Caught Reading @ Normandale

Shakespeare - Poe Mashup

2010-10-25T13:07:00.000-07:00

Having trouble getting through Hamlet?

Shmoop.com has posted the tale of Hamlet, set to the tone of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven.

Click to read

How to Open a Book

2010-09-14T09:39:00.001-07:00

'Tis the Season reviewed by Miranda Daly

2009-12-16T07:24:00.000-08:00

I am in a mother-daughter book club and 'Tis the Season was the book chosen for the month of December. We had previously read Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bon’s and everyone really enjoyed this book, so we thought we would try reading another one of Lorna Landvik’s books. This book is all based on a wild and reckless alcoholic, Caroline Dixon, who is very much in the public eye. She is always being seen at parties misbehaving and causing drunken mischief. There is a column that runs in the local magazine and the writer loves to report on Caroline Dixon’s crazy antics. Known as “The Buzz,” the author seems as if he is more than happy to produce the awful stories about this particular woman. This book gives you a look inside the life of the famous and what it is like to deal with the constant attention….good or bad. It also goes to show how a single person can have such a large affect on so many people. Tis the Season is an uncomplicated read that plays with satire and humility, pain and joy, friendships and enemies, lies and truths, and the possibility that in the end, things will work out.

I really enjoyed 'Tis the Season from the start and feel that anyone who is up for a good, light read would enjoy this book. It was fun the whole way through with the ingenious writing style, making me laugh. There were also very delicate moments that provoked thoughtfulness and connection. It is written with different formatting than most books and that aspect gave this book an originality as well. Honestly, I felt like I hopped on a roller coaster and felt the up’s and down’s throughout the story, leaving the ride feeling satisfied and uplifted. I would highly recommend this book to other readers as I found it artistic, smart, and emotional. It will leave the readers asking only one question….sequel?

-Miranda Daly

Her Fearful Symmetry reviewed by Mary Skoglund

2009-12-14T14:53:00.000-08:00

This is a ghost story – well written and hard to put down. The apartment building bordering London’s Highgate Cemetery is where the mirrored twins, Julia and Valentina Poole, live out their twenty-first year. Their apartment was willed to them from their estranged Aunt Elspeth Noblin’s estate.They never met their estranged English aunt, only knew that their mother, Edwina Noblin, was her twin. The story tells of the twin girls intense attachment to one another. Then in the end a ghostly thing happens to one of them that changes everything.

The book is full of interesting characters, British slang and images of life in London. The characters are so real and the story believable. You decide if you believe in ghosts. A strange, magical, entertaining story by Audrey Niffenegger author of The Time Traveler’s Wife.

The Late Homecomer reviewed by Thomas Maltman

2009-11-25T13:19:00.000-08:00

The Late Homecomer by Kao Kalia Yang

Before babies are born they live in the sky where they fly among the clouds. The sky is a happy place and calling babies down to earth is not an easy thing to do. From the sky, babies can see the course of human lives.

This is what Hmong children of my generation are told by our mothers and fathers, by our grandmothers and grandfathers.

They teach us that we have chosen our lives. That the people who we would become we had inside of us from the beginning, and the people whose worlds we share, whose memories we hold strong inside of us, we have always known.

From the sky I would come again.(Yang IX)

How could you not keep reading after such a lyrical beginning? The above passage opens Kao Kalia Yang’s The Late Homecomer, winner of two Minnesota book awards, and a memoir that some instructors across Normandale are using in classes this coming year. In The Late Homecomer, Kao Kalia Yang tells the story of her family’s escape from genocide in Laos following the Vietnam War, first to refugee camps in Thailand, and later to America. Reading it now will prepare you for the author’s visit to campus on February 11, 2010 as part the Midwinter Writing Festival.

This simple focus is part of the genius of The Late Homecomer and what it has to offer any reader. Through the eyes of one they will see a people, a culture, an exodus, the American immigrant experience, which is similar to what other immigrants face and also unique for the Hmong, a people without a homeland or a written language of their own. Used by the American military during the Vietnam War and later abandoned, they were a forgotten people whose beliefs and customs are little known in the United States. Reading this book will also cause students to think about their own families, the journeys that make them who they are. I’ve found in my classes that first generation immigrants are deeply impacted by the Yang family story, and the response has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic from all students.

