Have you read the book Twilight by Stephenie Meyer?
It’s a love story involving a teenage girl and a vampire, but not in a Buffy way.
The movie version will be released in December. Here’s the teaser trailer:
Here’s are the first few paragraphs of the book to whet your appetite:
I’d never given much thought to how I would die — though I’d had reason enough in the last few months — but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.
I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me.
Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something.
I just finished A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb. The plot centers around a couple of ghosts who find each other and decide to recapture life by inhabiting the bodies of two troubled teens.
From the moment I first picked up this book, I couldn’t stop reading it. It was completely engrossing from the first paragraph:
Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you’re dead. I was with my teacher, Mr. Brown. As usual, we were in our classroom, that safe and wooden-walled box–the windows opening onto the grassy field to the west, the fading flag standing in the chalk dust corner, the television mounted above the bulletin board like a sleeping eye, and Mr. Brown’s princely table keeping watch over a regiment of student desks. At that moment I was scribbling invisible comments in the margins of a paper left in Mr. Brown’s tray, though my words were never read by the students. Sometimes Mr. Brown quoted me, all the same, while writing his own comments. Perhaps I couldn’t tickle the inside of his ear, but I could reach the mysterious curves of his mind.
Tracks include:
1. Memory (From Cats) - Betty Buckley
2. Music Of The Night (From The Phantom Of The Opera) - Katherine Jenkins
3. Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina (from Evita) - Madonna
4. All I Ask Of You (From The Phantom Of The Opera) - Shirley Bassey
5. Surrender (From Sunset Boulevard) - Sarah Brightman
6. With One Look (from Sunset Boulevard) - Glenn Close
7. Learn To Be Lonely (From The Phantom Of The Opera) - Minnie Driver
8. The Perfect Year (From Sunset Boulevard) - Dina Carroll
9. I Don’t Know How To Love Him (From Jesus Christ Superstar) – Yvonne Elliman
10. Buenos Aires (From Evita) – Patti Lupone
11. As If We Never Said Goodbye (From Sunset Boulevard) – Barbra Streisand
12. Rainbow High (From Evita) - Elaine Paige
13. Tell Me On A Sunday (From Song And Dance) - Marti Webb
14. The Heart Is Slow To Learn - Kiri Te Kanawa
15. Another Suitcase Another Hall (From Evita) - Barbara Dickson
Stand-out numbers include Surrender By Sarah Brightman and The Heart Is Slow To Learn By Kiri Te Kanawa.
Product Description:
1. The Godfather (Love Theme) 2. Strangers In Paradise 3. Romance Anonyme - Jeux Interdits 4. Once Upon A Time In The West 5. Chanson d’Amour 6. O Mio Babbino Caro 7. William Tell Overture 8. Opera Potpourri 9. Italian National Anthem 10. L’Italiano 11. Marina 12. Roses From Tyrol 13. Lagune Waltz 14. The Rose 15. Italiana 16. Barcarole 17. La Paloma 18. Light Cavalry 19. All Men Shall Be Brothers (Ode To Joy) 20. Radetzky March 21. Vino 22. La Montanara 23. I Love You
A joyous concert set in beautiful Tuscany. The players really look like they’re having fun and their spirit is infectious.
Divisadero (Vintage International Paperback) - $10.32
From the celebrated author of The English Patient, comes another breathtaking, unforgettable story, this time about a family torn apart by an act of violence. Divisadero is a rich and rewarding read, Ondaatje’s finest novel to date.
If you loved the English Patient, Ondaatje’s latest novel will captivate you.
Emma Watson, who plays Hermione Granger, in the Harry Potter movies, has turned 18 years old and come into possession of her earnings, reported to be more than 16.5 million pounds.
Watson along with Tom Felton, who plays Draco Malfoy, took a three-day course on how to manage their multi-millions.
According to Hello! Magazine, the course included meetings with private bankers, lessons on spending and budgeting, presentations by charity organizations, and a talk by a prominent PR agency on the importance of protecting one’s reputation.
If only our former child stars handled their wealth with such maturity. Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan may have happier lives at the moment, instead of a laundry list of wrecked automobiles.
I just finished Midnighters: The Secret Hour. It is a trilogy about a small town in Oklahoma, where time stands still at the stroke of midnight for one hour. Five high school students, who all happened to be born exactly at midnight, can walk freely among this frozen world. But so can dark, dangerous creatures of the night. These students each have a gift which arms them against the darklings.
This book wasn’t scary as much as it was creepy. I was reading it late at night and found myself getting really creeped out. I’m going to order the other two books in this series.
My neice told me about a book she was reading called Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. She was enjoying it so much I thought I would give it a try even though it falls into the category of Young Adult Fiction.
The story is about a young girl named Tally who lives in a future society where everyone gets an operation at age 16 to make them pretty. Until kids reach their 16th birthday, they are referred to as Uglies and segregated from the rest of society. But shortly before her birthday, Tally meets a new friend named Shay, who wants to run away and live in a place called The Smoke, where no one wants to get the pretty operation.
The books deal with themes of beauty, betrayal, friendship, society, government, environmentalism, and much more. It is fast-paced with rich characters, and the author doesn’t talk down to its readers.
I enjoyed Uglies so much, I ripped right through the sequels, Pretties and Specials.
