your hometown

There's something to be said about this whole graphic novel thing. After reading Umbrella Academy a little over a month ago, I wanted to read another graphic novel. And considering how difficult it is to find a book actually set within the confines of the townlines where I reside, I knew I was going to have to be flexible.

So, with this prompt, I figured anything even in the vicinity of Toronto was close enough. I was a little shy about reading Margaret Atwood, considering that my high school literature teacher who would and could read just about anything absolutely despised Atwood. I do intend to read The Edible Woman , but not today. In lieu of that, I went for something unique: the story of a Japanese-Canadian attending an all-girls Catholic school. Going in, I knew nothing about Skim except that its reception was very positive. I also knew the authors were cousins: one wrote the story, the other illustrated.

Skim is about Kim Cameron, nicknamed Skim; she's a depressed, lonely, and confused teenage girl. Her "friend" Lisa is moody and exploitative and self-centered. Lisa gives meaning to the phrase, "Who needs enemies with friends like these?" Like I said, Skim attends an all-girls' Catholic school. There, the girls are catty and dismissive, especially the self-important Julie Peters and her lemming-like friends, all of which treat Skim cruelly or don't notice her at all. Isolated in their own little private-school sphere, these spoiled girls in their clique-y world bounce off each other, creating conflicts that need not exist or campaigning for causes they don't really care about, just for something to do. These are your stereotypical mean girls and very hypocritical ones at that; they preach kindness and compassion as they're sharpening their claws. We all know the type. (And if you don't, it was probably you.)

Not everyone gets to go to private school, like Skim does, but her story has a very universal quality. The experience Skim has seems very genuine, very true, as if either one or both of the authors went through this mill themselves. I know that, for many, that is how teenage life feels. In an effort to survive, Skim turns rather unsuccessfully to Wiccanism. She has no outlet. She writes in her diary. She is struggling to figure things out. She falls in love and makes what could have been a serious error -- a crime, in fact. However, in the end, Skim eliminates some of the darkness from her life and finds someone a little more like her -- not a lover, but a real friend. And I don't think this book is filled with any lessons or happy endings, but it doesn't have a sad ending either. If anything, there is a modicum of hope for Skim yet. And that's happy enough for me.


Book #23: A book about a road trip

Boy, did I take my sweet time reading this one.

I started reading this book at the beginning of June. Then, as aforementioned, my family visited from England for six weeks.

So, needless to say, I put down Paper Towns until July. It was trickier to get back into it with such a long break in between. I was about 100 pages in already and I wasn't keen on rereading them. It came back to me fairly quickly, but I had lost the mood I had back in June. The tone had changed, at first almost imperceptible, but once realized, still ineffable.

I can see why my sister calls this book her "least favourite John Green." It is by no means a bad book; please don't misconstrue my lower preference for it as a negative criticism for the writing. The thing is, the plot is largely lacking. It has all the makings of a mystery with no get-up-and-go to actually investigate. So much time is spent in the earlier chapters of this novel with an adolescent protagonist whining about life and obsessing about his missing sort-of-friend without straining himself too much to actually do much about it. It reminds me a lot of the rantings of Holden Caulfield. For that reason, you lose interest before the real action starts on page 243. That's right; the road trip doesn't start until page 243. The book barely scratches the 300-page mark. After that, we get an hour-by-hour rundown of travelling up the East Coast in a minivan. And I won't go any further because, if you do happen to want to read it, I don't want to spoil it for you.

Yes, I saw the film first again, but, unlike with The Fault in Our Stars , that experience had no effect on my enjoyment of this book. Paper Towns is not a teenage fairy tale. It is a journey, both literal and metaphorical, about impressions, expectations, and the breaking of those illusions by truly knowing a person. People are windows, in essence, but we cloud them up and use them as mirrors instead. Ultimately, this novel teaches us a lesson in empathy, realizing that everyone has emotions and is struggling with something and that people live their lives not to feed into some caricature painted by outsiders but to fulfill the needs of one's self and loved ones.

So, while it may be impossible to walk in someone else's shoes, there is something noble in the attempt. And while it's not my favourite John Green novel because of the ambling pace combined with the hecticness of the constantly shifting narrative, I still appreciate the hamfisted delivery of its message.


Book #24: A dystopian novel

I get that Fahrenheit 451 is a cautionary tale about censorship. Oh, boy, I couldn't not get that; without an ounce of subtlety, Bradbury whacks you over the head repeatedly with that message. I also understand that we as readers should empathize with the plight of poor Guy Montag whose eyes have just been opened and whose mind has been blown by the capacity to think freely. But I don't pity him at all; frankly, I don't care for the guy. With its writing style that, to me, is too reminiscent of the ramblings of a madman rife with paranoia (Montag, not Bradbury), I found it incredibly hard to get absorbed in this tale of a dystopian future in which the population indulges in a hedonistic lifestyle prescribed by conformity-loving social authorities that tell you what to think and constantly placate you into feeling good by never really feeling anything at all.

It's an interesting concept; it’s what drew me in in the first place. And the idea of firefighters burning books is genius because Bradbury automatically has his audience, readers, on his side without much need for persuasion.

However, I cannot get behind the execution of this story. Everything seems so drawn out and tedious. Instead of cheering Montag on, I grew to hate him, not because of his actions but because of his babble. Regardless, Fahrenheit 451 sparked the ideas for so many other stories, so for that alone, I am grateful.



I still have a few books that I took a huge chunk out of this month, but those will have to wait because, with a chapter or two left to read, they are still pending completion. We won't even touch on the various books that didn't fit this challenge that I read anyway. I read a book on cognitive behavioral therapy (because I'm boring); Neil Gaiman's book of speeches, articles, and other non-fiction writings, The View from the Cheap Seats ; my husband's favourite Goosebumps volume, The Beast from the East , which is evidence that I am regressing into an eleven-year-old child; and a fairly dense Chuck Klosterman anthology (which included a handful of articles that I read years ago when I borrowed my friend's copy of Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs in high school.

So, yeah, I can't be contained to the list. I should stop fighting it.

Still, I managed to get through a fair share, enough to make it less horrific that I didn't read at all in June.

Next month, I hope to conquer what I have still in progress, which includes a book from Oprah's book club, a book that's set in summertime, a National Book Award winner, and a book set in Europe, as well as tackling a book at least 100 years older than me and a book with a protagonist who has my occupation.

Until then, happy reading!

Turn It Up To Eleven.

Fine. You caught me. I broke the rules again.

May came and went so quickly. And June is a busy month for me, with a wedding and visits from relatives across the globe. I know I won't be getting in much reading, so I figured I should overcompensate this month.

So what did I do? I read for the fun of it.

Ooh, rebel without a cause. Not quite what James Dean intended, surely, but I'll take it.

This month I read X vs. Y: A Culture War, a Love Story . And it fits no prompt in the PopSugar reading challenge. Trust me. I scoured that list. Nothing. Nada. Zip. It was a quickie, in my defense, a comparative look at pop culture through the eyes of sisters with a fourteen-year age gap. Generation X is Eve Epstein who waxes on about Wham, bulky acrylic legwarmers, Saturday-morning cartoons, and auteur David Lynch and his Twin Peaks in her personal essays, while her sister Leonora Epstein who represents Generation Y was more my speed, rattling on about the profundity of Aqua, Tom Green, dating via text message and IM, and, one of my favourites, the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower . I especially appreciated the line of similarity she cuts through Rugrats , Buffy , and New Girl . It certainly captures the attention, even if only for a fleeting 190 pages.

I finished a writing style guide, too, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century , but I don't think that qualifies as cheating since I had read eighty percent of it before jumping into this crazy challenge. Tying up loose ends cannot possibly rate the same as diving into something new. It just can't.

Shortly after, I got out my good-girl pants and swore up and down to devote myself wholly to this challenge. In short, no more dicking around.

In total, I devoured eleven books, a whopping nine of which were challenge-applicable books. I hope that'll be enough to keep me on track. Crossing off any less than three books a month seems like a guaranteed derailment.

This month also offered a bounty of opportunities for perusal of other books that might fit the challenge. I skimmed both the novel Atonement and the non-fiction skewering of the Koch brothers in Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right . I'm not sure how whether or not I will use them to fulfill this reading challenge, but they seem like interesting reads nonetheless. If they don't fit a prompt, I will definitely go back to them, perhaps when I've shown this challenge who's boss.

(Me. I'm boss.)

So, here we are.


Book #13: A YA Bestseller

Last month, I read The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend , a book that arguably has one of the worst film adaptations, in which the only thing retained from its source material are the names of a handful of characters. Sincerely, the two are strangers, book isolated from and unfamiliar to the film it bred.

My sister is a fan of author John Green and I've been a fan of some of the webseries he's taken part in. (And he and his brother share, like, a whole Youtube channel together.) He's very charismatic, for sure. So, it was no surprise that she recommended I read The Fault in Our Stars . A massive international hit, the young adult juggernaut also sparked a film, which again, I have seen. Granted, I haven't seen the film in a little while, consuming it when it was released, but if memory serves me, The Fault in Our Stars was adapted very honestly, sticking to each word and outright copying whole sections of dialogue. It's a very faithful adaptation. There are little bits and pieces in the book that I don't recall from the film, passages that paint a slightly darker tone than the bittersweet love story told onscreen, but again, the gist is the same.

Unfortunately, that sours my experience a touch.

I already know every beat along this path. I know the destination and the journey. Alas, I was underwhelmed. I obviously don't blame the book. It was my choice to watch the film first.

I was just left with very little as a result.

Still, I understand the book's overwhelming popularity. It seems to be written honestly, too, spoken from a place of knowledge about cancer survival and all the details that that experience entails. The mumbo-jumbo doctors say and the reality of living it. Not to mention the vast differences between those suffering from it. The blind, the amputated, the deoxygenated. Those fighting to be well again and others fighting the incurable. I knew someone with cancer who was much older when I was too young to understand. Then, I knew someone else with cancer when I was much older and they were too young to understand. To be fair, I wasn't particularly close to either of them, but I knew them all the same, well enough to be let in on what was going on with them. Both thankfully went into remission.

I've never suffered the harsher realities of cancer or the devastating loss it produces. So, I can only imagine that what John Green wrote is accurate. I'd be willing to say it's right on the money. Why else has the world clasped hands in a circle around him?

I'm going to break away from John Green for a brief while, but I will return to him to fulfill another reading prompt. In fact, I'll be reading what my sister describes as her "least favourite John Green." Swell.

But speaking of men named John ...


Book #14: A book written by a celebrity

I mentioned last month jumping from actress Anjelica Huston's early Irish childhood tales of whim and woe, to the more slick and hopefully funny adventures in Hollywood of actor Jon Cryer. His book, So That Happened: A Memoir , is full of great anecdotes, both funny and tender little stories from different stages of his life.

I decided to do a little reading time between me and the husband-to-be. We've had quite a few laughs reading So That Happened. More importantly, though, it's not just salacious gossip about Hollywood denizens (although you do learn a few juicy factoids) or retellings of events from his vantage point. Rather it's a fun and enlightened recap of his life, from toddler to today, and it's written so honestly, conveying the emotions he experienced, that you feel closer to Jon. I really find it superbly written, especially considering Jon is not a writer by profession. It walks that tightrope between laugh riot and sincere feelings.

I'm glad I switched over. Sorry, Anjelica.


Book #15: A book that's set on an island

Cuba is an island. So, I read a classic novel about Cuban fisherman, a short one with a lot of promise. Ernest Hemingway published his novella The Old Man and the Sea in 1952, but it still reads well today, owing to that terse style. I'm not a big fan of fishing and that kind of lifestyle. Many do love that kind of thing, but I just don't fall into that category. So, reading this one was a bit of a trudge. Now, that being said, I think the writing style is great and I'm sure that, while I'm not one of them, people who love fishing are totally on board. Yes, yes, pardon the pun. However, the book was short, so I'd be damned if I wasn't going to see it through.

Which is funny because that obstinate brand of stick-to-it-ness is kind of the point of The Old Man and the Sea.

Thematically and symbolically, the book is a goldmine. Let's deal with the idea of endurance first. We all know a person's self-image can be degraded by the labels plastered to us by those who surround us. You have confidence in yourself, but that pride is melted away by the corrosive words of others. If you don't catch a fish for months, the other fisherman deem you too old to be in the game any longer. But the human spirit can defy these declarations. He is not just the "old man," but rather the great fisherman and arm-wrestling champion Santiago, and he aims to conquer the age discrimination against him by capturing a truly great fish in the sea. A marlin of epic proportions. The real thing. And I'm sure you can attach all sorts of meaning to that fish. For some, the fish represents Jesus. For others, the fish is symbolic of the meaning of life. Some argue it's the need for friendship and companionship; others look at it as a metaphor for pride and legacy. And I'm sure someone somewhere thinks the fish is Tupac. It's whatever you want really. Affix your end-all-be-all here. It's the big kahuna, whatever the kahuna is to you.

