It's Monday, What Are You Reading? #4

FYI I'm hosting a giveaway for Elin Hilderbrand's The Castaway, a summer beach read.

I finished two books since last Monday:

Big Fat Paycheck: A Young Person's Guide to Writing for the Movies by Colton Lawrence.

The Girl With the Glass Feet by Ali Shaw. In fact I just finished this one about three hours ago and then spent a couple hours getting some notes for a review made before sending it off along with about six other books that were due last Thursday to be dropped in the library drop box by my husband. He made a special trip to get them in before the library opened so as to avoid the fines.

He is returning later this afternoon to pick up several items (mostly DVD) waiting for us. I've got 12 items waiting for me and 3 more shipped--8 books and 7 DVD of which 4 are TV series. He's got 5 waiting of which the 2 DVD are really for me. I've asked him to pick up only the two books that I'd forfeit if left another day and all of the movies but none of the TV series. We'll wait until Thursday to pick up the rest.

So the last of the books I listed in my first IMWAYR? post went back this morning. I won't list them again here but understand that I spent some time with each of the NF over the last couple weeks. I'll be starting the same process now with another batch of books--the ones with the nearest due dates now.

Am hoping to post a review for The Girl With Glass Feet in the next week. It was so so so good. Feel free to harass me if it doesn't show up soon.

Due tomorrow and won't renew because of a hold is Map of the invisible world : a novel by Tash Aw. Because our branch of the library isn't open Wednesday that means I could hang onto it until Thursday morning without incurring a fine. I'm having a debate with myself whether to start it this evening and press to read all 318 pages by dawn Thursday. What with all the DVD due or flooding in this week... Not to mention that I've barely taken a deep breath after pressing all weekend to finish a novel I'm not keen to stay in the red alert mode.

So probably I'll move on to the ones due June 24 with renewals used up:

The girls [text (large print)] / Lori Lansens (a novel by the author of rush home road which I reviewed here)

The hour I first believed [text (large print)] : a novel / Wally Lamb.

Braids : 250 patterns from Japan, Peru & beyond / Rodrick Owen (hoping to teach myself to braid flat, round, hollow and spiral so as to make bookmarks and decorate the crocheted bookmarks I make. Have had this book checked out several times in the last year and would love to own it. Sigh.)

Losing my religion : how I lost my faith reporting on religion in America--and found unexpected peace / William Lobdell

I was going to list some of the NF in the batch of books renewed between last Thursday and tomorrow but I'll leave them until next week. There are quite a few and more than half are novels which I probably won't touch anyway. I'm really hoping I can finish The Girls and get deep into the fat Lamb novel by next Monday so that I have hopes of reading 2-4 of the novels due in the 10 to 14 days after that.

We shall see. But what with all the DVD. Especially the TV series: John Adams (which I had out a couple weeks ago and still need to watch 5 of the 8 hours of this superb mini-series); West Wing seasons 2 & 3 (that's 22 episodes each! How did they both end up coming in the same week?) Bones 2 disc 1 & 2. I won't be bringing them home until Thursday tho.

Since I'm spending at least as much time watching DVD as reading lately and because whether I'm reading or watching a story I'm doing so with the eyes of a writer and story aficionado I'm going to start listing the stories I'm watching as well as the ones I'm reading in these posts. I hope I'm not stepping out of line.

Since last Monday I have watched:

Shut up and sing --a documentary about the comeback of The Dixie Chicks after the American fallout over the anti-war statements one of them made while on tour in England.

Flight Plan Jodie Foster plays a mother whose 6yr old daughter disappears while in flight between Europe and America. But the child's name is not on the manifest. Was she hallucinating the girl's presence on board? Or...? Well no spoilers. A very good thriller. One of the rare ones that keep me guessing until last moment without feeling manipulated. Which is really hard to do and I love it when I am so completely surprised by the ending/solution in mystery/thrillers.

Burn after Reading (Ed and I watched this last evening. Silly spy-thriller spoof.

The Terminal Tom Hanks plays a man from a tiny Eastern European country arriving at JFK airport to learn that his passport and visa are no longer valid because his country has suffered a coup while he was in the air. He is in a bureaucratic limbo for months forced to live and fend for himself in the International Lounge of the airport. I just watched this this morning and am still blown away by the quality of the story and Hank's acting. He had a Slavic accent and mannerisms so convincing throughout and I could believe in the first scenes that he understood only a handful of English words. But the story is about relationships forged in one of the most impersonal places in our culture--the terminals of our mass transit systems.

I must watch by Thursday dawn:

The Changeling

The Beach

Monster-in-law

Captain Corelli's Mandolin

The Movies waiting for me this week:

Adam (about a young man with Asperger's syndrome. Have been researching this condition for several years for a character in one of my own stories. But a close family member has recently been diagnosed with a mild form and now I'm wondering if it is still kosher to give it to my fictional character)

Push (I read the novel Push which the movie Precious was based on several months ago, having sent for it at the same time I got in queue for the DVD--during the Academy Awards--and while checking the library catalog for that I came across this film starring Dakota Fanning)

Up in the Air (sent for this during the Academy Awards)

Don Juan Demarco

The Penguins of Madagascar

Well. I'm going to post and drop my link in Mr Linky but my visiting will have to wait until I get some sleep. When I said above that I had just finished The Girl With the Glass Feet and just watched The Terminal you should understand that I spent all of the hours between 10pm and 8am between the two. Reading for 4 hours, watching for 2 and then back to the book for another 2 to 3 hours. I've been awake for 25.5 hours.