TSS April's fools

Hello Everybody! Happy April's Fools.

This was a long week, a lot of work at the lab. And then, as some of you know, I shared the debate from the New York Times. Thank you so much for the comments. I have been so exited this week with the amount of comments I got.   No followers yet, but no rush ;). In the reading part, I'm close to half my book, Death with Interruptions, and this week I will post the review. Is good, since my local library is finally getting 1Q84 for me. I've read mixed reviews about it, but I really want to give it a go. The good news is that the copy I'm getting is in Spanish, which might make it easier to get into. The bad news is that is only books 1 and 2, but I already reserved the 3 one, this time in English, but by then I will know if is really for me or not. On the other side, I sent to my aunt 2 books I read this year and I she just got them: The Night Circus and The Know-it-All. Hopefully she will like it as much as I did. She also recommended Alone in Berlin. Has anyone read it? Any reviews? She was really into it, so I'm almost sure I will give it a try.
Have a great week everybody! 

"Adult" books

I found this debate today in the New York Times, and I wanted to share it with you, and to share my opinion. 

What makes a book and "adult" book? It's complexity? the subjects that it touches? when is it right to read a certain book and when isn't? and while we are at it, what exactly makes an adult?


I'm 26, and I had my share of "young -adult" books, but also what apparently is called "adult" books. I read Gone with the Wind when I was still a teenager, as well as Madame Bovary, The Odyssey as well as all the available series of "Goosebumps" in my schools library. I always thought of them as books, that's it. Sure, they were genres, horror, fiction, non-fiction...but I never discriminated them for the age-public they were aiming at. I do not agree with Joel Stein, saying that adults should only read adult books. Partly because I think there are really amazing things about Harry Potter that you see differently with age. But mostly, because I think in a society that reading is being left behind, any opportunity that a person has to submerge in a book, and maybe find out what really moves them should not be left behind.  

I think however that are books that should be read after you have a certain background (I don't like to use th word maturity in this context). I think your first contact with a "love story" should not be The Twilight Saga, but I read it, enjoyed talking about it with my friends, all the time knowing that this was not the ideal relationship (far from it) vampires or not vampires.
So what's your opinion?  Let me know :)
 

The Sunday Salon ( My first TSS post!)

This is my first OFFICIAL Sunday Salon post (Yeiiii, I waited almost 2 weeks to be accepted), so I guess I will open with some news, and then link to my new review.  First Blog news…as you may have noticed I changed my To Read and Read widgets. I used to use the ones from LybraryThing, and then when I went to add a new book…I discovered I had a 200 book limit if I was a free user, and since I am still a student, I can’t really afford 10$/month just to keep track of my books. So now, I’m using the ones from Goodreads, except for the currently reading one. 

On Books news, I re-read the Hobbit and started reading Death with interruptions. I will comment on The Hobbit on my review, but the second book, was a friend of mine who gave it to me on Thursday. I’ve read Saramago before and I can’t blame her for finding his style hard to follow. So I will give it a try, even though it was not planned to be on my reading pile this year. Other than that I’m still waiting for my local library to call me about 1Q84. I reserved the book a month ago, and still nothing!. But it is ok, I have a long list of to read :)

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

 

Book summary (by Goodreads.com)

J.R.R. Tolkien's classic prelude to his Lord of the Rings trilogy featuring cover art by the author. Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure. They have launched a plot to raid the treasure hoard guarded by Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon. Bilbo reluctantly joins their quest, unaware that on his journey to the Lonely Mountain he will encounter both a magic ring and a frightening creature known as Gollum. Written for J.R.R. Tolkien's own children, The Hobbit has sold many millions of copies worldwide and established itself as a modern classic.

Book review

I decided to re read this book since the movie is coming out this year. I am a fan of Tolkien, what can I say. I know that The Silmarillion is a hard read, because it has so many characters, but the stories are so beautiful!.

In the case of The Hobbit, I wish I had a kid to read the book as a night time story. It has everything…well, except for romance I suppose. Bilbo Baggins is a sweet character that, through experience, learns his own value and learns how to make others see it. That right there is a lesson I want my kid to learn as soon as possible. Also, team work, not to be afraid of adventure, and to always, always expect to be amazed by things unknown.

The story starts with Bilbo in his house, expecting nothing else but a quiet afternoon. But after he has a visit from Gandalf, all that will change. Contrary to what some people seem to believe (people that apparently didn’t take the time to actually read the book, or at least summary of it) the book is not about Bilbo finding the ring. If anything, this is an accident in the book, and as you consider that this book was written way before LOTR, you will see that the ring in The Hobbit has an important but not a main role. The whole propose of the voyage that Bilbo and his newly acquired dwarf friends undergo, is to recover a treasure long ago stolen by a dragon. Through the quest, they will meet with evil goblins, kind and not so kind elves and off course men. 