In the memoir’s opening pages we are in the jungle with Kao Kalia Yang’s mother and father, on the run from North Vietnamese soldiers. “They both insist that in a time there was no room for choices, they had chosen each other.” This is the first of many difficult choices the family faces. By choosing Yang’s father, her mother must leave her own family behind and she never sees them again. In a frightening battle that follows, the family is split, the men escaping into the jungles while the women are captured and taken to a prison camp, where Kao Kalia’s oldest sister, Dawb is born. Eventually the family escapes and is reunited, crossing the Mekong River to a relative safety in the Ban Vanai refugee camp in Thailand. This is where Kao Kalia and spends the earliest years of her childhood—unaware of the death and danger that surrounds her. The family moves on to Phanat Nikhom Transition Camp and then to St. Paul where we find out that coming to America is in some ways just the beginning of their troubles.

I don’t want to say much more about the story here. Oh, there are legends and folklore, ghosts and hauntings and cruelties and surprising kindnesses. It’s all told in simple but lovely prose. You pick up this book and you are wrapped up in an experience. The true subject of the memoir, the most fascinating character of all is Kao Kalia Yang’s grandmother, a shaman and the matriarch of her family. As I read it, I thought about my own ancestors. I came to understand the Hmong culture in ways I had not before. It opened up the ways I look at the contemporary American immigrant experience.

All of these things are beautiful to share with fellow readers, as I hope to with my students this coming spring. The Common Book committee is excited to announce that Kao Kalia Yang will be speaking at our campus as part of the Midwinter Writing Festival on February 11, 2010! Your adventure begins if you pick up a copy of this book at the Normandale Store.

Tom Maltman

The Lost Symbol reviewed by Emily Balamut

2009-10-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

Rating: 1.5/5 stars

Well, Dan Brown has done it again! He wrote a book full of riveting information, numerous cliff-hangers, and absolutely no character development. Shocking!

Professor of Symbology and Religious Iconography at Harvard University, Robert Langdon is the man best suited for the job of deciphering old Masonic codes and clues to obtain something the Masons have kept hidden for hundreds of years. A mad man literally hand-picks (read the first few chapters of the book and you’ll know what I mean) Langdon for the harrowing and life-threatening journey around Washington D.C. to solve this Masonic riddle for his own egotistical desires.

After reading three of Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon stories, I am in no rush to read anymore. While reading The Lost Symbol, I found myself constantly comparing the contents and writing styles to those of Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code. Dan Brown may be extremely well-versed in everything hidden and unknown to the regular person, but I find his writing style superficial. Cheap cliff-hangers and “next-steps” are obvious when keeping in mind his other Langdon novels. I kept thinking to myself while reading “he’s done this before” and followed the thought by an eye-roll. A cliff-hanger awaits the reader at the end of every chapter, which is great for the bestseller action/adventure page-turner that sucks the reader in, but I still felt cheated with tricks. That being the case, Brown does take care to enlighten the reader to subjects that not many people understand or even have ever thought of before.

My revulsion at the writing style was over-ridden by my desire to know more about the mysterious Mason group I’ve not heard anything about. I admire Brown’s enthusiasm to bring light to a topic that has been shrouded in mystery and Dan Brown uses this important concept as a plea to the reader that no one should judge another person’s beliefs or actions if we do not understand those beliefs or actions. One of the most striking passages from the novel includes his students gasping at the “Death Shrine” which is common in Masonic practices and Langdon rebutting with a remark on worshipping a crucified human body (often bloodied), drinking his blood, and eating his body – a common Catholic practice. By the end of the book, I was happy I knew more information about obscure theories like Noetics - thought and intuition affecting the real world - which Brown forces to entwine into the novel through yet another love interest, but I was still not impressed by the book as a whole.

