Recently Read

As usual, skip it if you wanna.

1.  A Friend  of the Flock by John McCormack - Memoirs  of a country vet.  I read his book "Fields and Pastures New" and enjoyed it, and  this one was good as well.

2.  The Maid's Version by Daniel Woodrell - Novel based on a true incident of a southern dance hall burning down  in the twenties.  This book got great reviews, but I couldn't really get into it, and I didn't finish it.

3.  Movie review!  The Sapphires is a movie "based on a true story" (meaning, "Well, it COULD have happened") about a girl-singing-group in 60s Australia.  It was enjoyable enough, but I tried to get all the way through and never quite made it.  I think that when you're going through tough times personally, it's just hard to get into any kind of pass-the-time recreation.  I'll have to give The Maid's Version, and this movie, another shot down the line.

4.  Back to books.  The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult is a novel about a high school girl who says she was raped, and the boy who says it was consensual.  Jodi Picoult sells a ton of books, so I thought I'd give one a try, but I was not impressed by The Tenth Circle.  None of the characters were particularly likeable, the plot was one we've all seen before, and the writing was not particularly memorable or smooth.  I didn't finish it.

5.  The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls - Novel about a pair of young sisters who go to live with their uncle when their mom flakes out.  I LOVED this author's memoir,  The Glass Castle, but this book just rang false to me.  Told from the viewpoint of the younger sister, it almost seemed like it was written by a twelve-year-old, and not in a good way.  Meh.

6.   The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon - I know, I know, I'm late to the party on this one. This is a sprawler of a novel about comic-book writers in the thirties, also including subplots about WWII, the Golem of Prague, and tons of other interesting stuff.  Very good.  It's a "guy book", in that I'm thinking that men would really enjoy it, but I liked it, too.

7.  The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald - This 1945 memoir, about a sophisticated woman who finds herself on a chicken farm in the Pacific Northwest, was made into a movie starring Claudette Colbert back in the day.  While the book was funny, I found the author's attitude toward some of her "lesser" neighbors mean-spirited, although I shouldn't be one to talk when it comes to dissing one's neighbors.  *cough*

8.  Movie review!  I had to Netflix "Phantasm", a low-budget indie horror film from the seventies, to confirm my suspicion that one of the employee's at my mom's nursing home looked just like the funeral home dude from the movie.  Survey says?  Dingdingding we have a winner!  Anyway, the movie is really pretty good, horror film-wise,  with some good special effects for its time/budget, most noticeably the flying spheres.  I liked it, and I don't generally go for the genre.  And holy sh*t, that guy who played the funeral home dude is now working in a local nursing home, I'm convinced of it.

So!  That's what I've been reading, and watching, lately.  How about you?