Wednesday, October 10, 2012

i missed you.

gee, there's a lot of multimedia mixed in here.  Also, my right hand is in a brace, so forgive any typos.  Fixing them suddenly became a lot of work.

Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels, by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan.  809.3  I have been meaning to read this for ever and ever, and now I finally have.  It's very funny and I now feel like I have a better understanding of romance. 

Burning Wild, by Christine Feehan. I started reading this while in the middle of the above nonfiction.  It is a silly book, but it was really nice to be able to say "ah, the author is trying to give the hero a troubled past to overcome" and things like that. 
I did like something the heroine said: "That's insane.  You've been reading too many novels, Susan.  In real life, if the man is bossy and arrogant, he isn't all that easy to live with" (105).  Of course, the hero is so messed up and demanding but she can tell that he's only doing it because he's damaged, etc.

More than Petticoats: Remarkable Montana Women by Gayle C. Shirley.  920.72.  This was alot like Hearts West, in that the stories were interesting but very short.  I would have liked to see (a looooot) more research and detail.

McCallum, with John Hannah.  This is another BBC series.  I can't watch them, actually, because I think it takes place in England, the main character is Scottish, his assistant is Irish, I can't really understand them, and there are no subtitles.

Glamorama, by Bret Easton Ellis.  My coworker suggested this for me back when we were doing our What's Your Next Read? program.  The books I listed were Crucible of Gold, Heartless, Island Practice, Violinist's Thumb, and Botany of Desire.  I picked this up and couldn't even start it, because it's written in the present tense.  I may try it at some future point when I'm feeling a little more lenient, but I couldn't handle it this month.

The Custom of the Sea: A Shocking True Tale of Shipwreck, Murder, and the Last Taboo, by Neill Hanson.  I only made it through the prologue and chapter 1.  I felt like the author was purposefully setting up to be as horrifically detailed as possible.  Now, having read Dinner with a Cannibal exclusively on my lunch breaks, I don't have a problem with explicit detail that's kind of gross.  For some reason, I was not getting good vibes from this guy.

The Mediterranean Heart Diet: Why it Works and How to Reap the Health Benefits, with Recipes to Get you Started, by Helen V. Fisher with Cynthia Thomson.  This is kind of older, and the only book we had on Mediterranean dieting (which my doctor suggested I try).  Hey, a diet heavy in carbs of all sorts, seconded by cooked veggies?  I can handle that.  Can't say I read the whole book, but enough to determine that it's worth keeping on the shelves.

Secondhand Spirits, by Juliet Blackwell.  I don't remember why I picked this up, or really why I put it down again so quickly.  I think it seemed way too formulaic within the first few pages.  And who needs that.

Dirty Jobs, with Mike Rowe (Sludge Cleaner & Hot Tar Roofer), (Bat Cave Scavenger & Worm Dung Farmer).  These are like little special sets (although I don't know how they were matched up), only 2 episodes per disc.  They were donated to the library and I really like the approximately 2 episodes I've previously seen.  I knew my husband would really like them, too, although he is for some reason really resistant to watching them.  So I subversively put one on and he gets sucked in.  Mwah ha ha!

I ordered a whole season for the library, nominally because these donated ones are circulating well, but really just because I wanted to watch more.

Black Adder, seasons 1-5, Rowan Atkinson.  I didn't get to watch all of season 1, because there was a problem with the disc, but I finished the rest.  BBC so no subtitles.  :{  They are very funny, but then each season has this terrible, depressing ending.  What's up with that?

Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, by Louise Rennison; preformed by Stina Nielsen.  I'm sure I won't say this very often, if ever again: the audio is so much better than the print!  The reader is able to take parts that I thought were just silly and make them appropriately angst-y.  The book seemed substantially deeper than I had originally thought.  Nice job, Stina.

I listed to this all the way through on a solo cross-state drive; I'm afraid I was speaking with an accent for a while when I finally got out of the car.

The Darwin Awards (4), by Wendy Northcutt; read by Patrick Lawlor and Julie Schaller.  This was supposed to be the way-back audio-book, only I had a preschool passenger.  He didn't like it, so we only listened to the opening chapter.

1 comment:

Jud said...

Black Adder is such lovely dark humor that it may well be too much to expect happy endings. I think that would be a let down.