The Old Man and The Sea also describes the loneliness endured in this quest for survival, not just physical survival but the survival of one's dignity in the face of these judgments. Above all, though, perseverance is king, and Hemingway expertly demonstrates that, if at first you don't succeed, try again. You are never too old to do so.


Book #16: A book that's becoming a movie this year

As I read The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan for this prompt, all I could think was, "Holy shit, people. How much can you drop the ball?" Frankly, I thought I was going to read something more humourous, the more comedic side of war replete with shenanigans, especially considering the trailers I'd seen for Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, the film they made this year from the book. I mean, it's Tina Fey. You expect laughs. Yet The Taliban Shuffle is playing it straight and is more heartbreaking than sidesplitting.

Journalist Kim Barker was definitely in a weird place. She volunteered and became quickly and thoroughly addicted to the miserable existence of life as an embed in the U.S. troops in the wartorn Middle East. While most find India chaotic, Kim wrote how boring and normal it was, how desperate she was to get back in the action in Kabul.

Then, the government truly screwed up. Not like the minor mistakes she'd witnessed prior, she truly felt affected after a friend of hers dies and a person she'd never meant but knew a bit about is sent back out into Afghanistan way past their prime. With that, Kim decides to leave Afghanistan to investigate the other side of the mountain: Pakistan, or as she describes it, Whack-a-Stan.

In Pakistan, Kim encounters a new set of problems. For one, the men won't stop grabbing her ass. Secondly, she is being chased by the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI. Third, her foolish friend and fellow journalist decides to meet a high-profile insurgent in the tribal lands of Pakistan, a virtual no-man's-land where Westerners are kidnapped, held for ransom, and often killed. Then, her allergies and sinus problems to the polluted air send her back to the States for nasal surgery to remove polyps and, she hopes, fix the problem for good. Alas, while still in the States, she faces a new set of problems, both professional and personal, as the landscape of her workplace changes and she becomes a victim of identity fraud.

Full disclosure: I still have a couple chapters left, but I will still finish the book before the end of the month. Although it's not funny, it is very informative, and I feel I've learned quite a bit about life in the Middle East during the Bush administration. As someone who hates war films, war books, and, of course, the event that inspired it all, war, I had every reason not to like this book. And yet, I really did. So, even if you're just like me with an utter disdain for grenades and camo, The Taliban Shuffle still offers something worthwhile.


Book #17: A satirical book

It's great when a classic isn't overrated. Animal Farm , that famous satire of Russian communism, is really clever. It's short and sweet, like The Old Man and the Sea, but I enjoyed Animal Farm far more.

The animals represent the people longing for equality, as the capitalist-minded farmer, Mr. Jones, drunkenly uses, abuses, and ignores them. One day, after Mr. Jones forgets to feed them, the animals fight back and kick the Jones family out of Manor Farm. Thus begins Animal Farm. Their rebellion starts off as an honest effort to benefit all, but slowly the pigs use their superior intelligence to oppress those around them. Soon infighting begins. I won't go into too much detail because, if you haven't read this classic yet, it's about time. In fact, now more than ever is the timeliest of times to read it.

To write something so political from the perspective of animals is genius. It really is. And above all, he did it so damn good. At no point did I feel like George Orwell was trying to force the analogy. It all just happened naturally, proving how easily power corrupts. In this era of television shows like Breaking Bad and House of Cards and films like The Hunger Games: Mockingjay , this poignant novella strikes a chord. When given the reins, the hero can swiftly become the villain.

Animal Farm broke my heart. Needless to say, this novella is a moving page-turner that's not easily forgotten. I highly recommend it.


Book #18: A graphic novel

Written by Gerard Way (yes, from My Chemical Romance) and illustrated by Gabriel Bá, The Umbrella Academy, Vol.1: The Apocalypse Suite let me escape into a fascinating world of super-powered children born seemingly from an alien force and raised by an eccentric aristocrat who believes in scientific experimentation over love, all in the name of saving the world. The Umbrella Academy is a very human tale in spite of its sci-fi leanings. It's dark and moody and yet light-hearted and fun. Sure, it's the end of the world, but sibling rivalry seems more important. It's equal parts sweet, sadistic, and superheroic. I'm glad I gave it a chance.


Book #19: A classic from the 20th century

I chose Of Mice and Men . Again, I'm a little behind, but will be finished it in less than a day, so I figured I know enough about it now to share my thoughts.

Of Mice and Men centers on an unlikely pair of friends. They're an odd couple for sure, George Milton and Lennie Small. George is the smart but small one, trying his darnedest to stay out of trouble and earn enough money as a ranch hand to make something of himself. However, he's forced to rove because of his connection to his friend Lennie. Lennie is a gigantic, lumbering man whose size makes him a great farmworker, but unfortunately, he is a bit dim-witted and cannot stay out of trouble. He's a gentle giant, never meaning to cause harm, but people don't seem to understand him, forcing him and by proxy George to flee town after town in the middle of the night in hopes of work elsewhere.

George and Lennie find themselves at a new ranch where the son of the owner, a guy named Curley, seems to want to fight everyone just to prove his manliness. He has a new wife who also seems to have an eye for every man but her husband, which worries George. He repeatedly warns Lennie to stay out of trouble and keep quiet. It's an interesting picture painting of working on someone else's farm, the spectrum of people one encounters and the hard truths you just come to expect. I sense trouble brewing, though.

And their relationship is a very interesting one. Author John Steinbeck tirelessly worked on this unconventional male-male bond to figure out why George would stand by a guy like Lennie. Their relationship and George's general uneasiness about women give me the impression that perhaps George is gay. But there is no evidence, either way.

Regardless, it is a beautiful relationship mired in trouble. And since I haven't been living under a rock, I'm pretty sure I know what's going to become of one of them. However, I don't yet know why this fate will come to be, and the journey is worth more than the destination. I can't wait to find out.


Book #20: A book based on a fairytale

I was going to read Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister , by Gregory Maguire, who kind of has a claim to this whole retold fairy tale business. But the library was ordering a copy and wouldn't have it in circulation for quite some time. And when things are out of stock, you have to improvise. So, I found out that Gregory, of course, has written a whole book of short stories, Leaping Beauty: And Other Animal Fairy Tales , all of which are retellings of fairy tales re-imagined with animals. I'm fairly sure this book was meant for children. I even found it in the juvenile section. But then again, I found The Little Prince there, too, and that didn't stop me. So, I leaped into Leaping Beauty.

Leaping Beauty offers eight short stories: "Leaping Beauty," "Goldiefox and the Three Chickens," "Hamster and Gerbil," "So What and the Seven Giraffes," "Little Red Robin Hood," "The Three Little Penguins and the Big Bad Walrus," "Cinder-Elephant," and "Rumplesnakeskin."

Each have their own spin, and true, the moral messages imbued in the originals are a little tainted in Maguire's retellings, but they still make for great reads. I liked the idea of a hamster and a gerbil vowing revenge on an evil skunk who, as their stepmother, sends them away, and all the problems that a skunk brings to a rodent family. I like "Leaping Beauty," in which the curse brought to the frog princess backfires wildly on the very person who put the curse upon her. I like the chimp named So What whose personality is shaped by the name he is given and how that conundrum is resolved. I like the idea of little penguins who live in an igloo and keep forgetting to shut off the oven and keep the door closed.

It's all tremendously silly and that's what I like the most about it. As an adult, I appreciate the whimsy, and I'm sure any kid would get a kick out of it.


Book #21: A book that's guaranteed to bring you joy

This prompt is so open to interpretation, it was rather hard to determine what does and doesn't qualify here. I was going to take a sarcastic, literal route and read cover to cover either The Joy of Cooking or The Joy of Sex . (The former I do own and highly recommend.)

Then, I came across a book called How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum , by Canadian Keri Smith. It literally intends to inspire you by your surroundings with promises to open you up to happiness through exploration. I figured this is a book that actually does promise to bring you joy in one form or another, so this was as close as I was going to get to a so-called joy guarantee.

I quickly learned that How To Be An Explorer Of The World was more like a workbook than I'd first assumed, but the principles within could have been found in a more typical book meant for pure reading. The words are posed in a way meant to inspire creativity. Each idea intended to trigger thought is called an exploration. I didn't want to rush through them because I enjoyed looking at the world from the random angles it proposes. As a writer, these exercises are, quite frankly, fun. (You might even say joyful.)

How To Be An Explorer Of The World is filled with quotations and factoids. The first exploration asks you to list ten rapid-fire things you didn't notice before about right where you are sitting, which is where I found a great quotation from philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that author Keri Smith uses to illustrate the point of the exercise: "The aspects of things that are more important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. One is unable to notice something -- because it is always before one's eyes."

A few words near Exploration #8 were pretty inspiring, too, claiming that, "when you begin to pay attention to something you've never really looked at before you will begin to see it everywhere. You eventually begin to feel as if the thing is out to find you, instead of the other way around."

That being said, not all of these explorations are prizewinners. Some are actually a recipe for hoarding or kleptomania, asking you to collect objects on the way to work. Needless to say, I skipped a few that didn't seem worth the effort. It's okay, though; the book asks me to do so, picking and choosing what makes me feel joyful and curious.

One exploration made me laugh because I was already in the process of doing it before reading it albeit not for creativity's sake. Exploration #7 requested that the reader collect paint chips from a hardware store to find colours that respond to you in the world, essentially documenting the colours around you. Well, I was trying to find an exact match to my red wedding dress for my make-up artist, which is hard to describe because of its pink undertones, so I gathered me some paint chips and found that ... sigh, none of them matched. I got close, but no cigar. Even if I didn't succeed in matching them, some of the ridiculously descriptive names on the paint chips brought me joy, such as "racing stripe" and "sugar poppy" or, the paint chip that turned out to be the best match for my dress, "100 MPH." My wedding dress is saying, "Vroom, vroom," clearly.


Speaking of guaranteed joy, I would be remiss to ignore that June has come, which means, to me, that as of next month, I will have already pranced off into the metaphorical sunset to get married. (It'll actually be closer to noon than sunset, but them's the breaks.)

So, as aforementioned, my reading may be slightly interrupted, but I will try to stick to it.

Happy reading!

I've Always Wanted to Put a Spaceman Into Orbit

I watched Toy Story last night and realized once again something that was inescapable when I first read Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West .

Vantage point is everything.

As a toy's story, the film is an indictment of Sid, an alleged monster who tears apart and tortures toys. He has a sinister voice and menacing eyes. Pure evil.

But as Sid's story, Sid is not the villain but rather a fairly clever young boy who spends his time experimenting with machines and aerodynamics. No video games or television. He's interested in instruction manuals, rockets, and construction. Heck, he even has a vice in his room. Clearly he's going to be a damn good engineer one day. Maybe work for NASA. Some parents dream for a clever, creative kid like that.

But through the eyes of Buzz and Woody, he's a pimply brace-faced monster and he must be destroyed. Go figure.

Getting In Touch With My Dark Side

April's over. This marks a third of the way done in this challenge. I started the month making a choice. Was it time to venture back into Gillian Flynn's twisted world again? And if so, which world would it be -- Sharp Objects or Dark Places?


Book # 9: The first book you see in a bookstore

Modern Romance made me feel old. Like, ridiculously old-fashioned, basically geriatric. Every statistic about love in your twenties doesn't apply to me at all. Mind you, in my teen years, I defied the whole twenties dating market by finding the right person for me early on. I feel very lucky to have found my other half, another old soul like me, a life partner who roots for our team as much as I do.

Modern Romance is a compelling sociological study of the unique context of love today, written in a comedian's voice but researched and supported by many academic sources.

Earlier parts of the book look at how love, romance, dating, and marriage has changed, which requires an examination of yesteryear. The older generation described the differences they perceive between dating attitudes now versus then thusly:

"I don't think we thought, Well, there are another twelve doors or another seventeen doors or another four hundred and thirty-three doors . . . We saw a door we wanted, and so we took it."

On page 28, Aziz then describes this generation's dating options as "a hallway with millions of doors" and asks the question, "Is that better? Is it terrifying?"

The Internet era obviously changed everything and love is no different. It's interesting to read how the type of person that online daters describe as what they want rarely matched up with the traits of the people they actually contacted, and how Tinder effectively eliminated this lack of self-awareness problem.

Aziz even touched on the neurochemical dimensions of love and why that can be both a good and a bad thing.

By far the most intriguing part of the book comes much later on, when modern romance is examined from a multicultural perspective. The sexually aggressive men and the hard-to-get ladies of Buenos Aires, Argentina, are juxtaposed against the "herbivorous" men and sex-deprived women of Tokyo, Japan. I learned about Qatar and France, as well. I learned a thing or two. It was quite fascinating in that regard, almost like a social science-version of National Geographic.

