So Mike’s mom gave me two books for Christmas last year. One was Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, which I reviewed earlier (here), and the second was Sister by Rosamund Lupton.

After finishing Slowness today I was looking for a new book that would be more contemporary, so I plucked Sister off my shelf. I had no idea that I’d finish it within the day, but it moved quickly and was a decent page turner. Honestly I had no idea what it was about, and it was nothing like what I expected.

All I’ll say is that it falls under the category of suspense, and that it is written in the form of a letter from one sister to another. I enjoyed it enough that I wouldn’t want to ruin anything for a potential reader. =P

(edit) I just added this book to my Shelfari and realized that it has several covers. The copy I own has a sunsetty background with a black iron-work fence. But I saw another one with a girl walking in the snow that has a revealing tagline (which I will not repeat here).

Also, apparently the new Xanga editor doesn’t allow for the Amazon “Currently Reading” box?

My Pocket Frogs game informs me that we’re in the 29th week of 2012, which means I’m only one week behind now! Well, two weeks really since tomorrow is the start of a new week too.

I just finished reading a book called Slowness by Milan Kundera, apparently originally written in French. This version was translated by Linda Asher. I picked it out of a box of books that Mike had when we were unpacking, but when I mentioned it to him yesterday he didn’t recognize the title or the cover, and didn’t think he had read it before. It was with his other Tech books if I recall correctly, but it doesn’t have a Caltech Bookstore sticker on the back. Mike thinks maybe he borrowed it from his mom for something to read on the plane. But my limited knowledge of his mom’s reading habits don’t lead me to believe that this book belongs to her either. Oh well.

It’s a very strange book, and very short. If you’re like me and you suspend all disbelief when you’re reading, then you can go through the whole thing happy as a clam, and only in the last few chapters realize that nothing has really made sense, and that the relationship between characters is very confused.

The book centers around an 18th century novella, which is actually quite interesting and thought provoking. Although this book, apparently a national bestseller (in which nation?), feels more like the type of book that seems to be deep and meaningful but vague and hard to understand, to the point where someone who didn’t understand it would be hesitant to critique it for fear of others discerning that he was unsophisticated? That was a hugely offensive run-on sentence, but  hopefully the message got through…

I can see why Daddy was surprised to see it turned into a movie. But unlike him, I am not at all curious to see how they did it. While I was reading it, Mike said that after I was done we could watch the movie together. At the time I thought it sounded like a good idea. But now that I’ve finished the book I have zero interest in seeing the movie. Well, maybe 5% interest, after all it has Brad Pitt.

I’ve never followed baseball so I really had no idea if any of the things Lewis said were generalities or if any of his generalities were unfair. But if I take the book at face value, it’s certainly compelling. The book read a little bit like Malcolm Gladwell – trying to take statistics and economics and apply it to something the general public will care about. Only it seemed more focused and less froufrou.

The afterword was a bit annoying. Just sounded like the author bragging and generally being contemptuous of “The Club.” Makes you wonder if there isn’t some underlying grudge, which really discoloured the rest of the book, adding that in at the end. *shrug*

So I noticed that the Pocket Frogs collections are numbered by week as well, so that will help me to keep track of how behind I am, LOL.

Just finished a book that was really two books: Far Rainbow and The Second Invasion From Mars. The book was recommended to Mike by his friend Matus, and then as an after thought Matus said I could/should read it too. He told us the story he wanted us to read was Far Rainbow and that the other one was kind of weird

I totally agree.

Far Rainbow is about a planet called Rainbow where scientists are conducting physics experiments. It’s a bit hard to follow the “science” but there’s enough that’s familiar that you just sort of go along with the story. It wanders here and there and has a few odd bits, but in the end you settle back and sigh and you think about life.

The Second Invasion From Mars is a journal-style story that is very random in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way. You wonder how dependable the narrator is. Everyone has Greek names, and it’s sort of interesting to hear all these names tossed around. The whole time I was wondering what exactly was happening. At first I’m with the narrator, wondering what is up with the emphasis on stomach juice, but then the narrator gets convinced but doesn’t bother to convince me or explain how he was convinced. I don’t know. It was very odd.

So the other day we bought a pack of chicken drumsticks. We made our normal garlic chicken dish with some of them, and then we had a bunch left over and wanted to try something else. I really have no idea what to do with chicken drumsticks, so of course, we consulted the internet.