The information was great, but I still have something to complain about. Such obscure information is complicated to try and fit into a working novel, so I can’t be too harsh here, but I sometimes felt over-whelmed when characters spoke. As a novelist, I’m sure it’s hard to decide how to make certain information known, but I am also sick of Brown using paragraphs of dialogue to explain a certain idea. I found those sections of the book very tedious. That is why I enjoyed the scenes when Langdon and his students were in class discussing difficult topics.

As fun and exciting as The Lost Symbol is, I can’t bring myself to want to read it again. For now, I’m done with Dan Brown and if I ever want to know about any obscure topic or idea, I’ll just read about it on Wikipedia.

The Shack reviewed by Susan P. Krook

2009-08-11T10:07:00.000-07:00

The title alone is certainly an invitation to go into The Shack. The ramshackle drawing of it on the cover of this almost explosively popular paperback draws the prospective reader even closer to "going in" and reading the book. So, why not? Let's enter The Shack.

I feel compelled to make a couple of statements as we walk up the path to this abandoned structure that has received so much attention since the book was first published in 2006. First, I would like to explain my own interest in this book in that having recently experienced the almost complete destruction of a close relative who lost a young son in a tragic auto accident a few years ago, I have to admit that I read this book with someone in mind. I had heard the book is powerful especially meaningful for anyone who is trying to work through spiritual death and/or spiritual anger. This book sparked my interest especially perhaps because of the recent family loss. Second, I wish to explain that I am writing a rather brief review here since the Internet is packed with many, many critiques of this book (approaching 500 at this point in time), and many of them carry multiple tags from others who, typically in matters spiritual, are seemingly bent on accepting, denying or sorting through their own personal mishmashes of thoughts about all matters that pertain to spirituality.

At the beginning of the book, the reader is introduced to the main character in this fictional account. Mack Phillips has experienced the pain of having had a child die. His young daughter, Missy, was brutally murdered by a serial killer while on a family vacation in the woods of the Northwest United States. It is four years later, and Mack has not learned to accept what occurred (his wife was not with the family when they were on the camping vacation), and thus, when Mack receives an invitation from God to visit the shack where it has been determined that the murderer took the young child, Mack packs up in a rather surreptitious manner, and travels back to the scene of the crime.

Upon entering the run-down and disturbing structure, who does Mack meet? None other than the Trinity, the Godhead, the ultimate weekend encounter. It would spoil the story to reveal details about the Trinity members, all who have taken bodily form, but suffice it to say that Mack's weekend is an interesting one with God appearing as a woman, Jesus as a man of Middle-Eastern descent and the Holy Spirit as a small, delicate woman. Mack then tackles his "Great Sadness" by unraveling is faith and subversive feelings and in the end, as he leaves The Shack and his weekend of revelation, he is a changed man. One wonders what he is going to say to his wife and kids upon his return to reality. After all, at the beginning to the book, his wife's intense relationship with God and a strong spiritual side to both Mack and his wife are stated by the author, but their relationship in this regard is really never explored in the book.

What strikes me about this book right away is how it is a "Christian" book and yet we are led down the path of understanding and acceptance of all and all spirituality and belief systems by the Trinity. Jesus is a Middle-Eastern man, for instance. That geographical connection places Jesus very close to other belief systems.

Clearly, the rather short book attends to all of our "Great Questions", however. It explains God's lack of communication with us, and tells us that all communication now must be mediated since we fell into sin. We learn about salvation, the Trinity itself, identity, the glory of God, and of course, redemption and salvation. This is no small task for an author who wrote the book originally for his children in 2005. It was, in fact, a Christmas gift to his children that year.

For me, well, I did not like the book much, and I guess I have joined the ranks of a very split population that judges it as either "very much pro" or "very much anti" regarding Young's first and only writing effort. Many reviewers point to way too much error in the book. These errors are noted by followers of The Bible from what I can see in previous reviews, and I guess my issue with the writing goes beyond errors and concerns about mixing the natural world with the supernatural. My issue is a simple one of not liking the premise so much, not being moved in any great spiritual way, and objecting to the :all the world is Christian: attitude that prevails. A staunch Christian myself, I find that this attitude makes for enemies and just isn't "the way it is", as Walter Cronkite used to say. I did not pass the book over to my relative who lost his son four years ago.I don't think it will help, but maybe I don't have my own Shack to go to.