I know what you're going to say: Is that yet another book penned by a cast member of Parks and Rec?

And so, I will move on....


Book #10: A book of poetry

Not a fan of Emily Dickinson? Me neither.

For poetry, I had to venture elsewhere or risk rereading Shakespeare's folio of sonnets.

Cue my choice: Pop Sonnets: Shakespearean Spins on Your Favorite Songs, by Erik Didriksen.

I love sonnets. I love music. This is their love child. When I found this cute book, I couldn't resist. Written in the style of the Shakespearean sonnet, each poem here is an adaptation of the lyrics, the tone, and the message conveyed in popular songs. What kind of songs? Everything from Frank Sinatra and Chuck Berry to Rick Springfield and Rick Astley. You want some Chumbawumba? It's there. How about Rebecca Black? That's more in the category of unpopular songs, but you get my point. With such a wide variety, this book is bound to please.

It's interesting to read the Elizabethan verses and hear the applicable lyrics humming in the back of your mind. Or better yet, I invented a little game. I forced myself to read only the poetry without taking note of the song title at the bottom of the page and then tried to figure out what it was.

Try this one:

"For thee, I would ensure a journey great --
on foot I would embark five hundred miles
and reply, I'd not then slow my gait;
I'd walk it o'er again to see thee smile."

Sound familiar? It should. It's an adaptation of that itty-bitty ditty from The Proclaimers.

One more?

"Fourscore and nineteen problems I possess;
his bitch, however, brings me no distress."

That, my friends, is derived from Jay-Z.

Okay, before I fall back down this rabbithole, I'll move on.


Book #11: A book recommended by a family member

My sister has been on my ass to read The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend for well over a year. She bought it, read it, and then immediately read it all over again. I did not have that same level of interest, fairly certain that it would be a lot of texting and lip gloss. I didn't want to read some daft chick lit.

It isn't like that at all. It would definitely fall in the YA section as a teen romance, but it is firmly injected with a dose of cynicism. Kody Keplinger wrote a sex-positive book that reads realistically while transcending to become better than real adolescents talk and act, perhaps with a touch more literary references than the average Snapchat.

Regardless, I was drawn in and felt it was wonderfully well written. It has a whiff of the kinky escapism of Fifty Shades of Grey for the younger generation and dares to go there. It isn't too condescending, either, which makes for a much better read.

Full disclosure: I have watched the film of the same name. I don't know what exactly it is that I watched, but it sure as hell wasn't what I read. Never in all my life have I seen an adaptation that wandered so far off. The film was okay, mediocre but entertaining nonetheless, while the book exceeds all my expectations by being nothing -- and I do mean nothing, short of the use of character names -- like what I watched. The plot is not the same. If you've seen the film, you have not read the book. It's baffling to me how you could legally call the film an adaptation of the book when there is no likeness between the two.

If I had read the book first, I would have been infuriated. I still haven't gotten over what they did to My Sister's Keeper, trashing integral characters and going for the exact opposite of conclusions.

Whatever. I devoured this book in a day. Please don't let your preconceptions surrounding the ridiculous title scare you off. This isn't an Internet meme fleshed out into a novel. No, it's a solid narrative in its own right that I definitely recommend.

What did I learn from reading it? I should listen to my sister more often.


Book #12: A murder mystery

It's jarring to go from the warm fuzzies of teen lit to the dark side. And that's exactly what I did.

Gone Girl is not Gillian Flynn's best book. Brilliantly dark, yes. Masterful storytelling, absolutely. Most publicized of her writings, no duh. But after having read her debut novel, Sharp Objects, I realized that Flynn has always been fantastic. She crafts a murder mystery that doesn't feel like a generic Sherlock traipsing around tallying up clues. You're equally invested in the protagonist as you are in finding the killer. And the beautifully vivid descriptions of life in Wind Gap, Missouri, only draw you in further. When I say you can smell the faint aroma of hogs in the air, I'm not kidding. She's that good.

You may stay up to an ungodly hour reading Sharp Objects. It is the definition of a page-turner. 25% of me itched to know if it's who I thought all along, but, like a total sap, 75% of myself yearned against all hope that she ends up with the right man, a good man who loves her. That is, if she doesn't screw it all up.

But who can blame her? She hasn't exactly had anyone in her vicinity to model happiness and normal behaviour.

And those scars . . . The thought of them throbbing against her body, each word she has inscribed in her skin calling out . . . It really gives you an idea of the pain that our protagonist, Camille, is going through, something that she has to overcome, but that she's stuffing it down with sex and work, sex and work, sex and work. Oh, and booze.

A good book makes you want to blame the author when things don't go the way you wanted them to, but a fantastic book? You blame the characters themselves. Camille feels so real, like you know her, saw her walking down the street one day, passed by her once or twice. As I read, I wondered if Gillian Flynn knew someone like her and had their image pierced into her brain as she wrote each word. Nothing is out of place. In a way, Camille is a mystery just as much as the murderer is. So full and fleshed out but rough at the edges, so much we haven't seen. And that's what makes Sharp Objects stand out. It's more than a murder mystery.

For anyone who thinks this is a raving recommendation, it is, but I must temper it with a warning. Gillian doesn't write happy endings, so I'm a fool for not mentally preparing to have my hopes shattered. I should know better. We all should. If you can't handle that, then she's not the writer for you.

What she writes are the kind of books that leave you startled, both thinking about the darkness contained in a human heart and wishing things had gone better in one way or another. For anyone who has read or even watched Gone Girl, they know all too well what that feeling's like. Oh, Gillian, you twisted devil, why do you hurt me so?

Needless to say, I'm absolutely in love with this book, and absolutely enamoured with Flynn, too. It's a one-sided dysfunctional relationship that we have. It hurt to end Sharp Objects, because I knew that it was goodbye, unlikely to run into Camille again. As always, I was unsure of whether things were working out for the best or getting dramatically worse. Doesn't matter -- I'm addicted. So, I intend to read Dark Places after this challenge is over; it's the only way to recapture that feeling.

Thanks, Flynn. I think.


Book #13: A book written by a celebrity

I needed a little happiness after Sharp Objects. Lifestyles of the rich and famous seemed to be a guarantee of some form of pleasantness. I didn't want something tainted, like a rock star's adventures in mixing drugs and alcohol. I wanted nice.

So, I ventured first into unknown territory to a celebrity I knew relatively nothing about. Anjelica Huston spent the majority of my life as the Grand High Witch in The Witches movie. She has an air of mystery -- that's for sure.

Hence, my decision to read her memoir, A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York .

I learned that Anjelica and her brother Tony were named after her mother Ricki's parents. Her grandfather Tony was an interesting character, a yogi who owned a successful restaurant that served the Hollywood elite in New York and named his son Nappy because he believed he descended from Napoleon. I learned that her father, famous director John Huston, had stood up her mother at fourteen years old because the war got in the way of their date at the ballet. I learned that Anjelica's mother had suffered postpartum depression, that her father was not there for her birth, and that a Californian pediatrician had medicated Anjelica as a baby to stop her crying. I learned that Anjelica had lost part of her finger as a child in a lawn mower accident. I learned that her parents basically had a loveless marriage more like a series of business transactions than like a real relationship. I learned quite a lot.

As someone allergic to horses, I was not particularly compelled by the large sections devoted to dressage and other forms of jockeying in the lush Irish countryside. Nor did I care for the long passages that served no purpose other than a room-by-room inventory of the objects in her childhood homes. Lots of beige prose produces snores. But that's my cross to bear. You see, I wasn't in the right mindset. Something still didn't feel right. I had reached page 75, but it felt like I wasn't getting the full intended effect of the story. I couldn't take in Anjelica's words the way I should have. I don't know, guys. Sharp Objects really messed me up.

So, I made adjustments. I turned instead to even lighter fare: So That Happened: My Unexpected Life in Hollywood , by Jon Cryer.

Whenever I see Jon Cryer, I see Duckie. It doesn't matter how many years he spent proving he can be naughty on Two and a Half Men . He can try and try, but he has no claim to debauchery. No, he will always be in that record store or waiting for me at prom.

My partner asked me if I would read it to him, which I knew would take more time to read aloud than to read silently to myself. But that was fine. Stories are meant to be shared.

However, sharing stories can slow you down a touch. Knowing that I would trail into May reading So That Happened, I decided to do double-duty: one read-aloud storytime book (this would fulfill the prompt for a book written by a celebrity -- thanks, Jon!) at the same time as an on-my-own book.

So, I started something else. But what, you ask?

Well, honesty is the best policy and, since I never finished reading this book in April, it would be unfair to include it in this post. I guess you'll have to wait until next month to find out...

Happy reading!

Wandering Off the Beaten Path To My Own Benefit

Here I go again, tangentially reading. I've come to the conclusion that I have no problem reading a certain amount of books; my problem lies in sticking to PopSugar's official list for this year. I can't help myself from digressing from the list of prompts.

This month, I started reading Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self . (This book came to my attention after being mentioned on a special edition of the Canadian panel talk show The Talk in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remarked that it was the book his father gave him in an attempt to teach him about mental illness.) The book seemed a little dry and old, bearing in mind that it all stemmed from a psychoanalysis journal from the seventies.
The one thing I did learn from it that was worth mentioning is the idea of grandiosity and depression as two sides of the same coin; for example, someone who relies upon love by being an achievement-oriented personality is beloved for what they're doing, not who they are, and if eventually they hit upon an area where they are not the cream of the crop (something bound to happen at some point), they will become completely deflated and feel unloved because of this single failure, which could trigger depression. This information wasn't new to me, but it did offer an explanation as to why. As a young child, I was tested and declared officially by the school board as "gifted and talented", so I found this particular section interesting.

Okay, fine, I admit it. That wasn't my only foray away from the beautifully cleared garden path into the wild woods completely unsanctioned by PopSugar. I read Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America's Gutsiest Troublemakers . Yes, another Parks and Rec book. Ron Swans-- I mean, Nick Offerman writes about a list of great Americans in this anthology of profiles. You've got your usual types, like former presidents George Washington and James Madison, but you also have some unique and interesting choices, like Conan O'Brien, Yoko Ono, Carol Burnett, Willie Nelson, and Michael Pollan. It's equally great to read this book from start to finish as it is to skim from profile to profile. I learned some details about how these great Americans sometimes weren't so great; it's definitely a fair assessment of each one, as unbiased and objective as possible. That's what makes Gumption stand out for me. I'd definitely recommend it.

That being said, we're here to discuss the PopSugar Reading Challenge. And I have definitely done better than February, but not quite as good as January for this third month. Feeling a sense of the first quarter passing me by, I found it easier to shift into high gear. The prompts themselves even motivated me to fly forward through my own procrastination and distraction (non-related books or otherwise).

Book #6: A book that's under 150 pages

Originally, this was going to be my book that I could read in one day. After all, it is basically a children's book. My slow reading got in the way, though, taking me three days to chip away at this itty-bitty literary gem. Yes, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince is a classic and now I know why.

Quite remarkably, The Little Prince explains its own significance. In chapter fourteen, the little prince waxes on about how beautiful the desert is, even as they are in search of water, and explains that part of its beauty is that a well is hidden somewhere there, like buried treasure. Our protagonist takes in his words and realizes that this idea can be applied in a more universal way, that "what makes them beautiful is invisible." The narrator believes that physical, tangible things, the kind of things boasted and shoved upon us by a material world, are often mere shells with no value unless we assign it value. Simply put, "what's most important is invisible..."

It's the love we feel, the laughter we hear, and the connections we form in our heart that transcend the physical object. These are the things worth protecting. It's worth quoting the secret that the fox tells us after the little prince tames him: "It's quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."

I also found it interesting how life mirrors art. The author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a pilot who crashed in the Libyan desert and had to travel three days in search of help, very much like the narrator in The Little Prince. The parallels don't stop there, though. The narrator talks about how he once had a love for art, but grown-ups stifled his creativity and he moved away from it. Antoine, of course, enrolled in the art school L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in his younger years, something he gave up when the war started. (That's when he became a pilot.) In a strange turn of fate, after Antoine sustained an injury, he was supposedly forbidden to fly, but nonetheless, he insisted on being given some sort of flying duty. So, in 1944, Antoine set out from Borgo, Corsica, as part of the French air squadron, tasked to fly over Nazi-occupied France.

And no one ever saw him again.

Antoine wrote The Little Prince in 1943 and vanished into the stars (just like the little prince) in 1944. Spooky.

On a more brutal note, there is also a tale of euthanasia here. Certainly, that's not explicitly communicated and perhaps it was never even the author's intent, but, by the end of the tale, I could sense a glimmer of it -- that message in support of dying on your own terms through mercy killing. Oh, I don't want to give too much away, in case some people haven't been lucky enough to discover this brief tale of love and loss. I think I'll zip my lip from hereon.


