Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Recently Read

So! I hope everyone survived the holidays intact. Here's a Recently Read - skip it if you wanna.

1. Strip Club by Lily Burana - Memoir of a stripper. Interesting.

2. Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout - Novel about an uptight mom and her teenage daughter. Both of the main characters were so clueless that it made me cringe, although that may have been what the author was aiming for. Meh.

3. Nickel Mountain by John Gardner - Novel about a diner owner. Bo-ring.

Let's do some movie reviews!

4. Iron Maiden: Flight 666. Documentary. I stumbled across this one on VH1 Classics one night. I was never a big fan of Iron Maiden, until I watched this doc. I didn't know that it was them who did that song "Run to the Hills" - you know, the one that VH1 (or was it MTV) used for an ad, with the still-frame kitten?





Okay, it was VH1. ANYway, this was a really entertaining doc, and the lead dude can flat out SING.

5. You Think You Really Know Me - The Gary Wilson Story - documentary about a local musician popular in the seventies who kind of fell off the face of the earth. Interesting for the local references.

6. Super 8 - Oh, man, this got really good reviews. The first half-hour or so is fantastic, but the rest of it was WAY too Goonies-ish for my taste. I can imagine that pre-adolescent boys LOVED this movie, but me? Meh. And the ending? Don't get me started.

Okay, let's go back to books.

7. The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Brady Udall. Novel about an orphan's adventures. Man, I tried, I really did, but I finally gave up on page 318, with another hundred still to go.

8. Here We Go Again by Betty White. I love her, and I thought this would be a memoir of her personal life, but instead it was more like a history of television. I guess it would be interesting if you're into that sort of thing.

9. World of Pies by Karen Stolz - Not as good as "Fanny and Sue", another book of hers, but still charming. A quick read.

So! That's what I've been reading. How about you?

4 comments:

Domestic Kate said...

I just put Super 8 on my Netflix queue after reading your review...I love Goonies! I also might have the sensibilities of a teenage boy :)

I got a Sony Reader as a Christmas gift, and I'm just getting it set up. I plan to read The Geography of Bliss in the near future. It was a book I was going to use in one of my classes next semester, but now that I'm not teaching, it's just for me.

Becs said...

I just finished reading In the Garden of the Beasts by Erik Larson. It's about the American ambassador in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power.

The thing with history is that you usually already know the ending.

Despite this good man's many efforts, no on in the Roosevelt administration took the man seriously because he was a mere college professor who had no "money of his own" and "wasn't one of us."

That's simplifying it, but it's still a good read.

fmcgmccllc said...

Just watched the Original Oceans 11 with Frank and the rat pack. Last night watched A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott. Holding Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Dame Elizabeth in reserve. Amazon screwed up out book order so hubs bought the only new book in Shanghai, In My Life by Dick Cheney, will let you know. Happy New Year.

rockygrace said...

Kate, if you liked Goonies, Super 8 is the movie for you. And let me know how you like the ereader.

Becs, sometimes I find myself reading something I already know the ending to, and hoping that somehow, some way, it will end differently. Silly, huh?

and fmetc., all those sound interesting. Except for the Dick Cheney book. You'd probably have to hold a gun against my head to get me to read that one. Then again, who knows? Maybe I'd learn something. Oh, wait, I already know that Cheney's an asshole. :)