Susan Krook is a faculty member at Normandale's Dept of Anthropology. She has a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and she has been teaching at Normandale since 1990 when she began teaching part time while employed in the Department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota as a Medical Anthropologist. Her current interests in Anthropology are devoted to Archaeology and Visual Anthropology.

Scarecrow Reviewed by Matthew Netland

2009-07-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

I was first introduced to Michael Connelly by another suspense writer, John Sandford. Known for his popular Minnesota-based Prey series, Sandford was participating in a book reading a couple of years ago at the Galleria Barnes and Noble. A woman in the audience asked what he liked to read in his spare time and, after naming a few “literary” authors (no doubt to mollify the hipster-dufus contingent), he said his favorite guilty pleasure was Michael Connelly. When I left the bookstore that evening I had two Connelly paperbacks and he quickly became one of my favorite authors.

Connelly’s latest book is called The Scarecrow which is set in Los Angeles around the fast-dying newspaper industry. Jack McEvoy, a reporter for the LA Times, has just been laid off and learns that his final assignment will be the demeaning task of training his younger and cheaper replacement. Jack had gained fame years earlier after helping the FBI catch the notorious serial killer, The Poet, and subsequently writing a best-selling book detailing the investigation.

Now, nearing the end of his prime, he finds himself being ushered out of the only profession he’s ever known. McEvoy decides that to really stick it to the newspaper he’ll need to write the story of his life and leave on a high-note. With only two weeks until his exit, he immerses himself in the grimy details of a seemingly random murder but his investigation quickly uncovers several dark secrets. Jack may have dug too deep this time…

The basic suspense template - protagonist finds himself/herself in a tricky spot and must use either guile or brute force to correct the unbelievable situation - only works if there is a foundation of solid writing skill. This is especially true when carrying the same character through many books because the plots just get more and more unbelievable (like the show 24 – how could this many outrageous things happen to one individual?). Connelly succeeds because he is a very good writer and is able to sneak innocuous details in to help ground the story.

If you are borderline OCD like me, and need to read an author’s work in chronological order, you can start with his Edgar Award winning The Black Echo.

Reviewed by Matthew James Netland – Normandale Staff

Hardcover: 448 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (May 26, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0316166308
ISBN-13: 978-0316166300
Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

2009-07-16T08:13:00.000-07:00

Quirk Books, publisher of the bestselling Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, has released a book trailer for its next mashup, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

Excuses Begone! Reviewed by Janet Red Feather

2009-07-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

Divergent Roads

A Book Review of Dr. Wayne Dyer’s New Book, EXCUSES BEGONE!

Navigating the Self Help aisle is like pausing before Frost’s yellow wood--but with a plethora of divergent roads. Most authors offer the “quick fix,” enabling readers to traverse the more heavily trodden path toward manifesting wealth, eliminating clutter, or finding lasting romance in ten days. My higher self has, however, located a less beaten down but more efficacious path to personal transformation: I recently read Dr. Wayne Dyer’s wonderful book, EXCUSES BEGONE!

The book is a departure from the “quick fix”: it’s more spiritual and gradual. We shed old habits, stop asking “What’s in it for me?” and ultimately recover our own vitality, depth and compassion. Dyer begins with the clever directive, “Don’t believe everything you think!” and concludes by having us engage the buoyant new feeling that results from the release of weighty excuses.

My recommendation to you is unfalteringly, “TRY it—you’ll LIKE it!” Dr. Wayne’s engaging style is eclectic and syncretic. EXCUSES BEGONE! is neatly organized into three parts that ask readers to: 1) identify and remove old habits of thinking; 2) apprehend key principles for aligning with the “Excuses Begone!” philosophy; and finally 3) engage a “paradigm shift” by changing lifelong, self-defeating habits of mind.

For the more skeptical among us, Dr. Dyer offers a scientific underpinning. He explains in organic terms just how it is that people trick themselves into resisting change. These thoughts are as real as the viruses that cause the flu. They’re called “memes,” and we get them from our parents, our friends, and the social milieu that our conscious mind sifts and filters to our unconscious. Memes exhibit the same properties as viruses: they tend to proliferate, infiltrate and persist. Dr. Dyer helps us uncover and transmute these limiting, counterproductive thoughts.