Book #7: An autobiography

Spanning from her highly unstructured years of home-schooling to her awkward thrust-upon-her-by-chance music college years to her final rise to Internet stardom (and the fallout), Felicia Day wrote her life story, You're Never Weird on the Internet , in the same style for which she is known.

For anyone who doesn't know Felicia Day, it would be worth the time to check her out, either through her Geek and Sundry videos or even her popular Goodreads page.

As someone with a bit of a Type A personality myself, I related to all the micromanaging quirks. In fact, one of the most important chapters (although it wasn't my favourite) was called "The Deletion of Myself" and dealt with stepping back and saying, "No," instead of reaching for every opportunity. In Felicia's case, diving into so much so often had extremely negative consequences, putting her health at risk.

My father has anxiety and depression, so I understand the reluctance to view mental illness as a disease that you need help to fix. That's why page 228 resonated with me: "Imagine saying to someone, 'I have a kidney problem, and I'm having a lot of bad days lately.' Nothing but sympathy, right? [...] Then pretend to say, 'I have severe depression and anxiety, and I'm having a lot of bad days lately.' They just look at you like you're broken, right? Unfixable. Inherently flawed. Maybe not someone they want to hang around as much? Yeah, society sucks."

And she's right. People step back and treat you like you're patient zero when it's mental illness. There's no sympathy for your disease when you can't see it reflected back at them as a terrible rash or an iffy number in a blood test. Either people drop you like a hot potato or they think they can fix you with a knock-knock joke. In my father's experience, you need help and support and even medicine, but you also have to learn to fix yourself. It's hard. No question about it, it's an uphill battle. But it's doable.

Felicia's message ultimately is one of encouragement, for all kinds of people. I think I can sum up her book in this little nutshell from page 232: "You need to be able to feel proud of yourself even if you were living in a tiny hut in the middle of nowhere, taking care of goats. You are unique and good enough JUST AS YOU ARE. As a theoretical goat herder."


Book #8: A book you can finish in a day

I tried reading Ethan Frome , but the clock hit midnight and -- poof! -- the book didn't meet the requirement of this prompt. Sure, it is possible that I could have finished it in a day, but I didn't; if I'm going to do this challenge, I'm going to do it right. So, instead, I moved on to Maria Shriver's Ten Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Went Out Into the Real World .

I read Shriver's book in the span of a few hours. Based on Shriver's commencement speech at Holy Cross, this book doles out little pearls of wisdom that she has gained throughout her life. These pieces of advice are trite, sure, but they are said so often because they are true.

One of her lessons is that "no job is beneath you." She reminds the reader that "starting at the bottom is not about humiliation. It's about humility--a realistic assessment of where you are in the learning curve." Maria details her ill-fated attempts to do the sound on a news program, only to discover that she was utterly incompetent in that regard. Once removed from that, she was able to do field reporting entirely (instead of balancing that with sound). By starting at the bottom, she ended up learning everything there was to know about reporting, which was her true love. She also learned that not only did she not like working with sound equipment, but that she was dreadful at it. Only way to do that was to start by working at the bottom.

To be fair, most of us don't consider working at a news station a lowly job, but there is some truth in that you can learn something everywhere, even if the lesson you learn is that you don't want or cannot do what you're doing at that job. The only way to be certain of that is by doing it.

... which brings me to another piece of advice Maria gives so generously: "Failing is part of learning." We've all heard this one before, so it comes as no surprise. I do like that Maria recognized that college grads do not have that in their brains. They're hardwired to succeed and be whatever they want to be. They believe every inspirational quote that's been thrown at them. There's no problem with believing in yourself; it's admirable and should be encouraged.

But reality sets in and then you're left feeling disappointed that you're not winning awards for just showing up. This naive outlook is extremely common and, when those dreams aren't fulfilled, it can lead to those depressed feelings I mentioned before from Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self . (See? Sometimes it's good that I veer off of the reading challenge. I may just learn something!)

As Maria puts it, "the hidden message was this: If you fail, shame on you. Well, that's not true."

Even more importantly, she recognizes that work should not be your one and only goal because it won't keep you warm at night. She learned to "quit identifying [her]self through [her] career." You should live all aspects of your life.

... which brings me to yet another gem! "Superwoman is dead . . . and Superman may be taking Viagra." That is how Maria puts it. A little abstract, but the gist is that absolutely nobody can do it all. They cannot be Martha Stewart in the home and kitchen, Jenna Jameson in the bedroom, and Barbara Walters (or whomever fits your field of work) in the office. It is absolutely delusional to think that you can do it all ... right now. You can do it all, sure, but "life is a marathon," as Maria says, and that means that you can do all of those things and more over the course of a lifetime. You can be June Cleaver with your baby for some time, but then you'll have to skip the PTA if you want to be CEO. There's a time for everything and something will always have to give. Do not beat yourself up about it and absolutely do not compare yourself to others. Their priorities are not your priorities; their resources are not your resources. You do what you can with what you have and you never try to match up with anything else around you.

I have been lucky enough to have a good mother who instilled those lessons at an early age. I grew up in a neighbourhood with supremely wealthy folk. I don't think we were in the same tax bracket (but then again, what do I know? Sometimes people foolishly live beyond their means -- another thing I've learned) and yet I never felt less than them because I never compared my experiences and my goals and my worth to anything anyone had around me. The reality is that they are not me. I never played that game.

This game starts young. I can recall vividly how frequently comparisons are made in university, high school, and even elementary school. There is always an air of ridiculous competition. When everyone in my class wanted to know my mark, I didn't want to say it aloud. I didn't want to: a) compare myself to others because, but also, b) give others a reason to compare themselves to me. It may sound arrogant, but I'm just trying to report the facts: I did exceptionally well in school. Anything -- and I do mean anything -- that was thrown at me, I was able to excel at, which left a lot of my peers feeling less-than. That was never my intention. I was just being the best me I could be, but I always felt a little bit bad about it. It's unfortunate, but I have realized since then that it was them comparing themselves to me and I never gave them reason to do so. I almost always encouraged those around me. I was not them and they were not me, and I certainly never asked them to be.

And now, I'm full grown, and most, if not all, of that school pressure has dissipated. Other pressures enter your life, but if you're lucky, you've learned how to deal with them. Sure, I wrote a few books and I'm getting married this June, but that doesn't make me any better or worse than anyone else. I know many unmarried people younger than me who don't work but who have one or two or more children and that has been their priority, not mine. It takes all types to make the world go 'round; it sounds condescending, yes, but it is absolutely not. My mother and Maria Shriver both made it perfectly clear that comparisons are lethal and helpful to no one. The goal is simply to grow you, not you in relation to everyone around you.

The hardest part of this piece of advice (or any advice, really) is internalizing it. It can all feel hippy-dippy and nice but unrealistic, but if you engrain it into your being and live your life in line with it, then it just becomes the truth of your existence. Eventually, the little voice in the back of your head doesn't have to tell yourself to be this way or don't be that way. You just live your life that way, in accordance with those values.

Oh, one last gem: Be smart with your finances. It doesn't matter what you make; you should know where your money is and what you're doing with it, or rather, what it's doing for you. (Again, I've lived my life this way for so long, starting with my first safe at the age of four, that this way of life has just become automatic. But you can always learn more. And I do.)

Maria did say other things in this itty-bitty book, but I only mentioned what I found the most interesting. I bet you if you read it, you'd find something completely different worth quoting.

To be fair, this book was very short. That's why I chose to read it; it only took a few hours. I feel that, given more time and more pages, Maria could have written you a very detailed template-style manual for your life. That's just the kind of woman she is.

The only things I didn't like about her book is that some of her comments, especially regarding her husband, feel painful now. Written far before scandal hit her marriage, there was no way for her to know what was coming to her and what was going on behind her back. I can't blame her for not being psychic, but I also cannot deny that these sections of the book made me a touch squirmish.


So that was this month in reading. I read a great deal, but only three books qualified for the reading challenge. C'est la vie.

Next month could be interesting. I've been skimming the prompts again and have found "a murder mystery" particularly icky. In general, I don't like the murder mystery genre. Whodunnits and detectives and crime stories make me snore. However, I love books like Gone Girl and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo . In fact, The Millennium Trilogy are possibly my favourite books ever, owing largely to the iconic titular character, Lisbeth Salander. Unfortunately for this challenge, I've read all of that series already. I know Gillian Flynn has penned a few more books, but I'm not sure if they're murder mysteries and I don't want to do too much research for fear of spoilers. So, here lies my conundrum. What murder mystery should I read? Send me your suggestions!

Little Month, Little Progress

February has come and gone, the shortest month, and thus the most challenging to keep it up and not dwell on a single book. It's also been a busy month, constantly facing barriers of other obligations that put my reading on the back-burner.

In regards to keeping to the challenge, I found it particularly difficult, constantly flip-flopping between different books, indecisively meandering through the first few chapters. I finished a book that didn't fit the challenge (Bad Feminist); it was pretty good, although a little one-note at times. I even returned to a book I previously read (Think Like a Freak). Sure, I was still reading, but I was really struggling to keep to the prompts. Even when I did turn my attention to them, the question remained, which book should I read?

Libraries have due dates, though, and that kind of made my decision for me, forcing me to read first the book that would have to be returned soonest.

Hence,

Book #5: A book about an unfamiliar culture

Most people would have chosen a novel about a faraway land. I went with a non-fiction book instead, one where the title makes it obvious that the tale within would be about culture clash.

Kunal Nayyar's Yes, My Accent Is Real: and Some Other Things I Haven't Told You was nothing like an episode of The Big Bang Theory, the show from which we know Kunal. Instead, it talks equally about his life back in India and his adventures after arriving in Portland, Oregon, for college.

I learned about a number of Indian holidays and traditions that I may not have otherwise known about, but it's the heart in this novel, the bittersweet love letters to his family, friends, and past girlfriends, that really makes it stand out.

Sure, Kunal Nayyar injects humour in here and there, but I prefer his sincere tone as he talks about those he will always remember. My favourite chapter is titled, "Dinners with Dad," in which Kunal recounts the Kennedy-style dinners he would have with his father from a young age, talking about the issues of the day, especially during the Hindu-Muslim religious riots in his neighbourhood. This section attempts to capture the many life lessons he learned from his father, such as the old adages, "There are two sides to every story," or, "Disarm with a smile." There are some lesser-known gems of advice, such as "Use a spreadsheet," in which Kunal learns to use Excel to budget. But the whole is more than the sum of its parts, each lesson a puzzle piece that builds a picture of a strong man, a role model for Kunal, who was benevolent and bestowed all his wisdom upon his children. The only way you won't get a little misty-eyed here is if you're made from stone.

If you're looking for Book #6 for this month, I'm sorry to say you'll have to shine it on for another month. Sadly, that's all she wrote (and read) this month. Hopefully, March will be more productive. It's time for me to buckle down and kick this challenge in the keister. Maybe I'll tackle some of the more daunting prompts and tackle a chunkster. Who knows?

Happy reading, y'all!

Let The Games Begin!

Another year, another PopSugar Reading Challenge!

So far, I'm off to a solid start. Seeing as this challenge is the first for me since BookIt! Reading Club and the beckoning reward of a free personal pan pizza each month from the Hut, I feel a little rusty to the whole thing, but I figure the best way to stay accountable is by doing a monthly recap of my progress. I know I'm not alone in this regard, so it should come as no surprise to readers.

I saw nowhere that said I had to go through these challenge prompts in any particular order, so I've been checking them off somewhat randomly. Without further ado ...

Book #1: A book written by a comedian

I have read my fair share of books by comedians before, most recently Amy Poehler's Yes Please . I've also read Tina Fey's Bossypants and skimmed (but am yet to finish) both Rachel Dratch's Girl Walks into a Bar and Sarah Silverman's Bedwetter . There are countless others, but these are the ones of recent memory.

I wanted to go a little astray with this challenge and choose something that fits the prompt, but not in such an obvious way. However, I didn't want to wander so far that I hated the book and didn't want to complete the challenge, especially not on this first book.

Total disclosure: I love Parks and Recreation . That show brings me joy, but also taught me that being bright doesn't always mean being one-hundred percent confident. The show's protagonist, bubbly workaholic feminist Leslie Knope, a role performed authentically and spiritedly by Amy Poehler, made me realize that I am more like her than even I care to admit. For example, when Leslie gets that big promotion, she's terrified. What should be a moment of joy and triumph is actually a cause for panic. As someone who succumbs to anxiety more frequently than one should, I get that feeling.

Anyway, I love that show dearly and none of that digression matters one iota, other than the fact that any Parks and Rec fan knows that there's never been a character quite like Ron Swanson. I mean, he's the head of a government department with a strictly libertarian attitude toward government as a whole. The actor who portrays Ron is Nick Offerman and, after watching his stand-up on Netflix, American Ham , I figured Nick more than qualified as a comedian. He sure has given me quite a few hearty chuckles and his potty-mouthed serenading also provides a tickle. In fact, Nick decided to take to stand-up to spread his views, particularly the notion of paddling your own canoe.

