Media Consumption Post

I had the opportunity to see the movie Captain Phillips Tuesday night. Slow starter, no mistake there, but the ending was some of the best acting I've seen in recent memory. Seriously, it's a movie worth seeing. I know Tom Hanks won't win an Academy Award for it because the competition is so tough this year, but...you know? I think I'll pick him on my Oscar ballot anyway.

Moving on...

I'm listening to Lord of the Rings on audio in my car, courtesy of Amazon and Audible. I read the books possibly twenty times in high school and college and when I die, I hope my afterlife is reliving the years of the ring war...forever. Not that I believe in an afterlife, but for me, nice thought.

Anyway, the reason I started the listen was because it's been a few years and I missed the characters and also because I feel a relentless tug urging me to have an adventure (or something like one). I have to say, this helps...a lot.

After being away so long, I find myself noticing things that I never noticed before.

Like how weird the distances are. I sort of wonder if coming from a smallish island warped Tolkien's sense of proportion and distance a bit. Everything is...closer together than in more modern knock-offs of the genre he created.

Also, my dislike of Aragorn has faded a bit since my younger days and my deep-sucking-chest-wound for Boromir and his fate are not as keen. Well...no one is thirteen forever, right? Still, in my fantasy afterlife, I think I would expend considerable energy trying to save his unworthy ass.

I find myself gravitating more toward Gimli the dwarf than the human characters.

I myself am now and shall always be a hobbit.

Media post - books

These are books that I am reading/have read in the last year that I believe are good enough to blanket recommend to pretty much anyone:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (in-progress)

It's literary. It's better than the movie. It informs the reader about human nature and themselves. And unlike the movie, IMHO, it isn't just about slavery. If you like short-stories, but find they leave you wanting more...ding-ding-ding.

Blood of Tyrants by Naomi Novik

Of course, read the other books first, but that's sort of the point. The Temeraire novels are terrific almost all the way through. Well researched, wonderful characters. Basically, it's Horatio Hornblower with dragons. And actually, yes, it is mostly about slavery.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

Another human condition-type book, but the prose is wonderful, the suspense is palpable, and it will make you (the reader) think hard about what's important in life. Uncomfortably funny, very British, but worth the read.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Best thing in modern, dark fantasy for the younger crowd. Seriously dark for my tastes, but utterly inspired from beginning to end, incredibly daring. If Gaiman, Pullman, and Nix had a literary love-child, I think it would look something like this. Bonus: the sequel is just as good, but even darker.

Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley

This is from the Flavia de Luce series of mystery novels. Start at the beginning. Please? Again, seriously anglophilic, but charming. The series takes place in post-WWII England in a quaint village with even quainter people. Flavia is...twelve, I think? She solves mysteries and thinks about poisoning people.

Defending Jacob by William Landay

A little too popular, but still worth the time. Readers of John Grisham might especially enjoy this one. I am not such a person myself. The book provides an interesting look into the justice system and into family curses.

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Again, dragons, but this time in a more high-fantasy style, although definitely with modern twists. The book asks interesting questions about love, kinship, and family secrets. I am eagerly awaiting more from the author. I usually don't say that.

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

Second book in the All Souls Trilogy. I feel the urge to defend this as not being paranormal romance. The author did some terrific research into history, science, and literature. She also wrote a vampire novel I actually read...and loved. But, yes, tons of romance novel here. Aching for the final volume.


So that's a year of the best books from my reading life, brought to you with memory-jogging help from Good Reads. If you read, you need a Good Reads account.

Blogging it forward

I am not really one of those people who support charitable causes. Mostly because I am always broke, but I digress.

In Russia, a young blogger named Anton Buslov has cancer for which he cannot afford treatment. From the Yahoo! News article I read and his Give Forward site, I feel like he's a good guy and, if he lives, will continue to contribute to society in above-average ways - he's smart, for one thing.

Another reason I want to support his campaign, if only by blogging about it, is his stance that it's better to fight his disease with good instead of using the method lionized by the TV series Breaking Bad, which uses cancer to justify criminal enterprise and violence. The show disgusts me on a visceral level, because it is entirely possible that people will use it to excuse bad behavior...and I'm not talking about parking in the handicapped zone without a sticker here, okay? But real, violent, anti-social behavior because they're ill.

Well, you can't fight Hollywood, but Buslov is doing a great thing by getting it out there that a grim cancer diagnosis does not need to make someone a monster.

If you have a mind to, please at least read his story. With a lot of luck and less bad in the world, he may get the treatment he needs to live.