After hearing his lecture on public television, I ran out to purchase the book and the eight-CD audio book. The whole transaction was “meant to be”; upon my arrival at Barnes & Noble, I noticed by the second-floor railing a point-of-purchase display entitled “New from Dr. Wayne Dyer.” The store offered generous discounts on his visual and audial media. As a B&N green card holder with a marked propensity to buy books first, food and clothing second, I was in heaven.

By following Dr. Dyer’s principles, it’s possible to eradicate time-worn excuses in the subconscious mind like “I’m too old,” or “It’s too hard,” or “This will cause family drama.” Dr. Dyer holds our hands and walks us down alternative paths of thought and affirmations that, if taken to heart and applied vigilantly, opens to the reality we long to enjoy.

I can honestly attest that reading Dr. Dyer’s book will have a more far-reaching effect upon your consciousness then the usual pulp novels and gossip rags we read for comfort while on “vacation.” As part of my summer journey, I’ve been watching the PBS presentations, reading the book, and playing the audio CD’s in my car. I’ve been able to interpret and understand my dreams; change my thoughts; use my time creatively; and feel an overall sense of well being that habit and fatigue had been depleting. EXCUSES BEGONE! has afforded me a much needed vacation from negative thoughts, regrets, judgments and excuses -- and going down that road has made all the difference.

Reviewed by Janet Michele Red Feather, JD, MA

Biography of Janet Michele Red Feather, JD, MA

English Faculty, Normandale Community College

Janet Michele Red Feather is a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania native born to educators in the Philadelphia School System. She has taught at the university, state college and community college levels. Janet earned a BA, cum laude in English from Albright College. While serving as a Lecturer in English, she earned her Master’s in English and American Literature from Case Western Reserve University. Although passed with recommendation for doctoral candidacy, she followed her heart and went to live in San Francisco, where she attended Golden Gate University School of Law, earning a Juris Doctorate. She then practiced Worker’s Compensation Law with a prestigious defense firm in the greater Los Angeles area. Following her exodus from the law, Janet resumed her teaching career with various schools of higher education in South Dakota, Nebraska, Missouri and currently, Minnesota. Janet has taught at Oglala Lakota College, a tribal college in South Dakota, and has met and danced with people of many tribes, including the Wichita, Wyandotte, Ponca, Lakota, Mandan, Hidatsa, Cherokee, Mesquakie, and Iroquois Nations. Her interests include art, poetry, Native American dance, and Mandan culture and spirituality. Her most helpful insights have come from the Buddha, Lao Tzu, and her husband Cedric, a Mandan Waxikena (Turtle Priest).

Angels and Demons movie and book review by Emily Balamut

2009-06-15T11:40:00.000-07:00

Movie: 3/5 stars
Even if my mom hadn’t told me who the villain was in the first five minutes and even if I had re-read the book immediately before going to see the movie, I still would have been entertained by Angels and Demons. The twists and turns in the plot were an exciting romp through, arguably, the most historic city in the entire world, Rome. The exciting non-stop shots of Rome left me in such a state of wanderlust that I begged my parents to take me with them on their romantic getaway to Italy the week after. That being said, other than the stunning visuals Rome provides including the churches and Vatican City, the other aspects of the movie were left wanting, including the lackluster performances of some of the main characters. Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon redeemed himself with a much better haircut, personifying the original disgust of Hanks’ laughable coif in The DaVinci Code’s, but other than that, I was still not moved by his performance. If I were to just critique the movie and not bring the book into play, I would say that Langdon’s character lacks development. The most exciting person in the movie was the revealed “bad-guy,” Assassin. The glasses-wearing, all-around nerdy-looking, cardinal-killing bad guy proves to be pretty bad-ass, even though his appearance wouldn’t give him away. I enjoy the fact that the bad guy [and SPOILER – other bad guy] doesn’t appear to be the villain which definitely emphasizes the twist in the plot that had many, and probably me as well if my mom hadn’t blurted out who was the mastermind behind the grand Illuminati plot to decimate Vatican City, sighing in relief to finally know who the Assassin’s boss was. Thinking of the movie as just a movie and not an adaptation of a novel, I would give this one 3 stars out of 5. While watching it, I was entertained and transported to a different time and place, but the actual performances weren’t anything to write home to mom about.