That's why my first book for this challenge was Paddle Your Own Canoe , by Nick Offerman. Tired of being misconstrued as identical to his Parks and Rec character, Offerman espouses his central values via his book. Sure, the essence of the Ron Swanson character is subtly present and obviously imbued with a little bit of Nick, such as his love of red meat, his carpentry skills, and his belief in self-sufficiency with a toolbox in hand. In the end, Paddle Your Own Canoe is Nick's uniquely whittled tale. By combining his life lessons with a walk through his own experiences from childhood to the Hollywood Hills, Paddle Your Own Canoe is an interesting way to show both a man's values alongside where he came from.

Sure, it's not going to radically change your life, unless you're into woodworking or Chicago theatre productions, but it is an interesting glimpse at how the other half live, and I don't just mean the rich and famous. I enjoyed it a lot and loved seeing those points of convergence between Nick and Ron just as much as those elements of Nick that distinguished himself from that incorrigible Ron Swanson!


Book #2: A New York Times bestseller

This was an easy pick. I use my library frequently and this book fell right into my hands the second I needed something for this prompt. I read her first book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? , and enjoyed it. It was a fun read, a light and fluffy one, and I devoured it in a couple of days, so when I received the follow-up, I was more than pleased.

I expected Mindy Kaling's Why Not Me? to be more of the same. What I received had that same signature style, but with the maturity gathered from a woman in her thirties. The book spoke more from the heart than ever before. I was touched at moments, empowered at others, and almost cried when I read the list of terrifying thoughts that keep Mindy up at night. I have held some of those same thoughts in the seconds before drifting off to sleep, the kind she describes as the thoughts that soak your sheets with sweat, and Mindy humanizes herself here. I don't think I'm alone in wondering the same thoughts as her, thoughts like whether or not you'll forget the sound of a parent's voice after they've passed away.

Mindy also takes a moment to address how far she's come, how she knows she has lucked out to a certain extent, but that the luck would have run out if she didn't apply a strong work ethic to the tasks placed in front of her. She knows that she started off as a ball of nervous energy, certain that she was in the wrong place and that she wasn't up to snuff. Mindy Kaling is neither Kelly Kapoor nor Mindy Lahiri. She realized that the only way you can feel like you deserve something is to earn it. It's okay to want more for yourself, but you have to be willing to put the hard work in to get it.

In summation, Mindy returns to the idea that, no matter what walk of life, we are all human and we're always going to feel a little bit like a fraud. That's because we're all works in progress, or a "Mindy Project", if you will. So take a step in the right direction.

Book #3: A book from the library

This challenge prompt encouraged me to go the extra mile. I didn't just borrow this book from the library; I use my library religiously, so in my particular case, this prompt didn't feel like quite enough to constitute a "challenge" in the strictest sense of the word. To boost this particular challenge, I decided to get a book through an interlibrary loan, thus enlisting two libraries: my local library who submitted the request and the library who owns the book and is lending it to me. Yes, I realize the irony that I chose a book that basically spits in the face of libraries albeit the spitting is done in friendly jest. I chose Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America .

I know, I know -- two Parks and Rec books in one month! I brazenly provided a buffer of a single book. For that, I can only say that I can safely say that this will be the last book written by a cast member from said TV program. (Although, I have been eyeing up both Modern Romance and Gumption ...)

How could I not read this book, though, after that extra effort? I won't make any more apologies. After all, what other book starts with a full-page dedication, the kind you'd expect the character Leslie Knope to write, that thanks "every living creature in the universe except turtles, whom I find condescending"? That is some Pawneean wisdom there. Viewers of the show subscribed to the town's craziness as much as its inhabitants and witnessed the detail that went into the town. You already know about J.J.'s Diner. You already know about the Sweetums factory, "Pawnee's answer t Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, minus the orange dwarves and child abuse." Don't forget the Wamapoke Casino, Li'l Sebastian Memorial, and Kernston's Rubber Nipple Factory!

Yes, Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America offers a proper tour of this town, a love letter to fans of the show who have immersed themselves so much in every episode that the setting itself feels real. You'll taste the local flavour and love the warts-and-all world described therein.

Perhaps growing up in a small town added to my appreciation. I get the pride a community can have in something as simple and unimpressive as a stop sign. I may not be a citizen of that little fissure-laden pin on the Indiana state map, but I see the beauty of a town that is "first in friendship, fourth in obesity." I'm from that place.


Book #4: A self-improvement book

Picking a self-improvement book was a little tricky. I wasn't about to reach a book on how men were from Mars or how to get over my divorce -- none of that applied to me and certainly didn't interest me. I was debating on whether I wanted to know what colour my parachute was.

Then, epiphany hit. Bear with me, folks, because, of this challenge so far, this book has had the most impact.

Let's go back to 2015. Late in the year, I watched Australian actor Damon Gameau's popular documentary film, That Sugar Film . I was so entranced by what I learned that I immediately wanted to take action. I began researching sugar like a mad child and, finally, made the call. For December 2015 and January 2016, I reduced my sugar consumption to the absolute minimum. That's right; all through Christmas, I was sugar-free. Don't cry for me yet, Argentina; I ate my fair share of vegan chips made from ground blue corn. My significant other went along on the ride with me and we found that the body and the mind really does change. In my experience, it's not so radical as described because your body gradually adjusts and it seems almost imperceptible. Yes, seeing a birthday cake on a TV screen still makes me drool for a second or two, but I honestly wouldn't want a slice if it was offered. I've poured fruit juice and soda for others and smelled its aroma as the fruitiness dispersed into the air or the fizz spritzed out the lid as the bubbles popped on the surface... and I felt nothing. Not at first, but with time, sugar lost its hold on me, the grasp weakening with every sip of water and, occasionally, Perrier. I handed After Eights to my mother and, still, with my self-proclaimed weakness to that delicious dairy delight, I moved past it unscathed. Instead, I eat meat and cheese guilt-free and feel happier for it.

I did that because of a movie. Naturally, curiosity got the best of me and I wanted to know more to improve my well-being. That's why I sought out Damon Gameau's That Sugar Book , which Damon proclaims is a companion guide to reinforce and supplement the information provided by the film. It's true that there is a great deal of overlap, but I still benefited from the additional tidbits here and there. In fact, I wished I had read it earlier because the third part of the book (the book is divided into four sections: the experiment; the science; the recovery; and , for those struggling in the kitchen, some recipes) would have guided me better out of the sugar cesspool. Once you make the decision to reduce or remove added and refined sugars from your diet, the "how" is still a serious hurdle. My significant other slept through half of the first weekend, going through withdrawal from the caffeine-sugar combo he was used to chugging back three or four times a day. It's hard as hell to do it, but it is so worth it. As the author Damon Gameau himself writes, "Many would argue that they eat sugar all the time and they are fine, but how many of them have experienced what they are like without sugar? I suspect very few, given how early we begin our consumption and how prevalent sugar is in our food supply." That's one of the most startling realizations about the experiment Gameau underwent. He never permitted himself to consume ice cream or candy or soda or chocolate bars or any of that stuff we instantly know is bad for us. No, he ate the average daily amount of sugar consumed by Australians through allegedly healthy food, like cereal or juice or low-fat yogurt. I advocate everyone who cares about living to read That Sugar Book. That may sound hyperbolic, but if you want to actually avoid killing yourself slowly and damaging your precious body (you only get one!), it is essential to know how food works. For those who want the abridged, bite-size, Coles-Notes version, then absolutely watch the film instead.

And it's not just your weight, if that's what you're thinking. Your body is taking a beating, sure, but sugar is an addictive substance that messes up your appetite, your brain, your liver (Oh, how it screws with your poor liver!), your blood, and your youthful looks. It puts a dent in your body's defence system.

If you're waiting for the world to change, you're going to be waiting awhile. As Mahatma Gandhi said, you have to be the change you want to see in the world. Companies who care about profits have worked on finding that "bliss point" where you keep coming back; it's really no different than cigarettes. (In fact, fifteen percent of a cigarette is sugar.) Big businesses fight nutritional scientists and their research and will pull funding if they don't get the answer they want. If you've been under the belief that somehow boxed cereal is part of a complete breakfast or that soda is okay in moderation, then this book will explain how it's virtually impossible to drink soda in moderation. One look at what dentists call "Mountain Dew mouth" should point you in the right direction.

We need to get together and opt out. As nutritionist David Wolfe once said, "None of us is as smart as all of us." Every person in my life had an eyeroll or a snarky remark when I said I was cutting out the sugar. Some got furious. I can't imagine how my eating habits affect them in the slightest, but they were nonetheless frustrated with me. Damon addresses this phenomenon in his book, but not his film. I wish I had known, so I could prepare for the backlash. My significant other thankfully jumped on board, so I wasn't alone. In That Sugar Book, Gameau writes, "People may scoff now if you remove sugar but it is only because they don't understand. And remember that sugar is very addictive so some people will not go down without a fight. They will defend their addiction to the end because it is like a friend or a lover to them." I don't want sugar to be my lover.

I understand trepidation. I was scared, too, but you're stronger than you know. If you're really hesitant but still want to do something, then at least cut the sugary drinks. Just stop consuming soft drinks; fruit juices; energy drinks; flavoured waters; flavoured waters (FYI: squeezing lemon into water does not count as flavoured water); sports drinks; flavoured milks; and tea, coffee, or lattes with sugar. If you want to go further, then I recommend the book. Eating every two hours during that detox is a great tip I learned long after the fact, so while the movie is the starting point, the book shows the path to take.

Don't say goodbye to your treats because sugar is not a reward; it's a punishment. Say hello to a better life in every conceivable way. I don't know about you, but if a "treat" was going to increase my chances of cancer, kidney failure, and Alzheimer's, I'd say no thank you.

Now, can someone please help me off this soapbox? I have some reading to do.

Sorry, Uncle Stevie, Part Two: Electric Boogaloo

This post is a continuation of the previous post on films and culture...

#26. Birdman

What a pretentious Best Picture Oscar winner. I appreciate the technical aspect of a seemingly seamless single-take film (although there are some creative cuts you can spot, which makes for a good game to pass the time), but the plot is boring. I can hear the outcry already. "But it's layered!" Sure, but each layer is dull as dirt. I get why Academy members would vote for it, what with it being the life they've led at some point in their careers. But considering the tight race between this and Linklater's Boyhood, I would've rather Boyhood took home the hardware. Boyhood speaks to a larger audience. Everyone was a child once. Not everyone was a mentally ill has-been movie star with a fame-hungry streak. Still, a good writer can make an unlikable character that's nothing like you appealing enough to look beyond the differences, but that didn't happen either. I obviously can't recommend Birdman. The best part was Emma Stone's two-minute spiel on relevancy, but it's not worth the two-hour shitstorm.

#27. Finding Vivian Maier

A fascinating documentary about a puzzling woman who photographed everything, Finding Vivian Maier poses more questions than answers most of the time, but I think not knowing for sure just adds to the beauty of this wonderfully weird story. It's very difficult to describe without flatly detailing each discovery made, which I don't wish to do, but I can say that it is definitely worth the watch.

#28.

Let me first confess that I'm not one for war films. American Sniper drew a crowd at the box office, but I wonder how many really enjoyed it and how many just said they did while saluting the American flag. To compare, I immensely enjoyed The Hurt Locker , wrote, performed and directed with an intense message and care for its subject matter. These two films share loosely the theme of war's addictive nature, but not to the same extent. No, American Sniper is like a diluted version of that, rushed through production and hitting trite patriotic tones. Its execution is flawed, failing to show the humanity within the killing machine. The few glimpses we get of a person, not a robot sent to kill, are so corny and unspectacular, many will miss the point. It's bloated and long-winded and wastes precious time dwelling on the same old thing without delving deeper into the other aspects of battle-scarred protagonist Chris Kyle's life. Sadly, the best and most fully formed character is Sienna Miller's Taya, but she's diminished to a bit part to give more screen time to camouflage and sand. I appreciate what this film wanted to be, what it could and should have been with a touch more time and better handling overall, but that's not what it was. For me, American Sniper missed the mark.

#29. Game of Thrones: Season Four

A thrilling spectacle is what you expect from Game of Thrones. But unfortunately this season felt bogged down. Don't get me wrong; it's still better than much of what litters the airwaves. That doesn't make it perfect. It is the least strong season so far, as it relied too heavily upon big moments spaced out with utter monotony. I couldn't care less about Castle Black at this point, and frankly, the series started out with a heavy focus on the events of Winterfell and Kings' Landing. While I know we can't go back to the former, there's no reason to point the camera away from the throne for so long. Even Daenerys Stormborn, who I hope takes it all in the end, had a weak plotline, the most uninteresting season-long story she's carried in a while. It feels like the writers are dragging their pens through the footnotes this season. Get to the point! Overall, the bursts of flavour sprinkled every three or four episodes don't have enough pizzazz to leave a good taste in my mouth. That being said, Game of Thrones can still be good television, so I'm not giving up hope yet.

