HARRY!

Finished. I finally saw the second seventh movie and it is finished. I can't believe it. Some things I JUST KNEW were going to happen and other things surprised me. But I don't want to spoil it for you in case you haven't read the books (I haven't) or seen the final flic. Wow, though. I'm happy to report I wasn't traumatized afterwards like I was after the 6th movie (note: The Windy City, Harry Potter, and The Importance of a Glerb). 7.2 was pretty awesome (and pretty sad) and I kind of want to see it again.

J.K Rowling. Thank you for being the first woman to write a series as widely read and radically followed as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. I'm so pleased, I might go back and actually read the HP books after all.

In the meantime, enjoy this fun flic recap of Harry Potter in just 99 seconds.

Day 30

I took the Ralph Waldo Emerson's Trust30 challenge to write every day for thirty days. If you follow the blog then you know that this is only my 12th blog of the month, so I obviously came up short, but I'm okay with that. Sometimes it's advantageous to be short :)

Truthfully, I started off pretty strong, but what I discovered was that writing a blog, one like A Birthday and a Boy or Oh Baby took more than one day. I'd write for two hours one day and then finish editing for another two hours the next day. And then I was already a day behind on writing! Additionally, there are just some things one can't put on the blog. And for that there is the journal.

So I don't feel too bad about not posting every day for 30 days for I did spend much time writing, even if the readers didn't always see the results.

Additionally, the mark of a good writer is a good reader, and I did put more effort into reading during those thirty days as well. I worked on several books and plays over the month: Unprotected Texts, The Lion In Winter, You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy, and When God Was a Woman. Granted, most of these are more academic than literary, but that's okay. Jonah's Gourd by my favorite Zora Neale Hurston is on the docket for the next read.

All in all, I'm not beating myself up over "not writing" every day for 30 days. It was a good push and I did get out some stories I'd had inside me that had wanted out for while now. And it was nice to have the prompts to read (or promptly delete) as a few of them did inspire some thoughtful reflection on my part.

So thank you Emerson and thank you authors of the 30 days of prompts. And I leave you with, again, the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson...

I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you...

A MUST Read

So I typically stick with theology, and more often biblical interpretation, but if I am on the "christian" side of the bookstore, I never pick up novels and certainly not fiction ones.

However...

This book came recommended to me by a friend, my pastor, and my parents. It's been on the National Bestseller list. It'll probably make it on Oprah if it hasn't already. Parts of it were spoiled for me which is what led me to want to actually read it. I will refrain from doing that to you. Hopefully my recommendation will be enough.

You MUST READ this book.

It is a biography (technically) about what happened one weekend to a man in Oregon. But some people will say its not true.

Many actually.

But either way, the profundity of the novel will affect you nonetheless.

While it is not a literary genius, it is insightful beyond measure and it a beautiful depiction of... well... there I go again almost spoiling it.

Check it out at your local library and then after you read it, if you're anything like me, you'll have to then go buy it so you can mark it up and reread it.

Conceptually it is that good.

It will draw you out of yourself and into something bigger, something you could never put a finger on but knew to be true, something you could never articulate but always felt it on the tip of your tongue. It will draw you into its sacred space and return you changed.

Even if you don't ascribe to a higher power, you will probably find this book interesting (if you can make it through the disturbing plot line), and will probably be stretched as well.

As I read a borrowed copy last week, tomorrow I plan to head to BookPeople to buy my own copy for a second perusal. Check it out yourself...

The Shack By William P. Young

Are you an average reader?

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. Well, let's see.
1) Bold the books you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Star the books you're reading/have read some of.
5) Copy, paste, & repeat.

I only bolded and starred cause I got tired of guessing whether or not I would REALLY get around the reading the books. And I got frustrated trying to decide if I LOVED the book or just really liked it. :) So I've only done 1 and 4 in the requested list. (I did parenthetically note if I've seen the movie). Even with those two though, it appears I am above average. But certainly not close to the 100 mark...

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (seen the movie)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (seen the movie)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling * (seen the movie)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell *
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (seen the movie)
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller *
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (seen the movie)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (seen the movie)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy *
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis. * (seen the movie)
34 Emma - Jane Austen (seen the movie)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (seen the movie)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy*
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (seen the movie)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding (seen the movie)
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (seen the movie, listened to the musical)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (seen the movie)
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (seen the movie and musical)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White (seen the movie)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery-
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas *
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (seen the movie)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (seen the movie)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo * (seen the movie and musical)

Florida Day 5

Sun, sun and more sun!

And books. I read two books this weeks: Eat, Pray, Live by Elizabeth Gilbert and Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott.

Josie started several books too but couldn't get situated on one. Here we are on the beach...



But the most exciting moment of the day came when a jellyfish washed up on the sand!



The water here is Florida is EMERALD GREEN. So green and so beautiful. And juxtaposed with the sky it is just amazing...



Josie and her friends are staying here one more day and I'm quite jealous. If there's a church opening here... Baptist, Methodist, Hindu... I'm gonna apply. And since lot of land here is only going for 1.25 million, I'd say it's a go. While that one and a quarter doesn't include the cost of building a house, it seems quite reasonable. Sigh. Further evidence of the insane divide between the rich and... well... everyone else. Who can afford that?

But it is beautiful and while I miss the eclectic vibe that is Austin, TX, there's not much to complain about down here.

What a great birthday week.

Book Tag

As one of the two people who I guess read his blog, I've been tagged by Blogging Yosarian.


1. One book that changed your life:

Genesis by God, the Yahwists, the Elohists and probably a few other people...


2. One book that you’ve read more than once:

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee


3. One book you’d want on a desert island:

The Bible - I know, I'm just like that. It's so long though! And it'd keep you occupied for days. Months even!


4. Two books that made you laugh:

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott


5. One book that made you cry:

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston


6. One book that you wish had been written:

The one in my head...


7. One book that you wish had never been written:

Any book by Ann Coulter :(


8. Two books you’re currently reading:

Watermelon by Marian Keyes - the children's minister at my church handed it to me and said, "this is what I imagine your family is like..." awesome.

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt - I don't actually own it. I started reading it in a Barnes & Noble on the Plaza and now need to finish it!


9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama - I'm quite curious about him and Hilary.


10. Now tag five (or so) people:

Lynnette Davidson
Sam Davidson
Sarah Pitre
Michelle Gold
Frank Drew