Book: 2.5/5 stars
Dan Brown’s historical fantasy is definitely meant to be a page turner. Too bad the writing style isn’t taken into account. Again, like the movie, the book is also weak in certain areas. Brown’s knowledge (I am not going to refute him in any way because I claim NO knowledge) of the secret cult of the Illuminati is extremely impressive and the way he weaves historical fact into the events in the plot is mind-blowing, however, the main character doesn’t develop. This tale was purely meant to be about the plot and Vittoria, Langdon’s main hottie, is the lone character who actually develops. From losing her father to accepting revenge, then ultimately, Brown denying her revenge creates a many-faceted personality and made her the most intriguing character in the novel. Brown’s descriptions of Rome were not as strong as seeing the actual city in the movie. Obviously, it was much harder to visualize the events of the book while not being able to see the city and for a reader who had never been to Rome or who doesn’t know what obscure churches Brown references creates a strange disconnect that hinders a reading of the novel. The movie’s visuals were stunning and a nice solution to the book’s shortcomings that I enjoyed whole-heartedly. Like the Angels and Demons movie versus the move version of The DaVinci Code, I enjoyed the book Angels and Demons more than I liked the book The DaVinci Code. Other critics have said the reason is because Demons is based more on action and is much more exciting than the conversation-dense Code. Overall, the book is like the movie: an exciting page-turner and action-filled romp, but still lacks density and development which take it to the next level.

A change is gonna come...

2009-06-11T08:38:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to enjoy fiction again. Apparently I have been going about it all wrong. All I can see is the negative. Constantly annoyed by characters who, in my world, don't exist. I am compelled to discover a way to turn off the annoyance. I must remember to appreciate the effort of the author. To close of the real world and let myself wander in the fictional.

The change that the title refers to is:

We will soon feature book reviews by Normandale Faculty!

Dark Places - Gillian Flynn

2009-06-02T11:58:00.000-07:00

Quick read.
The main character is a jerk.

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books (May 5, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307341569
ISBN-13: 978-0307341563
Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds

Laura Rider's Masterpiece

2009-04-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

In her experience, women wanted to give and give and give, and then, suddenly, they were done, they were spent, they didn't have another crumb to offer up

Lady and Husband own profitable landscape nursery. Husband has an extreme enthusiasm for sex. 12 years of 'dealing' with this extreme enthusiasm has killed any desire for sexual relations she may have had remaining in her prudish body. Never again, she tells him.
Lady wants to be a romance writer. Her experience is drawn from watching movies based on Jane Austen books. Perfect. Eh. In order for her to indulge on her selfish silly whims, she starts email correspondence with a well-known area celebrity. It starts off as a joint project between Lady and Husband. Husband soon falls for victim of this cyber-stalk. Selfish crazy Lady's actions turn into an Adulterous Affair between Husband and Victim. Hilarity ensues.

I despised all characters in this book, save for Husband. I met the author, she seemed to be a good lady. The book was written well enough. I just didn't like the personalities created. Oh, the cover image is nice too.

Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (April 9, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446538957
ISBN-13: 978-0446538954
Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces

We both know it...

2009-03-26T10:38:00.001-07:00

Death with Interruptions - José Saramago

2009-03-13T09:33:00.000-07:00

The sentence structures in this book throw me off balance. Much like reading my own notes does. Probably like reading this blog does for you. There is minimal punctuation. All one thought by a neutral third party. I am far from neutral. Biased to the extreme!

No more death in Portugal! Being invincible is not all that it is cracked up to be? Well one problem is that it is all that it is 'cracked up to be.' Those on their way out remain so. Accidents that should kill don't. Those left to take care of ailing family members soon realize salvation lies just beyond the borders.