#30. John Wick

A beautiful action film, John Wick was truly terrific. It had the elements of an artfully ultra-violent action story but the plot of a thrilling melodrama. It was heartfelt and heartless. What is John Wick about? To tell you the plot would spoil the film, so I won't dare. What I will tell you: Go see it. It was everything I wanted and I didn't expect it. I doubted Keanu and I thought very little of this assassin tale upon first impression. What would it even be about? Oh, how wrong I was. It dangles a mysterious past, an adorable dog, a lost love, and a Russian mob together, then stirs it all up until they're blended to perfection.

#31. St. Vincent

There aren't many films quite like this, funny through and through but realistic and honest depictions of divorce and old age. Centered on a young boy's experiences with an old cranky neighbour, St. Vincent invests thought into its characters, developing them to show not just the cracks but that which caused them. Its casting was skilfully done. Bill Murray is spot-on with his performance and the smaller role of a pregnant Russian stripper was molded into something clever in the capable hands of Aussie actress Naomi Watts. Some child actors can be grating but the bright little newcomer Jaeden Lieberher was perfectly cast. It's a charming film, for sure, and a pleasant experience to watch.

#32. The Book of Life

The Book of Life was a beautiful fun-for-the-whole-family tale, injected with just the right dose of adult humour to balance out the cutesy stuff that caters to kids. It was much better than I expected. It's an interesting change of pace, regarding the line between life and death, especially when told through the context of the Latin holiday Dia de los Muertos. (I told you films offer a little culture!)

#33. The Boxtrolls

Beautiful animation and a truly clever plot, The Boxtrolls features one of my favourite villains in a while. Villains always have a critical flaw, and the Snatcher's flaw is a doozy. (I wouldn't dare spoil it, though.) I feel that both The Boxtrolls and The Book of Life were genuinely great animated flicks that were overlooked this year because they lacked the big-studio marketing.

#34. Pride

Pride is a great British dramedy about how lesbians and gay men fought to support the rights of the striking Welsh coal miners in 1984 when everyone else turned their back on them. It was a tumultuous time when bigotry was allowed to bloom untamed. But slowly the barriers are broken down to find true appreciation in their common cause: the freedom to live a life worth living. An underrated gem, Pride was a delight to watch and gave me a few laughs with a sprinkling of historical tidbits.

#35. Blood Simple

Meh. I like the Coen brothers, but this is certainly not their best work. A touch too slow, it's a decent first attempt, what with it being Joel's directorial debut, but the brothers had yet to come into their own. Raising Arizona and Fargo are more my speed.

#36. The Gambler

At one point in The Gambler, Brie Larson's character points out that Mark Wahlberg's character is someone with no problems that has to invent them instead just to be sour. That is exactly the problem with this swollen pustule of a film, swelling and throbbing, ready to burst its pseudo-intellectual bull over everything. The protagonist is all 'woe is me,' but his life could be pretty great if he wasn't such a miserable whiner with a superiority complex and a penchant for pitting people against each other. Screw happiness, though. In lieu of that, he orchestrates his own demise for reasons unknown. I absolutely hated this arrogant and ungrateful numb-skull. As a film-watching experience, it wasn't anything like The Wolf of Wall Street or Goodfellas, those truly great antihero tales, where you're rooting for the bad guy to win while waiting for him to fail. No, instead Wahlberg's character doesn't have any motivation at all and I became fed up with his asinine behaviour within twenty minutes and had to force myself to finish the film. The Gambler just sucks out your soul. If you hadn't guessed already, I don't recommend it.

#37. Pacific Heights

An expertly crafted suspenseful thriller, Pacific Heights showcases not only a wonderfully original story but an equally stunning batch of performances from the talented Matthew Modine, Melanie Griffith, and Michael Keaton. A happy unmarried couple, Patty Parker and Drake Goodman, decide to buy a large house beyond their means with two rental units in addition to their home. They have a studio and a one-bedroom apartment; they find a nice couple to take the one and are looking for another tenant. That's when they meet Carter Hayes. Investing in themselves, in their future, becomes a devastating wild goose chase to either get the rent or evict him. Driving them further into debt and towards their wit's end, Patty and Drake endure a real-life nightmare. It is the subtle twists of this film that make it feel real, beyond its time and completely lacking in the formulaic tendencies of films that veer this way. Made in 1990, it spoke of the identity theft and fraud that buzzes in today's headlines, over twenty years after it was made. Pacific Heights is completely different than anything I've ever seen before, and I mean that in the best of ways. And again, it is beautifully real, which shocks me because villainy sometimes comes off as feigned. But not here. Michael Keaton has always been an expert at playing a mysterious individual and sometimes even a dastardly one, with his turns as the darkest Batman the world had ever seen (up to that point, of course) and the equally nefarious Betelgeuse from Tim Burton's whimsically spooky Beetlejuice. But here is where we see his pure evil. He is a master manipulator. He is the parasitic fear that lurks inside the house. Keaton is perfectly equipped for this role, the haunting Carter Hayes at the bottom of the stairs; years before his Oscar nod, Keaton exhibited his strength in acting here. And it's not just Keaton. The same can be said for Modine, morphing from a gentle landlord to an enraged shadow of his former self as he fights foreclosure. Even Melanie Griffith -- no, especially, Melanie Griffith; admittedly never one of my favourite actresses, always leaving me wondering how she became a star -- is a tour-de-force, a strong single woman adept at what she does, stressed but breathing, doing her level best to keep her house and her mind, and, when all is said and done, determined to never allow history to be repeated. She is admittedly afraid but powering through hell because, like it or not, that's what you do when you come face to face with it. And everything about her performance feels incredibly realistic, equal parts driven and terrified. And something is only scary when it feels like it could happen, when it feels real.

#38. This Is Where I Leave You

This Is Where I Leave You is trying and failing to be a twenty-first century Big Chill. But instead of being a reunion of friends, it's a family reunion when a handful of siblings return home for Dad's funeral. Each is struggling with their own thing: adultery; impending divorce; infertility; potty-training children; dating someone older; miscarriage; unplanned pregnancy; unemployment; bla bla bla. But the contrived message is, of course, that family must lean on family and love each other unconditionally. We've heard it all before, spouted like a universal truth but applicable only in some situations. This family in particular must sit shiva for their "Jewish Atheist" father, seven days of mourning under one roof, his dying wish. Throwing this much talent together should ignite a spark just from the friction, but I failed to see anything light. The one stand-out is miserable Jason Bateman, who, from his years on Arrested Development, has perfected the straight-man persona amongst the chaos of a dysfunctional family. I normally love Adam Driver and Tina Fey, but they feel miscast here, lacking their usual panache and trading it in for an archetype to hide behind. Same goes for Jane Fonda, showing up in lingerie to highlight how good she looks for her years, something akin to a sex-fueled cameo. The only worthwhile scenes come within the last twenty minutes of the film, all revelation and resolution one after the other. Not worth its flashy star power, This Is Where I Leave You is best left on the shelf.

#39. Life of Crime

An odd jumble of crime comedy and dark drama, Life of Crime centers on a botched kidnapping, similar to that of Fargo on the surface but not quite as good. Failing to collect ransom and struggling to work together, the kidnappers operate on all different levels, one too sensitive and friendly, another a womanizer prone to flipping the switch, and the last a nutty Nazi sympathizer with aggressive tendencies and loyalty to no one. Its ensemble is fairly solid with Jennifer Aniston accepting a smarter and more sophisticated role than she typically accepts, along with the well-cast John Hawkes and Tim Robbins. Of all of the performances, Isla Fisher is arguably the weakest link in the chain, there to instigate conflict without motive. But the main problem with Life of Crime is that it doesn't fit any genre and falls into perpetual overlap. It would have been better as a full-on seventies-era comedy, scrapping the grittier elements and focusing on the dynamics between the kidnappers, the kidnapped, and those who refuse to pay. But instead it loses momentum getting bogged down in heavy themes and lingering close-ups. Too much gloom and doom meant not enough room for smirks and smiles.

#40. This Boy's Life

This Boy's Life is brutally honest, uncomfortably so. With great performances from the whole cast, I feel this film, which depicts the early life of writer Tobias Wolff, deserves a touch more acclaim than it received. I won't share the details; it's best not to see anything coming. Mum's the word.

#41. The Fault in Our Stars

Happily surprised, The Fault in Our Stars played like beautiful music to the ears. It's one in what I hope will be a string of stellar films aimed at adolescents, starting in more recent years with Perks of Being a Wallflower. It's not so bad for what was falsely marketed as a cheesy teen sob story. The characters use polysyllabic words and have a sense of grace and integrity. Perhaps the source material by fantastic writer and all-around fun personality John Green is where this film's credit lies. It seems to be a close adaptation, not veering too far from the page, and producing, as a result, a strong film about adolescents dealing with grown-up diseases and life events much bigger than them. It was neither sappy nor insensitive, straddling that line superbly. The message is sweet, that love is sometimes the greatest medicine, repairing the human spirit, but the means that we arrive there, the journey itself, is intricate and honest. I applaud The Fault in Our Stars for daring to be different than its shabby Twilight-knock-off neighbours.

#42. Diana

Diana was a disappointing film that boils down to bitterness over an unhappy marriage and divorce combined with the overbearing flood of paparazzi. We've beat all the dust we can out of this rug. Can we let her rest in peace now?

#43. Movie 43

Why do I do this to myself?

#44. The Hundred-Foot Journey

The Hundred-Foot Journey could have been better. I've become quite taken with cooking films, but something about this one didn't hit the spot for me. I much preferred the underrated Jon Favreau passion project Chef, which I highly recommend. No, The Hundred-Foot Journey received Spielberg and Oprah's blessings, though, and so, it received a ton of only half-deserved publicity. I enjoyed the idea of fusion cuisine, but that was barely seen here, instead dealing with non-issues, like snootiness. It could have been more serious and compelling, more shocking with its conflicts, but it wasn't. In lieu of that, it could have been funnier, fluffier, lighter, and thus more entertaining, but it wasn't that either. It was straight-faced with nothing much to say. I enjoyed it while it was on, but I don't think I'd watch it again. So, if you worship at the feet of Spielberg or Oprah, then watch it. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.

#45. The Other Woman

This film got a whole lot of flack for being daft, but it was better than I thought it would be. I think half of why I enjoyed it was pure shock. The other half was Leslie Mann. Even though it's as if she was told to read all her lines in a shrill pseudo-sob, she is still the real motivating force here. She is flawed but trying. She is real. And I can enjoy that much more than Miss Attitude (better known as Cameron Diaz) or Miss Ditz (Kate Upton). I can always get behind a good revenge plot in film, so maybe in that regard I'm biased, but overall, for a fun and lighthearted popcorn flick, The Other Woman does not disappoint.

#46. The Fabulous Baker Boys

Remember when I said Michelle Pfeiffer is amazing? I think this may be her peak. Never go into business with your family. And that includes show biz, according to The Fabulous Baker Boys. Real-life brothers Beau and Jeff Bridges play an onscreen jazz piano-playing brothers act, dueling on the ivories and behind the scenes, as they barely stay afloat in the murky waters of second-rate hotels and themed drinking joints. And then they decide to hire Miss Diamond, a club singer, to accompany them. What ensues both builds and breaks the brothers Baker. Michelle Pfeiffer is dazzling here, which I suppose is kind of the point, but as a whole, the film felt lackluster. The story needed work and every scene missing Pfeiffer felt drab.

#47. Snowpiercer

Other than a largely symbolic conclusion that felt less appealing than what I suspected would occur, I greatly enjoyed Snowpiercer. A unique dystopian film about the sum of humanity surviving the next ice age aboard a uniquely equipped train, I especially liked the range of villainy and godliness intermingling, regardless of their station in life. And I mean that literally. These people feel genuinely stationed on the train, given vocation and location permanently. Dark but enjoyable, I recommend this to audiences who can handle grimness without a sugary sweet layer of apologism. Simply put, Snowpiercer is just that: cold and piercing.

#48. Get Shorty

I love movies about the movie business. I love a good crime film. And Get Shorty combines the two and adds some flair, to boot. Any fan of Elmore Leonard adaptations will love this cool and suave Barry Sonnenfeld flick from the nineties. It's just as smooth as Jackie Brown and Out of Sight, with its usual chit-chat style about whatever the hell the characters like. I love the idea of Chili Palmer and adored watching everything unfold around him. I was taken by the idea of an unseasonably cool spell in Miami that sets everything into motion. And I really enjoyed seeing the late great James Gandolfini in an early role that showed how bright his star was going to shine before the biz had even given him a chance to twinkle. Everything is a delight here.