We found a recipe for Chicken El Dermie Le Hermie (whatever that means) on allrecipes.com by searching under “chicken drumsticks” under “Ingredient” (I know, obvious).

I’m not sure you could say we followed this recipe, but we definitely used it as a guideline. Here’s waht we actually did:

Ingredients
- 4 chicken drumsticks
- sesame oil blended with soy bean oil (Mike had this in the pantry)
- garlic powder
- salt
- black pepper

Preheat the oven to 350. Put the drumsticks in a loaf pan. Sprinkle with garlic powder, salt, and black pepper. Drizzle with sesame oil. Turn drumsticks over and season the other side.
Bake drumsticks for 30 minutes, turn them over and bake for another 30 minutes.

They ended up pretty tasty. You get a crispy skin which is nice, and the meat is really tender. =)

So this entry is standing for the week of June 17-June 23, I guess. Which means I’m about three weeks behind? I thought I was worse off on this reading resolution business, but I guess not.

I’ve just finished Sylvia’s Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell. I’d never heard of this book before, but while going through some of Mike’s stuff, I found it in a box of old Caltech books. Apparently Mike bought it for En123 (that’s what the Caltech Bookstore sticker says anyway), but either didn’t read it for the class or simply ended up dropping the class, since he says he’s never read it.

It has the typical style and tone of BritLit that you read for class, but it has a very strong dialect-ical influence in the dialogue which takes a bit of getting used to.

When I was reading it, I tripped happily along. All the characters felt familiar, and yet I couldn’t really say who I compared them to in my mind. I think it had a very neat sort of…Christian morals ending? As if you read the book to a child to teach them a lesson in proper Christian conduct or something.

I think you know all along what is going to happen, and so nothing surprises you. You’re just reading it for the sake of reading it. Going along with the story and such. I guess now that I think about it, it really is quite appropriate for a bedtime story that you read in installments.

Okay, I know this is delayed. I just haven’t been reading much lately. Gaspu!

Today I finished Inheritance, the last book of the four-book cycle of the same name by Christopher Paolini. It’s been awhile since I’ve read Eragon, Eldest, and Brisingr. (I had to look up the titles of the second and third books just now. I was going to guess “Brisingr” and “Glaedr”.)

It’s been a good run. The last book did not disappoint. I got through it relatively quickly, and enjoyed it throughout. There were a few times when I wish they had done more to prod my memory as to the details of previous books, but all in all the book did well as an effective stand-alone (given how long ago I read the other three). Paolini did a good job keeping the style and feeling the same as how I remembered the previous books. He had some choice lines which made me laugh out loud.

I think this last book wrapped up the story neatly. It seems pretty definitive; I don’t think Paolini will backtrack and write more books for the series. But it also leaves something to the imagination for readers, which is always nice.

So awhile back (wow, a long time ago actually), Tanya was telling me about this book, The Big O. When I went to visit her in Boston, she recommended it to me again. But I never did get around to reading it. When I found it while unpacking some of Mike’s stuff (apparently Leyan gave him a copy?) I decided to actually sit down and read it. So that’s what I’m doing. =P Haven’t finished it yet, but it’s sort of odd and interesting so far. The best part for me so far is the random hilarious facts that Lou Paget sprinkles in. ^^;

A long, long time ago, MichMich sent me a PDF file of Seneca’s “Letters From a Stoic.” I recently rediscovered the file on my computer and thought I should probably continue chipping away at it.

There are apparently 124 letters. I couldn’t remember which I had read up to last time, so I skimmed a few looking for things that I had remembered reading. Found this gem in Letter 58:

He who dies just because he is in pain is a weakling, a coward; but he who lives merely to brave out this pain, is a fool.

This week is a busy week for me, and I haven’t finished a book. And I’m too lazy to try to find a book I read previously and write a review about it. So I’m just going to write a book I’m currently reading. ^^;

So way back in high school, I volunteered at a library book sale, and after my shift was over I was browsing the wares. I picked up several works of Shakespeare, and then a volume of W.S. Gilbert’s Complete Operas. I think at that time I hadn’t really been exposed to much of their work, but had heard about it from Gina or possibly on PBS.

Anyway, many many years later I was looking for something to read and decided to crack it open. The plays are quite short, only about two or three acts. And over time I’ve seen some of them, and heard (and sang!) some of the songs. So it’s really interesting to get some more context for some of the songs that we did in Glee Club.

I’m about halfway through now. Currently “The Mikado.”