Bookshop Bumblings

I stayed home sick yesterday, and when I realized I was having a moment of not being nauseated I moved into action. I stockpiled everything I thought I might need on the coffee table in front of the couch, popped a movie in the dvd player and had it all set up so I’d just have to push a button on the remote control. Then, I got my ipod close, settled my laptop in, and then very quickly selected a handful of books in case I could read.

The funny thing about my book collection (and it is a rather healthy collection) is that I have more books that I haven’t read than I have. Not because I don’t read much that I want to, but because after I finish a book it is rare that I want to keep it. Don’t get me wrong. I will read a book, and then hunt it down in hardback to purchase while giving away the paperback. However, that’s only when I really love a title so most of the books I read get sent on. This unbalance might also have to do with the facts that I rarely reread books, and that my father always taught me that you should have books which you’ve never read around, and I took him very seriously.

“Never Let Me Go” happened to be at the top of the stack of my stockpile. I had tried to start it during Christmas, but to be honest I’m so busy and distracted during that time of the year that I usually can’t even finish the jokes on the inside a gum wrapper much less a novel. Thus, I didn’t give much weight to the fact I had already tried and failed. Plus, I figured this would be only a half-hearted try since the night before, when I started to get ill, I couldn’t stand to read anything because of feeling so poorly.

However, I picked it up again, and was immediately sucked in. That might have to do with the fact that it starts off taking place in a boarding school. I’m such a sucker for books with school as the setting, and I’m not sure why. I do know, however, that it is the reason for my slight obsession for teen books that weren’t meant to be read by teens. This one definitely has a much different angle than most school books, and is no where close to being a YA title. There’s this whole dsytopian situation abound. (Although, I won’t go into the plot. I rarely do on this site, and I’m not sure why. It could be likely because I think that would sound like a book report. However, it’s most likely because I don’t like knowing too much about the plot myself before reading a book. It always seems to ruin it for me. Even the incredibly short Booksense blurb I read about this novel before reading it, altered how I felt about it while taking it in.)

Suffice it to say, it’s the best book I’ve read so far this year, but that didn’t keep it from making me unbelievably sad at the end. Of course, that could have just been the fact that I had to go to work the next day. Either way, it’s definitely a thoughtful, well written, not entirely happy but worthwhile still experience. Plus, I’m always excited to discover a current author who I really like – even if everyone has read something by him except for me.

Oh, Miss Jackson is so funny. I think she’s going to be my new light trash reading.

My father really wanted me to read this book as he thought it would be something our customers would really love. I found this hilarious because it’s written in the exact same style as how my father writes (which differentiates drastically from how he speaks.)

There’s a part in the book where a daughter-in-law horrifies townspeople as she declares that her husband and his family all have the eyes of beautiful cows. She doesn’t mean it a derogatory manner, but that’s how it’s taken. I could relate because I get that comparison a lot, and I know that people mean well but…. please don’t ever compare a fat girl to a cow, even if it’s her eyes you’re speaking of.

Cutest mouse EVER. Motorcycle Ralph can SUCK it.

I wondered why my dad had thrown away an advanced reader’s copy of this civil war novel. That was until I read it. Talk about being The Meh.

You know South Carolina isn’t showing any of this gay lovin so I figured I’d have to read the story if I ever wanted to know anything about it. Except for the detailed scene of using spit for lube, I really liked it. Of course, the correct quote is along the lines of, “I wish I could quit you, you sonofawhoreson bitch!”

I think I might take to correcting people when they use that line. You know me, always the life of the party.

It will take me longer to upload the picture on dial-up than it did for me to read this entire book. Such a slim little book which I should have read ages ago, but for some reason always overlooked it.

So so sad that it seems that words are but trivialities when it comes to talking about it.

Oh, stop looking at me like that.

Have you not seen what he can do to a woman’s body on extreme makeover?

Hook me up with some of that please, but not
<—— that. He looks something like a stone chimpanzee.

I figured I’d give the most recent winnter of the Booker award a shot. It was a muddled tale of a elderly man whose wife has just died, and his memories of the summer of his first kiss. I use “muddled” because the narrator will be halfway through telling the story, and then suddenly remark something to the effect of, “Hmm, well it couldn’t have been the day of her first kiss because it was evening when we left the movie theater and not afternoon. Anyway…”

*Spoiler* In the end, his first kiss drowns along with her twin brother. I suppose it was an okay novel. I finished it quickly, and it didn’t leave me with any suicidal tendencies. But it’s as if it’s melancholy wasn’t enough to be striking. It was just there. Take it or leave it but with no ability to imprint the story upon the reader. Although, I guess I shall take away using the word “sozzled” for getting drunk. It has a nice little ring to it as if it would make for a great theme of a sea shanty.

I was flipping through a Book Sense picks pamphlet when I came across the review of this book. It read,”I loved Arlene, who was funny yet dark, bargaining with God that she will not have sex, tell a lie, or return to her small hometown, just as long as God keeps anyone from finding the body she left buried in the kudzu.” Normally, this would have never piqued my interest except for that I had seen the book on my dad’s staff recommendation shelf. This didn’t exactly scream “father” read so I picked it up to flip through and ended up devouring it.

It was a hilarious incredibly light read. Not my general fare but definitely something I could recommend to customers, especially when it comes out in paperback. Also it will provide me many a giggle to come as I envision my dad reading a book with a quirky southern woman named Arlene as the protagonist. Oh Captain Squawk, how the might have fallen.