#49. The Skeleton Twins

The Skeleton Twins exceeded my expectations by a landslide. Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are perfect together, their bottled-magic chemistry spot-on for siblings who find solace in each other. With such a natural conversational flow, I wonder how much was penned in advance and how much was ad libbed. The central characters are flawed, horribly dysfunctional but trying to function nonetheless, which is more realistic than cookie-cutter images that damage the self-esteem of an audience who can't relate. A little more broken than the norm but working back to happiness, this dynamic duo clash with the supporting cast, especially the glowing ball of joy and mirth that is Luke Wilson. Shining the light on familial imperfection, The Skeleton Twins is harsher and more adult than flicks like Little Miss Sunshine or Perks of Being A Wallflower but in the same vein.

#50. The Birdcage

This one was a birthday gift. The Birdcage is the story of a newly engaged couple returning home to their parents with the news, only to realize that they must bring their parents to meet before they get married. It's Meet The Fockers before such a film existed. The camera centers on Armand (Robin Williams) and Albert (Nathan Lane), a gay couple who own the drag club aptly named The Birdcage, but they try to conceal this fact from their son's new in-laws-to-be, a conservative Senator (Gene Hackman) and his sweet traditional wife (Dianne Wiest). It's sweet and funny, if not a little dated in its vernacular. The son isn't particularly sympathetic and I would argue that, even with his stuffy father passing judgment, it's actually Armand's son that is the worst part of this family. How could he be so ashamed of his parents? It was a different time and the world wasn't as friendly to gay culture, but still, it feels downright awful. Regardless, The Birdcage is a great comedic watch. Fosse, Fosse, Fosse!

So for now that's all. I may update later on in the year, but, in the meantime, if there's anything in particular you want me to watch, leave a comment and I will try to meet your requests.

Sorry, Uncle Stevie

In complete violation of Stephen King's rules on writing, I watch film and television and let their influences wash over me. Living in a bubble away from the world won't help me grow as a writer or, more importantly, a person. Culture isn't just opera and art museums. So, without further ado, this is what I've immersed myself in this year.

#1. Deux Jours, Une Nuit

A French film to kick it off. How snobby. Deux Jours, Une Nuit was one of those films I'd heard about, knew the basic idea, and felt like there was a hum coming from it. Emphasis on the word hum. Not buzz. A buzz would be too loud. What La Vie en Rose had would be buzz, another film from French actress Marion Cotillard. Now the story was fairly simple. A woman named Sandra who was suffering from depression and had to take leave from work is suddenly faced with the possibility that she will lose her job. A meddling foreman pressures the employees to choose a nice bonus over their colleague in hopes that Sandra will be fired and the economic burden on the company will be lifted. However, instead of simply terminating her, they put it to a vote, but when the vote is compromised by the aforementioned foreman, Sandra manages to ask for a recount and has two days and a night (or, in French, deux jours et une nuit, as the title suggests) to get the votes together for the secret ballot on the Monday morning. To put it mildly, the film itself is the same conversation a dozen times. There is very little substance past that. But it is the emotion you feel pouring out of its actors that will determine if you like the film. If you can sense the rawness from each performance, the desperation and the sorrow and the surprising moments of joy and everything else all mixed in, then you stand a chance of enjoying it. Deux Jours, Une Nuit is a slice of life film and I don't think it will appeal to everyone, but I think that, if you're the type of person willing to sit down and read the subtitles (or simply watch and understand, if you're Francophone) for an hour and a half, then you stand a pretty solid chance of enjoying it.

#2. Inside Amy Schumer

In an act of true generosity, the first DVD release for this show includes both the first and second season. It is a variety show, something that normally wouldn't appeal to me and simply scare me off. But I figured I'd give it a shot. I already knew Amy -- slightly acquainted but not well versed, I'd say -- from her time on Last Comic Standing . Her show combines sketches, some of which are perfectly honest and others that are spot-on satires, with her edgy stand-up and hilarious interviews with both people on the street and professionals from different walks of life. On the first disc alone, Amy interviews a plastic surgeon, a professional dancer, a stripper, an ex-cop turned bodyguard, a supermodel, and the, uh, proud owner of Mr. Manhattan. Of everything this show offers, my favourite parts are always the interviews, which are categorized under the wink-wink section of the show entitled "Amy Goes Deep." If she were to spin off that section of the show alone, I would watch every bit of it. So, to put it bluntly, I've found a variety show that I can not only tolerate but actually derive pleasure from, which is no small feat. As for Amy? Well, with a show like this and a film like Trainwreck, the force is strong in this one.

#3. Fifty Shades of Grey

Boy, nobody wanted this adaptation made, did they? Well, I did not read the books and have no intention to do so, but I must praise Dakota Johnson for her nuanced performance here. (I just reread what I wrote. It sounds sarcastic, but I promise it's not.) The Christian Grey character felt weak, which is not what you want from this type of character. He should be strong and imposing and tall, dark, and handsome, and . . . just not that actor at all. Dakota gives oomph to her character. Without her, the film would be -- ahem -- flaccid. (I get one joke. Give me at least one!) From the reaction of audiences, the Fifty Shades movie wasn't the sex fantasy everyone had hoped for, hindered by an R-rating, but by taming down the S&M, I enjoyed the softer side of their relationship. The more emotional undercurrents showed a little, which I think was beneficial, and I think most viewers would have responded to that, had it been any other movie but this one with all its panty-dropping hype. And I love the soundtrack. A good soundtrack is key to set the mood. I think it was able to do just that for Fifty Shades of Grey. Overall, I think it's a great start to the trilogy (I assume that they'll make all three films, but who knows? I've been fooled before) and I will definitely watch the next one.

#4. The Boy Next Door

Oh, wow. The less said about this one, the better. I'm almost embarrassed to have admitted watching this. And I just said how much I liked Fifty Shades of Grey. The Boy Next Door is so bad that I have nothing to say. I feel bad for J. Lo. for being in it. I long for the days when she was in tasteful thrillers, like Out of Sight . The Boy Next Door is boring and slow and ridiculously overslathered gunk. I recommend that nobody watch it. You can't get that time back.

#5. Scarface

Believe it or not, I had never seen Scarface. I know that is sacrilege in some circles. I do apologize. Scarface is one of those films where so much has already been said that I feel I have nothing to add. Here are my two cents (with inflation, worth less than one cent in today's dollars): It is a classic, no question, but with classics, I expect a serious tone. Sure, the story to Scarface is serious, borderline heartbreaking at times, but you can't deny that there is an unintentionally hilarious streak running through it, owing to Pacino's over-the-top performance as Tony Montana. I absolutely enjoyed it with my only complaint being that the ending is severely abrupt. I know everyone loves the ultra-violent ending. Again, sacrilege. But I'd already seen it -- hasn't everybody? The ending is so widespread in pop culture that everyone knows it by the time they get around to watching the film as a whole. But I won't drag down Scarface. No, I think anyone who can handle the language and drug use and violence will probably enjoy it.

#6. What Lies Beneath

What Lies Beneath was recommended to me as one of the great forgotten horrors. It's spooky, not stupid, or so I was told. You want it straight? I was lied to. My disappointment was apparent. I insist that there is a good movie buried in there. Unfortunately, it's buried deep. Instead of being a psychological drama or even simply a run-of-the-mill thriller, What Lies Beneath falls victim to a lot of spooky hooey and choreographed jump scares. Editing and a few rewrites may have solved the whole debacle. I even started rewriting the script myself. There is a car accident leading the protagonist Claire to lose her memory. Claire also happens to be a former musician, classically trained and once brilliant. But the story mentions the latter fact and then does nothing with it. Considering the suspense the film wanted, I thought they could have tied together these facts. As Claire is slowly remembering what happened, she could have started playing her instrument again. Bit by bit, she remembers; note by note, she plays. What a missed opportunity. And it all seems to build up to those last few thrilling minutes of the film, which suddenly become plagued with ridiculous resolutions, magical ones that are impossible in reality. The film was already damaged goods by this point. Why injure it even more? Now, I love Michelle Pfeiffer, and I always will, but what a stinker. Let's pretend What Lies Beneath never happened.

#7. Big Eyes

I was excited when I saw this trailer. Amy Adams is going to win an Oscar, I said. So when I had the opportunity to sit down and watch Big Eyes, I was ready. Maybe, this time, it's not the film's fault, but mine. My expectations were too high. We have an expression in my family -- you "Junoed" it. Juno , the 2007 film, was met with acclaim. I watched it; I liked it; I told everyone how great it was and how much they would love it, too, if they saw it. But when they did, they were expecting Citizen Kane . Juno could never meet their expectations. Hence, every time I oversell something, I've "Junoed" it for someone else. And this time, I "Junoed" Big Eyes based on one measly trailer. Big Eyes was interesting but not riveting. I felt sympathy for the artist Margaret Keane (especially with the knowledge that she is real, a person who suffered through this denial of her worth) and disgust at the behaviour of her money-grubbing husband, but it just didn't speak to me on an emotional level. I was greedy. I just wanted more, more, more from the film. Perhaps I'm just dead inside. Who knows? In the end, I didn't feel as invested in Big Eyes as I had hoped to be.

#8. Coneheads

Take what happened with Big Eyes. Now reverse it. Voila. This is Coneheads. Have you seen the cover for Coneheads? It tells you nothing. You see a man, a woman, and a teenage girl . . . and they have coneheads. That's it. So, it's about a family. That's all I had to go from. I wasn't exactly chomping at the bit. So, with a frown, I sat down and was ready for a disappointing Netflix experience. My bar was so low that Coneheads couldn't lose. Yet it surprised me. It wasn't the slime at the bottom of the barrel. It was light and fun and breezy and entertaining. I'm not the biggest Dan Aykroyd fan; I don't like Ghostbusters , despite multiple viewings. But I love Jane Curtin. And together, the two play excellent alien parents. (The coneheads are aliens!) They come to Earth and, without really cloaking their appearance, they fit in with their co-workers and neighbours. They have a baby. They get a house. No one notices their oddities except for Immigration. Coneheads is sweet and heartfelt; I laughed at the jokes and liked the characters. If you can suspend your disbelief that no one calls them out on being weird-looking, then I think you could enjoy this film, too. Coneheads has that wonderful laidback comedy feel of late-eighties/early-nineties films. Maybe if I'd watched SNL more, I would have had some sort of clue as to the film's plot or tone. Be willing to put aside your preconceptions for this one. Coneheads was a hit for me. I don't care what Rotten Tomatoes says.

#9. Still Alice

Alzheimer's disease terrifies me. Still Alice is more of a horror film than anything I can think of that's been released in recent years. The film explores the range of human emotion when an Alzheimer's diagnosis is given. You're not losing the person physically, but mentally they vanish. It is a different kind of death, a different kind of grieving, and it is an incurable kind at that. It's only getting attention recently, thanks to some brave outspoken people, like Seth Rogen, who are willing to rally for it where it matters. But let's go back to the movie. Played legitimately, Julianne Moore gives life to Alice Howland. As an audience, we're watching a person who has built their life around their intellectual prowess crumble bit by bit, having to learn to be somebody else, not the smart one, not the bright spark, but a person with a new kind of worth. You feel like a burden and then you forget yourself completely. You're lucid and then you're not. It is a complicated tightrope to do a performance like this, but Julianne does it with ease. No wonder she won the Oscar. I love Julianne and, although it's not my favourite performance of hers (I am guilty of enjoying Nine Months a little too much), it is definitely one of her best. I enjoyed Still Alice because of her and would eagerly recommend it.

#10. Bob's Burgers

I'm fed up with Family Guy. Often aired together as an animated hour or two of laughs on TV, I was afraid that Bob's Burgers would be like Family Guy. It isn't. They're nothing alike. They both deal with families, but that's where the line is drawn. A quick rundown: Bob Belcher runs Bob's Burgers, a greasy spoon restaurant, and he does it with the help of his family. That includes his supportive wife Linda and their three children, Tina, Gene, and Louise. The children are usually the weakest part of family sitcoms, but that is far from the case on Bob's Burgers. Tina is the eldest of the three, dealing with puberty while being overwhelmingly awkward in social situations. She encapsulates the ridiculous behaviour of a teen without annoying anyone. She tries the trends, including dance fighting and slow dancing. She's fairly realistic, whether we care to admit it or not. Gene is the middle child, a rambunctious boy who likes loud noises and big messes. Still, he tries to do his best. Then, there's Louise, the youngest child who is wise to everything. Her precocious mouth gets them into trouble sometimes since she uses her innocence to wreak havoc on those who don't know any better. She often changes the menu to include foul language and even brings home the school counselor with tall tales of a rocky family life. I loved the first season and plan on indulging in the rest soon. For anyone who wants a taste of the show but isn't ready to sit down and watch it from the start, I recommend the episode, "Crawl Space," in which Bob hides in between the walls of his home to avoid visiting with his in-laws. This episode is so well crafted, filling every second with content and carefully tying in every character to avoid lazy B-plot. It even turns into a parody of The Shining at one point. Who can say no to that?

