What I am currently reading:
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova - again. I loved this book the first time I read it a few years ago, and since I recently picked it up for $1 at the used book store, I am loving it again. It is surprising how much I had forgotten, which is actually a great thing for me - I often mourn that I can only read a book for the first time once. I love the mystery and adventure and history, and all those little details about academia. Fun, fun, curl up under the covers and read fun.
Shakespeare by Another Name by Mark Anderson. This one was lent to me by my cousin Jan and it is quite intriguing. A biography of Edward deVere, the "man who was Shakespeare," it asserts that Shakespeare's plays were not written by the glover's son who was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and married Anne Hathaway, but Edward deVere, Earl of Oxford. So far, the evidence for this claim has mostly been based on the coincidences from deVere's life that match events from the plays, which is not the most convincing, but it is still early in the book - I am willing to be persuaded.
Fodor's England 2008. Maybe, maybe, there will be a trip this summer. With our fingers crossed and our bank account unravished.
Jane Eyre - still meandering my way through this much-read, much-beloved book. Good stuff.
Movies I Want to See:
New Moon - of course. It looks better done than Twilight - at least the hair does, anyway. Everyone's hair. And the feeling is more epic and grand in scale, it seems. And, as long as they stuck to the book, which the director has been claiming he has at every point, they should be OK.
The Road - I haven't read the book yet, but the film looks fantastic. Viggo Mortenson (one of my favorite actors - it really seems that he becomes the character and you don't have that feeling that you are watching Viggo pretend to be someone, but you are actually seeing that character) and Robert Duvall (a legend, of course) in a post-apocalyptic survival story. It looks gritty and beautiful at the same time - which is think is true of Cormac McCarthy's other writing as well.
The Last Airbender - I will admit, I have seen the cartoon on Nickelodeon, and I will give my attention to almost any anime/manga style thing that comes on, at least for a while. And this looks like a nice, epic, big-budget film, and perhaps M. Night Shamaylan's chance to redeem himself after Lady in the Water and The Happening (which I didn't even bother to see.)
2 comments:
I like The Historian for the same reasons. Take a look at Special Topics in Calamity Physics. The nerdy literary references alone make it enjoyable reading.
Thanks for the recommendation! - I'm compiling a list of academic novels - Posession by AS Byatt and People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks are great, also.
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