The mafia becomes involved and the government encourages the mafia by leaving points on the border unguarded. Those dying know what is happening as their feet cross the border, giving time for the mind to see. All this while mortuaries and embalmers take to preparing pets for burial. The death that covers pets didn't take a break. A bummer for the funeral industry.

Death soon goes back to work, deciding to give her 'victims' seven day notice. Seven days to get their affairs in order. Notices written on lavender stationary magically find their intended recipient. Save for one, a man whose letter keeps coming back "Return to Sender."

A good story. Much like life, it all ends in disappointment.

Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (October 6, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0151012741
ISBN-13: 978-0151012749
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces

Loop - Koji Suzuki

2009-03-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

"The universe is far more empty than full, unimaginably so.
Nothingness - that's the essence of of our universe.
And yet, within that nothingness?
There are dimensions of possibilities, dazzling theologies."

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Vertical; 1st Paperback Ed edition (October 3, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 193223425X
ISBN-13: 978-1932234251
Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces

Swamp Man - Donald Goines

2009-03-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

I read this book in 2.5 hours.

Donald Goines' one book that is pure fiction and not based on his life experience, SWAMP MAN is a mean story of violence, rape, murder, and slow, stalking revenge. This one successful novel proved Donald's writing ability.

A young woman returns home to the dark, watery woods of Mississippi. Anxious to see her family after being away at college for one year. She does not take safety advice as she should have. For this, she pays a price. A price her whole family owes on.

Caught at the bus stop by four young KKK enthusiasts, her world changes in such a short time. Forced to drink an enormous amount of Spanish Fly, she will never be the same. These four 'men' reckon everything. Ever other sentence muttered by these boys features a reckoning.

The story is less about the Rape(s), and more about the Revenge. Revenge served by her brother. Past life experiences help me to understand this revenge. A revenge I myself could never have followed through on. But one I did consider for many years.

In the end:

Black waters of the swamp gets it's man?

Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Holloway House (May 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0870679473
ISBN-13: 978-0870679476
Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces

2008-12-31T11:24:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, NCC!

Right Out of Your Hands

2008-11-26T11:39:00.000-08:00

This was the second book I read after I decided to give fiction another chance. It's not that I dislike fiction, it's that I grew bored with it.

This book, The Monsters of Templeton,

starts with a college girl who runs back home to mommy when she, college girl, finds herself pregnant.

As college girl arrives home, a huge monster is found dead in the town's lake.

That's one monster. The other Monster implied in the title is that this girl has been lied to by her mother. White lies. It turns out that college girl's father lives in town. Her mother refuses to tell her who said father is, making college girl use her archeological research skills to find this man.

Templeton, the fictional town in which college girl resides, holds secrets. Secrets held in plain sight at the town's library. Eh. College girl visits the library often. Using clues given by her mother, college girl is intent on finding the identity of her father. Blah, blah, blah.

In order to reach the end of this book, you must read the journal entries and personal letters of long-dead fictional characters. Everything pieces itself together nicely. Assuming you are into that kind of thing.

I wish there were more monsters. Monsters living in the lake, taking tourist swimmers under at noon on Sundays. Monsters climbing out from under coffee huts, spraying folks with scalding coffee like mucus which later turns to fatal eye cancer. Monsters forming in the residents intestines after consuming baloney mayonnaise sandwiches with diet cola. These intestinal monsters would then burst from the esophagus of their victims and...

I don't know. I just wanted more monsters.

I finished this book feeling very disappointed. Disappointed in myself. I should have given up when I first felt the need to.

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Voice; Reprint edition (November 4, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 140134092X
ISBN-13: 978-1401340926
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 4 ounces

The Ring and Spiral - Koji Suzuki

2008-11-17T13:13:00.000-08:00

I remember seeing the movie in the theater. Slightly creeped by the girl with the long hair in her face. Of course, the novel is different than the movie. As I was beginning this book, I was contemplating the fact that it is part of a trilogy. Do I really want to spend my time reading extensions of what I have already finished? Turns out I do. Well, I did. I am not so sure of the third book in the trilogy. I don't have it yet. The first two, Ring and Spiral were interesting enough to keep me going. Not once did I throw either book at the wall in anger. Much different than the movies. Thinking about it now, after reading the books, the movies sucked. Both Ring and Ringu. Evolution is the key. I was reminded of the intellectual madness that can come with Tuberculosis.