You’d think by the title that The Jane Austen Book Club would be a real girly movie. But I know several men who have enjoyed it as much as I have.
Emily Blunt is fantastic as Prudie, a young high school teacher caught in a lackluster marriage. All of the actresses do a great job including Kathy Baker, Maria Bello, Amy Brenneman and Maggie Grace. But Emily Blunt steals the show.
Hugh Dancy also lights up the screen as the only male member of the book club. He’s a science fiction fanatic who assumes that the complete works of Austen are sequels. He also has an R2D2 ringtone on his phone. So cute. He joins the club because he is attracted to Jocelyn (Maria Bello), who, of course, takes forever to realize it.
The movie is a lot of fun and is deeper than the trailers would suggest.
Best lines:
Dean (Prudie’s husband): Baby, high school is over.
Prudie: High school is never over.
Prudie (talking about one of her students): He looks at me like he’s the spoon, and I’m this dish of ice cream.
On this date in history, the 15th of March in 44 B.C., Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of his so-called friends and co-workers, who called themselves the Liberators.
That’s putting it simply, of course.
Here’s the account as told by Plutarch: The Parallel Lives, The Life of Julius Caesar
Well, then, Antony, who was a friend of Caesar’s and a robust man, was detained outside by Brutus Albinus,who purposely engaged him in a lengthy conversation; but Caesar went in, and the senate rose in his honour. Some of the partisans of Brutus took their places round the back of Caesar’s chair, while others went to meet him, as though they would support the petition which Tillius Cimber presented to Caesar in behalf of his exiled brother, and they joined their entreaties to his and accompanied Caesar up to his chair. But when, after taking his seat, Caesar continued to repulse their petitions, and, as they pressed upon him with greater importunity, began to show anger towards one and another of them, Tillius seized his toga with both hands and pulled it down from his neck. This was the signal for the assault. It was Casca who gave him the first blow with his dagger, in the neck, not a mortal would, nor even a deep one, for which he was too much confused, as was natural at the beginning of a deed of great daring; so that Caesar turned about, grasped the knife, and held it fast. At almost the same instant both cried out, the smitten man in Latin: “Accursed Casca, what does thou?” and the smiter, in Greek, to his brother: “Brother, help!”
So the affair began, and those who were not privy to the plot were filled with consternation and horror at what was going on; they dared not fly, nor go to Caesar’s help, nay, nor even utter a word. But those who had prepared themselves for the murder bared each of them his dagger, and Caesar, hemmed in on all sides, whichever way he turned confronting blows of weapons aimed at his face and eyes, driven hither and thither like a wild beast, was entangled in the hands of all; for all had to take part in the sacrifice and taste of the slaughter. Therefore Brutus also gave him one blow in the groin. And it is said by some writers that although Caesar defended himself against the rest and darted this way and that and cried aloud, when he saw that Brutus had drawn his dagger, he pulled his toga down over his head and sank, either by chance or because pushed there by his murderers, against the pedestal on which the statue of Pompey stood. And the pedestal was drenched with his blood, so that one might have thought that Pompey himself was presiding over this vengeance upon his enemy, who now lay prostrate at his feet, quivering from a multitude of wounds. For it is said that he received twenty-three; and many of the conspirators were wounded by one another, as they struggled to plant all those blows in one body.
Caesar thus done to death, the senators, although Brutus came forward as if to say something about what had been done, would not wait to hear him, but burst out of doors and fled, thus filling the people with confusion and helpless fear, so that some of them closed their houses, while others left their counters and places of business and ran, first to the place to see what had happened, then away from the place when they had seen. Antony and Lepidus, the chief friends of Caesar, stole away and took refuge in the houses of others. But Brutus and his partisans, just as they were, still warm from the slaughter, displaying their daggers bare, went all in a body out of the senate-house and marched to the Capitol, not like fugitives, but with glad faces and full of confidence, summoning the multitude to freedom, and welcoming into their ranks the most distinguished of those who met them. Some also joined their number and went up with them as though they had shared in the deed, and laid claim to the glory of it, of whom were Caius Octavius and Lentulus Spinther. These men, then, paid the penalty for their imposture later, when they were put to death by Antony and the young Caesar, without even enjoying the fame for the sake of which they died, owing to the disbelief of their fellow men. For even those who punished them did not exact a penalty for what they did, but for what they wished they had done.
I’m going to ward off the Ides of March by going to a concert of Respighi’s Pines of Rome.
A novel about murder, art forgery and love. It takes place during the Paris flood of 1910. Rich in characters and full of details of Parisian life at the beginning of the 20th century.
Opening lines: It takes a second to shoot a man. Thinking about it takes the rest of one’s life.
A fun memoir by the beauty editor of Lucky Magazine. An insider’s look at the world of women’s glossies. I love reading memoirs and biographies of women.
Opening lines: You know all the studies, how beautiful people make more money, do better in school, etc., etc., than everyone else? I think when you look at a truly beautiful person, you think, We’re the same species, no?
This has all of the Oz books in one big volume. I never read these as a kid. But The Wizard of Oz is one of my favorite movies. I was surprised to learn that the Judy Garland version was the third or fourth time the story was made into a movie. There are several silent adaptations.
Opening lines: Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles.