I think what makes his book an easy first touch to the Tolkien mythology is that it explains the big traits of each race briefly but still leaves room for you to want to learn more (then you go to the Silmarillion or LOTR)

About the movie, I can’t say I am surprised but it will be a 2 part movie with the first installment coming out at the end of 2012. I think the casting is right on the spot and I will be there to see it…not the first day, I am not a “camp out of the theater to be the first one to see it” kind of person, but I will be there! In the mean time, here is one of the trailers.

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A. J. Jacobs

Book Summary (from ajjacobs.com)

Part memoir, part Cliff's Notes to every topic under the sun, The Know-It-All is about the year I spent reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z (or, more precisely, from a-ak to zywiec). All forty-four million words of it. The book is many things:

First, it's a compendium of the funniest, most fascinating, and most profound facts I uncovered-from the history of canned laughter to Nathaniel Hawthorne's obsessive-compulsive behavior to female spies in the Civil War.

Second, it is a search for meaning and wisdom among that ocean of facts.

Third, it's a memoir of my eccentric, knowledge-loving family. (My dad, for instance, holds the world record for the most number of footnotes in a law review article: 5,435.)

And finally, it is a series of adventures to test the limits of intelligence. I competed in a crossword-puzzle tournament, went on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and attended a Mensa convention.

And if that's not enough, it's a mere 1.4 pounds, as opposed to the Britannica's 128 pounds.

My review

I read “TheYear of living biblically” (If the link won t work I added the video of his conference in TED, down below) before, from the same author, and had a blast, so I had big expectations about this book. My boyfriend read it a couple of months ago, and just like me with “Lamb” he would laugh out loud and read me excerpts from it. Needless to say, I was craving to read it myself and I was in for a treat.

I think I can now say with confidence that I really like the way Jacobs writes, to be honest I have never read anything else from him, but these 2 books have been entertaining and even better full of new knowledge.

His quest to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica starts actually with his father, who also tried to read the whole thing, but couldn’t pass the B section (I think I wouldn’t be able to finish the A, but never mind that). Also, because Jacobs is starting to feel dumber, which I can relate to, feeling like a lot of knowledge just escapes from you and there is nothing you can do. Actually, if I’m completely honest, I feel related to a bunch of character traits from Jacobs, although I wouldn’t consider myself as a germaphobe. But since this is not an essay (BTW, this I learn with the book, this word was coined by using the French term “essai” which means try. I had no idea) about my similes with Jacobs, let’s just say that I feel REALLY awkward in a crowd (more than 10 people is a crowd to me), I totally understand his fear of losing his intelligence, and like Julie, I am bit of a order freak…

The book is written the same way as the encyclopedia, every chapter is a letter. But is not a copy-paste of definitions but mostly a compilation of ha and hum moments about everyday things and not so everyday situations. At the same time, the words sometimes fall appropriately in moments of Jacobs’ life.  Another quest is going on in his life…being a father. You cross your fingers every time, hoping that this will be the moment when Julie (his wife) becomes pregnant. 

But off course there is more side stories, the constant rivalry with Julie’s brother, Eric, a know-it-all in himself, not afraid to gloat and even correct the EB (yes, he did it). Jacobs encounters with Mensa, he joining and then feeling not so good about it. Wanting to go into Jeopardy!, meet Alex Trebeck and then learn that because of this he cannot longer compete! (Another thing I didn’t know).  Also, he has all this movie ideas (Young Ghandi for example, I am sure would be a hit!).

At the end, he goes to How to be a Millionaire and I’ve been looking for that video all over the internet, with no success. I won’t tell you how far he goes, because for me that was a moment of stress. I think a book is really good, when you can feel the same emotions of the main character, either fiction or non-fiction. When the author manages to make you feel through words…is just that magical moment that you have than involves every single inch of what you are. Talking about words…his final words to his dad, they were ever so touching, that I was glad I was done with my work day, so no one actually saw me teary eyed.

I’m happy to say that there’s another book coming from the same author (Available in April), called Drop Dead Healthy. In the mean time, I while look for My life as an experiment, a book that promises to be as entertaining as the last two.

Bookmans Does Book Dominoes

This one is the last one of today...I promise

Organizing the Bookcase

Yeap, you guessed it, today is the "post all the videos of books you loved, yet you forgot to post" day. This one was shared by my local library almost a year ago!...well maybe less than that because is partially what inspired me to start this blog. I thought, there is a bunch of people like that love books as much as I do, why not share?.
Anyway, when I saw this one I remember thinking: I could've done that with my old library! but as I mentioned in On my love of books...I had to leave it behind :'(. Anyway...enjoy!