This, That, the Other, and a Bag of Chips

I remembered to watch the Olympics last night for all it was worth. I  had actually read about the judging controversy yesterday morning so I knew beforehand what was going to happen. I think that this story is very compelling and worthy of a “Hmmm”.

The REAL Olympic Medal Count

Packing is going along. I always say that you can’t have too many books and I totally believe this. The Mister, on the other hand, is of a different opinion. After losing track of how many boxes of books that we have already packed and seeing how many books are still on shelves, stacked on desks, and piled on the hearth, he says that we are beginning to reach, if we haven’t already, our limit of books. HEHEHEHE! I say that I have only just BEGUN my collection. Unfortunately, and in favor of the Mister’s case, I have exhausted my supply of boxes for books. I think what I’m going to have to do is move over the books shelves and unpack the boxes onto the shelves and then come back to the old house and repack the unpacked boxes. We’re spending a crap-ton of money on boxes. And no, before you ask, we can’t find free ones at the grocery stores, or from friends, etc. That’s the first thing I tried.

I finally found some time to finish reading Sense and Sensibility. I forced myself to finish this book because A) I generally finish books once I start them and B) It’s one of my challenge books. I don’t think I’m a Jane Austen fan despite wanting to be very badly. I can’t find fault with her writing, but I don’t like her characters. They’re shallow and fickle. The stories aren’t as involved as I prefer either. Sense and Sensibility was all very much back and forth. He loves girl A then he’s going to marry girl B and then he ends up with girl A. What self-respecting girl A would go back to a man after being put aside because she didn’t have enough money, or because he fancied himself more in love with someone else, or because he didn’t have enough backbone to stand up for what he really wanted? I suppose it would be a girl A who was brought up to believe that marriage is everything as it was back in Elinor and Marrianne’s day.

Despite my lukewarm feelings toward the novel, it was nice to be able to relax with a book for a few minutes (I only had three chapters left to read). That was reward enough.

Water For Elephants

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Copyright 2006

331 pages

Reason for reading: This is one of my TBR Challenge books.

Days to finish: 1

I adored this book. I absolutely loved it. A lot of people said that I would but I was a little skeptical going into it. The premise seemed weird. It was about a guy that joined a circus as the veterinarian. Sounded cheesy to me. Boy! Was I ever wrong. The book was so much more. It was about love, the circus, animals, betrayal, loss, aging, and excitement.

Jacob, the main character, deals with the loss of his parents and, thus, the world as he knew it or thought it was going to be, by running. Not knowing where to go or what to do next, he jumped a train that happened to belong to a circus. Set in the 1930's this book takes place when circuses still travelled town to town by train. Despite the dirt, the smells, and the hardships, the circus was glamorous and the reader is taken along on a very bumpy ride.

The story goes back and forth between Jacob at 23, full of life, and a circus vet to Jacob at 90 or 93 (he isn't sure of the year) and in an assisted living facility. It's a very sharp contrast between seeing him as someone in control and someone at the mercy of others. The things that happen to him at the home and his trials that come from being old make you wonder if that's how we really treat our elderly. Is that what we have to look forward to in our golden years? One passage in the book describes how he gets upset at having to eat mushy food every day. He becomes vocal in his protestations. As a result, and against his wishes, he's given antidepressants. The staff and his doctor didn't listen to him; they just saw a crotchety, old, depressed shadow of a man.

Jacob's time with the circus was full of drama. He sees and immediately falls for Marlena, one of the performers who also happens to be married to August, the man in charge of the menagerie. Jacob is immediately met with confrontation when forced to bunk with another performer who hated Jacob on sight. He also has to deal with August's volatile nature. Lastly, there's Rosie. Rosie is the seemingly untrainable circus elephant that is oftentimes the object of August's vileness. Jacob sees more in her than just a "dumb" elephant.

This book truly did have everything including one of the best endings I've ever read in a book. If you know me, you know how much endings are important to me. As soon as I was finished reading it, I had the urge to turn back to page one and start all over again which isn't something that happens often with a book no matter how much I like it. Sara Gruen is a magnificent author who paid much attention to detail and the history of circuses. If you haven't read this book, you're missing out on an experience.

#1 From 2008 TBR Challenge

My Reading Challenges

Day one of the challenges and I've got my first book checked off. This has served to bolster my confidence that I'll be able to successfully complete all three challenges in which I've chosen to participate.




Brother Odd by Dean Koontz
Published 2006 by Bantam Dell
430 pages
Reason for reading: 2008 TBR Challenge and because I've always planned on reading the last book.

This is the third and final book in the Odd Thomas series. Out of all the series that I've read, this would make it in my top ten. I have absolutely loved and enjoyed each book.

Odd Thomas seems to be an unlikely hero. He is constantly reminding the reader of his inadequacies and fallacies. Odd has an odd name, he's "only" a fry cook, he's "only" 21, and as Odd said himself, "I don't know anything." I think Koontz chooses to portray Odd in this manner to demonstrate a sharp contrast; to show the reader the wondrousness that is Odd Thomas. Odd clearly shows his wisdom and selflessness many times throughout all three novels but especially in Brother Odd when Odd is faced with the challenge of protecting challenged children from an unknown evil.

My favorite part about the series is the company that Odd keeps. Elvis Presley often visits him in ghostly form. While that may seem worthy of an eye roll, Koontz makes it work without it being over the top.

My favorite passages from Brother Odd are:

"Life you can evade; death you cannot."

And in referring to a disfigured child who had been made fun of by other children:

"In this world where too many are willing to see only the light that is visible,never the Light Invisible, we have a daily darkness that is night, and we
encounter another darkness from time to time that is death, the deaths of those
we love, but the third and most constant darkness that is with us every day, at
all hours of every day, is the darkness of the mind, the pettiness and meanness
and hatred, which we have invited into ourselves, and which we pay out with
generous interest."

These are not the words of someone who knows nothing.

2008 TBR Challenge

Here is my list of books for the 2008 TBR Challenge hosted by Mizbooks.

• Dearly Devoted Dexter – Jeff Lindsay
• Dexter in the Dark – Jeff Lindsay
• Hornet’s Nest – Patricia Cornwell
• The Six Wives of Henry VIII – Alison Weir
• Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
• The Cider House Rules – John Irving
• Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
• The Appeal – John Grisham
• The Other Boleyn Girl – Phillipa Gregory
• Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen
• Brother Odd – Dean Koontz
• Circus of the Damned – Laurell K. Hamilton

Alternates:

• The Children of Henry VIII – Alison Weir
• Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
• The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
• A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
• Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel García Márquez
• Jane and the Unpleasantness of Scargrave Manor – Stephanie Barron
• I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
• The Gunslinger – Stephen King
• Prodigal Sun – Dean Koontz
• Full House – Janet Evanovich
• Cat on the Edge – Shirley Rousseau Murphy
• Jar City – Arnaldur Indridason