I read these books in the comfort of my own home. Under comforters filled with down. Warm and slightly nervous. More than once, I made sure that no part of myself was over the edge of the bed. These books seem to have brought back a child like fear. Reminding myself of nights of terror where I would curl into the fetal position with my quilts covering every inch of my tiny body. Forming a hole in the blankets so I could still breathe the cool air. These books made me do that again.

The Ring
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Vertical (April 25, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1932234411
ISBN-13: 978-1932234411
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces

Spiral
Paperback: 283 pages
Publisher: Vertical (August 1, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1932234160
ISBN-13: 978-1932234169
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds

boring boring boring boring boring boring boring

2008-11-15T12:50:00.000-08:00

The secret of life is that there is none. Epidemic. pandemic. This book review is pointless. The title depresses me. Immunity does not exist, all I have gotten is nowhere. I am embarrassed there is no spelling left. Every time I realize I have figured the meaning of life I die. But that is not the meaning of life, so there is none. The title is self-aware. I am losing. I know this. The pen I do not own has won. 14 dollars has won. I will never be able to read this. I hate this book. The author knows this. He wrote it for those like me, and that is why I am certain I will not finish it. Inspiration or not, that is what it is. I never want to turn a page again. Disgusted. Is the meaning of life turning pages?

http://www.zachplague.com/
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Featherproof Books (July 28, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0977199258
ISBN-13: 978-0977199259
Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces

X, the Anonymous Man or Woman

2008-10-23T06:39:00.001-07:00

Go Here

Or here

Or just press Play

Thank You

Man reads entire Oxford English Dictionary

2008-10-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

The Oxford English Dictionary is not everyone's idea of a page turner.
But a man has just completed the mammoth, if not bizarre, task of reading the 22,000-page tome cover to cover.

Ammon Shea, 37, who has been dissecting dictionaries since the age of 10, spent a year absorbing 59 million words, from A to Zyxt - the equivalent of reading a John Grisham novel every day.

Cooped up in the basement of his local library, the removal man from New York would devote up to 10 hours a day painstakingly making his way through all 20 volumes of the OED - helped by cup after cup of very strong coffee.

Every time he came across an interesting word, he jotted it down, fearful that he would not remember its meaning.

Among his favourite discoveries were obmutescence (willfully quiet), hypergelast (a person who won't stop laughing), natiform (shaped like buttocks) and deipnosophist (a person who is learned in the art of dining.)

He admitted there were times when he almost gave up, frustrated at not being familiar with any of the words on the page.

In his new book, Reading the Oxford English Dictionary: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages, he recalls a low point when he started learning words beginning with the letter N.

"Some days I feel as if I do not actually speak the English language, or understand it with any degree of real comprehension," he said.

"It is as if I am visiting a foreign country, armed with one of those silly little tourist phrase book...I may know enough to order a cup of coffee or inquire where the bathroom is."

By the time he reached the 400 pages devoted to words beginning with "un", he said he was "near catatonic, bored out of my mind, and so listless I can't remember why I wanted to read any of this in the first place.

"At this point, telling myself, 'You only have 351 pages of un-words to go', does not seem helpful. I don't quite feel as though I have lost my mind, but it often seems as though it is on vacation somewhere else, just east of sanity."

Why anyone would choose to put themselves through such a task is a question Mr Shea is often asked.

As a self-confessed lover of words who owns a thousand dictionaries, he said that reading the entire OED was a challenge he set himself many years ago.

"The OED, more so than any other dictionary, encompasses the entire history of all English's glories and foibles, the grand concepts and whimsical conceits that make our language what it is today," he said.

"It's a great read. It is much more engrossing, enjoyable and moving to read than you would typically think a non-narrative body of text could ever possibly be."

Nicole Martin. "Man reads entire Oxford English Dictionary". [Online] 03 October 2008. link.

For only $895.00 you too can attempt this feat. Come into, or call, the college store and ask for Sarah. I will gladly order a set for you!