#11. Orange Is The New Black

Like everybody else, I love Orange Is The New Black. I loved Weeds, Jenji Kohan's first foray into women who go a little bad because of their circumstances. Orange Is The New Black is just as good, if not better. Piper Chapman, the supposed main character, is just a way to tell the stories of all its other characters, which the second and third season of the show made abundantly clear. Jenji even admitted herself that this was her plan all along. I watched the third season, which felt less exciting after the craziness of the sophomore showing, and since I liked it so much, I went back and watched season two again. What a great show. I won't say anything about it for those few who aren't already watching it. I'll just recommend -- nay, insist -- that you see it for yourself.

#12. Masters of Sex: Season Two

I loved the first season of Masters of Sex. What a clever show, I thought. It's like a naughty Mad Men. Then, I watched the second season. It felt shaky and undecided. Everybody I loved from the first season had evaporated. Masters and Johnson weren't enough to sustain me. The finale was okay, but it felt like it was pandering, trying to hold my interest with stupid cliffhangers until next season. I didn't go for it. I may or may not watch the premiere of the third season, but frankly, I don't really care anymore.

#13. The Mindy Project: Season Three

Are you kidding me? The series got cancelled this season and on what is arguably its most cliffhanger-heavy finale ever. If it had been cancelled after the second season, everything would be hunky-dory. But no. They chose this season to call it quits. Now, there is talk of a web series, but who knows how true they'll stay to the original? The adventures of Danny and Mindy had me absorbed. I loved Rhea Perlman's return to TV as Danny's overprotective mum. I liked Stephen Colbert's guest performance as Danny's priest. There was so much going on this season with Mindy alone that there was no room for cancellation. But the network didn't care and axed it anyway. Fingers crossed that the web series is just as good and that nothing -- and no one -- gets lost in the shift. Whoa nelly.

#14. Will & Grace

I watched Will & Grace reruns on occasion and often out of order. So, now I decided to start from the beginning and watch it as it was meant to be seen. I find that I've loved a lot of shows that I used to hate by going back and watching them from the beginning; Seinfeld and the American version of The Office are two examples of shows that I ended up buying all the seasons to do just that. Will & Grace is funny always, but to get its full impact, it is meant to be seen in order. This especially becomes true at the end of the third season with storylines that carry into the fourth season and beyond. Their past adventures in the early seasons influence their actions, attitudes, and decisions in the later seasons. As one of the groundbreaking shows of the late nineties and early noughties, I respect this show for what it did, bringing laughter and joy as well as enlightenment to millions.

#15. Mom: Season One

I'm not sure whether to count this one. I've watched some but not all of the first season of Mom. In a book I wrote, Reel Talk: Irreverent Insights on Cinema and Television, I dove head first into Chuck Lorre's programming, but at the time, Mom wasn't even on the radar. So, when it came out, I was slightly curious. It was mostly for Allison Janney that I wanted to watch. I expected a silly pseudo-saccharine mother-daughter show, something like a less quippy Gilmore Girls . Why I thought that, I couldn't tell you, but Mom is definitely not sweet. It doesn't hold your hand. It's harsh and fairly dark and tries to make its characters unlikeable. Unfortunately, you can't not like Allison Janney. She is simply wonderful. She plays Bonnie, the worst mother ever who is trying to mend her relationship with her daughter and, in turn, grandchildren. Bonnie's daughter, Christy, is no angel either, following a similar path of destruction until she decided to get her act together. And that's kind of what the show is about. As I said, I've watched some but not all of this debut season, so there's time for more plot to be added. (There are a few little twists that I'm leaving out, but that's to minimize spoilers.) As far as Chuck Lorre shows go, I think Mom is the one that is the best written. It may not be as "ha-ha" funny as shows like Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory try to be, but it is darkly comedic, funny in a warped way. So if you're twisted enough to appreciate its tone, then you'll probably enjoy Mom.

#16. Mad About You: Season One

Mad About You deals with both the trappings and the realities of marriage, those earliest bright-eyed moments along with the pitfalls and obstacles that most must defy. Newlyweds Paul Buchman and Jamie Stemple deal with their conflicting opinions through that first whirlwind year in the first season. They deal with everything, from the typical -- which side of the bed, the emotional weight of the first joint furniture purchase, conflicts over in-laws and the still-single pair of her sister and his best friend -- to the distinctly unique -- from the need to not be boring to disagreements over cumin, from the refusal to give up their old apartment to the deceptive merits of a nutpick. I found it eerily accurate in some ways, but a tad overly dramatic in others. Still, it was nice to watch another decent nineties sitcom, which is where I endlessly return to find most of my entertainment ( Roseanne and Friends being two of my all-time favourites). Since I never discovered Mad About You when it aired, watching it for the first time now is a trip down memory lane, the nostalgic calm before the storm that is the twenty-first century. The pace is slower in that nice comfortable way that the nineties allowed for the world, a world full of Bill Clinton and Gene Siskel and Regis and Kathie Lee. It's in this realm that supporting characters like Mark and Fran Devenow thrive, which are easily the most entertaining duo that are supposed to be unlikable social parasites, akin to Janice -- oh my God! -- from Friends. There's no room for nuisances anymore; times have changed. That has to be one of the strongest elements of Mad About You -- the right place, the right time. If magically transported forward through the decades, I would estimate that Jamie and Paul's marriage would probably be the same today, but the world that surrounds them is most certainly different, and it sure is nice to slip into that pre-Giuliani "final frontier" New York world.

#17. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

I've always been a fan of that show, a clever animated series aimed at little ones but funny enough for their parents. I also love time travel movies. A perfect hybrid is found here. Besides, who can resist SpongeBob? Visually dynamic, I can only imagine that it was a spectacular film to see in theatres.

#18. Selma

A moving civil rights film that didn't pull its punches, Selma was better than I expected. The trailers were preachy or, oddly enough, bombastic, but the film was neither. In truth, I am not sure what to say about Selma. It's not as good as other black history films or series, like Roots or The Color Purple , but it is still a decent film. It finds an obvious villain in the Governor Wallace and is able to shake its audience into caring passionately about the fate of its characters, even the minor ones. It is shocking and brutal at times. Unfortunately, it is honest. Horrible things did happen and Selma won't shy away. I'm glad director Ava DuVernay made that choice. For its truthful depictions and moving narrative, I would recommend it.

#19. The Imitation Game

War is a horrible thing and anything done to prevent or abbreviate it is a wonderful thing. Alan Turing did wonderful things. A mathematical genius with severe social awkwardness, Turing didn't make friends easily. He didn't play well with the other boys and girls. Still, against all odds, he worked with a team of cryptologists to break the impenetrable Enigma Code used by the Nazis and put an end to the Second World War. Hellbent on developing a sophisticated machine to do the job that human minds could not, Turing revolutionized the world, but this film focuses on more than just his groundbreaking work. The Imitation Game slides through time -- Turing's formative prewar years, his achievements during that critical at-war period, and the subsequent investigation of him by determined police officers. While The Imitation Game is not the greatest film of the "mathematical genius working for the government" variety, it is still a strong showing nonetheless. For anyone interested in WWII, cryptography, or Turing himself, I recommend it.

#20. Gone Baby Gone

Ben Affleck is slowly becoming one of my favourite directors. I've seen The Town and, of course, Argo , which I loved, but I hadn't seen his directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone. Directing his brother Casey in the lead role, Gone Baby Gone focuses on the case of a missing little girl in a crummy neighbourhood whose citizens refuse to cooperate with the police. Little bits of information come out, slowly revealed, which adds to the suspense until the twist ending that I honestly didn't see coming. I thought it was good -- not as entertaining as Argo, but entertaining nonetheless. Affleck truly deserves some recognition for his consistently strong output. I don't care if he's a bad Batman; he's a great director.

#21. The Shipping News

A truly Canadian film based on a truly Canadian book, I was moved by The Shipping News. I can't explain it. It feels deeply rooted in me somehow, despite not being a Newfoundlander. The Shipping News is a father-daughter tale of sadness and rebirth. Julianne Moore's performance (there she is again!) is incredible as the single mother of a challenged young son; Kevin Spacey is equally good as the father of an emotionally raw little girl. Judi Dench knocks it out of the park, which is just what Judi Dench does. The Shipping News is a thing to behold. That being said, I do understand why some people won't take to a film like this, especially those who aren't Canadian. It might feel too personal, too unique geographically, and thus not relatable.

#22. Our Idiot Brother

What would you do for Willie Nelson? A solidly entertaining flick about the black sheep of the family, Our Idiot Brother uplifts and makes you reexamine how you evaluate true worth in this world. Three sisters, with vastly different personalities, welcome back their brother into their life when he returns home from a short prison stay. It's not a flawless film, but it's a decent watch.

#23. Into the Woods

Less in the musical style of films like Chicago and more along the lines of the sing-talking Les Mis , Into the Woods weaves a fantasy tale that combines elements of several beloved fables, like Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Little Red Riding Hood. The story is simple: The evil witch (the next-door neighbour, of course) strikes a deal with the baker and his wife to return to them the fertility she took in a curse on his ancestors. All they must do is get her four items: the red cape (from Little Red Riding Hood), a gold slipper (from Cinderella's foot), a white cow (from Jack who must sell it at market), and locks of corn-coloured hair (from Rapunzel, whom the Witch locked up in a tower). Ultimately, the stories are the same, so we can guess what will come of each, but the baker's journey ties them altogether. The film has its ups and downs. It wasn't all that dazzling visually, looking a lot like the set of Twilight. The sing-song conversations can become grating, especially when they could just as easily speak plainly. (I understand it's trying to stay true to the stage original, but that adjustment alone could vastly improve this adaptation.) That being said, the female empowerment angle -- Cinderella feeling unfulfilled by her prince, the baker's wife insisting on helping her husband to lift the spell, etc. -- is an interesting twist and adds dimension to the same flat stories we've heard time and again. Even Little Red Riding Hood seems more tenacious. As far as musicals go, it's only mediocre. If you're not a fan of the sing-song kind of thing, Into The Woods won't change your mind.

#24. Raising Hope: Season One

Jimmy Chance has the cards stacked against him. He works for his father's lawn-care business, lives with his nutty family, and can't woo his unrequited love, Sabrina from the grocery store. Oh, and after a lightning-quick romance in the back of a van with a murderess, he's now the father of a one-year-old daughter. It takes a village, though, which is why Raising Hope walks through the day-to-day goings-on of Jimmy and his family, a less-than-brilliant ragtag team dragging up little baby Hope. With the mega-talented comediennes Emmy-nominated Martha Plimpton and Cloris Leachman as Jimmy's mother and great-grandmother, Raising Hope tackles germaphobia, health insurance, senile dementia, vasectomies, and wills with the trademark trailer-trash humour the Chances do so well. If you can get past the rough-around-the-edges trimmings of lower-lower-lower-lower-middle-class life, it's well worth the watch.

#25. Northern Exposure: Season One

What happens when you're truly stuck in a town you're dying to leave? A young doctor who took an Alaskan scholarship is fresh out of med school and has to repay his debts by practicing for four years in the city that sponsored him. However, with an overabundance of doctors in Anchorage, he is sent instead to the picturesque village of Cicily on the so-called "Alaskan Riviera". However, things aren't as they seem. When Dr. Joel Fleischman arrives, it's not long before he's desperate to leave, but it seems impossible to cut through the red tape and return to his native New York. This short and sweet debut season was a network midseason replacement, which explains its brevity, but it doesn't make it any less impactful. The beauty of Northern Exposure is that Joel is a fish out of icy water. The position he's in isn't comfy because of the quirky denizens: Maggie, the self-sufficient bush pilot who constantly challenges Joel's arrogance; Maurice, the former astronaut who owns most of the town; Chris, the ex-convict DJ who bathes in the lake and speaks his mind on-air; Ed, a half-Native film buff who becomes an instant friend of Joel's, whether he likes it or not; Marilyn, Joel's receptionist who doesn't believe in appointment books and uses her words sparingly; Holling and Shelley, happily unmarried Canadian bar owners with a major age gap; and Ruth-Anne, the old biddie who runs the general store and library with gusto. These characters are so well formed and interesting that they feel real. That probably explains the load of awards Northern Exposure netted in their first few seasons. Dealing equally with big ideas like self-reliance and legacy and smaller situations like hunting a bear or running a radio show, I thoroughly enjoyed the eight episodes that constitute their first season.

(To Be Continued...)